A Sea Of Red

Some of you may have seen this before but I just saw this and it is insane! This seriously beats a lot of FCS stadiums. Unreal, everything is bigger in Texas apparently!

Yeah I saw that and honestly in some aspects it is better then Williams...

thepostman wrote:Yeah I saw that and honestly in some aspects it is better then Williams...

I agree, I would've loved to have seen this type of stadium here, no offense to Williams Stadium!

our tower is nicer, but it would be nice to have an enclosed stadium...then again that will come soon enough

$59.6 million. The only things missing are chairbacks and luxury suites. Considering where I played HS ball, that doesn't even feel like it's on the same planet.

What a waste of money.

rogers3 wrote:What a waste of money.

I thought the same thing, but apparently it went to a vote and the city approved, i wonder how good the school is academically

rogers3 wrote:What a waste of money.

And if it generates revenue for the school? 18k seats with over 8k already reserved as season tickets is pretty amazing.

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/08/07 ... eedID=9236

NotAJerry wrote:

rogers3 wrote:What a waste of money.

And if it generates revenue for the school? 18k seats with over 8k already reserved as season tickets is pretty amazing.

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/08/07 ... eedID=9236

that gave a lot of insight into the stadium, its the taxpayers money and if they wanted to spend it on the stadium then let it be. i still cannot imagine a high school playing in a stadium like that!

I talked about this on here awhile back. This is in rich northern suburb in the DFW metroplex. Very cool stadium but I still think the complex down by me for Cy-Fair ISD has a better set-up called the Berry Center (where tobyMac did his live album a couple years back in the attached arena).







Yeah, this is high school athletics in Texas. 'Nuff said.

And for the record, some high schools down here draw 20-25k each week. It is tough for outsiders to understand. But the Texan culture centers around high school football on Friday nights. And keep in mind, that the majority of Texas residents today weren't born here shows how crazy it really is. Nearly every high school stadium has a jumbotron that would rank among the best in FCS.

Are most of these huge stadiums only used for football or are they multi use? I remember my HS football field covered JV/V football, LAX, M/W Soccer and T&F. I'd make more sense to me if they used these stadium for multiple sports but then again I'm just in my North Carolina mindset!

I actually seriously looked at a high school football broadcasting job in the Austin area last summer but I didnt feel at peace about it so I didnt apply

bluedevilflame wrote:

NotAJerry wrote:

rogers3 wrote:What a waste of money.

And if it generates revenue for the school? 18k seats with over 8k already reserved as season tickets is pretty amazing.

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/08/07 ... eedID=9236

that gave a lot of insight into the stadium, its the taxpayers money and if they wanted to spend it on the stadium then let it be. i still cannot imagine a high school playing in a stadium like that!

Still isn't right to force people to pay for things they may not want. If they go to the games, donate the money if they want a new stadium. I shouldn't be forced to subsidize any hobbies.

I know everyone will hate me for saying that, but what else is new.

jbock13 wrote:

bluedevilflame wrote:

NotAJerry wrote: And if it generates revenue for the school? 18k seats with over 8k already reserved as season tickets is pretty amazing.

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/08/07 ... eedID=9236

that gave a lot of insight into the stadium, its the taxpayers money and if they wanted to spend it on the stadium then let it be. i still cannot imagine a high school playing in a stadium like that!

Still isn't right to force people to pay for things they may not want. If they go to the games, donate the money if they want a new stadium. I shouldn't be forced to subsidize any hobbies.

I know everyone will hate me for saying that, but what else is new.

Still a waste of money, and it won't generate enough to pay for itself, ever. Does the school district get all the proceeds? Oh well, there are plenty of boneheads out there who drive cars worth half the value of their house. This is the American way! What a great country!

It's funny how many decent will fall for the old Keysenian multiplier fallacy when it involves their favorite team or sport. I don't have an issue with local counties building public use football and baseball stadiums, and good decent stadium for the local HS team. But this? No. If you want all that, pay for it yourself.

rogers3 wrote: Still a waste of money, and it won't generate enough to pay for itself, ever. Does the school district get all the proceeds? Oh well, there are plenty of boneheads out there who drive cars worth half the value of their house. This is the American way! What a great country!

Your proof of that? It's easy to say a bunch of nonsense without the slightest bit of evidence for it. They field 4 football teams at that one high school. They've already sold over 8k in season tickets at $40/ticket for an immediate revenue of $320,000. There's another 10k seats in the place. Then there's vendor and parking revenue that will come in (this is Texas HS football). Throw in advertising that has already been sold on the scoreboard. Then there's the $10 price for the other 10k seats that allows for something close to another $500,000 in revenue from ticket sales alone. That's just varsity football and that's not including other events that may be held in the facility. I'm sure both JV squads, and likely even the Freshman squad, can charge (or ask for donations) a minimal amount.

Let's throw in band competitions for the 800 member band. Then there's the facilities built into the football facility to accommodate golf and wrestling. Maybe we can mention that they also built a $23.3 million auditorium for performing arts and $36.5 million transportation, maintenance and nutrition facility.

Finally, there's this tidbit that shows you clearly didn't read the article at all:

The day after Allen plays its first game in Eagle Stadium, four smaller schools will play a double-header there. A college all-star game has booked the stadium next winter, and the district anticipates steady business renting the facility for football and soccer playoff games.

