Football stadium costs

[rayc]

A timely article from todays St. Petersburg Times (Tampa Bay area of Florida) providing some realistic estimates of at least one major component of D1 football costs. I thought it would provide interesting reading for those interested.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/10/Sports/USF_feels_at_home__fo.shtml

A conservative estimate of a new stadium for a BCS-conference school such as USF would likely top $150-million, which seems high until you consider Minnesota, which will move into an on-campus stadium in 2009 at a cost of $288-million.

[Shockerman]

Good article, except that we have a stadium already. All we need is about 20 million in upgrades and a 15 million dollar endzone Football complex. Youch!

Oh, and I can spin an article to.

Florida Atlantic just approved plans for a $62-million stadium in Boca Raton, and Central Florida last month proudly unveiled a $55-million stadium in Orlando.

[rrshock]

Good article, except that we have a stadium already. All we need is about 20 million in upgrades and a 15 million dollar endzone Football complex. Youch!

Oh, and I can spin an article to.

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. Those types of articles don't apply to WSU, since there is already a stadium there.

[CharlieHog]

We spent around $100 million renovating our stadium in 2001.

[shocky]

charlie,

Maybe it would be more helpful to compare Arkansas State to WSU. How does ASU compete at the D1A level in terms of facilities? Is there stadium better than CS from what you can tell. Could CS be used for a few years to get the program off the ground when you compare it to other Sun Belt schools. It seems like most of them have stadiums and are making upgrades as they go. Any thoughts?

[CharlieHog]

charlie,

Maybe it would be more helpful to compare Arkansas State to WSU. How does ASU compete at the D1A level in terms of facilities? Is there stadium better than CS from what you can tell. Could CS be used for a few years to get the program off the ground when you compare it to other Sun Belt schools. It seems like most of them have stadiums and are making upgrades as they go. Any thoughts?

I've never been to an Arkansas State game and don't really know what their facilities look like.

I have been to games at UCA (Central Arkansas, in Conway). They made the move to D1 last year (1-AA football). Their stadium is nice looking but only holds about 10,000 fans. If they enclose their end zone that will add several thousand more seats. But I have no idea what it cost to build it.

But the games at UCA, despite the relatively small crowds, are lots of fun.



I really don't really remember much about Cessna. Only been up there once.

[SpanglerFan316]

Charlie: http://www.goshockers.com/ViewArticl...&ATCLID=613203

[rayc]

The article was timely relative to the football discussions on SN. The quoted section was simply used to illustrate that a D1 football program can be very expensive and not something to just jump into. No spin was intended, at least not intentionally.

However, if you are thinking of eventually moving up to the BCS level of football, you better get use to stadium costs given in the $100M+ range, if not at startup, certainly down the road.

If you are happy with non-BCS D1 level football, you can get by cheaper, but not cheaply.
The University of Central Florida (UCF) is probably a pretty typical example of the cost at this level of football (Conference USA).

With their $55M new on-campus stadium UCF is happily anticipating $5M in annual ticket sales revenue. They also note in the article, a $7M annual stadium expense ($4M stadium debt service + $3M stadium upkeep) over the 25 or so years of the debt. This is a $2M LOSS each year for the next 25 years, a total $50M loss. And this is just the stadium costs, not the entire football program costs. I know that the football program salaries at UCF currently run in excess of $2M annually, this is an additional $50M loss over that time frame. And that is still not the total football program costs.

Assuming that the $5M anticipated revenue is not based on sell outs at the new stadium and with concessions, bowl revenues, etc. there must be a light somewhere down the road, but not before a lot of red ink flows, unless they have very generous booster support each year.

I understand that WSU would not have a $55M debt to service, nor would I expect salaries initially to be in the range of those at UCF, but I understand that $25-30M would be needed to renovate CS. (Also realize that the $55M new stadium at UCF, with 24 luxury suites and 822 club seats (up scale lounge), is 50% larger than CS and has much more revenue potential.)

I guess what I’m saying is that if you want D-1 football at WSU, it is not unreasonable to require a minimum of $50M in the bank at start-up, at least in my opinion. And I don’t think anything less than a D-1 program will fly.

(Also with D-1 football another problem arises, and that is conference affiliation.)

[SpanglerFan316]

All we need is "$265-million for athletics from donor ***". :yes: