"Florida Gators athletic director reveals details for stadium renovations"

*sighs* This is a death struggle, isn’t it ? I never came close to saying that Nebraska is poised to win a national championship. Come to think of it, our natties are disappearing in the review mirror. I am simply arguing that the Nebraska fan base is excited in a way that ours is not and STILL they plan to reduce seating.

 

A sellout is a sellout ?

Nebraska Football: Latest sellout streak ploy sparks new debate

 

This is another article with some embedded interview clips. Listen to the third one down on the list for his "thoughts" on the Stadium renovation: Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin Addresses Fan Questions and Concerns - ESPN 98.1 FM - 850 AM WRUF

 

Its a little “slight of hand” to say that the loss of ticketed seats will primarily come from visitor tix allotment. Pause and consider where those tix are currently located “undesirable location up high SE corner” and then consider where the improvements are slated to occur. You will potentially reduce premium seats almost always filled and simultaneously claim that the reduction will be ameliorated by adding uf capacity in non desirable location not currently occupied.

i get the need address in stadium trends on game days. The conundrum is selling currently unwanted locations at higher prices while concurrently gentrifying the premium locations and taming the fans into passive observers like those in most NFL stadiums. When attendance becomes the event and not the contest on the field the ferocity of the swamp will disappear.

 

It's physically impossible to make the desired renovations without reducing seating. The only way to renovate and maintain seating capacity is to expand the stadium. There's no room for expansion, so it's not going to happen.

 

Any of you guys ever played around with big stereo systems? It takes a doubling of power or a doubling of surface area to create a 3db gain, which is about the minimum the human ear can differentiate between. The difference between 40k to 80k would be an audible and significant gain of roughly 6db. The difference from 90k to 100k would likely be inaudible, as would the difference from 90k to 80k.

Going from one person yelling to two people yelling makes a difference. Two people to four people, four people to eight people, eight people to sixteen people, sixteen people to thirty two people, etc, etc. The more you add, the less difference they make overall. Once you hit a certain point, it becomes very, very, difficult to get any louder. 90k is well past that point, and even significantly changing that number will have a minimal affect on spl. You’d likely have to drop to the 70k range or jump to the 120k range to see an audible difference and it would still be minimal.


I wonder if anyone has done a study on this. I’d be very curious what the real world results look like. I bet they would be shocking. It makes little sense to think you could add or remove 10k people and make no audible difference, but once the numbers get so big, it takes huge changes in size and power to make minimal gains.

 

This is actually a study that should be part of the plans. The #1 goal of the stadium should be home field advantage.

The odd thing in America there is the assumption we want comfort and luxury and not the sporting experience. Have any of you guys been to basketball or soccer games in Europe? They are insane and infinitely more fun than American pro sports. CFB is the only thing that comes close yet we want to neuter it

 

Of course our AD is pissing on our legs and telling us its raining. The driver at the UAA is revenue and the more the better. The UAA has visions of premium seating $$ signs dancing in their heads and to make changes that provide that will require significant loss of seats. Heck just re-numbering the seats and widening the ass room of each bleacher seat 3" would result in the loss of ~6,600 seats. And that's IF they got away with not having to increase aisle width in that scenario.

I could live with that change, but anything else and the loss of seats is going to exceed 5 figures and bring the stadium down to below 78,500 official seating capacity.

 

This is the environment for a bball game in Serbia



My bias is for this. But I do understand some want the corporate luxury feel.

 

Exactly. People bitch about the cramped bleacher seating but want the comfort of chairbacks and expect the same capacity. LMAO.

 

Good, honestly we have one of the best home atmospheres/stadiums there is… Not sure why they would need to mess with it. Our focus needs to be moral, winning football, games and less about aesthetics.

 

Actual attendance is down, is the reason why.

Our stadium is long in the tooth at this point, and the people in the business, who make their living in the business--nationwide-are adjusting to deal with the decreased attendance.

Our stadium's only unique advantage comes from the fact that the field is in a hole of sorts and the stands are steep and very close to the field. This greatly magnifies crowd noise. That won't change if we eliminate 10k seats. Otherwise, the stadium seriously needs renovations.

 

It may need renovations I won’t argue with that, but the attendance is not down according to what I looked at. Most imposing place to play in the country, so glad that they are not decreasing seating. In fact, I saw something the other day where the swamp was voted number one home atmosphere. It’s one of the biggest home-field advantages in all of college football so not sure why we would be changing it too much.

Here’s most recent data. It doesn’t look like it’s been updated for the 2324 season yet but definitely covered all of 22 and 23 and it shows us going up but it did show a dip in the end of the Mullen years. 2.35%.

