Outdoor Stadium

[OrangePA]

Just wanted to resurrect a discussion for my benefit of getting opinions on the topic. From my high level view, I have favored an outdoor football facility. I think the dome artificial turf has been a source of increased injuries and has also been used against Syracuse by negative recruiting. The weather is not as bad as some will try to make it out to be. In fact our autumn's are warmer now and some of the nicest weather of the year. I think a new outdoor stadium seating 40 to 45k would make recruiting a bit easier.

Stick with the Dome

 

[CuseMan4]

I was just at the UCF-Okla St game today…I strongly stand against outdoor stadiums lol

 

[SUDadx2]

Here’s something for your dream about.



Go buy that lotto ticket.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

The vibe and buzz in the stadium yesterday was better than in the Dome. I think the team fed off of that. Maybe we should play all of our November games there.

It was also nice not having all the Minor League baseballesque stuff going on. Felt more like a college game.

Playing more in NYC can be attractive to recruits plus they will have more NIL opportunities.

So September/October in the Dome and November in Yankee Stadium. Or maybe FCS/G5 Dome, ACC/P4 MetLife/Yankee.

 

[sutomcat]

The vibe and buzz in the stadium yesterday was better than in the Dome. I think the team fed off of that. Maybe we should play all of our November games there.

It was also nice not having all the Minor League baseballesque stuff going on. Felt more like a college game.

Playing more in NYC can be attractive to recruits plus they will have more NIL opportunities.

So September/October in the Dome and November in Yankee Stadium. Or maybe FCS/G5 Dome, ACC/P4 MetLife/Yankee.

Attendance was 17,101. The people have spoken.

No more Syracuse games at Yankee Stadium. Ever again.

 

[MadNY3]

I hate to contribute to this thread, but after the University pumped in nine figures of improvements on a facility that is one of the most unique in the nation, let’s love the hell out of the Dome we live in.

 

[xc84]

If you want to reduce the number of season tickets sold, move to an outdoor stadium.

 

[kcsu]

Attendance was 17,101. The people have spoken.

No more Syracuse games at Yankee Stadium. Ever again.

This one worked out Tom. Probably to the tune of 5 million

 

[xc84]

I hate to contribute to this thread, but after the University pumped in nine figures of improvements on a facility that is one of the most unique in the nation, let’s love the hell out of the Dome we live in.

I love it from a fan standpoint ...always have, but with the recent improvements and those to come, it's even better. I am not a program insider but I have never heard that we have lost recruits over having an indoor stadium. In fact, I would guess it is one of our best draws. In addition, I have not seen any stats that say our turf results in more injuries than others. Also, playing outdoors does not necessarily mean playing on natural grass. Teams playing in our winter environment either must use artifical turf like the Bills do or pay for a really expensive heating system that will heat natural grass (as is planned for the new $1.5B Bills stadium).

Seems like talking about playing outdoors is a solution in search of a problem.

 

[orangecuse]

Here’s something for your dream about.



Go buy that lotto ticket.

Dang, that's crazy!

The Dome improvements are great and all, but that particular roof design that they chose to go with, IMO, is so aesthetically architecturally unpleasing. I realize the retraction of the roof was never realistically under serious consideration (I mean how could it be as we've debated the Dino buyout and having means for that to a pulp these past two years) but not having any true natural light coming in was a very poor and myopic decision, again in my opinion.

I realize the whole basketball court glare issue was the alleged reason for not going with the EFTE vs. the PFTE, but I don't think it would have that big of a deal for hoops. Not when you consider the angle of the sun come mid November thru the end of February, how many games are actually played in hoops during the afternoon, how often the sun shines in Syracuse those particular months, etc., etc.

 

[xc84]

Dang, that's crazy!

The Dome improvements are great and all, but that particular roof design that they chose to go with, IMO, is so aesthetically architecturally unpleasing. I realize the retraction of the roof was never realistically under serious consideration (I mean how could it be as we've debated the Dino buyout and having means for that to a pulp these past two years) but not having any true natural light coming in was a very poor and myopic decision, again in my opinion.

I realize the whole basketball court glare issue was the alleged reason for not going with the EFTE vs. the PFTE, but I don't think it would have that big of a deal for hoops. Not when you consider the angle of the sun come mid November thru the end of February, how many games are actually played in hoops during the afternoon, how often the sun shines in Syracuse those particular months, etc., etc.

