40,000 Seat Stadium For About 118m

[MeanGreen61]

Stadium could cost as little as $118 million

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/...ag-120-million/

[UNTflyer]

Seems like a big price tag.

[KingDL1]

Seems like a big price tag.

Its adjusted for inflation.

[NT80]

$118m is about what uT is paying for 10,000 endzone seats.

Humm, some interesting numbers from that Memphis article:

"In 2007, the U of M averaged 21,459 in paid attendance (vs. 29,760 announced attendance), or a number consistent with paid attendance figures the previous five seasons. The report also noted three Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division 1-A) programs -- Louisville, Connecticut and Central Florida -- experiencing significant boosts in attendance since moving into new stadiums during the past decade. Central Florida reported a 161 percent increase -- from 14,836 in the Florida Citrus Bowl to 38,701 in Bright House Networks Stadium, which opened last fall."

Edited March 9, 2008 by NT80

[Daddy Dumpsalot]

"A 40,000-seat on-campus football stadium for the University of Memphis could be built for roughly $120 million and funded by stadium revenues and additional resources such as student fees, capital fundraising, public funding and rent from other events such as the AutoZone Liberty Bowl or Southern Heritage Classic."

[emmitt01]

If the U of M were to move to an on-campus stadium, it would leave the Liberty Bowl with only two tenants -- the AutoZone Liberty Bowl and the Southern Heritage Classic -- unless those two games decided to play at a UofM on-campus facility.

Looks like the Liberty Bowl might go the way of the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl...relics of a bygone era.

[UNTflyer]

"A 40,000-seat on-campus football stadium for the University of Memphis could be built for roughly $120 million and funded by stadium revenues and additional resources such as student fees, capital fundraising, public funding and rent from other events such as the AutoZone Liberty Bowl or Southern Heritage Classic."

We'll do the same.

[emmitt01]

We'll do the same.

Word is that student fees are a definite no-no. Has something changed?

[UNTflyer]

Word is that student fees are a definite no-no. Has something changed?

Yes and no. I'll fill you in at Bailey's tonight.

[GreenMachine]

Yes and no. I'll fill you in at Bailey's tonight.

anything you can tell all of us?

[DallasGreen]

There needs to be a sense of urgency to get this done, but we still hold back on the student fee when everyone else in the NCAA uses it to pass us by. We are now being passed by the SLC as the SBC has already said "eat our dust" if you won't get with the program and use your biggest resource --number of students-- to jump start this project.

[ADLER]

There needs to be a sense of urgency to get this done, but we still hold back on the student fee when everyone else in the NCAA uses it to pass us by. We are now being passed by the SLC as the SBC has already said "eat our dust" if you won't get with the program and use your biggest resource --number of students-- to jump start this project.

I am so glad that somebody finally acknowledges the problem and the solution. It's too bad that people in leadership positions won't grasp the obvious. Through per-student contributions comparable to the Southland schools, because of North Texas' large enrollment, it could compete on equal financial footing with many of the BCS schools. This would create a sense of pride in the university that has never been seen before.

Gretchen Bataille is like a nice lady that knits mittens for starving children; her actions are certainly commendable, but they totally fail at addressing the real issue. I hope this fact dawned on her as she sat among the dozen or so UNT fans in Mobile.

Edited March 11, 2008 by ADLER

[UNTflyer]

There needs to be a sense of urgency to get this done, but we still hold back on the student fee when everyone else in the NCAA uses it to pass us by.

This stadium will be built with some kind of student fee. Count on it.

[UNTLifer]

This stadium will be built with some kind of student fee. Count on it.

I'll believe it when I see it.

[ADLER]

This stadium will be UNDER-built with some kind of INSUFFICIENT student fee. THE PROBLEM WILL CONTINUE. Count on it.

There, I fixed your post.

[PlummMeanGreen]

There needs to be a sense of urgency to get this done, but we still hold back on the student fee when everyone else in the NCAA uses it to pass us by. We are now being passed by the SLC as the SBC has already said "eat our dust" if you won't get with the program and use your biggest resource --number of students-- to jump start this project.

This Post Will Piss Off Some of You Who Read It--But Guess What? You'll Get Over It!

(And I also realize some of you will be mature enough to post your responses to the actual subject of my below thoughts; yet a handful of you won't and you will do what your obvious maturity level allows and that will be to start dissing the poster because his subject differs from how you feel). For you--try to show us what your UNT education did for you anyway, OK?

Dallas Green, I've not totally agreed with some of your post of recent months, but I'm afraid I've begun to see the light of all this right along with you and the only thing that would change any of this for many of us would simply be what most of you on this forum say is not possible in Denton: A Very Big Donor Who Will Under-Write Most or All Of A New Stadium.

.............................................................................................

