What happens when the GTAA can't pay back its debt?

GT flunkout said:
That mindset would have been accurate had we sustained the success of 1998-2001. Going 7 years without a win over UGA after 3IAR didn't seem likely. Every game in 2001 was a virtual sellout. Still, making most of those seats in the upper North, while reducing capacity on the East sideline, was definitely a mistake.

*for those that remember, Bobby Dodd had an advertised capacity of 46000 since the Wardlaw was built. When they came up with the expansion plans in 2000 it was somehow realized that actual capacity was just shy of 42000.
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And we entered one of those seasons (2000?) ranked #1 in the NYT
 
GTLiebs said:
Less an issue of prettiness and more an issue of overly optimistic. Increasing seats good, increasing seats too much not so good. I'd imagine a lot of people's idea of the north stands being ugly is cause we tend to actually be able to see those stands more
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floridajacket said:
There must have been some possible, less ambitious capacity upgrades. In 2002, when I toured Tech as an HS junior, the tour guide said GOL demanded the north endzone project to play with the big boys. He got his wish and then left for ND (or, well, didn't). Whether that's true, Tech certainly had a "build it and they will come" mindset. There are a ton of ill-advised construction projects which happen with that mindset.
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This sounds like Monday morning quarterbacking. It's not like it is feasible to increase capacity by a couple thousand every couple of years. Construction projects are hard to organize, hard to fund, hard to implement. They saw an opportunity to increase capacity. They increased it more than we need. But not obviously more than we would need, nor — for that matter — more than we might yet need in the next few years.

The argument that it's better to sell fewer seats at a higher price is fair enough economically. We could sell out a 30,000 seat stadium every game, and who knows how it would change overall revenue. But you also want to increase your fan base, intimidate opposing teams, inspire recruits, etc. Bigger is definitely better for those purposes.
 
18in32 said:
This sounds like Monday morning quarterbacking. It's not like it is feasible to increase capacity by a couple thousand every couple of years. Construction projects are hard to organize, hard to fund, hard to implement. They saw an opportunity to increase capacity. They increased it more than we need. But not obviously more than we would need, nor — for that matter — more than we might yet need in the next few years.

The argument that it's better to sell fewer seats at a higher price is fair enough economically. We could sell out a 30,000 seat stadium every game, and who knows how it would change overall revenue. But you also want to increase your fan base, intimidate opposing teams, inspire recruits, etc. Bigger is definitely better for those purposes.
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Monday Morning Quarterbacking can immunize almost any decision. The Hewitt infinity contract would not have become known if Hewitt was the all-time great we thought he was in 2004.

Looking back, the expansion actually added 9000 seats, not 12000. 2000 GT-FSU had an attendance of 46000. It's hindsight, yes, but the $6.5+ million carrying cost really doesn't seem worth the north endzone. It's also ugly and out of place.
 
18in32 said:
This sounds like Monday morning quarterbacking. It's not like it is feasible to increase capacity by a couple thousand every couple of years. Construction projects are hard to organize, hard to fund, hard to implement. They saw an opportunity to increase capacity. They increased it more than we need. But not obviously more than we would need, nor — for that matter — more than we might yet need in the next few years.

The argument that it's better to sell fewer seats at a higher price is fair enough economically. We could sell out a 30,000 seat stadium every game, and who knows how it would change overall revenue. But you also want to increase your fan base, intimidate opposing teams, inspire recruits, etc. Bigger is definitely better for those purposes.
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A little bit, but would still then say it's an optimistic outlook to think we are going to grow our fan base locally all that much vs uga and teams in the surrounding states. Bigger is better only depending on how achievable those purposes are. As for intimidating opposing teams, having empty seats may (and often does for us) lead to having more opposing fans present than an away team might normally experience and thus have the opposite effect. It's just my opinion that an underestimation of seats is better than an overestimation in this case. What reason do we have to think we might yet need the full capacity for more than holding more non-GT fans in the next few years?
 
floridajacket said:
Monday Morning Quarterbacking can immunize almost any decision. The Hewitt infinity contract would not have become known if Hewitt was the all-time great we thought he was in 2004.

Looking back, the expansion actually added 9000 seats, not 12000. 2000 GT-FSU had an attendance of 46000. It's hindsight, yes, but the $6.5+ million carrying cost really doesn't seem worth the north endzone. It's also ugly and out of place.
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I know it sounds crazy, but all the attendance figures before 2001 were erroneous. The stadium didn't seat 46,000, they revised it down to something just shy of 42,000. It's why all the sellouts in 2001 were ~42k.

It's also worth noting that the expansion included a complete demolition of the Lower East stands which added the club/gold seats/private boxes and the construction of the south stands.
 
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GT flunkout said:
*for those that remember, BDS had an advertised capacity of 46000 since the Wardlaw was built. When they came up with the expansion plans in 2000 it was somehow realized that actual capacity was just shy of 42000.
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That kind of thing doesn't happen at an Institute full of Engineers. We need to drop the University motif.
 
While discussing debt, what would be the price to replace all bencg seating with bucket seats like in the lower east. It would lower capacity, but might provide the uptick in attendance % and money earned from seats
 
HurricaneJacket said:
While discussing debt, what would be the price to replace all bencg seating with bucket seats like in the lower east. It would lower capacity, but might provide the uptick in attendance % and money earned from seats
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I don't know the price, but I know it is higher than the bare replacement cost of the seats – because federal law requires further ADA modifications if we replace the bench seats. That's been told to me by AA personnel on more than one occasion.
 
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