Stadium Expansion:

[bugboy]

This is a good topic to fill the gap between spring and fall practices. I saw a thread on the Hive that asked how we'll do filling our stadium after the expansion. I predict the following:

UGa, FSU, Clemson - Sellouts always. The visiting team will bring a bunch of fans and it should be full for all of these games.

Auburn - Sellout.

UNC, NCState, UVA, Maryland - Somewhere between 50 to 55K, depending on how we're doing and how many fans the other school brings.

Dook/Wake - 45-50K...need to continue having one of these as our homecoming game.

OOC Patsy - Possibly a sellout if we have this as our home opener. Probably not though. I'd say 45-50K.

OOC Heavy - Notre Dame, BYU, teams like that. Sellouts, most likely.

Overall, I look for us to average 52 to 53K per home game, maybe more if we win alot. Maybe less if we slip into mediocrity (beeware, insert CG/DB slam here :-D).

As some pointed out on the Hive, having a tailgate friendly campus helps tremendously. But I really think it will be determined by schedule and our ability to continue winning. Now, if CG kicks it up a notch and we become a championship calibre team, look for 55K at almost every game, IMO.

What do you guys think of the expansion and how we'll do with attendance?

 

[law_bee]

here is the Link that Bug mentioned

LINK

I hope we are going to move the OTHER team into the endzone. I am so tired of hearing them on the east side.

 

[beeware]

I think it is a very important point that the number of quality season tickets is not increasing. The increase in seats is in the endzones. Also, by signing on for 3 year deals with teams like Connecticut, Braine is not improving out OOC schedule. Plus, with the questions regarding the uncertain outcome of the coaching change and its effect on recruiting, etc., there are a lot of variables that may turn out wonderful; or maybe not.
Let's hope for the best.

 

[law_bee]

Originally posted by beeware:
Also, by signing on for 3 year deals with teams like Connecticut, Braine is not improving out OOC schedule. Plus, with the questions regarding the uncertain outcome of the coaching change and its effect on recruiting, etc., there are a lot of variables that may turn out wonderful; or maybe not.
Let's hope for the best.

<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">I hear alot of complaints about the weak OOC schedule. Once we add Auburn we are going to have all we can handle. I think it would seriously hurt our chances of going to a quality bowl by adding a scedule that is TOO difficult. Look at Ugag's schedule this year.

Clem's son
UF
SC
Tenn
Ala
Aub
Ole Miss
GT

Ugag will lose at least 3 of those games. And they could lose 4 of those games and have a good team. One of the biggest assets is that we are in the ACC and always have a good chance of getting through our conference with 2 or less losses.

I do think we need one more solid team, but auburn will satisfy that. I would just assume we keep the Millitary acadamies for the other games

 

[law_bee]

thanks for the heads up Bug I added them to the list

 

[ahsoisee]

My remark is untimely due to the warning regarding political posts, but this is appropriate to one segment.

I think the attendance this year will be partially affected by the down-turn we have seen in the market and economy. I firmly believe the market is being held low on purpose until after the midterm elections in November of this year. Even if the market starts an upturn after the mid-term elections in November, the football season will be over by then.

After the midterm elections, the market may start back up if the poor economic conditions has served its purpose. If the perpetrators of the low market do not realize a gain in the House and Senate, the low market may continue until the general election in 2004.

This economic factor could affect the attendance at Tech as well as all of the football teams this year and into 2004.

Sorry BeeStorm, but this may be a factor in the attendance this year and maybe a few more.

 

[Ramblin Buzz]

I started the thread over on the Hive with my original post, and since Bugbuy brought it over here, I do think it is a very good discussion for the off-season. Since posts roll off the Hive so quickly, I am going to re-post my original here first, and then add additional comments:

With the stadium expansion now taking shape in two seperate phases, I thought it might be good pre-season/off-season fodder to discuss the expansion. The time is almost near that we will need to fill 55,000 for every home game. We all agree that attendance and enthusiasm for the program has been at a 30/35 year high the past 5 years. That being said, the new task is to sell 12,000 more season tickets over the next 18 months. What is everyone's opinion of our ability of selling more? How difficult is this going to be?