Here's A Future GMG.com Thread Subject-Some of Us Would Almost Guarantee It:

"Hey, guys, since we cannot afford a real NCAA D1-A football stadium, lets get in bed with all our other fellow state of Texas "wanna'be's" like SFA, SHSTU, TxSt, UTSA, etc, etc, and Boy O Boy, we can really "dominate" that group and be a Big Fish in a Small Pond." Here is my (and I know many other fellow alum's) response to that future thread: NOT!

..............................................................................................

Why...........NOT!?!?.............Well..............Back in the day, did we really dominate the Southland Conference when we were in NCAA D1-AA? ANSWER: No, we did not dominate NCAA D1-AA OR..........the Southland Conference. So just what did we do?

ANSWER: What we did at UNT during another golden lost opportunity was merely move our program downward across the board to compete with that level of athletic competition and we (as usual) "stayed the course too damn long" (once again) in that glorious era of Mean Green football where the main topic of that era was not what we did in 1-AA or the SLC but what we "almost" did as we nearly beat a was it a "4" win (?) UT Longhorn football team back in 1988?

Jeez folks, who are our leaders at UNT? What are they planning for our school's athletic future? What is their real agenda for UNT Athletics? Should they share that with the constituency they serve or might what they announce cause many to want to pull the tar and feathers machine out of moth balls? BUT..........just what are their real plans for UNT Athletics (or are they afraid to announce those plans)?

And just how long do some folks up there keep buying time with non-stop bullshit and lies while our alma mater keeps paying (mostly) NCAA D1-A salaries across the board for a perennial SBC/Bottom 25 football program? Some are going to retire quite nicely in Denton w/o having produced anything in Denton but SBC/Bottom 25, but moreso, a whole bunch of BS which many of us actually bought into for a very long time........

.............some of that "low producing" (yet very effective in bullshitting) group willl even be future members of the North Texas Athletic Hall of Fame. Only at North Texas, folks, only at North Texas.

THE FURTHER YOU DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM ALL THE BULLSHIT & THE FALLOUT--THE CLEARER ALL THIS CAN BECOME FOR THOSE WHO DARE TAKE A LOOK & Tell the Truth As To What They Really See.

Our track record is so very clear if you' dare look. If you cannot see what's going on, simply step away from it for awhile and you will then start seeing both the trees and the forest in all their splendor in Denton, Texas, America. Folks, what do we want for our alma mater's athletic program? Do we want more coaches well-under .500 getting lifetime jobs in Denton because we don't demand more? And by not demanding more we get what they want us to get and dare us to question their low producing results? What the hell is wrong with this picture anyway?

Hellsbells! We name practice fields after coaches who symbollically drop their drawers to moon the entire Mean Green Nation (you know, all of us "m-f'ers" as he called us?); yet we had that past coach who "only" insulted the entire UNT community toward the end of his "under .500" tenure at UNT and then...........

................some of you were actually pissed when he got fired for crissakes?!?!? Did some of you get too close to a personality than what he actually was producing at low levels ya' think? Tell me--what do you really want for UNT athletics? Just more of the same? Well............pull out all your media guides of UNT varsity sports of the last 2 plus decades and just see what we've gotten from our upper echelon UNT leadership. (And after you check out those media guides please do keep yourself away from all sharp objects and the bathroom medicine cabinet, too).

As many of us have predicted, we have now waited too long on this new stadium thing and it will soon triple in price from the original $40 million when all this new stadium talk first started. Some in Denton will be tempted to build a "resume' builder" of an "erector set" style of stadium which for the rest of us who choose to stay around all this to pick up their pieces; anyway, such an erector set style stadim for us won't be worth a jar of warm spit for the future 2'nd Largest University in the Lone Star State.

Is our being the future 2'nd Largest University in Texas almost a curse for a group (from academia and athletics) who should might not be on the staff of the............2'nd Largest University in Texas? It's almost a shame that our campus is growing so fast, since other areas on campus are (obviously) not growing right along with it.

UNT cannot build a stadium continuing to bilk the same ol' $1,000 and less (for most of the last few decades) alumnus/donors. Some of that well-meaning group you almost have to feel sorry for all the good money they have thrown after bad. Yes, like this gullible alum, they, too, fell for much of the bullshit promises of the last 2 plus decades, but as one looks at UNT varsity sports media guides of the last 25 years and their lowly results (as compared to the rest of NCAA D1-A) I think many of us are blushing at to al the "talk" we bought into.

Truth sorta' hurts sometimes, doesn't it? But that same truth also sets some who have been enslaved to "all that UNT potential" talk of which much of that was to buy time on the UNT payroll looking in hindsight; anyway, the plain o' visible to all who dare look truth has set some of us just a tad free, too. Still supporters? Sure, why not, it's the only school some of us will ever be able to say we received a Bachelor's and like many of you, when my $hip comes back in again, some department at UNT will start seeing some more funds from this alums checking account. I'd like to think it will be UNT Athletics that will be a wise "upwardly mobile" investment and that that will be the department (along with the "on the UNT campus" Texas Historical Society) that will get my nickels and dimes, but sorry, I don't think I can those nickels and dimes will build a football stadium. We are supposed to be able to hire fundraisers who see that that goal is met.