There were many constraints for anyone designing a replacement for the roof. It had to work with the existing structure and modest budget ($109M). Also, the PTFE material is semi-translucent, which allows for daylight to bring natural light inside.

What kind of roof structure would you have designed under those constraints?

 

[Cusefan95]

Here’s something for your dream about.



Go buy that lotto ticket.

This design reminds me a lot of Olympic Stadium in Montreal. It kinda looks like the next generation on that concept, designed to avoid the issues with tangled cables which doomed Olympic Stadium. It’ll be interesting to see if that design works over the long run. Generally the more moving parts, the less reliable it is - this design has an awful lot of moving parts.

 

[orangecuse]

There were many constraints for anyone designing a replacement for the roof. It had to work with the existing structure and modest budget ($109M). Also, the PTFE material is semi-translucent, which allows for daylight to bring natural light inside.

What kind of roof structure would you have designed under those constraints?

I had commented often and shared my views on this in the 'Campus Framework' thread and the 'Crane' thread. I think I recall you being in those threads as well, perhaps not though? However, I'm not going to elaborate here as it's yesterday's news and long moot at this point.

I will say though, there were options (as in that first beautiful rendering from the Walter's Group, etc.) where the SU powers that be had a sissy type fit when they leaked it prematurely. Other than the aforementioned fit SU threw, they remained pretty darn type lipped on what was going on for some 10 months or perhaps even longer than that before the rendering that they settled on/chose to build was made public.

I do recall many here, at least at the time, thinking is this thing for real, it's so butt ugly, etc. or along those lines. But I digress...

 

[FrancoPizza]

This one worked out Tom. Probably to the tune of 5 million

I still don’t understand how the Yankees thought this was a good business decision

 

[sutomcat]

This one worked out Tom. Probably to the tune of 5 million

I believe that. No way JW would have done it unless he was given a great offer.

The thing is, even with all the bad personnel decisions the Yankees have made in recent years, I believe they still believe in making money. Someone saw that anniversary coming up and thought to themselves:

Wow, the 100th anniversary of the first college game in YS is coming up. And Syracuse is playing Pitt in 2023 and it is a home game for Syracuse. They have been known to be amenable to moving home games to NYC. We can do this! It is a sure thing sell out! There is a lot of money to be made here! I am going to pitch this to the boss and become a hero.

And the boss bought it and made JW an offer he couldn't (but still shouldn't have) refused.

And the Yankees lost millions.

I don't think the Yankees will be making any offers to move home Syracuse football games to Yankee Stadium any time soon.

Now maybe the Mets or the owners of MetLife in NJ will have similar brainstorms in coming years. But I doubt it.

That said, the Syracuse-UConn game scheduled for 2024 still doesn't have a venue announced. I suspect it is going to be played at Yankee Stadium. Or at least it was before this.

Was The Great Disaster of 11/11/2023 was so big, the Yankees get cold feet and back out on the deal?

Is a contract already signed?

I hope that was a UConn home game if this thing is really happening. The natives will really get restless if not.

 

[xc84]

I had commented often and shared my views on this in the 'Campus Framework' thread and the 'Crane' thread. I think I recall you being in those threads as well, perhaps not though? However, I'm not going to elaborate here as it's yesterday's news and long moot at this point.

I will say though, there were options (as in that first beautiful rendering from the Walter's Group, etc.) where the SU powers that be had a sissy type fit when they leaked it prematurely. Other than the aforementioned fit SU threw, they remained pretty darn type lipped on what was going on for some 10 months or perhaps even longer than that before the rendering that they settled on/chose to build was made public.

I do recall many here, at least at the time, thinking is this thing for real, it's so butt ugly, etc. or along those lines. But I digress...

This is exactly why they didn’t want to make it public. It made people think it was feasible given the constraints like existing structure and budget. It wasn’t.

 

[FrancoPizza]

I realize the whole basketball court glare issue was the alleged reason for not going with the EFTE vs. the PFTE, but I don't think it would have that big of a deal for hoops. Not when you consider the angle of the sun come mid November thru the end of February

I hope that wasn't the reason. The sun barely gets above the horizon in the winter.

 

[Cusefan95]

This is exactly why they didn’t want to make it public. It made people think it was feasible given the constraints like existing structure and budget. It wasn’t.

Structural costs escalate so quickly; I don’t think that’s something the average person understands. Almost all structural work requires compromise from what is ideal to what is cost viable. So SU was justified in going nuts at conceptual renderings getting released; I would have gone ape-crap too.

