"The Plan" is officially in place

[h2oville rocket]

A perceived lack of excessability has always hurt AA.

Seems to me that the concern of several posters is that the new arena will seat too many, thus creating "excessability".

[Globetrotter]

I have two thoughts about this.

1) They absolutely have to keep it loud and with the students on the floor.
2) They absolutely have to have the option of more seats down the road. There has to be a way to build the arena in a fashion that seats 5500 but with renovations could seat up to 8000. And I mean renovations. Not Dave Mathews is coming we need more seats. I mean we have won 5 years in a row, have a handful of players in the NBA, we are making the tournament consistently and the fans are coming consistently. When the need is there we need to be able to expand. If you don't expect greatness it won't come.

[transfer2BGSU]

5500? That would be a huge mistake IMHO.

It would be a good decision. In my humble opinion.

This program isn't filling Anderson Arena. Why build bigger?

Building 7,000 seats would be a bit like adding 15,000 more at the Doyt. I hope we do add football seating someday, but only because we need it. Right now, we don't. And the same is true in basketball.

There is absolutely no problem with building a 5,500 seat arena.

Not enough seating? Let's hope that becomes the case. Let's have it where the students have to stand outside of the ticket office the week before a basketball game to retrieve a ticket to the game. Let's have it where season tickets are ordered by the masses.

Let's make the ticket to a BGSU Men's Baketball Game the ticket in town they everyone wants.

Let's make the ticket to a BGSU Women's Baketball Game the ticket in town they everyone wants.

When we do that, then we can talk about needing more than 5,500 seats.

[BleedOrange]

An "average" attendance, doesn't necessarily mean a larger arena wouldn't pay, depending on the number of "big" games that your attendance would sell more than 5500. That being said, the last sellouts I remember, are the MSU mens game and the women playing Cincy in the tournament!

I would like to see all chair seats with the exception of the student section, so they have room to stand, dance, yell, do the wave, and any other antics they can think of.

Thank you, sir, for helping me with those who continue to miss the point time after time after time after goddamned time. Jesus.

[Falconboy]

An "average" attendance, doesn't necessarily mean a larger arena wouldn't pay, depending on the number of "big" games that your attendance would sell more than 5500. That being said, the last sellouts I remember, are the MSU mens game and the women playing Cincy in the tournament!

I would like to see all chair seats with the exception of the student section, so they have room to stand, dance, yell, do the wave, and any other antics they can think of.

Exactly. You stand a better chance of bringing in the big boys when you have an great facility. Get enough big games and it pays for itself to have a 6-7k seat arena.

[BleedOrange]

A minor point: AA's north side is a huge brick wall that sits roughly 10 feet from the baseline. That giant wall is a big part of the reason that AA is so darn loud when it's rock'n. Most likely, a new 5500 seat "convo" would not have such a wall to make it so loud.

Hammb, I just DO NOT BUY the argument that 4000 people in a 7 or 8000 seat gym would make for a bad game experience. 4000 is what we'd draw RIGHT NOW in a more conventient location with a team like McLeod's. And when the team is down, the game experience would suck anywhere, but 7-8K would still leave the door open for the future.

[hammb]

I don't think 4000 people would sound quiet in an 8000 seat arena either. That's not what I'm worried about. My problem is that this town/university has shown that they will not put more than 4000 people in the arena unless we're a top of the line MAC team.

As much as I'd love to be that team on a yearly basis, it's delusional to think that we will be among the best 2-3 teams in the MAC every single year. When we're not at the top we're a lot more likely to average 2000-2500 or so fans, and those games are abysmal in 8000 seat arenas. I've watched quite a few games at EMU's 8800 seat arena. Usually they have 1500-2000 people there. The place feels absolutely abandoned like that. It's a beautiful building, and it's a good place to watch a game; but when it's 3/4 empty it just feels bad. Anderson doesn't have any atmosphere with our current crowds at it's current 4500 capacity. I don't want to think what the crowds right now would feel like in an 8000 seat building.

My problem is that you have to weight the pluses and minuses. Basically are you going to have enough games that you need > 5500 seats to balance out the fact that the gameday atmosphere takes a hit for the games with only 2000 in attendance.

My personal observation is that I just do not see us needing 7000-8000 fans very damn often, and history shows us that crowds in the low 2000s are going to be MUCH more common. I just don't see how we can justify that extra capacity so that we can add a few thousand more people 2-3 times every 5 years when we're an elite MAC team. All other years the gameday experience takes a serious turn for the worse.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I just don't see us becoming a program that is going to have consistent 4000 people in attendance year after year. It'd be great if that were to happen, but I don't see anything to make me think it's going to happen. As I said before, I think building too large is a MUCH bigger mistake than building too small is.

[redskins4ever]

I dont think you should look at your arena as a one trick pony, and only usable for sports.

[BleedOrange]

I don't think 4000 people would sound quiet in an 8000 seat arena either. That's not what I'm worried about. My problem is that this town/university has shown that they will not put more than 4000 people in the arena unless we're a top of the line MAC team.