A couple of things to consider are first the schedule, the second being where the new seats are located. Let's start with the additional seats first. The majority of the new seats will be the Upper North stands to be ready for 2003. In essence, "quality" season ticket seats are NOT increasing with the expansion. We will have the same or less seats between the 20s (preferred seating as a season ticket holder) in 2002 and beyond as 2001. So, will 12,000 new season ticket holders want to sit in the Upper North, even if the demand is there for 12,000 additional season tickets?

Another aspect of the additional seating is the lack of parking on campus for the additional fans. Parking space has decreased over the past few years on campus, and like it or not, football fans want to park on campus and tailgate, and do NOT like taking mass transit (Marta). What can be done to increase parking on campus? I know there has been a movement on campus to eliminate parking and add "green" space", which will not help.

Another driving factor in our future football attendance is the schedule. The following is our home schedule (not counting Auburn at Ga. Dome in 2003) for 2002-04:

2002
Vandy
BYU
Wake
UVa
FSU
Duke

2003
UNC
NC State
Maryland
Clemson
Georgia

2004
UConn
Duke
Wake
UVa
FSU
Auburn

I am concerned about the 2002 and even more so, the 2004 home schedules. What will our attendance be for Duke & Wake this coming year? Neither are homecoming and neither school will bring more than 100 or so fans. Will we get 38,000 for either of those in 2002? What about 2004, when the stadium holds 55,000? Will we have 38,000 in a 55,000 seat stadium for Duke in 2004? You have 3 games in '04 that have the making for sub-40,000 crowds. Does this warrant a 55,000 seat stadium? I am just asking the question not meaning to knock what we are doing.

My question I guess is: Do we definitely expand to phase II after the 2002 season or do we wait until demand for season tickets continue to increase? I feel that the "renovation" was most certainly needed and will make BDS@HGF a beautiful place for a football game. But are we ready for Phase II now? I wonder if we don't need to upgrade the schedule more and make the campus more fan friendly (parking) first.

Anyway, I wanted to get the thoughts from you Five and see what everyone thinks. Hopefully, we'll add many more season ticket holders in 2003, when the stadium goes to 55,000, and it'll be full every game.

Now, for some additional comments:

For those that feel we will draw 50,000+ immediately vs UNC, Md. and NCSU, I ask where are these sudden 10,000 or so folks gonna come from? If you start with the premise with these three opponents that the games will NOT be a homcoming game, how can we say we'd have 50,000+ right now? Last year the stadium held right at 42,000 and though the games were announced as sellouts (wink wink), there were still small pockets of seats vacant, which had not been sold (maybe 500 to 1,000 total). So, my question is: Where do we suddenly get an extra 10,000 for those games? Not only that, but they must be willing to sit in the Upper North. Granted, with continued winning, our fan base will grow each year, but that may take 10 years to grow by 10,000 more season tickets. Plus, neither of those schools ever bring more than 4,000-5,000 to a game here. Maryland may not even bring 2,000.

So, continuing with my premise of none of the games being homecoming, here is my take on our attendance vs these schools over the next couple of years with our 55,000 seat stadium:

Georgia 55,000
Florida State 55,000
Clemson 55,000
Auburn 55,000
BYU 42,000 (capacity for 2002)
Virginia 42,000
North Carolina 42,000
NC State 42,000
Maryland 40,000
Duke 38,000
Wake forest 38,000

What have the ACC schools historically drawn in games here? How many other than vs Clemson or FSU truly have been a sellout? UVa in 1991 (first game after NC) not UVa in 1998 nor UVa in 2000 were sellouts. Plus, remember those announced crowds of 44,000+ prior to 2001 were actually less than 40,000 most likely as the AA had been overstating attendance and BDS@HGF capacity by more than 4,500.

Open to more "fodder" and "theories".

Anyway, not saying we can't do it, just that it ain't gonna be easy and we gotta keep pushing for ticket sales. It is a LARGE task!!

 

[ahsoisee]

I alluded to the economical factor above and still think it will have an effect.

The other intangible is the way the season progresses. I have just read Dodd's Luck again recently and the stadium was larger at one time. The games were generally all sell-outs and Dodd stated he could have sold upwards of 20,000 more seats per game duing the winning era.

It is the same, normally, with any program that wins big. If we start off well, I believe the enthusiasm will be high and we will sell seats (don't know how much the economic factor will have). If the season progresses well, the attendance will probably be pretty good.

Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat your door down. Every one loves a winner and wants to be on the winning side. Atlanta has a large population to draw from, and Atlanta is starved for a bonifide winnner. If we are mediocre, it will continue to be hard to draw big crowds.

Even though Ralph and George had a pretty good run, it was not a consistent football team. If the new Tech teams become consistent, Atlanta will fill up the stadium.

 

[bugboy]

Originally posted by Ramblin Buzz:
Now, for some additional comments:

For those that feel we will draw 50,000+ immediately vs UNC, Md. and NCSU, I ask where are these sudden 10,000 or so folks gonna come from? If you start with the premise with these three opponents that the games will NOT be a homcoming game, how can we say we'd have 50,000+ right now? Last year the stadium held right at 42,000 and though the games were announced as sellouts (wink wink), there were still small pockets of seats vacant, which had not been sold (maybe 500 to 1,000 total). So, my question is: Where do we suddenly get an extra 10,000 for those games? Not only that, but they must be willing to sit in the Upper North. Granted, with continued winning, our fan base will grow each year, but that may take 10 years to grow by 10,000 more season tickets. Plus, neither of those schools ever bring more than 4,000-5,000 to a game here. Maryland may not even bring 2,000.

So, continuing with my premise of none of the games being homecoming, here is my take on our attendance vs these schools over the next couple of years with our 55,000 seat stadium:

Georgia 55,000
Florida State 55,000
Clemson 55,000
Auburn 55,000
BYU 42,000 (capacity for 2002)
Virginia 42,000
North Carolina 42,000
NC State 42,000
Maryland 40,000
Duke 38,000
Wake forest 38,000

What have the ACC schools historically drawn in games here? How many other than vs Clemson or FSU truly have been a sellout? UVa in 1991 (first game after NC) not UVa in 1998 nor UVa in 2000 were sellouts. Plus, remember those announced crowds of 44,000+ prior to 2001 were actually less than 40,000 most likely as the AA had been overstating attendance and BDS@HGF capacity by more than 4,500.

Open to more "fodder" and "theories".

Anyway, not saying we can't do it, just that it ain't gonna be easy and we gotta keep pushing for ticket sales. It is a LARGE task!!

<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Ramblin,
You make some good points. However, I do think we'll do better against UNC, Maryland, NC State and UVA. First of all, if we want to maximize attendance, let's stop these damn Thursday night games. If not for Thursday night, the MD game in 2001 would have also sold out...same for UVA in 2000, I think. If any of those 4 teams is having a good year, I think we can expect good attendance, especially for saturday night games. Maybe not a sellout, but definitely more than 42K.

Also, I think there will be some "if we build it, they will come" effect. Basically, people will want to see the improved stadium, first hand.

The tailgating aspect is also important. Make the campus more tailgate friendly and that will reap some positive reaction in the near future.

You mention that some announced sellouts have empty seats. That's true at many stadiums, as people are constantly moving to "better" seats in the lower levels or they're walking around the concourses.

Finally, we get a chance to cram more folks into the stadium for our big rivals...and hopefully, most of those extra 13K folks will be Tech fans. Right now, for UGA games, we have about 12K UGA fans and about 30K Tech fans. With the expansion, we'll have hopefully about 12-13K UGA fans and about 42-43K Tech fans. That's more noise for the home team and the same goes for the Auburn/Clem/FSU games.

I understand your concerns. But the fact is that we have had alot of sellouts in recent years and it's time to add on. Heck, we even sold out for Citadel last year. We sold out for Navy in '00. Last year, we sold out every game except MD. In '99, we sold out nearly every game as well.

13K may be a bit much of an add-on at this point, especially for weak/dook/ooc patsy games, but I think it makes sense for the long-term.

 

[Ramblin Buzz]

Bugboy you make some excellent points and I hope you are closer to the reality that we have over the coming years.

However, I will remain a little skeptical until we draw 50,000+ regularly for games vs UVa, UNC, NCSU, Duke, Maryland & Wake that are not homecoming or band day or some other lame-o attempt at drawing fans.

We have come a LONGGGGGGG way in just about 13-14 years. In 1989 we had THREE sub 30,000 crowds vs Western Carolina, Boston College and Wake Forest. In fact, I think only one was over 25,000 of those three. And that was "announced" attendance. What was the real attendance, 18,000??

