Kricket wrote:Bump.
I'm curious if anyone's opinion has changed on stadium expansion based on upcoming games scheduled.
Army, Wake, Virginia, BYU, and the home schedule still needs two more games in 19.
Arguments can be made both ways, but I choose to follow the "fake it till you make it", "if you build it, they will come", "dress for the job you want, not the one you have", "the salesman with the BMW, Rolex, suit, and gold pen, always wins" philosophy. Makes it more exciting.
Fiscally, we have the money for it to fall flatter than we'd like. We've already gone "all in" in our speech, so let's not be inconsistent with our actions (just embrace the sunk cost fallacy with enthusiasm). And, if IM can pull off the "at least one prominent game a year" approach, starting in 2019 with a P5, then the 4-10 year wait may not be as bad.
Secondly, maybe excitement about the program as a whole can counter balance that our home games aren't as sexy as the road (NMSU, Troy, et al). VT didn't have a problem drawing 60k fans when they played lowly FCS LU, and that's because people are excited about the program as a whole.
Didn't the previous stadium expansion create the fish bowl effect (the gold fish grows to fit the size of the bowl you give it), even though it wasn't sell out city, and the on field success wasn't any or much better?
Like others have mentioned, even though the next phases seem big, they won't up the seats to a ridiculous level, so it's probably reasonable. To me, the magic number is 40k (in vain, to stick it to the majority of other G5s that hover around 30k, why not), but I think the proposed 35k seats mentioned by Falwell is reasonable for the shoe and second tower.
Hopefully we can design it in such a way that the atmosphere feels even bigger than it is. I judge other schools by their stadium, I'm sure they'll return the favor
Now, if we could just win.