BHGS @ SSF aka The Swamp Renovations/upgrades coming

Yeah - increased spacing from row to row is what’s needed and that ain’t possible unless they tear the whole thing down and pour new concrete — which I certainly hope they don’t do

 

My son and I are not skinny or anything. I hope people don't take this comment as fat shaming. People behind us and in front of us large people. They don't have the folding chairs. So, most of the time the people behind us will have their knees on the back of our chairs while people in front have their backs on our knees. We had to sit sideways to avoid hitting their backs. We know them though, so it was never à problem bumping to them. Plus, we stand up almost the entire game anyway. I think if they put the solid back seats, it will prévent some fights during games.

 

I’m skinny but pretty tall. It’s just hard to fit. Standing which I mostly do is fine.

 

I don't think this is going to be stuff that most old school fans are going to like a whole lot. The trend now is to reduce capacity and "enhance" the game day experience.

I would expect, maybe in a couple of phases, the first thing we'll see is that the entire West stands seating will be converted to chair back seats. Wider seats and wider rows. That will no doubt be the first priority because this will produce the most immediate revenue.

Maybe start between the 20 or 30 yard lines in the first phase and then the entire West stands in a second phase. It's likely to end up looking a lot like an NFL stadium.

I would expect that may require renovating/rebuilding sections of the stands themselves. I know very little about stadium construction but I wonder if there's a way to build new wider rows on top of the existing structure as opposed to rebuilding sections from scratch.

If they can push student seating sections into the endzones, and they would build some form of shade for the East side, I could see converting that side to chair back seating as the next priority.

 

I’m no construction guy either, but isn’t the row spacing literally ‘cast in concrete’ by the poured concrete structure of the stadium? How would they be able to change that without tearing down what we have now?

 

I'm no engineer, but think of an existing staircase (which is what BHG essentially is). There are risers (vertical) and treads (horizontal). Obviously, when BHG was expanded past 30 or so rows, they changed the angle so the ratio between rise and run increased (more rise, less run). That was great for keeping the fans closer to the playing surface, but no so great for knee room, especially as the population gradually got taller. Maybe some engineers can weigh in here on other ideas, but I can only think of a few ways to mitigate the steepness of an existing stadium:

1. Extend the seating out further at the bottom such that the relative run increases over the rise, over the top of the existing rows. The immediate problem that arises in this case is that the stadium already has some of the slimmest sidelines in football. There is no room to expand there.
   
2. Increase the height of row 1 such that it is much higher than it currently is, and add rows over the top of the existing that are less steep until you get to row 90. However to do that you would also have to raise the playing field an equivalent amount in order for the patrons to be able to see the playing field. Additionally player exits/entrances would have to be moved up.
   
3. Eliminate every other row in the steeper section of the Stadium to be able to put in stadium seats, starting at Row 90 and moving down toward Row 30. You could use steel as filler so long as the stadium could support the increased load.

Option 2 would most likely create an erector set feel to the stadium. Option 3 would do the same and might eliminate too many rows to be viewed as feasible.

It really leaves UF in a pickle short of a complete tear-down of 3/4 of the stadium above Row 30. I strongly suspect that they will end up with more chairbacks on Rows 1-30 between both 20's and leave the remainder of the stadium as is.

 

This is a cross section of the concept I was questioning if they could do without tearing down the structure or changing the overall pitch of the stadium. The light grey represents the existing structure. The darker gray would be new concrete poured over the existing structure.

In this example, you would be expanding the row width by 33% and deleting every fourth row.

The question I don't know is if the existing structure would support the additional weight of the additional concrete, or if it could it be reinforced to do it.

 

Cool visual. I was thinking about how I could attach one and gave up. That would be option 3 on my list, just with fewer rows eliminated. Structural load would have to be considered depending on the material used as the "filler."

 

This is exactly what I was thinking….great minds yada yada yada lol

 

Couldn't they eliminate some rows?
Edit..I see some came up with that idea..

 

Brand new facility and still can't crack the top 10.
UF #13
College football's 25 most lavish facilities in 2023, ranked: Oregon, Texas A&M, Alabama highlight list

 

Took me a few minutes to figure it out but there's a button to "upload a file". That's how I did it.

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting deleting every 4th row. That formula was just to show the concept. I would guess the number for the areas that would get converted to chair backs might be more like every 6th, but that's still a guess.

To your second point, I also wondered if since there's already a load bearing structure in place to support all the weight of the stadium structure and people, if they'd actually fill all the void space using concrete. Could they built some sort of hollow light weight framing for the voids to support just the weight of the people and seat and maybe use a layer of something durable like spray on layer of concrete or fiberglass on top of that as the visible surface.

I have no idea if that's practical, but if there's a long-term solution that wouldn't require tearing down the structure and could be done between seasons, that seems like it would be better than a rebuild.

 

I like this a lot - but it’s a whole lot more weight to support

 

Did we even crack the top half of the SEC?

 

Rest assured whoever is doing these “rankings” doesn’t like us anymore than all those hack writers constantly spinning negative shit about UF. Screw those clowns - we’re doing what we need to do and we will come out of this just fine
Go Gators

 

Eventually you’re going to span twice in one section and it’s not going to be the same degree of rise

 

Not that it will ever happen, but if money were no object what kind of stadium (football palace) would you want?
e.g. a perfectly symmetrical oval with shading, light boards all the way around, jumbo screens, club seating, lots of luxury boxes, and an overall smaller capacity than the 90k it holds now?
The old swamp has character, a reputation, and a storied history. That said it needs upgrades from time to time.

 

Span twice? Not sure what that means.

As far as the rise goes, I understand the rows get narrower the further up the stadium you go for the viewing angle, but I would think it's all still somewhat proportional. My diagram was not mean to be taken as the scale for the whole stadium, but if the proportions were to go 33% deeper at each level, that rough percentage should work all the way up the stadium, shouldn't it?

 

Meh, put a winning product on the field. People will show up.

 

When you have less rows, do you have less risers so that changes the angle of your rise. In other words, at some point, you will have say three rows where four rows used to be so you are missing a rise.