OCS football discussion (posts from Re: Big 10 raiding BE?)

[bulldozier1]

I notice your pro off-cs is real short. When Ray Jay is sold out with fans wearing green and white. You don't see the red colors. How about the recruiting. It did help us get talent. It's also central located for the people of the Bay area. It do help with the growth of the fan base. I didn't attend USF. But I love them like there my own. And I am all for an OCS building fund. I would commit at least 2k toward it. But lets be patient. All will come in due time. We're still building a top flight program. I would bet in 10-15 years, we will not reconigze USF campus. And how prestiges our football program would be.

[Joe]

Jim, you're usually right about a lot of things, but you're wrong here. Any OCS would be 50-55k.

We don't have the fanbase to maximize revenues in a 70k seat stadium, nor will we for awhile.

[tampabull]

It would cost far less to build a 65k stadium at first than to add on later.  plus a lot of the  bigger conferences require 60k plus stadiums.  The athletic department has said they would not consider a stadium unless it is similar to ray jay.  If holtz can bring the program up to the next level in 5 years you will be consistently seeing crowds around 60k plus. 

[Guest]

Jim, you're usually right about a lot of things, but you're wrong here. Any OCS would be 50-55k.

We don't have the fanbase to maximize revenues in a 70k seat stadium, nor will we for awhile.

Then you say our PAYING fan base is about 35,000... I dont' think that's right.

USF's student section might even get bigger than 12000 when it's on campus.

My guess is - and this is based on remaining in the BCS - that USF will sell out Raymond James for an entire season of I-A games in 2014 or 2015. (We may never sell out the I-AA game unless it's FAMU).

If USF is able to sell out RayJay at 65,000 - why would they ever want to build something smaller?  Sure, you could make up the lost TICKET revenue by raising prices... but you would lose considerable concession revenue.

In sum:

1) USF will not entertain the idea of an on-campus stadium until the fan base can support selling out Raymond James consistently.

2) Once that happens, USF will not build a stadium smaller than Raymond James.

[Guest]

Pros and Cons

You forgot something:

Off Campus Stadium = $1 million in rent per YEAR

On Campus Stadium = $1 million in debt payments per MONTH  (plus the cost of administration, security, janitorial staff, etc would be another significant amount)

[Dogma]

They used to have a buses pick up students on campus to go to the games...do they still do that???

Yes they do.

And they've improved on it since they first started it (which is always good)

...Especially that they have more buses now, and they do it from behind the Marshall Center.

[Bullshutter]

here is a photoshopped Orange Bowl on our Tampa campus, courtesy of a co-worker (created to scale at 1"=600 feet)

[tampabull]

The baseball stadiums are being built there.

[Guest]

here is a photoshopped Orange Bowl on our Tampa campus, courtesy of a co-worker (created to scale at 1"=600 feet)

An excellent image -- notice just how big a football stadium would be in comparison to the Sun Dome and/or Sun Dome parking lots.

[Bullshutter]

The baseball stadiums are being built there.

fear not, baseball stadiums were not harmed during the creation of that image