Is Kinnick to small, and wish for more night games?

I0WA

I0WA

Well-Known Member
Personally and I speak in the words of all Iowa fans that I love going to Kinnick stadium and watching the Hawks play, but after seeing places like the Shoe is Columbus, Camp Randall, Beaver, and "The Big House", I realize Kinnick seems like a "High School" stadium to them. We all know Kinnick is hostile and one of the toughest places to play in the B10, but with the recent blow up of ticket sales wouldn't be nice to see Kinnick go up to maybe 80,000 seats? I know I would. 2nd thing is, as an Iowa fan, I love Night Games and 1 per year isn't doing it for me. I'd love to play Penn St, Wisconsin, Oh. State, even Iowa State at 7:05 pm besides 11:05am. I understand we cant play night games past November 6th but wouldn't it be nice to have maybe 3 night games? Plus Kinnick is always filled when the light go on.
 
I0WA said:
Personally and I speak in the words of all Iowa fans that I love going to Kinnick stadium and watching the Hawks play, but after seeing places like the Shoe is Columbus, Camp Randall, Beaver, and "The Big House", I realize Kinnick seems like a "High School" stadium to them. We all know Kinnick is hostile and one of the toughest places to play in the B10, but with the recent blow up of ticket sales wouldn't be nice to see Kinnick go up to maybe 80,000 seats? I know I would. 2nd thing is, as an Iowa fan, I love Night Games and 1 per year isn't doing it for me. I'd love to play Penn St, Wisconsin, Oh. State, even Iowa State at 7:05 pm besides 11:05am. I understand we cant play night games past November 6th but wouldn't it be nice to have maybe 3 night games? Plus Kinnick is always filled when the light go on.
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As far as Kinnick goes, there isn't much that can be done to add more seats. They could fill in the four corners but that would only add about 4-5 grand tops. Past that they would have to add an upper deck and that would just look horrible and take away from the atmosphere.

For the night games, I don't think the university is that fond of them in the first place. Giving the fans a whole day to tailgate increases the drunkenness around Kinnick and it's a logistical nightmare once the game is over. Be happy we get around one a year.
 
They could add another deck around the south endzone, a vertical deck.

BUT...its fine where it is. This year's season ticket sales numbers are the absolute peak in history...you dont budget on that. You cannot expect that. Until you get your season ticket base to a 10k waiting list, you don't even consider expanding.

Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio are in the top 8 or so rank in state population in America. Wisconsin has over 5 millon people and there is no Wisky State.

Iowa is just at 3 million people, and there is an Iowa State.
 
I disagree, if you sell 84% of all tickets to season ticket holders, that really limits any casual or out of state fans from attending a game. If population had much to do with it than Nebraska wouldn't have a waiting list for season tickets.

In 2009 Iowa was 21st in average attendance. FSU was 20
From what i can find, FSU only sold around 35k tickets out of 83,500. That is 42% of capacity.

In 1999 we won 1 game and still averaged 63k in attendance.
 
I think 70,000 is fine.

I would like to see Iowa move September games to a night slot (5-6pm start). It gets really swampy in there crammed in with 69,999 others with a mid day sun beating down.
 
One night game per year is plenty. Reasons:

1. Way too much drinking, which leads to:

2. A long dangerous drive home late at night for Iowa fans living more than 100 miles away from Kinnick.
 
Kinnick a high school stadium? That's a pretty large high school. That mildly offends me! Kinnick is fine the way it is. If we can keep winning and the ticket demand stays the way it is for a few years, then we can talk about expansion. You can't make a decision to expand based on the demand this year - it probably won't be repeated next year or subsequent years and you definately don't want empty seats in a larger stadium.

I don't care for night games. As a college football purist, I think it should be played outdoors in the elements on real grass, in the sunlight. Before TV got involved, all of the games in the midwest were at 1:00. That was the perfect time. 11:00 AM is too early when you have to drive two hours to get there and 2:30 is too late especially for the games late in the season. Very few of the lots in IC are lit and typically there is limited tailgate time after those games.

That's my two-cents.
 
Doesn't Camp Randall hold about 80k? if so that is not a lot more than Kinnick. I agree that until we have a waiting list for season tix we leave it alone. 5-10k more would be cool tho.
 
I love Kinnick just as it is, and it suits the fan base just fine

75K would be nice, but there is ZERO justification for anything more than that right now
 
I too would love to see seating capacity increased, but since the university just spent 80+ million on stadium renovation and is in the middle of a multi million dollar upgrade of Carver, I don;t see it happening anytime soon. As for night games...I love em, but if you start to do too many the specialness of the atmosphere disappears and it becomes just another game IMO.
 
A high school stadium? Wow. Size doesn't matter in the least. Kinnick is a big factor in our home field advantage because of the noise. The Big House really isn't THAT loud, from what I'm told (I'll see for myself this fall), and it's because of stadium design. The Big House has a very gradual incline from the front row to the last, which makes the stadium more like a saucer than a bowl. When you do that, you lose a lot of sound, even with 110,000 people inside. While at the same time, look at Autzen Stadium (The Zoo) over in Oregon. That is right up there with any stadium in the country for crowd noise, and it only holds 54,000. That is thanks to its design, which not only keeps the noise in, but amplifies it. Camp Randall is like The Coliseum (the real one in Rome, not in LA), it's just a pit, which also keeps the noise in. The Shoe has practically vertical grandstands.