Season ticket sales have been a roller coaster ride over the past 30 years. If memory serves, we sold 24,000 or so season tickets around the 1971-72 era, but were down to less than 10,000 under Curry in 1981. Curry got season tickets up to 15,000 around 1985, but we quickly fell back with Ross' first few years. I think we hit the 16,000-17,000 mark in 1991 and finally hit 20,000 again for the first time since 1972 or so in 1999. I believe last year was around 23,000.

So, basically we went from 15,000 to 23,000 in 16 years (1985-2001). And during that time we won one MNC, two ACC titles and had some pretty good teams, along with 8 bowl teams in 16 years. Granted we couldn't sustain alot, and were up and down record wise. But that was a net gain of 8,000 in 16 years!! Will it take another 16 years to get to 31,000??

Continuing with the premise of build a better mouse trap and people will come or build it and they will come, what if these "new" folks come and instead of a 42,000 full house for a game vs UNC, you have 13,000 empty seats vs UNC? Trust me, once we started having empty seats in the '70s it started to snow ball. As positive as 55,000 full can be (and it will be), enough games with 15,000 empty will be twice as negative. I lived through it in the '70s and '80s.

Gosh, I hope it all works. It would be awesome to have 55,000 for most all ACC games!! And I don't want to re-live the '70s and '80s when 60,000 vs Uga meant 30,000 Uga fans and 30,000 Tech fans.

Didn't mean to berate this topic. I just think there are some interesting issues that need to be thought about. Also, I think everyone has had some great ideas and thoughs. Much better discussion here than the Hive ;-)

 

[bugboy]

Law,

You can add Auburn and Ole Miss to the above-mentioned UGA schedule as tough possible losses. Although, I'd expect them to beat Ole Miss.

Back to the stadium expansion...

I think that when we play UNC, NC State, UVA and MD, we'll find out how big our fan base is. Those 4 schools will bring somewhere around 3-5K fans. So, if we sellout those games, we'll have to do it with OUR OWN FANS. A sellout in any of those games bodes well for our program. You can bet that UGA, Clemson, Auburn and FSU will bring at least 10K fans and probably more. With the expanded stadium, I look for there to be anywhere from 15 to 18K cheering for UGA when we play them.

I look forward to the enlarged stadium and hope that we can parlay the expansion into a more intimidating and loud atmosphere. I think that 55K can make a lot of noise, especially considering that both end zones will have a structure now to block the escape of noise. It should get really loud on the field after the expansion. Consistent winning also should help with that.

 

[bugboy]

Ramblin,
We have come a long ways, haven't we. It shows how things can improve if you keep your nose to the grindstone and try to provide a winning program. Let's hope the fan base keeps showing up in larger numbers, the way they've progressively done so over the last 15 or so years.
I remember a game against Tennessee in 1986 at night in a slight drizzle and fog. There couldn't have been more than 30K in the stadium for that game. Imagine how many would show up today if we played them.

 

[FHstinger]

Hey Bugboy, I was at that game too. I remember that UT missed a last minute field goal that would have won it for them. I think their kicker might have slipped a little on the astroturf due to the wet surface. We won 14-13, and that's the only time GT ever beat UT since I started attending Tech games.

 

[bugboy]

FH,
Good memory. Their kicker slipped on the wet turf. The ball fluttered and bounced off the upright back into the end zone and the teeny tiny crowd went berzerk. We did tie them in '85. We also beat them earlier in the 80's...82, maybe? Our last game against them was '87 and we lost.

Anyway, that was one of my favorite games as an undergraduate. An unexpected win against the defending SEC Champions.

 

[FHstinger]

You're right Bugboy, GT also beat UT in 1982 by the score of 31-21. Our punt returner ran a punt back 80-90 yards for a TD late in the game to seal the win. I can't remember his name, but I remember he was from Germantown, Tenn. That was the first year my father and I bought season tickets to GT Football, and we've purchased them every year since.

 

[Ramblin Buzz]

Jack Westbrook #22 for 72 yards and a TD!!

That was a BIG win for Curry at the time and helped GT to its first winning record since 1978. I still enjoy watching that game on tape from time to time, though my copy is not the greatest.

Everybody played well that day....Lavette, Jim Bob Taylor, Robert Jaracz, etc. We came out and took it to 'em from the "get-go" as Kim King likes to say.