can kinnick grow again?

[JonDMiller]

That you need to wait until there is a wait list 10K deep for several years before you add a bunch of seating.

Follard does it coming off a 3-9 season.

Take away the grass seating areas and they are below 60,000 permanent seats. They added a few thousand to capacity. They are within the state's Golden Circle and there are over 1mil in that. They are 25 minutes away from downtown Des Moines, the state's largest city. I think they can support that. I dont think that Kinnick will support a large expansion project. There is nothing wrong with having sellouts and some excess demand...but Iowa has had that for a brief period of time since the expansion to 70K..brief as in four years or so.

 

[ThunderHawk]

They could bowl in the south end zone. It would be the biggest development for the football program in half a century.

Oh, wait...wrong state school my bad.

 

[ThunderHawk]

Take away the grass seating areas and they are below 60,000 permanent seats. They added a few thousand to capacity. They are within the state's Golden Circle and there are over 1mil in that. They are 25 minutes away from downtown Des Moines, the state's largest city. I think they can support that. I dont think that Kinnick will support a large expansion project. There is nothing wrong with having sellouts and some excess demand...but Iowa has had that for a brief period of time since the expansion to 70K..brief as in four years or so.

That's all well and good, but Moo U's problem is that they are Moo U. They will never, NEVER compete for a conference title. They will always be Texas' captive eunuch. They will remain in L'Ames. which, by the way, is incredibly lame. They are who we thought they are, and adding more seats to their crappy concrete mausoleum isn't gonna entice the fine people of the greater Des Moines metro to slog up I 35 to watch FCS-level football.

We can head over to Drake Stadium for that.

 

[Hawknick]

The original post was asking if the stadium could be expanded. Not if it should be at this time. So I still think that if they were to expand that the most practical way would be to put the seats over Hawkins Dr.

 

[HawkIPA]

Take away the grass seating areas and they are below 60,000 permanent seats. They added a few thousand to capacity. They are within the state's Golden Circle and there are over 1mil in that. They are 25 minutes away from downtown Des Moines, the state's largest city. I think they can support that. I dont think that Kinnick will support a large expansion project. There is nothing wrong with having sellouts and some excess demand...but Iowa has had that for a brief period of time since the expansion to 70K..brief as in four years or so.

They also have one of the worst BCS level football programs of all time. The shine will wear off that expansion after a couple 3 win seasons and people won't come.

 

[Hawknick]

Many of you may not know this. The architects original plan for Iowa Stadium did have a planned capacity close to 90,000. Below is a link to the 1929 architectural rendering. For whatever reason though the plan was modified and it opened in 1929 with a capacity of 53,000
http://burntheship.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/architectural-rendering-1929.jpg

 

[NCHawker]

 

[Arbitr8]

They made a good start by reducing the size of the student section and then let's see if we can sell out Kinnick this year for at the B1G games, do that this year and then concentrate on selling out all games for about a 5 - 7 year period beginning in 2015.

 

[ShadasRevenge]

That's all well and good, but Moo U's problem is that they are Moo U. They will never, NEVER compete for a conference title. They will always be Texas' captive eunuch. They will remain in L'Ames. which, by the way, is incredibly lame. They are who we thought they are, and adding more seats to their crappy concrete mausoleum isn't gonna entice the fine people of the greater Des Moines metro to slog up I 35 to watch FCS-level football.

We can head over to Drake Stadium for that.

This...doesn't have anything to do with the post you responded to.

 

[SpecialKHawk]

We need some buzz in our athletic programs and a stadium enhancement could bring that.

The stadium is in 4 pieces with the South end zone completely renovated. It would wise to think about doing the North end now to have half of the stadium renovated. In the process of doing this capacity could be added that I believe could be utilized. Then half of our stadium would be renovated with the final phases being the east & west in order to be able to connect everything and have a new stadium.

Expanding the capacity to 80,000 is as much about saying we intend run with the bigger dogs as anything. This extra capacity can be sold. Season ticket holders could be given a nice discount on an extra ticket or a family ticket package could be explored. I would like to see the consideration of an inexpensive season ticket for kids to start the next generation of fans. Any extras can also be sold to the larger traveling opposing fan bases. Why not have them help finance this? Give them the worst seats is all. If nothing works then shrink the capacity to 75 to widen seats as we are packed in so tight right now as it is. Just tossing out ideas but the point is the extra capacity can be consumed especially when the team is enjoying a great season.

