Watching USC - Ohio St. got me thinking. Why doesn't LSU close in the endzones of Tiger stadium with the east and west upper deck? That would add a substantial amount of seats to TS. Then we could say that the largest stadium in the US is in Baton Rouge.
I am in Ann Arbor today and I went to the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game. i can tell you having the "biggest stadium" doesnt mean anything as UM is the biggest. It was a great game and their fans are pretty solid tailgaters. But as far as noise. They dont hold our jock in that department. The people I was with was saying "This is the loudest it has ever been here because of the new construction" and I was like Really? Good time though, had some interesting Les Miles conversations to say the least.
here's a thought: let's fill the stadium we have now 1st. and not make announcements all game long about tickets that are still available for next weeks game (and 2 others down the stretch). yeah it's only UL-L, and the Tulane game, but holy hell them schools are in our backyard and "travel" here as well as anyone else does (just the ULLLLLL alums wear purple and gold, and come to all of our games instead of theirs.
The first thing to consider when you think about adding a 360 degree deck is the stadium footprint- and that you would lose area around the stadium in expanding it. Area used for parking during the week for school (you know, the thing myself and 35,000 others do to make sure you can watch football) and area that is necessary to keep people from crushing each other before and after every game. It's not really possible, infrastructure would be over the top. Our sewer can't support what we have now.
So does traffic. I live off Brightside and it took me an hour and a half to get down River Rd. after the game. Almost ran out of gas too. More fans would just equal more of a drain on the already scarce resources.
Did you see all of the empty seats Saturday night? They were there in every game last year except for one or two. We could never fill a 120,000 seat stadium. Endzone upper decks have been investigated but they can never pay for themselves because people are not willing to pay surcharges for seats that bad. Not with every game on HDTV.