But up 2223 and I would honestly think it had to go up even a little bit more this year. Everything I had heard was that Strickland and the UA had figured out decreasing was not the way to go now that is very recent to be fair. Don’t get me wrong, We need stadium upgrades for sure But Stricklin and the UAA need to worry about other things in my opinion upgrade the stadium if you want but don’t cut out seats. Especiallywhen we are averaging 10th or 11th best attendance in the country, it’s the most imposing place to play in the country, and our attendance or at least the numbers, below show that it’s going up, not down.

Here’s some pretty recent data that says otherwise with regards to our attendance, dropping, if anything it looks like it’s going up. Up 2.35 percent in 22-23

On Sept. 3, 90,799 fans flocked to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for the kickoff to the Florida Gators football season. The record number totaled more than 2,200 over capacity.

No seat was empty for the sold-out game.


FLORIDA GATORS (87,180)
(Photo: Getty)

Year-over-year % change: 2.35%

The arrival of Billy Napier along with a solid home schedule for the Gators in 2022 brought increased attendance numbers at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Florida opened the season with a sellout in Gainesville against Utah, a thrilling 29-26 win over the eventual Pac-12 champions, and welcomed nationally-ranked LSU to the Swamp later in the year. Florida's homecoming win over South Carolina in November was also packed. Despite finishing 6-7 this fall, fan support was not an issue for Napier.

 

Found this too:



87,180 fans

But even going 6-7 last season, Florida averaged 87,180 fans, in part because of an excellent home schedule. Scott Stricklin and other athletic directors across the country have been working on that for years as attendance dwindled. If you build up your schedule, they will come.Mar 30, 2023.


Also found this which shows our climb back:
87,180 22-23 attendance which is up from our 5 year average of 85,350 by 2.14%.

and, I would have to think with our home schedule next year we would easily average 88 to 89,000… Upgrade the swamp to make it more modern but please don’t take away seating. We need it as loud as possible.

 

I’ve been to games at Florida Field (always will be that to me), every season since 1958, except for 68’ and 69’ while serving in the Army. For the most part I’ve liked the changes I’ve seen over the years. I know some on this site can remember floor urinals. In retrospect, that was a pretty nasty experience.
Those seats in the north end zone never seem full, even for our big games. I too do not want to see a reduction in seating but those seats do nothing for our crowd noise or image when tv cameras stray in that direction. I realize it is money in the till if the seat is sold, even if not holding a Fanny in place.
I’ve been to 11 SEC venues other than the The Swamp and ours is the loudest, although the night I was at Auburn I’d have to admit it was close. We have the advantage of having about thirty rows of seating below ground level and a structure that is built with the stands seemingly right on top of the field. Neyland holds 100,000 plus but it seemed to me it is further from the playing surface. As loud as it got for the night game I attended there it wasn’t close to the noise at our place.
I hope we can renovate without losing seats but I’m not in the corner that says it’s the worse thing than could happen.

 

I’ve missed 2-3 home games in last 10 years. Except for cupcake games. The place is always sold out and extremely intimidating. I pray we don’t start modernizing the seating by taking 8 to 10,000 seats out. I say I pray, but everything I’ve seen is that the UAA Drew major backlash were talking about reducing the seats.


there’s plenty of things that can be done to modernize the stadium without reducing the seating. We need to worry more about things, other than seating in my opinion. we have one of the top 5 to 10 atmospheres in the country and I believe we were number one last year… Modernizing is OK in some aspects but don’t want to see us overdo it by cutting out seats.

 

Are those numbers actual fans in the seats, or just tickets sold? I see a lot of empty seats at the games.

 

Recently I happened to sit next to a Gator Booster board member during an away game. I asked him a number of questions about the stadium renovation. Here’s what I got out of the conversation:

1. They just hired the design team. Nothing is set in concrete. Yet.

2. Speaking of concrete, there are safety concerns regarding the 100 year old concrete in the original stadium. No details.

3. Seatbacks will be installed in the first 30 rows (i.e. the original stadium). Due to the steep slope of the rest of the stadium, they can’t go higher than that.

4. The $400 million figure we keep hearing about is a starting point. It might go as high as $1 billion.

5. Stadiums today require about 20% premium seating. He said he expects it to be added about half way up the student side and run the length of the field. There will be a roof over it.

6. Don’t upgrade your seats until plans are finalized.

7. The rest rooms will absolutely be upgraded.

8. The food choices will be dramatically improved.

9. There will be wider concourses. He admitted this will be a problem on the student side because of the historical status of the Florida Gym.

10. They will address the massive delays getting into the stadium.

 

Bingo....I would add that while thy can't do chairbacks in the upper part of the west stands they likely widen seats.
Concourses everywhere widened, improved video boards and sound, and the ability to prepare food onsite rather than having to bring it pre cooked

 

Not having a plan seems to be modus operandi for the entire athletic program.....