The issue is it takes some guts to have a vision of where you want to be instead of only looking at where we are at now.

 

[ShadasRevenge]

That's a pretty sweet photo/rendering.

 

[NEIChawk]

Geez, are we on top of a hill in that rendition?

 

[HawkIPA]

Take away the grass seating areas and they are below 60,000 permanent seats. They added a few thousand to capacity. They are within the state's Golden Circle and there are over 1mil in that. They are 25 minutes away from downtown Des Moines, the state's largest city. I think they can support that. I dont think that Kinnick will support a large expansion project. There is nothing wrong with having sellouts and some excess demand...but Iowa has had that for a brief period of time since the expansion to 70K..brief as in four years or so.

And another thing is you can automatically remove about half of those people from this equation because they would be Iowa fans.

 

[ThunderHawk]

This...doesn't have anything to do with the post you responded to.

He said that he thought ISU could support @ 60K. I said that they are smoke and mirrors marketing masking a steaming pile of a product. That steaming pile gives off a stench which cannot be ignored in perpetuity.

They will have a lot of empty super awesome south endzone seats as the years pass by and the odor becomes unbearable.

I didn't address his point about Kinnick. My focus was on the steaming pile that is Pollard Inc.

#PWOUD!

 

[HawkeyeMHA]

That odor is already unbearable

 

[ShadasRevenge]

He said that he thought ISU could support @ 60K. I said that they are smoke and mirrors marketing masking a steaming pile of a product. That steaming pile gives off a stench which cannot be ignored in perpetuity.

They will have a lot of empty super awesome south endzone seats as the years pass by and the odor becomes unbearable.

I didn't address his point about Kinnick. My focus was on the steaming pile that is Pollard Inc.

#PWOUD!

They've been averaging around 55/56K (paid) for every game for at least the last 2 or 3 years, so I think Jon is closer to being right than you give him credit for. They might take an attendance hit late in the year if the Clones are in the tank, but their games early in the year will be packed houses for sure. There will be people who go to games next year just to check out the new addition.

 

[hawkdrummer1]

They've been averaging around 55/56K (paid) for every game for at least the last 2 or 3 years, so I think Jon is closer to being right than you give him credit for. They might take an attendance hit late in the year if the Clones are in the tank, but their games early in the year will be packed houses for sure. There will be people who go to games next year just to check out the new addition.

They averaged 54,600 over the last 3 years. But the three years before... 45,400, 46,240 and 47,400

The last time Iowa averaged 54,600 or less was 1978. That was during an 18th straight losing season. That same year ISU was 8-3 and bowl bound. They averaged nearly 5,000 less a game than IOWA. To paraphrase the old saying....the worst day as a Hawkeye, is better than the best day as a clone.

Only time will tell how long the smoke and mirrors marketing will continue to work in Ames. I'm amazed at how that stroke Rhoades continues to play them. Maybe it helps that he's from Ankeny. Attendance could easily drop back under 50K/game after they go 3-9 again.

 

[HawkIPA]

They've been averaging around 55/56K (paid) for every game for at least the last 2 or 3 years, so I think Jon is closer to being right than you give him credit for. They might take an attendance hit late in the year if the Clones are in the tank, but their games early in the year will be packed houses for sure. There will be people who go to games next year just to check out the new addition.

I wouldn't be so sure about this. ISU fan likes teh 6 PM kick so they can party in a Wrigleyville like atmosphere all day. We will see how many show up when those early season games are at 11 AM.

 

[ShadasRevenge]

I wouldn't be so sure about this. ISU fan likes teh 6 PM kick so they can party in a Wrigleyville like atmosphere all day. We will see how many show up when those early season games are at 11 AM.

I think most everyone would rather have the mid-afternoon/evening kick, yes? 1100 games are a drag.

 

[HawkIPA]

I think most everyone would rather have the mid-afternoon/evening kick, yes? 1100 games are a drag.

Sure, most prefer them. But it seems like early evening kicks were very common at ISU in previous years. I just want to see how many show up for 11 AM against NDSU.