His post answered Paco's question, but Paco has an agenda, of course.
20 minutes to game time and probably less than 10k here
- Thread starter H2P 2003
- Start date
His post answered Paco's question, but Paco has an agenda, of course.
Of course not. However, your rent number doesn't include built in ticket surcharges that are paid to the SEA. They also get shortchanged on revenue opportunities to go along with the "low rent" they pay. Not an apples to apple comparison.
If Pitt had actually had the money in the 90s to renovate Pitt Stadium to modern standards, it wouldn't have contained a track. In any case, Pitt Stadium didn't have 8 lanes, nor throwing fields, so the T&F program actually needed a new facility anyway. They certainly weren't going to widen the track at Pitt Stadium or let them throw Jav and disc there. Plus there is no comparable expense because T&F still doesn't have a facility.
For soccer, the Big East passed a rule that would have forced soccer out of Pitt Stadium the year after it was torn down. Soccer would almost certainly still not be able to play on Pitt Stadium due to the differences in turf and how Pitt Stadium's field was crowned. You certainly don't see other athletic programs or intramurals sharing football stadium usage at other power conference universities.
Pitt didn't make money catering. It is not in the catering business and hasn't catered its own events in over 30 years. I'm not sure it made more money with Parking either, considering private companies and UPMC have rights to, and own, several garages in Oakland, and Pitt pays Alcoa to run its own campus garages not unlike it is paying Alcoa and SEA now for Heinz spaces on Saturdays. Considering it was selling a lot less parking spots for football in Oakland than on the North Shore, and there were a lot more private spots in Oakland outside of university control, and tailgating was a lot worse, I'm going to guess parking is a push, at best, and probably was worse in Oakland as far as revenue. Concessions, I have no idea because concessions were terrible at Pitt Stadium, so who knows what could have been with upgrades to those.
I really don't know how you feel comfortable with your statements at all. None of them are based on any fact, only your opinion, and I understand the emotional attachment to campus for alumni, including myself, but that is all that is left.
As you know, Pitt is not playing on campus again. Ever. And Pitt's campus is unlike nearly any other Division 1 playing football schools, and certainly unlike any other power conference school. The arguments ended 20 years ago, and the fans and boosters weren't collectively concerned or monied enough to keep the stadium around. So the endless pining about on-campus football is both fruitless and counterproductive, and typically, fueled by nostalgia and devoid of logic.
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No school has the money to do anything above or beyond what is budgeted. Going beyond a normal budget requires, vision, inspiration, aspiration and the will to raise the money [or borrow it] in order to be great. Stay tuned, as new leadership in athletics [and at the University as a whole] has some truly remarkable aspirations and visions...which will make the Pitt Stadium renovation look like child's play. While it may be true that football will never be on campus [although if the present leadership team stays and is successful in soon to be announced plans], I actually would not rule it out 100%.
I never said Pitt ran its own catering operations. However, that does not mean that there is not revenue associated with catering that is done on campus [not to mention parking, concessions, and souvenirs]. It is easy to point out the shortcomings of Pitt Stadium--they were obvious. But you neglected to account for all the expenses Pitt has incurred in providing alternative venues for the sports that called Pitt Stadium home. Tisk, tisk. By the way, Pitt incurs significant insurance expenses for transporting its students all over the city in addition to significant transport costs. Soccer still plays on artificial turf [for the short term at least], there is still no real track and field venue and the Fieldhouse is an ancient relic that makes me wonder how Pitt is able to recruit and maintain any Olympic teams housed there [which happens to be about 87% of Olympic sport athletes.
The good news is, well, stay tuned... While Pitt will struggle to attempt to rectify the mistake of going off campus for at least another decade+, I do see some hopeful signs that the potential of Pitt athletics is as strong as perhaps ever in my life time. Hail to Pitt!
I never said Pitt ran its own catering operations. However, that does not mean that there is not revenue associated with catering that is done on campus [not to mention parking, concessions, and souvenirs]. It is easy to point out the shortcomings of Pitt Stadium--they were obvious. But you neglected to account for all the expenses Pitt has incurred in providing alternative venues for the sports that called Pitt Stadium home. Tisk, tisk. By the way, Pitt incurs significant insurance expenses for transporting its students all over the city in addition to significant transport costs. Soccer still plays on artificial turf [for the short term at least], there is still no real track and field venue and the Fieldhouse is an ancient relic that makes me wonder how Pitt is able to recruit and maintain any Olympic teams housed there [which happens to be about 87% of Olympic sport athletes.
