Artificial Turf Returns?

cbee said:
Probably too many changes, incidental to most, to mention. My first non-freshman Tech game was in 1966 against Penn State so yes, I am old. It just seems like at Tech, more than any other school I know, financial pressures lead to change and often to decisions that are more about finances than fans. Obviously, fans in the stands are not as important as other revenue streams. Might be an interesting discussion though, how important is it to have fans in the stands?
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What I don’t understand is why fans would give a öööö what kind of field we have as long as the surface is good for the athletes and it looks good. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve thought I finally have seen the stupidest thing we are freaking out about only to have something else top it.
 
ncjacket said:
What I don’t understand is why fans would give a öööö what kind of field we have as long as the surface is good for the athletes and it looks good. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve thought I finally have seen the stupidest thing we are freaking out about only to have something else top it.
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I could understand it if we had grass for the entire history of the program. But we had astroturf for 20-25 years, one of which was a national title season.
 
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ncjacket said:
What I don’t understand is why fans would give a öööö what kind of field we have as long as the surface is good for the athletes and it looks good. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve thought I finally have seen the stupidest thing we are freaking out about only to have something else top it.
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The thing we most frequently freak out about is the belief that other fans are freaking out about something.
 
ncjacket said:
What I don’t understand is why fans would give a öööö what kind of field we have as long as the surface is good for the athletes and it looks good. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve thought I finally have seen the stupidest thing we are freaking out about only to have something else top it.
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Can only speak for myself but as I stated earlier, so many of the changes are financially driven and give no consideration to the fans. How can an academically elite school be so poor at managing budgets? The change to turf is purely financial and that bothers me. We have a world class field but can’t afford it. I find that embarrassing. The other part is that I simply like tradition and I make no apologies for that.
 
cbee said:
Can only speak for myself but as I stated earlier, so many of the changes are financially driven and give no consideration to the fans. How can an academically elite school be so poor at managing budgets? The change to turf is purely financial and that bothers me. We have a world class field but can’t afford it. I find that embarrassing. The other part is that I simply like tradition and I make no apologies for that.
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Academic money /= Athletic money
According to 2015 audit, only school in the USG consistently making $ in athletics is the farm school. GT barely scrapes by. Other schools with D1 football (KSU, GSU, GaSOU) lose money.
 
cbee said:
Can only speak for myself but as I stated earlier, so many of the changes are financially driven and give no consideration to the fans. How can an academically elite school be so poor at managing budgets? The change to turf is purely financial and that bothers me. We have a world class field but can’t afford it. I find that embarrassing. The other part is that I simply like tradition and I make no apologies for that.
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Can't afford it? Do you know how much capital it takes to install a new turf field? It's never been stated that we can't afford to maintain a natural turf field. The financial reasons for installing turf are for generating more revenue, not saving. Plus CGC was not happy with the way the turf played last year, and wants to conduct more practices inside BDS, which will destroy a natural field with the amount of reps he has going on in practice.
 
cbee said:
Can only speak for myself but as I stated earlier, so many of the changes are financially driven and give no consideration to the fans. How can an academically elite school be so poor at managing budgets? The change to turf is purely financial and that bothers me. We have a world class field but can’t afford it. I find that embarrassing. The other part is that I simply like tradition and I make no apologies for that.
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Whats even more funny about this statement is:

1) How is field turf anything fan related issue or something fans should be consulted on? Only time fans would on the field is fan day.

2) Your traditions that you’ve complained about are not traditions. BDS has only been grass for about 20ish yrs and uniforms combo has changed more in that same time than the field has been re-sodded


Look at the fanbase lack of donations as why the money situation and also bad contracts. Need more smaller donors constantly contributing than the few millionaires bank rolling everything
 
cbee said:
Can only speak for myself but as I stated earlier, so many of the changes are financially driven and give no consideration to the fans. How can an academically elite school be so poor at managing budgets? The change to turf is purely financial and that bothers me. We have a world class field but can’t afford it. I find that embarrassing. The other part is that I simply like tradition and I make no apologies for that.
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Pieces of this statement are flat wrong.

My understanding is that is it financially driven, but not what you describe. We have budget to maintain the field for football use. The issue is that we want to host other events that would damage ANY grass field. These events are viewed as alternative sources of income. Because of that, we are switching to turf.

It’s not simply a budget/maintenance issue if we only wanted to play football at the facility. We’re trying to capitalize on our location in Atlanta and available facilities to host events that increase our athletic department funds. It’s actually quite a smart plan, but one that clearly has rustled some jimmies.
 
ibeeballin said:
Whats even more funny about this statement is:

1) How is field turf anything fan related issue or something fans should be consulted on? Only time fans would on the field is fan day.

2) Your traditions that you’ve complained about are not traditions. BDS has only been grass for about 20ish yrs and uniforms combo has changed more in that same time than the field has been re-sodded


Look at the fanbase lack of donations as why the money situation and also bad contracts. Need more smaller donors constantly contributing than the few millionaires bank rolling everything
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1990: Wore navy and played on turf.

Traditionalists must have hated that season. lol
 
cbee said:
Can only speak for myself but as I stated earlier, so many of the changes are financially driven and give no consideration to the fans. How can an academically elite school be so poor at managing budgets? The change to turf is purely financial and that bothers me. We have a world class field but can’t afford it. I find that embarrassing. The other part is that I simply like tradition and I make no apologies for that.
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Still don’t understand what the fan issue is here? If what you are really saying is you don’t want anything to change I guess I get it but it still doesn’t make any sense to me. Field surface is not a tradition.
 
ibeeballin said:
Whats even more funny about this statement is:

1) How is field turf anything fan related issue or something fans should be consulted on? Only time fans would on the field is fan day.

2) Your traditions that you’ve complained about are not traditions. BDS has only been grass for about 20ish yrs and uniforms combo has changed more in that same time than the field has been re-sodded


Look at the fanbase lack of donations as why the money situation and also bad contracts. Need more smaller donors constantly contributing than the few millionaires bank rolling everything
Click to expand...

Not even sure how to respond to #2. Long before the artificial turf that was ripped up in 1995 was installed, Grant Field was real grass. So we had a 20 year interlude. As to #1, I never indicated that fans should be consulted. My point was this turf change was just one of many changes, most of which I do not like and many of which do affect the fan experience.
 
ncjacket said:
Still don’t understand what the fan issue is here? If what you are really saying is you don’t want anything to change I guess I get it but it still doesn’t make any sense to me. Field surface is not a tradition.
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There isn't an issue. In any group of our fans, at least 10% will be unhappy regardless.
If we were to play for a national championship in Cowboys stadium in Texas, folks would whine it should be the rose bowl.
 
cbee said:
Not even sure how to respond to #2. Long before the artificial turf that was ripped up in 1995 was installed, Grant Field was real grass. So we had a 20 year interlude. As to #1, I never indicated that fans should be consulted. My point was this turf change was just one of many changes, most of which I do not like and many of which do affect the fan experience.
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I respect your longevity as a fan, but you've failed to provide any specific changes you feel have been detrimental. I don't see where Tech changes more than most schools, probably less than a lot of them.
 
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