Couldn’t some of the overflow for basketball be accommodated by expanding the size of the temporary stands?
But you are right. People are going to get moved and that will suck. But the rows are way too tight. They should at least take 2 seats out of every row. Sitting sideways or leaning forward all game sucks too. We will be sardines on 2/23.
I don't think they can easily expand the size of the temporary stands. For mega games like Duke, they sell tickets in the far end zone on the third level. If they made the temporary seats higher, it would affect the view from those seats. Of course, mega games don't happen that often. The bigger problem is finding a quick way of erecting said stands. There are continuous setups and break downs going from the full field football-lacrosse setup to the basketball setup. Adding temporary stands that have to be built over and over would complicate an already complicated setup that often leaves almost no time to get in place.
If they leave the 200 level alone and just replace benches with individual seats, it will be easier to do. Reducing capacity from around 49K to around 44K implies a loss of about 10.2% of the existing seat locations.
The impact on football would be minimal. We don't have a huge season ticket base to deal with and there are lots of good seats available today to move people to.
For basketball, this would be a major impact. You could take the student seats on the lower level and give them an expanded block of 3rd level tickets, which might minimize the short term bottom line impact on big money season ticket holders but there are already problems getting students to games, the university is very committed to ensuing students are taken care of with tickets to basketball and football and the visual impact on tv and impact on the home court advantage would be major if this was done.
So around 10% of the season ticket holders (probably more because the student sections will probably be untouched (on the first level are going to move up to the 2nd or 3rd level, and around 20% of the season ticket holders on the 2nd level will move up to the 3rd level (the 10% that have to move because of the decrease in seats available on the 2nd level + the 10% of 1st level people migrating up).
In reality, 90% of the season ticket holders will be affected on the 1st level and 100% of the season ticket holders on the 2nd and third levels. My guess is people on the 3rd level can expect to move a section or two further from mid court almost across the board, as the university will give first choice to the season ticket holders who spend the most on their tickets.
It is going to be a really big deal. It is one of the reasons I would love to see a concourse added to the top of the third level, with some seats added above the ones at the top of the third level, by taking out the existing exterior wall and taking advantage of the space available up there. Call them 400 level seats.
This would cost money and adding seats makes no sense for football today. But for basketball, it does. Add them only on the west end of the stadium initially but leave room to do an expansion around the entire third level down the line, if need be. If there is a concourse at the top of the 300 level, with concessions, bathrooms , elevators and escalators, people will gladly buy those tickets. They would be excellent seats. This would require losing the scoreboard in the endzone but we are going to hvae a fabulous scoreboard hanging from the roof, so why not take advantage of the space we have available?