Kinnick owes its decible level to its design. Adding seats really just throws off the atmosphere, and it's not going to make a big difference in noise. So lets not fix the unbroken object.
 
ChosenChildren said:
One night game per year is plenty. Reasons:

1. Way too much drinking, which leads to:

2. A long dangerous drive home late at night for Iowa fans living more than 100 miles away from Kinnick.
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I can relate to all but the "dangerous" part because I would never drive home after drinking too much.

That being said, I LOVE the night games, but they take a lot out of me. We always leave at our normal 5am to tailgate the entire day. By the time the game ends it's after 10PM and by the time traffic subsides we don't get out of Iowa City until at least 11, maybe 11:30. Then by the time we get home, I've been up for almost 24 hours.

Brutal, but so worth it. 1 night game per year is enough.
 
Yes, MORE night games! The one and only reason for me is - I can do something else with my day. I am busy as can be and 11am starts wreck the entire day. 2:30 still doesn't give me much time. 5pm on, gives people time to do something during the day.
Now 9:35pm is too late really. What time with that game get over, 1am? I am all over that tho! As long as it isn't more than once a year...
 
dmShortSaledude said:
Yes, MORE night games! The one and only reason for me is - I can do something else with my day. I am busy as can be and 11am starts wreck the entire day. 2:30 still doesn't give me much time. 5pm on, gives people time to do something during the day.
Now 9:35pm is too late really. What time with that game get over, 1am? I am all over that tho! As long as it isn't more than once a year...
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I think most people would consider going to the game "doing something" for that day. I love 11 am games (I know I am in the minority on that) but I hate having to wait around until later in the day to watch them. I am going to hate the Arizona game, waiting until 9 is going to drive me crazy.
 
It does not need to be expanded. You have to look at a couple factors this season:

1. Coming off of a bcs bowl win and alot of returning players. High expectations
2. The schedule aligns perfectly- yes it is the perfect storm.

Do you really think the demand would be so high if we didn't have teams like wisconsin , ohio st, and penn st at home? I do think there would be a high demand due to the team's success but not the demand that it is with playing the top teams in the conference at home.

When looking at expanding you have to have a waiting list for a number of years. Atleast 5 yrs.... Otherwise in years when the team is not as good and the schedule isnt as good we would have a stadium with empty seats. Kinnick is fine the way it is. Leave it alone.

And I am all for more night games. I hate the 11am kick. There is not enough time to tailgate- and by tailgate i am not talking about drinking to oblivion. I like to grill, hang out with friends and talk everything Hawkeye Athletics. The other thing I love about night games is the atmosphere- there is nothing like it. Nothing like being in Kinnick under the lights and seeing that place rocking! Amazing atmosphere!
 
I believe I read somewhere (maybe this board) that the infrastructure at Kinnick wouldn't hold a 2nd deck. Probably the only way it could be expanded would be in the endzones, which I think would make it look a little odd.

I have always thought they should fill in the corners, though. If that would add 4 to 5k I think it would be perfect.
 
I0WA said:
Personally and I speak in the words of all Iowa fans that I love going to Kinnick stadium and watching the Hawks play, but after seeing places like the Shoe is Columbus, Camp Randall, Beaver, and "The Big House", I realize Kinnick seems like a "High School" stadium to them. We all know Kinnick is hostile and one of the toughest places to play in the B10, but with the recent blow up of ticket sales wouldn't be nice to see Kinnick go up to maybe 80,000 seats? I know I would. 2nd thing is, as an Iowa fan, I love Night Games and 1 per year isn't doing it for me. I'd love to play Penn St, Wisconsin, Oh. State, even Iowa State at 7:05 pm besides 11:05am. I understand we cant play night games past November 6th but wouldn't it be nice to have maybe 3 night games? Plus Kinnick is always filled when the light go on.
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Would it be nice to add an extra 10,000 or so Hawk fanatics to Kinnick? Absolutely. However, Iowa would need to sustain steady ticket demand for years and years to come before you can begin to talk expansion.

Would some games sell out at 80,000? Absolutely ... But I don't think you can count on selling out an 80,000 seat stadium on any given Saturday.

Personally, I would rather have a jam-packed 70,000 Hawk fanatics versus a stadium with holes at the top because we couldn't sell out for the likes of Ball State, Akron, etc.

Some day it could happen ... But, I don't think we will see expansion any time in the near future. ... Kinnick is sort of like Wrigley Field ... Small and old school ... But so unique ...
 
Kinnick is fine the way it is and doesn't need to be expanded. Much better to leave it the way it is and have people wanting to get in than have empty seats that you can't fill. Besides, it's already bigger than probably half the NFL stadiums.

Night games...I think that one per year is fine. Wouldn't mind seeing some additional 2:00 starts though. For me, that is the perfect time for college football.
 
ATLHawkeye said:
I believe I read somewhere (maybe this board) that the infrastructure at Kinnick wouldn't hold a 2nd deck. Probably the only way it could be expanded would be in the endzones, which I think would make it look a little odd.

I have always thought they should fill in the corners, though. If that would add 4 to 5k I think it would be perfect.
Click to expand...

If they did the endzones, it would maybe have more of a Beaver Stadium look to it.
 
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