As much as I'd love to be that team on a yearly basis, it's delusional to think that we will be among the best 2-3 teams in the MAC every single year. When we're not at the top we're a lot more likely to average 2000-2500 or so fans, and those games are abysmal in 8000 seat arenas. I've watched quite a few games at EMU's 8800 seat arena. Usually they have 1500-2000 people there. The place feels absolutely abandoned like that. It's a beautiful building, and it's a good place to watch a game; but when it's 3/4 empty it just feels bad. Anderson doesn't have any atmosphere with our current crowds at it's current 4500 capacity. I don't want to think what the crowds right now would feel like in an 8000 seat building.

My problem is that you have to weight the pluses and minuses. Basically are you going to have enough games that you need > 5500 seats to balance out the fact that the gameday atmosphere takes a hit for the games with only 2000 in attendance.

My personal observation is that I just do not see us needing 7000-8000 fans very damn often, and history shows us that crowds in the low 2000s are going to be MUCH more common. I just don't see how we can justify that extra capacity so that we can add a few thousand more people 2-3 times every 5 years when we're an elite MAC team. All other years the gameday experience takes a serious turn for the worse.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I just don't see us becoming a program that is going to have consistent 4000 people in attendance year after year. It'd be great if that were to happen, but I don't see anything to make me think it's going to happen. As I said before, I think building too large is a MUCH bigger mistake than building too small is.

Fair enough.

There is some pessimism there. I have higher hopes for our program over the coming decades, but I like to think that I'm realistic. I personally need to see the program & university shoot for being a bit more than what we have been. I also believe that we can pull people from Toledo/Fostoria/Findlay if we have a convenient location and an exciting team.

Again, when our teams are average to lousy, the atmosphere already sucks in AA. However, I do take your point that an empty feeling arena is a downer. It's just that I believe that there are architectural compensations that can be made. (Curtains, lighting, temporary classroom walls like Purdues, ceiling, acoustics, other things.) The incremental cost of 2-3K additional seats wouldn't be that much relative to the overall cost of the project. I'd estimate that if 5500 costs $40M, than 8000 would cost $45M. I'd also would estimate that fixed costs would be roughly $15M of the total cost.

Whatever we build, it would be devastating if the students weren't on the floor just as they are in AA. Can we at least agree on that?

[BleedOrange]

I've been to every gym in the MAC except NIU and Buff. I'm realizing our new convo, if located SW of Doyt by the alumni center on the parking lot, would give BG a significant advantage over every other MAC school: a VERY convenient location. Think about the locations for UT, OU, Akron, Kent, and Miami. Every single one of those gyms is a major pain in the rear to get to. A convo near the I-75 exit is extremely easy to get to and park. Furthermore, this location is still close to campus for the students.


(...and will distract the eye from the Harshman quad when driving into campus...)

[hammb]

[quote="BleedOrange"
Whatever we build, it would be devastating if the students weren't on the floor just as they are in AA. Can we at least agree on that?[/quote]

Absolutely. Don't care if we build a 30,000 seat or 3,000 seat building, that is a MUST have.

From all accounts that's one thing you can guarantee will not change in the plans as well.

[jmillerbg]

I agree completely with the need to maintain the student seating on/near the court. I assume from Grant's post that this is in the plan. I cannot imagine him giving the stamp of approval without it - so for now I am resting easy!

[BGSU33]

And the exterior picture looks good too.
http://gozags.cstv.com/facilities/gonz-facilities.htmlMcCarthey Athletic Center (Basketball)

I took a closer look at the exterior shot of Gonzaga's arena in the pdf file in their media guide. Just looking at that picture and imagining something like that sitting on campus at BGSU got my heart racing. Here's the link, the picture is on page 17 of this pdf link and you can zoom in on the image:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/gon ... 8-mg-2.pdf

[ZiggyZoomba]

I agree completely with the need to maintain the student seating on/near the court. I assume from Grant's post that this is in the plan. I cannot imagine him giving the stamp of approval without it - so for now I am resting easy!

You are correct.

[JoeFalcon]

My problem is that you have to weight the pluses and minuses. Basically are you going to have enough games that you need > 5500 seats to balance out the fact that the gameday atmosphere takes a hit for the games with only 2000 in attendance.

My personal observation is that I just do not see us needing 7000-8000 fans very damn often, and history shows us that crowds in the low 2000s are going to be MUCH more common. I just don't see how we can justify that extra capacity so that we can add a few thousand more people 2-3 times every 5 years

+1.

The last thing we should do is start bending over backwards to accomodate what the "big boys" might want. I could care less about them, what they want or what they think they need to grace us with their presence, as if they seriously care to begin with. This is about what's best for Bowling Green and the BGSU basketball program year-in and year-out.

If MSU or UM wants to come back some day and get beat again, it should be a hot ticket that 5,000 people will be lucky to get.