The good news is, well, stay tuned... While Pitt will struggle to attempt to rectify the mistake of going off campus for at least another decade+, I do see some hopeful signs that the potential of Pitt athletics is as strong as perhaps ever in my life time. Hail to Pitt!
I'm not writing an essay for collage credit , but tanks for the advice !
There is no comparing the fan support of teams in the Big 10 vs ACC in Fb . Three schools average over 100,000 home attendance then there's Nebraska with 90k . Three more B10 schools average over 70k . The ACC has Clemson at 80k and FSU with 72k .
You get what your willing to pay for and the only way Pitt will ever get anyone whose a proven HC and a winner is to overpay . Fb isn't that important to those that matter for Pitt to be anything better than a slightly above a .500 program unless they weaken the schedule enough . It is what it is ...disappointing and that's why they play to a lot of yellow seats .
Hope you are right and it comes to fruition! Donors need to step up.
LOL at your tsk tsks completely ignoring that soccer and T&F wouldn't have been able to stay at the Stadium anyway, and pretending that somehow the costs of providing venues for them increases more in one scenario even though the outcome for them is the exactly same...well assuming Pitt would have still been able to build the PSC if it was also fundraising for stadium renovations and a convocation center. By the way, the university's contract with Lenzner is a single all-expense included rate applicable for all university transportation services, including the year round operation of 16 hour a day campus shuttles and all academic and athletic on and off-campus transportation. Six half-Saturdays a year of student school bus shuttles is a drop in the bucket of the total $4+ million a year overall contract to run all of Pitt's shuttle and motorcoach transportation needs. Large chunks of that are paid for by student transportation fees and the Heinz shuttles aren't actually budgeted out of the athletic department, so your prior suggestion that transportation to Heinz is some big expense on the Athletic Department is not valid. And you also know that Pitt does not make significant revenues on special events, and has to pay caterers on-campus or off, and most premier events are held on-campus anyway. But then you've shown that you are still hanging on to some unrealistic pipedream to turn the clock back 20 years. Everyone needs to get over it and move forward. If some surprise Tepper-like individual wants to step up and put $100s of millions into it, great, then it is worth discussing, but even then it still wouldn't likely be contiguous to the current campus footprint. If it was at all feasible under any realistic scenario, financially, logistically, or in terms of obtaining the necessary accompanying infrastructure upgrades, it would be in the forthcoming upper-campus plans. And it is not.
The good news is that we agree that Lyke seemingly has a vision, personality, and energy for bringing the antiquated and inadequate upper-campus facilities up to par with our desired athletic peers. The other good news is she has ACC money thanks to her predecessors, and the university is in a completely different place financially compared to where it was in 1998. The bad news is the existing money goes only so far, and she has to fund raise with the same, small group of boosters that are often are more interested in lamenting about the impracticable. I wish her the best, because she has a very difficult task ahead, and I only hope she doesn't end up being a Debbie Yow. She'll go down as legend if she accomplishes half of her goals.
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The stadium situation and limitations in and around are impossible even with money. It's too bad things didn't evolve better, but they didn't. By the late 90s the program was closer to being shut down than one that justified 8 or more figures of renovation to the old stadium. Blame all who came before for not keeping the place up, but as usual, the athletic regime in the late 70s and early 80s deserves the most; they botched everything they touched (or didn't touch, in the case of the stadium).
However, the traffic and parking and lack of modern public transportation to Oakland is really what was and is the death knell for a stadium there. That goes beyond Pitt's blame. That's the city, county and state. It's the bigger sin that in 2018, car or slow smelly buses are still the only way to get there and out.
So if Pitt had the (idyllic for some, distasteful to many) cow pasture campus then yea, a campus stadium is desired. With the alternate situation Pitt had then and still has (actually worse now), for the great majority and I might even argue for all, the current is far better. Note I'm not saying better means great; just better.
However, the traffic and parking and lack of modern public transportation to Oakland is really what was and is the death knell for a stadium there. That goes beyond Pitt's blame. That's the city, county and state. It's the bigger sin that in 2018, car or slow smelly buses are still the only way to get there and out.
