We need to upgrade any and all facilities.
Oh, there’s no question that’s true.
As for the on campus football stadium, don’t get me wrong, we definitely need a smaller on campus stadium to reach our full potential. It’s just that type of project would be so complex and so involved that I think it has to be put on the back burner for now.
We are never going to reach our full potential at Heinz Field. It is just way too big for our needs and it requires transportation to get the student section there.
That’s a dealbreaker right there. There’s no way that can ever work over the long haul.
They need to make going to Pitt football games fun, not a holy day of obligation. Requiring a kid to get on a school bus, go to a game, then wait in line to get on another school bus to come home is not most college kids’ idea of fun — it’s just not.
I would love nothing more than to build a small-ish, intimate college football stadium in a part of Oakland that allows people to get there easily. We could call it the PNC Park or Wrigley Field of college football.
Would that change their behavior? Honestly, I have no idea? Maybe not? However, if you make your venue smaller, that has a real chance to create more energy, which is more fun. Full stadia are fun if you were 20 years old and they are also fun if you’re 10 or 70 years old.
Also, ticket scarcity would change the dynamic entirely. Suddenly, the ticket would have some real value because people would have to commit before the season. It wouldn’t be such a buyers’ market in the scalp game.
As long as we are at Heinz Field, I think we should be resigned to being the type of program we’ve been our entire time at Heinz Field — a mediocre program who’s attendance will be used against it in recruiting.
I just don’t see how we ever break this cycle? I know that upsets people but it’s true — which is probably why it upsets people. I just don’t see how we are ever going to come close to consistently filling up a 68,000 seat stadium? Honestly, the whole proposition seems patently absurd to me.
I am definitely pro OCS. I’m just also realistic enough to know that it’s going to be very difficult to make the case that we should spend that kind of money on it while letting other facilities suffer.
Also, if we are going to build a modern stadium, we have to accompany it with modern infrastructure, so that all of Oakland doesn’t become ensnared in a three hour traffic jam before and after every home Pitt game.
How do we do that? Honestly, I have no clue?However, that’s what planners are for and accounting for that reality must be part of any process or the entire exercise is nothing more than a big waste of time.
There are a lot of people saying we can never do this but those people are wrong. Of course we can do this! However, if you are going to do it, you have to do it right for it to work. That will require a real commitment on the part of a lot of parties that have never shown that kind of commitment to work together on behalf of the University.