Only about 200 new seats will be added to capacity. The emphasis is on premium seats with high surcharges. LSU is not really interested in further expansion. There have been empty seats in the upper decks for most games. There will never be enough demand for endzone seats to fill an "upper bowl". It would never pay for itself. The problem is that the lower bowl at LSU is huge! Those upper deck endzone seats are just too far from the field, people won't pay for them, not with so many TV games. The higher parts of the present sideline upper decks are very poor seats that people avoid.
Red55 you are probably correct, and if they ever did try it I am sure they would only do one at a time but I just don't see them doing either to tell you the truth. If we were on a long waiting list for season tickets it would maybe make sense, but not now. Of course it would probbably mean a serious upgrade to our OOC schedule if they did that, no way you fill the seats for ULM
I know most of you don't think we fill the stadium every game which is true but think....We hold 92,000 people and still put like 89,000 in the stands for weak games. My girlfriend graduated from Virginia Tech and she said for weak games that barely put 60,000 people in the stands...Our half packed stadium would sell out almost all other college stadiums. And I think if they did a horse shoe upper level. Big games would definitely sell. And I'm sure they would eventually pay them selves off over there years and years, cause to my recollection Tiger Stadium isn't going anywhere soon.
In order to finance an expansion that would have to get committments for season tickets I believe, that is why the expansion at OSU is on hold as they don't have them. They have to prove the revenue is going to come in to finance the bond for the construction to begin. If we were playing better OOC games then they could probably sell the season tickets, but not with the kind of teams we've been having on the schedule.
I am assuming though that LSU athletics makes a bunch of money off of seats they already sell... 89000 tickets on avg. is a whole bunch of money. Now with the new cash from the new club seats(which will bring in lots of money), I would think that there would be plenty of money to fund a major prodject in the future. With that said- a whole lot of money goes to other orginizations as well, mabe more than I would think.... so it could take forever before somthing of that scale could be funded (of course it would prob. be a while before it is needed anyway).
Here are two photos of what the new WUD will look like prior to the 2005 season. You can check out the LSU Vision Plan for more information on the expansion & overall athletic facilities improvements and check out the LSUTAF WUD Renovation site for more photos and animation of the new WUD.
While I'll agree that we couldn't fill an ENTIRE upper bowl every game (but I could see it happening for big games, etc.), I believe we have the fan support to fill a stadium with a "U-shaped" upper deck.
I think if they get to 100K plus and keep winning it would fill up and we would move from 6 to 4th or higher. Bring in some big name programs fill the house. LSU makes 2 mil on each home game now.......Big money leads to big programs... the best facilities in the nation... everyone would want to come to BR. Just dont change the uniforms like Oregon...please
It's a shame they will be covering (or hiding) the walkups on the parking lot side of the stadium, it adds to the charm of the stadium. I bet those seats will be nice though, they have really upgraded the stadium since I was a student, and that was only since the mid-90's. I'm not sure LSU needs an entire top bowl. Maybe add sections as demand rises, empty seats look horrible on TV no matter how many the stadium seats. USC has that problem, they are in a huge stadium, so large the football field had to moved to create better seating and that created a lot of dead space (with poor seats). Anyway, even when they have "sell outs", it looks bad . . . because of all the empty seats in the far endzone. Tiger stadium looks awsome on TV, when there is a sell out with all the seats full. Better OOC schedule could raise season ticket demand.
With the new West Upper, official Tiger Stadium capacity will increase from 91,600 to 92,400, an increase of 800 seats. Not much really. Something I was thinking about after the Championship Celebration; the seats in the lower Westside and Eastside are awful small and very uncomfortable. I couldn't fit in them. Granted, I'm not exactly a beanpole, but you'd have to be one to fit comfortably in these seats. So that got me to thinking; if we completely ripped out the old seats in the lower bowl and replaced them with box seats like the East Upper has and the new West Upper will have, that would be great, and LSU could charge more money for these comfier seats, but it would reduce capacity. By how much I'm not sure, but I'm guessing by pure eyeball that you can have three Upper Deck boxes for every four lower deck boxes, which means a seating reduction in those areas from 26,000 to 21,500 and overall capacity from 92,400 to 88,000. We would then have to expand the stadium just to stay at current capacity. Now, I'm purely eyeballing this and guesstimating, but I would guesstimate that bridging the two upper decks and enclosing the South End Zone would add about 6,000 seats (I'm assuming the scoreboard would remain in the same place, instead of new seating being put there) and that would bring capacity up to about 94,000. I think that's a good number we can stay at for awhile, at least until demand for tickets gets to a point where the North end needs a wraparound upper deck. Something really needs to be done about the tiny seats though. Hopefully one day I'll be sitting there a lot, and I'd like to be able to fit in my seats. And before you say "Well lose weight then you fat slob!," trust me, I could lose 150 pounds and still not be able to squeeze into those seats. I'm just a big guy, that's all there is to it.