I tell you what folks, life is pretty damn good with or without Mean Green athletics. To you Young Gun Alums a bit of advice: Don't spend all your adult life and time the next few decades wishin' and hopin' for UNT leaders to do the right thing because I fear long ago the dye may have been cast for UNT & UNT Athletics. What can we use for proof with that statement? Well, look how long we have just kept on swimming in our pool of molasses and really getting nowhere fast the last 25 years--is that so hard to see and...............Just how has the UNT System kept up with the other 2 systems we like to think we are comparative, ie, the UH System and the Texas Tech System?

[DallasGreen]

Looking for this GREAT DONOR on his white horse to arrive to pour millions of $$$$ into a FB program that just went 2-10 and looked worse than that record shows is buying into the admins party line of doing nothing and hoping this whole stadium "problem" just goes away. IF and a very big IF we were to get such a donor it won't be for love of UNT but instead for a colossal business opportunity. The wait for this mythical persona continues while creative program starters such as competitive student fees, tax incentive funding ( see City of Arlington who made a big investment in two stadiums, but will get that back many times over through sales tax, hotel occupancy tax, and general PR as a sports entertainment destination-- see Denton who spent $20 mill on a HS Stadium that the nestors have never half filled but yet they figuratively thumbed their nose at their largest economic stimulator--UNT), bond programs used to the tune of $21 million by UT for south end zone improvements, academic facilities housed within athletic facilities to get some state funding (see LSU dorm housed in Death Valley and UT Kineseology Dept. in north end zone improvements), prepaid luxury box options, and finally just a "can do" attitude rather than all this wishing and hoping for that GREAT DONOR to surface. Write or better yet tell Jackson, Batille, McQueen ( VP for Development), Andrew Harris (VP for Finance), and particularly RV that you're damned sick of this waiting with no creative thinking!!!

[UNTLifer]

With today's economic climate, the thought or idea of a big donor or a corporate sponsor dumping millions in to this project is not very realistic.

[Go_UTA]

I've always thought the Great White Donor was a dream...not going to happen.

You guys are gonna have to do things along the lines of what Dallas Green is talking about, and that includes a student fee. The student fee is key, I think. Of course, you can probably pick-up more donations, but those are going to be supplements or icing once the project takes off.

But, your admin is having real, detailed architect plans made. That tells me they are serious. If they are doing that, I wouldn't lambast them too hard: the project IS moving forward.

[Go_UTA]

The only thing I don't get right now about the admin is why they have delayed with your upcoming new business building.

We both got approval to use tuition revenue bonds in the last legislative session for major buildings: UNT got something like $50 million for what is to be a $60 million business building, UT Arlington got $70 million for what is going to be a $110 engineering research building. So, these bonds were approved at exactly the same time; yet, the engineering building (with a science component) will break ground this summer (08), but it looks like your business building won't get started until around summer 09. And, engineering/science buildings are technically more complicated than something like a business building, e.g., labs, etc.

I don't see why the business building isn't breaking ground this summer. This is the question I would be asking.

Also, with the cost of construction going up, you get a little less one year later. (Granted, you will still endup with a helluva building.)

[DallasGreen]

The only thing I don't get right now about the admin is why they have delayed with your upcoming new business building.

We both got approval to use tuition revenue bonds in the last legislative session for major buildings: UNT got something like $50 million for what is to be a $60 million business building, UT Arlington got $70 million for what is going to be a $110 engineering research building. So, these bonds were approved at exactly the same time; yet, the engineering building (with a science component) will break ground this summer (08), but it looks like your business building won't get started until around summer 09. And, engineering/science buildings are technically more complicated than something like a business building, e.g., labs, etc.

I don't see why the business building isn't breaking ground this summer. This is the question I would be asking.

Also, with the cost of construction going up, you get a little less one year later. (Granted, you will still endup with a helluva building.)

Everything here is ONLY to appease Faculty. You will never get a straight answer from admins or athletics because no one wants to take responsibility for anything.

[UNTflyer]

I don't see why the business building isn't breaking ground this summer. This is the question I would be asking.

Because there is a run-down building currently sitting where the new COBA building will go. It needs to be demolished first. I heard ground will break in the fall.

[UNTFan23]

Because there is a run-down building currently sitting where the new COBA building will go. It needs to be demolished first. I heard ground will break in the fall.

I'm excited for COBA on their new building too. I heard when I was in school that the Chem dept barely beat them out on getting the next new building on campus.