DuckSouth.com

Thats interesting.

There's somewhat of a debate about that very same thing here. The ratio of GA seats to equal Lux box revenue ratio is incredible. Plus the Lux Box revenue is a bird in hand kinda thing, upfront, paid in full. The plans call for extending the lux boxs all the way down the foul lines, this would displace bleachers that seat above the chairbacks. The uA admits some GA seats would be lost but that more chairbacks would be added underneath the boxs plus the boxs would have the two rows of seat like the existing ones, creating a two deck feel. The UA has not forgotten the Ga folks though. They want to add lots of infill behind the left field wall and add 10 t0 15 rows of Wrigleylike bleachers. hThis would also expand the size of the picnic area by nearly double. Whatever they do will be done right by HOK, They want to get total in park attendence to the 12,000 to 13,000 range for major games. Interestingly enough the baseball team turned a profit last year and looks to do even better this year. I believe that only five programs pulled that off last year, however, the main revenue still comes from football and there was only 4 games in FAyettenam last year, I hear they got big plans for things after this year with six games and the added millions they rake in. If Base ball sustains itself and interest continues to grow, which its seems to be doing because of the cheapness of it all compared to football and basketball tix, they want to add a upper deck behind home plate topped with even more lux boxes in 5 to 6 years. They are under building the waiting list for boxes this time around to maintain demand. When they hired Van Horn they promised him that no one in the SEC would ever have better facilities, hes building on his part too and is by far the most popular coach on the hill due to his brutal honesty with the media, that now is starting to cover the baseball team like the basketball team. Thats why every two years somethings gets done to Baum. To stay the Jones in terms of ballparks

To give an exanple of that, he never beat around the bush about the acting job of Walker, he straight up and said without hesitation that he had instructed all players to play up the fact that they got hit with the ball, key work is actually "getting hit", though.

Overall, I think its great for the SEC. I think it rivals aa and even aaa minor league ball and it seems like they have more to play for in the end too, its like the college football vs. pro football debate.

If, and i mean if, the Hogs are succesfull at football this year, look for the Football stadium to go to 82,000 by the time Texas comes to town in 09. Theres whispers of Ok after that for a home and home along with the Texas Tech series. Word is they want to keep a Big 12 opponent on the schedule, preferable a Texas School.

sorry for the rambling.

WE still own Tigger High a gmae, guess they'll keep waiting.

here's the issue with us and expansion.... Noone seems to be coming up with a happy medium, other than me... the problem with making Swayze a 7500 seat chairback stadium is that we won't fill it up.... our average attendence is just over 4k, 1/3 of which generally sits in the outfield areas. The current grandstands seat around 3600, which isn't small by national standards, however, by SEC standards is about middle of the pack. The proposed expansion adds no more GA seating, but does add, about 1200 seats in box and club seating. The thinking is that the 1200 will come largely from current season ticket holders, thus opening up 1000 seats in the grandstands. This does not include an additional 2000 seats that will be created by joining the left and right field terraced areas. so total capacity would be roughly 7000, however, the outfield areas can hold more than the given # for them. The issue is that the proposed expansion limits our ability to add more GA or "normal" seating in the future should we need to. No doubt, the expansion will make it rival many parks in "niceness", and if we put 7k in the stands and outfield per game, it will certainly be nothing to scoff at. The areas b/w the club seating and box seating down the lines are going to have concessions and restroom facilities, and an enclosed bullpen on both sides, along with a "party deck" or whatever you want to call it, on each end, with a walkway extending to the outfield terraced areas. My proposal is to add about 1000 seats to each side where the restroom/concession facilities are on the initial drawing, and just push those facilities down to the corner a little bit farther.... That would put seating capacity not including outfield around 6500-7500, which is plenty big enough for us for now, and should appease those wanting more seating, yet it won't have the feel of a wide open stadium with noone in it for games that we don't sell out. One other thing to add to the equation is that this year we sold exactly the # of season tix as we have seats in the grandstand if i'm not mistaken.....

one thing i forgot to mention, how sick is this and would this have ever been thought of in 1990.... after our expansion, there won't be a park in the SEC west that seats less than 4000 ( i use this # b/c i'm not positive on alabama and auburns capacity, but am pretty sure it's greater than 4k). I don't know of any other division in the country that can say that.... You'll have LSU's new stadium over 7500, baum over 7500, state over 7500, we won't be far behind, and again, don't have hte #'s on auburn and bama. Keep in mind that those 1st 3, after LSU's new stadium is completed and baum is completed, will hold well over 7500...