So if Pitt had the (idyllic for some, distasteful to many) cow pasture campus then yea, a campus stadium is desired. With the alternate situation Pitt had then and still has (actually worse now), for the great majority and I might even argue for all, the current is far better. Note I'm not saying better means great; just better.
Unless Pitt moves their entire campus to some very large, empty field somewhere in Butler or Washington county, there will be no on-campus stadium in Oakland for Pitt football. There isn't room for one, the parking and logistics are a nightmare, and more importantly, it can't be financially justified in any shape or form. Ever. Even attendance at a Pitt on-campus stadium would average in the 35,000 - 40,000 range. Nothing will change and we've proven that as a fanbase. Look at attendance in the mid-70's into the early 80's when we were last more than a mediocre to poor football program. What makes anyone think that will change if we get another on-campus stadium???? It won't.
The truth is Paco has no idea how much it would cost to have a stadium on campus because he has no idea how much Pitt would have been able to fundraise and what the debt service would have been. Which, but the way, we would be on around year 18 by now.
Why can't some people get it through their thick heads that an on-campus stadium isn't going to happen in any of our lifetimes? There are higher priorities and this is just a very stupid idea in all respects. Get over it and move on, please!
It'd be worse because football already struggles to compete financially, without a stadium upkeep and mortgage.
We already recruit poorly at least partially due to not having money to throw at it, which includes daily activity but hiring top notch recruiting specialist/assistants and exclusive dorm palaces for athletes and other 'amenities', all at least as critical to recruits as being able to walk em through "your" stadium for 10 minutes on a trip (before hustling em off to Cheerleaders for "dinner" or whatever).
But it goes beyond the funding, even if funding was secured, there... just...is...no... where... for...it. And no way to get 50000 in and out of there. It's barely feasible in the NS where tons of roadways go in and out, and at least a little parking has been kept available.
Of course that is correct, nobody, not even Paco knows...because the leadership at the time was too afraid to even try. They obviously totally mis-judged their ability to fund raise, as the very successful capital campaign that started shortly there after exceeded their initial goals by several multiples at 2.1 billion+ proved. Of course that totally ignores the ability to offer debt to pay for a portion of what was needed. Anyone with half a brain knows now, and should have known then, that it is/was a mistake to move off campus. The Pete should have either been built on the OC lot location where plans had been made, or on the Fitzgerald Fieldhouse site. Of course that ship sailed. Will be interesting to see what can be accomplished by leadership with guts, vision and determination. Hail to Pitt!
LOL, too afraid? I know that you know they tried to initiate fundraising for the stadium and convocation center multiple times and failed miserably, which is one of the direct reasons Pitt was stuck with O'Conners terrible facility deal with the state. Don't conflate raising funds for the athletic department in the 80s and 90s with the 2000s capital campaign, which compared to peer schools, was not the rollicking success that you are trying to paint it as. The amounts kept raising because the public phase lasted over 12 years, and it was very pedestrian, considering the stature of the university, its medical endeavors, and that fact that it raised only $2 billion over that extremely extended time. Sure it was a success based on Pitt's own fundraising history, but some peers were raising twice that in half the time. If Pitt had waited for some capital campaign miracle to improve athletics, it is very likely our annual games would be with Temple and ECU. And to suggest Pitt take on the debt service to fund these facility projects on its own in the late 1990s, knowing where the university was then financially, is also disingenuous.
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I agree. I laugh at those who still insist on pushing this on-campus stadium stuff at everyone like it's even a remote possibility. It doesn't matter who the leaders are, an on-campus stadium at Pitt is not going to happen. Probably ever, and for many of the reasons you gave. Just higher priorities to tend to financially at Pitt, and there is no feasibility in any realm that says an on-campus stadium can ever happen. Unless you believe in fairy tales.
Failed? Well when you pull the plug after barely beginning [Second Century Fund]...I guess you can chalk that up as failure of constitution. Pitt has actually historically rarely tried to raise money for capital projects, be it for academic or athletic purposes. While you say 80's and 90's, that is grossly disingenuous, since the decision to kill the stadium was made in 1999. Pitt had and maintains a pretty stellar bond rating since the 90's. If you have evidence that contradicts, please do tell. There is not a single intelligent AD or person involved in inter-collegiate athletics that thinks playing their games [be it football, basketball or otherwise] off campus is a good situation. You are right, Pitt is stuck without a football facility that is ideal for the program, for many more years. I have not missed a game at Heinz since the doors opened, and do everything in my power to assist athletics. Will be very interested in your reaction to the announcements that will be forthcoming for athletic facilities. Hail to Pitt!