Unfortunately, as we see in this thread - the damage was done. Now folks are upset concepts weren’t used that had no chance of happening anyway.

 

[rocklloyd]

When I was at SU I did know a Stumpy, who with grow lights, grew "grass" in his bedroom closet.

I think we all did.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I believe that. No way JW would have done it unless he was given a great offer.

The thing is, even with all the bad personnel decisions the Yankees have made in recent years, I believe they still believe in making money. Someone saw that anniversary coming up and thought to themselves:

Wow, the 100th anniversary of the first college game in YS is coming up. And Syracuse is playing Pitt in 2023 and it is a home game for Syracuse. They have been known to be amenable to moving home games to NYC. We can do this! It is a sure thing sell out! There is a lot of money to be made here! I am going to pitch this to the boss and become a hero.

And the boss bought it and made JW an offer he couldn't (but still shouldn't have) refused.

And the Yankees lost millions.

I don't think the Yankees will be making any offers to move home Syracuse football games to Yankee Stadium any time soon.

Now maybe the Mets or the owners of MetLife in NJ will have similar brainstorms in coming years. But I doubt it.

That said, the Syracuse-UConn game scheduled for 2024 still doesn't have a venue announced. I suspect it is going to be played at Yankee Stadium. Or at least it was before this.

Was The Great Disaster of 11/11/2023 was so big, the Yankees get cold feet and back out on the deal?

Is a contract already signed?

I hope that was a UConn home game if this thing is really happening. The natives will really get restless if not.

The lowest attended CFB game prior to our was 21,375 but that was an FCS game. The worst FBS game was 27,453 but that was a G5 game. The worst P5 non Covid impacted game was 31,131 which just happened to be our Bowl game last year. We are now a part of the 2 worst attended P5 games at YS.

BTW we are now tied with Notre Dame for the most Ws all time at the fake new YS.

 

[sutomcat]

The lowest attended CFB game prior to our was 21,375 but that was an FCS game. The worst FBS game was 27,453 but that was a G5 game. The worst P5 non Covid impacted game was 31,131 which just happened to be our Bowl game last year. We are now a part of the 2 worst attended P5 games at YS.

BTW we are now tied with Notre Dame for the most Ws all time at the fake new YS.

Ouch.

 

[upperdeck]

I agree people would still attend games. However, the original poster’s claim was attendance would improve with an outdoor stadium - that position is crazy.

Minnesota drew about 42,000 fans per game in 2008, their last year in the MetroDome. They have drawn about 42,000 fans per game in their new outdoor stadium for over a decade. It’s a 42,000 fan per game program - just like Syracuse.

Looking at reducing our seating to closer to 42,000 seems like a great idea - it’s not a surprise that’s what we’re doing. We are what we are.

And I have no problem admitting I am personally soft, and my days of going to crazy cold weather games are in my past. Younger, more cold tolerant fans are going to need to step up and fill the void. I have enough stories of sitting outside in subzero temperature games to bore my future grandkids with. Now is the time for younger fans to do those activities - then they too can annoy their grandkids by repeatedly telling them about it in the decades to come.

Minn has 51K students and who knows how many alum..

I would wager that if SU had 50K of students around our attendance would go up by 5-10K as well.

 

[HeaterCuse22]

Just wanted to resurrect a discussion for my benefit of getting opinions on the topic. From my high level view, I have favored an outdoor football facility. I think the dome artificial turf has been a source of increased injuries and has also been used against Syracuse by negative recruiting. The weather is not as bad as some will try to make it out to be. In fact our autumn's are warmer now and some of the nicest weather of the year. I think a new outdoor stadium seating 40 to 45k would make recruiting a bit easier.

I would never attend an outside football game with the product we have. Not worth it

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I would never attend an outside football game with the product we have. Not worth it

I don't want an outdoor stadium but that being said the Pitt game was a much more enjoyable in game non football experience. Part of that was the limited in game promotions. But also a part of that was not being deaf after the game because the speakers were way too loud. It is a joke that SU has not been able to fix that issue.

 

[xc84]

I don't want an outdoor stadium but that being said the Pitt game was a much more enjoyable in game non football experience. Part of that was the limited in game promotions. But also a part of that was not being deaf after the game because the speakers were way too loud. It is a joke that SU has not been able to fix that issue.

Yeah... the audio at the dome is horrendous. It would be nice if they could fix it. I am not so concerned about the high volume as I am about actually hearing what is being said but maybe the 2 are related.