Northwestern’s Stadium Rebuild & What is the Ideal BDS@HGF?

1) Remove the turf, go back to radioactive green lush grass
2) Acoustically design the stadium to reflect and resonate crowd noise. Awnings. Fully enclosed. High climb rate between seats.
3) All chairback seating except the student section
4) Maximize sideline (not endzone) viewing
5) MLB-ish seating options ... bar top with service staff, etc
6) A more central tailgating area, even if it's an ink blot test looking spaghetti of connected areas.
 
EagleSting said:
If we can't put people in seats, then why spend a bunch of money rearranging it? The artificial turf is the easiest thing to fix right now. The rest of it can wait until we have actual money and actual people
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I know this is a dreaming thread, and I hate the turf, but there’s absolutely no way they’re going to rip out usable turf and put grass back down only a couple of years after installing it, no matter how ill-advised the switch was. That would be even more fiscally irresponsible than the Collins contract.

Maybe when the turf reaches its end of life and has to be relaxed, we’ll revisit and go back to real grass.

Speaking of seating, though: I’m not a Stinger Seat guy, but my impression is that the new ones we switched to a couple of years ago aren’t well liked. And I’m stunned that they actually decided to go with something that requires drilling holes in the bleachers to install (and leaves those holes when uninstalled, like the ones on front of my seats). I’ve never seen anything like that in other stadiums. Best case, it indicates that we aren’t too committed to the bleachers over the long term.

JRjr
 
vapspwi said:
I know this is a dreaming thread, and I hate the turf, but there’s absolutely no way they’re going to rip out usable turf and put grass back down only a couple of years after installing it, no matter how ill-advised the switch was. That would be even more fiscally irresponsible than the Collins contract.

Maybe when the turf reaches its end of life and has to be relaxed, we’ll revisit and go back to real grass.

Speaking of seating, though: I’m not a Stinger Seat guy, but my impression is that the new ones we switched to a couple of years ago aren’t well liked. And I’m stunned that they actually decided to go with something that requires drilling holes in the bleachers to install (and leaves those holes when uninstalled, like the ones on front of my seats). I’ve never seen anything like that in other stadiums. Best case, it indicates that we aren’t too committed to the bleachers over the long term.

JRjr
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Ehh.... I think that "best case" is far too generous. They were just a 100% bad idea.
 
The fix for "louder" is more fans, not stadium redesign. I've been to stadiums with super loud sound systems and it's just obnoxious and takes away from the game atmosphere.
 
justafan said:
The fix for "louder" is more fans, not stadium redesign. I've been to stadiums with super loud sound systems and it's just obnoxious and takes away from the game atmosphere.
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I know we joke about Duke but Wallace Wade went from an enjoyable place to see a game up close to a miserable assault on the senses when they installed a bigger video board and upgraded speakers.

Unfortunately this is the trend in sports. There's been loud music drowning out fans after every big play for a long time, and now most teams are taking it further with flashing lights as well.

I know sound systems and video boards do bring value and can help get fans hyped, but it feels like they've completely taken over. The best part of a crowded live event is the atmosphere the fans can generate, and I wish they would be given some time to shine.
 
buzzdoc said:
The turf (as I understand it from the Shaw locals here) was the latest and greatest when it was installed. It was the second or third field of their top-of-the-line turf to be installed. That certainly doesn't make it look great tho. The brown in the field isn't the turf- its's the coconut shell composite that they are using instead of the little rubber beads that other turf field have. It's supposed to be able to absorb water and keep the turf cooler.
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Fuk that turf. Shaw should pay to put grass back on the field. Their product sucks ass.
 
buzzdoc said:
The turf (as I understand it from the Shaw locals here) was the latest and greatest when it was installed. It was the second or third field of their top-of-the-line turf to be installed. That certainly doesn't make it look great tho. The brown in the field isn't the turf- its's the coconut shell composite that they are using instead of the little rubber beads that other turf field have. It's supposed to be able to absorb water and keep the turf cooler.
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The little black beads are essentially rubber. Unfortunately, there have been studies looking into whether or not there is a health risk. Most modern artificial turf football fields at the HS level (and county rec park) use these beads. There has been concern that goalkeepers who use these multi-use fields have a higher incidence of health issues.
 