Not really pushing an on campus football facility [although it would be great in so many ways were it ever to come to fruition]. As for laughing, that would be me at people who do not have the honesty to concede that playing off campus is far from ideal and ultimately not in the long term best interests of the program and University. Hail to Pitt!
I personally think the vast majority of people would agree that playing in a right sized on campus stadium would be 1000Xs better than the current situation.
But I also think that people need to realize that that scenario isn't going to happen anytime in the near future unless some miracle happens.
PS - do you have some inside info on the future athletic plan announcements, or are you just basing it off of the Victory Heights initiative? I know you have some connections. Just wanted to know if you have more than what Heather has publically talked to. Not asking for details, just wondering.
Yes. But unfortunately I am not permitted to disclose anything until Pitt does so. The plans and ambition are very exciting. It is nice to see Pitt striving to be better [and not saying "oh woe is me, we have never done this so it cannot be done". If you have a chance next time you are in the Pete, take a look at Pitt's new ACC Network facilities [some of which are visible from the lobby]. I'm no broadcasting expert, but I am told they are the best among ACC football playing schools [and that includes a school that has a national reputation for broadcasting--Syracuse]. My eyes were buying it! Expect excellence. Hail to Pitt!
Conjunto's posts are pretty entertaining.
I wonder how the waves have been in Nicaragua or wherever.
That's poppycock, there is room. People who think there is no room only see things for what they are, not what they can become.
Yes, multiple failed attempts at substantial fundraising for facilities for 15 years prior to 1998. Both for Pitt Stadium and the convocation center, and I wasn't even thinking of the Second Century Fund, which was essentially a piecemeal approach because they couldn't raise the less than $20 million to cover the entire 8 phase project. It didn't even address some of the major aspects like club boxes, seat backs, press boxes, concessions, structural remediation, etc. The plug was pulled when most of the project became obsolete when the decision was made to move football operations to the UPMC SPC, which it needed to do. There were several fundraising attempts that never got out of the silent phase. If you can't get your biggest supporters on board, it is doomed.
As you said, the decision to kill the stadium was in 1998, not 2008. You also can't retroactively apply the financial situation in the 2000s to the situation in the 1990s. Moody didn't assign an A1 rating to Pitt until 1997. That's not great for a university like Pitt. It didn't climb to its current Aa1 rating until 2013. You don't get to issue bonds that would have had to have been issued in the 90s based on 2000s bond rating upgrades, which is besides the point of the university's actual situation in the 1990s when it was generating about 40% of the revenue that it is now and was on the end of 8 straight years of enrollment declines. Think about how different that is than the current environment of the university. You can't be in the situation during the 90s with unfilled beds, unflattering accreditation reports, crumbling infrastructure and continuously delayed repair projects, downward trending metrics, and money bleeding not just from football, but academic programs as well, and then look at a couple hundred million in athletic facilities and conclude that is a prudent way to proceed with your resources when you can't even afford to fix your library and you are trying to pull the entire institution out of a rut, not to mention having much more fiscally reasonable alternatives on the table to solve the same issues. The entire reason that administration was able to institutionally accomplish what they did in the 2000s was because they went fiscally conservative by not taking on large amounts of debt, paying down existing debt, and trimming programs and employees. You can't armchair quarterback the financial situation under which these decisions were made back then just because you know the next decade was one of stellar growth. Was it the right decision? Financially, absolutely. You can't make these decisions based on emotions or nostalgia. Would it have been better if Pitt in 1998 was financially where it is today so that it could afford projects like renovating Pitt Stadium and financing its own convocation center on the OC lot? Absolutely, but that wasn't reality in 1998, and you know it, or at least you should know it.