I expect this kind of baseless response out of our two resident blowhards who often post for the sole purpose of being contrarian and stirring up arguments just to feel better about themselves. Don't be like them.

NotAJerry wrote:
I expect this kind of baseless response out of our two resident blowhards who often post for the sole purpose of being contrarian and stirring up arguments just to feel better about themselves. Don't be like them.

The "waste of money" concept is what keeps programs wallowing in FCS obscurity...let us never speak of those words around here again, as some of you probably think some things Liberty has done or will do are a "waste of money" as well.

logic wrote:The "waste of money" concept is what keeps programs wallowing in FCS obscurity...let us never speak of those words around here again, as some of you probably think some things Liberty has done or will do are a "waste of money" as well.

+1

MY guess is this is one of the "rich" schools. The rich ones in Dallas I saw when I was down there back in the spring have absolutely absurd facilities for a high school.

logic wrote:The "waste of money" concept is what keeps programs wallowing in FCS obscurity...let us never speak of those words around here again, as some of you probably think some things Liberty has done or will do are a "waste of money" as well.

Oh i can think of a lot of things done that are a waste of money.
It sure would nice to have seating that someone over 5'8 can fit comfortably in....

When I was visiting Dallas one weekend while I was in Texas last month the high school football stadiums were insane. Even the crappy ones were nicer then a lot of FCS stadiums...

NotAJerry wrote:

rogers3 wrote: Still a waste of money, and it won't generate enough to pay for itself, ever. Does the school district get all the proceeds? Oh well, there are plenty of boneheads out there who drive cars worth half the value of their house. This is the American way! What a great country!

Your proof of that? It's easy to say a bunch of nonsense without the slightest bit of evidence for it. They field 4 football teams at that one high school. They've already sold over 8k in season tickets at $40/ticket for an immediate revenue of $320,000. There's another 10k seats in the place. Then there's vendor and parking revenue that will come in (this is Texas HS football). Throw in advertising that has already been sold on the scoreboard. Then there's the $10 price for the other 10k seats that allows for something close to another $500,000 in revenue from ticket sales alone. That's just varsity football and that's not including other events that may be held in the facility. I'm sure both JV squads, and likely even the Freshman squad, can charge (or ask for donations) a minimal amount.

Let's throw in band competitions for the 800 member band. Then there's the facilities built into the football facility to accommodate golf and wrestling. Maybe we can mention that they also built a $23.3 million auditorium for performing arts and $36.5 million transportation, maintenance and nutrition facility.

Finally, there's this tidbit that shows you clearly didn't read the article at all:

The day after Allen plays its first game in Eagle Stadium, four smaller schools will play a double-header there. A college all-star game has booked the stadium next winter, and the district anticipates steady business renting the facility for football and soccer playoff games.

I expect this kind of baseless response out of our two resident blowhards who often post for the sole purpose of being contrarian and stirring up arguments just to feel better about themselves. Don't be like them.

Seriously? High school sports are not a profit center for any municipality, and municipal facilities both larger and smaller are known to be negative cash flow machines. A region never builds a facility to make money and rarely do they have expectations of a payoff in ticket sales and rental. The real income is derived from what people who attend spend outside of the facility. So that you don't blow a gasket and think that I have no idea what I'm talking about, why don't you do a little research and figure out why I would say such a God-awful thing. I'll help you out... this is just an example of what I mean; this civic center seats about 50% less than that football stadium, but it sees events sometimes multiple times a week for an entire year, and it doesn't make money. To top it off, I noted that the McAllen region was one of the poorest statistical areas in the US; sounds like there are bigger needs there, already. I'll stick with my opinion- I've had a "wet behind the ears" college grad call me a blowhard before, so...

You're only a blowhard if you have the audacity to disagree with him!

I agree with you rogers. Very good research.

rogers3 wrote:To top it off, I noted that the McAllen region was one of the poorest statistical areas in the US; sounds like there are bigger needs there, already. I'll stick with my opinion- I've had a "wet behind the ears" college grad call me a blowhard before, so...

It's not the McAllen region. It's the Allen suburb in north Dallas.

Oh, and my first day of college was 20 years ago, so you're a dead wrong blowhard on that as well.

As far as the Red Herring article you posted, here are the numbers from it: 158,465 people attended 114 events. The school in question is looking at, if they just keep their 14k from before, 70k for 5 events with the possibility for another 20k with the increased seating capacity that would bring in $850k just off of ticket sales. Throw in the part where they're going to have other teams play there, host playoff games, etc. and you're already talking about an easy $1 million just off of ticket sales. The almost completely unrelated article points towards revenue vs upkeep of a 40-year-old domed structure which really couldn't be much less relevant to a brand new open air football stadium.

Do you have any actual numbers, instead of allusion/conjecture in an article? How about the numbers pre-recession?

I'll close with a quote that shows you took the article completely out of context and it was being presented in a way that considered the civic center a positive:

"Civic centers in municipalities are traditionally not money-makers, but instead are quality-of-life services that are meant for the enjoyment of the public, who, in turn, spend their money and benefit the local economy," Smith said.