MidnightJacket said:
I agree that I don't want the University taking on this financial responsibility at this point in time, but if an old ultra wealthy donor who hated his kids wanted to leave a legacy at Tech by making some corrections to the stadium, well we can dream up some tweaks.
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Which is exactly what’s happening at Northwestern, and the point of this thread. Yes, we are all aware of the financial realities of the GTAA at the present. However, I’m doing all I can - buying Poweball and Mega Millions tickets when the jackpot is over $350 million.
 
gobuzzgo said:
The little black beads are essentially rubber. Unfortunately, there have been studies looking into whether or not there is a health risk. Most modern artificial turf football fields at the HS level (and county rec park) use these beads. There has been concern that goalkeepers who use these multi-use fields have a higher incidence of health issues.
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This is interesting, but not surprising. As for our lovely bunch of coconuts field, aside from the appearance, what is the performance of it? Does it stay cooler? Dry more quickly? How is the footing (is it bad or is it user error when our guys are slipping on it)?
 
georgia_tech_swagger said:
1) Remove the turf, go back to radioactive green lush grass
2) Acoustically design the stadium to reflect and resonate crowd noise. Awnings. Fully enclosed. High climb rate between seats.
3) All chairback seating except the student section
4) Maximize sideline (not endzone) viewing
5) MLB-ish seating options ... bar top with service staff, etc
6) A more central tailgating area, even if it's an ink blot test looking spaghetti of connected areas.
Click to expand...
Premium seating is where all the new pro stadiums are making a big chunk of their money now. It’s becoming like airlines, the 10% up front make the vast majority of profit for the flight. Turn the top half of the upper north into a sky deck, let Delta sponsor it, you’d need more elevators because I hate those stairs, but that could be cool.
 
justafan said:
The fix for "louder" is more fans, not stadium redesign. I've been to stadiums with super loud sound systems and it's just obnoxious and takes away from the game atmosphere.
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I don’t think they’re saying a louder sound system, rather architectural design that keeps the natural crowd noise in, not letting it escape
 
gobuzzgo said:
The little black beads are essentially rubber. Unfortunately, there have been studies looking into whether or not there is a health risk. Most modern artificial turf football fields at the HS level (and county rec park) use these beads. There has been concern that goalkeepers who use these multi-use fields have a higher incidence of health issues.
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Who the hell would want to inhale rubber?
 
MatatoGT said:
Premium seating is where all the new pro stadiums are making a big chunk of their money now. It’s becoming like airlines, the 10% up front make the vast majority of profit for the flight. Turn the top half of the upper north into a sky deck, let Delta sponsor it, you’d need more elevators because I hate those stairs, but that could be cool.
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Put a glass skybridge over the 50 YL from West to East. High enough a punt won't hit it.
 
No one cares about the turf but old farts.

The west stands have good sight lines but everything else sucks. It should be prime seating but we stick the club section in the East side and no one wants to be in their seats during the game.

Either we have to move to the Benz full time or the West stands have to be re-done and modernize. All we have done for 20 years is kick the can down the road.

If someone wants to step up with money then the 3 things required:

1) Money for coaches and staff
2) Money for NIL
3) Money to re-do West

That is your bang for your buck that would pull in more GT fans and just maybe sidewalk fans. They don’t care what turf we have.
 
gobuzzgo said:
The little black beads are essentially rubber. Unfortunately, there have been studies looking into whether or not there is a health risk. Most modern artificial turf football fields at the HS level (and county rec park) use these beads. There has been concern that goalkeepers who use these multi-use fields have a higher incidence of health issues.
Click to expand...
My son’s high school field has an end-of-life turf field with the black rubber pellets. There are days in the summer where the kids can’t wear mounded cleats. The field has temped > 160 degrees, and we’ve had the cleats separate from the shoes. Kids have gotten burns far worse than turf rash when the temps get that hot.

öööö those black pellet fields for outdoor turf.
 
Flywheel said:
I hate the upper north. It makes zero sense for your highest seats to also be endzone seats. Why we mortgaged away the salaries of several analysts that could've helped win games is beyond me. It was a stupid move regardless, because we've only filled it up maybe a couple times, and it looks disjointed and bizarre.
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I'm not a fan of it either, but we basically added another 10k seats to the stadium doing that. We may only fill it up once a year (looking at you climpson and uga), but we make at least a million a year in revenue off it, if not closer to double that counting concessions, etc. No idea how much was actually spent to build the north end zone specifically compared to the rest of the expansion.
 
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