I'm looking forward to Pitt's new capital campaign, both for athletics and the university as a whole. The Victory Heights plan is going to be great if the fundraising works, which is my biggest concern. I know you have been a very loyal supporter to Pitt athletics and have stepped up with commitments even when you've disliked and disagreed with the people in charge. No one can ever criticize your commitment to the university. We just disagree on the realistic alternatives that the university leadership faced in 1998. As far as arm chair quarterbacking, I look at the conference time bomb then went off a decade later and think the stadium decision was likely the right decision at that time so the department could move forward when the expansion shoe dropped, even though my personal preference, now and then, would be to have Pitt Stadium there. And I absolutely don't think an off-campus football venue is in impediment to a successful program or university, even if my nostalgia and emotion prefer the other.
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I am not convinced that the athletic fundraising cannot be done now, or back in 1998/99 when the decision was made. Nobody can say for sure? And an A1 rating in '97 meant Pitt would have certainly been able to obtain favorable terms to float bonds to pay for what it was not able to raise [had it pursued the project]. One of the biggest problems Pitt athletics had at this point was an AD that thought he knew more than everyone, and had next to ZERO experience fundraising, and a Chancellor that was gun shy about football expenditures, and a personal preference for basketball. First step is to get done what is also long overdue with the upcoming athletic facilities for the non-football sports, then we shall see about a badly needed football venue that is constructed for Pitt [not an NFL team]. You can almost be certain the Steelers will be crying poor for a new stadium by the time Pitt's long term lease is about to expire. Where that replacement stadium is constructed...may very well tell the tale. By the way, my wish to be on campus has little to do with nostalgia [especially since the stadium where I have/had nostalgic moments no longer exists], it has to do with common sense [and what nearly every P5 football playing school has]. Hail to Pitt!
Conjunto's posts are pretty entertaining.
I wonder how the waves have been in Nicaragua or wherever.
Yeah, I haven't seen him on here for quite a long time. I wonder where he is!
So you're saying we have room for large highways in and out of Oakland, large parking lots that have easy access to the new stadium, and easy entry and exit avenues from the stadium? And that isn't even taking into account what land will be needed for the stadium itself!!! What buildings are you planning on tearing down to make room for all of this?
Look, I'd love an on-campus stadium. I'm sure most Pitt fans would love one. But IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE NEXT 100 YEARS, AT LEAST!! Playing at a crappy NFL venue is definitely not ideal. But that's what we have because it is not possible in any way to build an on-campus stadium. I don't know how this is not understood.
We're just going to have to disagree on some of those points. Your common sense for the rest of the P5 doesn't matter at all for Pitt, because it is completely unlike every other P5 playing school. There is no other P5 university that is construed in such an urban, street-gridded environment, with so many schools and people condensed on to so few acres, and which has another more-than-viable venue within a five mile radius. Grass is greener syndrome then if not nostalgia.
If the situation changes significantly with Heinz, then there is something to discuss. Until then it is all presumptuous hypotheticals. In the mean time, railing on this topic continues to be counterproductive to everything that is trying to be accomplished in the football program and athletic department. There's a lot praises to be sung about our current facilities and it is foolish to play into the hands of rivals.
I do think Lyke is better suited for athletic fundraising than perhaps any others in modern times, and has a better personality for it, she'll also have a larger staff to help. But it is a big task to raise this for Olympic sports in a sports community that often gives the high profile ones a shrug of the shoulders.
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Exactly. It's understandable that there are those that won't/can't go to games for reasons of their own.
But for those same people to freeload and then make posts complaining about Pitt attendance (some even mocking and ridiculing Pitt about attendance) is the HEIGHT of hypocrisy. Because when it comes to attendance at Pitt home games, those posters are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
Which these threads and posts precisely do.
Wish they'd stop and consider they're doing the heavy lifting for the likes of Cook, Junker, fatass Maddon, and the other d-bags at the PG and Fan.
Of course it must be recognized that is exactly the intent of some of these posts.
I didn't say anything about large highways or parking lots. But since you bring it up, do they have both of those things at UVA, UNC, VT, Clemson?
They own most of the hill, and in 12 years when the the HF lease runs out, the fieldhouse will 80 years old, Trees almost 70, the Cost Center 40 years old, and Peterson Sports Complex 20 years old. There's also the OC lot, Towerview Garage and all the fields behind them. Plenty of possibilities to reconfigure and do whatever you want if you have the money.
Money is the only impediment. Traffic,space, parking, are all excuses. There was a football stadium there already.
State university with substantially more space.
Though tailgating is rather limited in chapel hill near the stadium.
The majority of people tailgate in lots way off campus and shuttle in.
How’s that for irony?
