Joan Gabel addresses on campus stadium
- Thread starter NatronaHeightsPanther
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I thought I heard a few boos. Definitely no cheers. Hopefully it was cause they're pissed over the Johnson situation.
Lol, no you don't. Okay, let's make Heinz 150K for Taylor Swift concerts and the future Pittsburgh Super Bowl.
Now you size to create demand. There is a reason all the new MLB stadiums are shrinking and college and NFL stadium remodels are lowering seating capacities.
So averaging 45k in a 70k seat stadium is better than having a packed house in an appropriately sized stadium is better?
I just think this whole issue is really a lot of nonsense. It's different for schools that play in pro-towns. It just is. Regardless of what you build, the atmosphere is going to be flat on occasion and the house is going to have some no shows.
Heinz/Acrisure has produced some environments that can rival almost any in college football on occasion. If the Panthers are playing well, even the 40K crowds can be fairly rowdy. I think it really works well for Pitt and it's by far the most practical.
Pitt's student section has gotten better and better. It makes a difference for the atmosphere. I just posted in the other thread, if you get all the students in the lower bowl, it would just amp up the atmosphere that much more and make it tougher on the opponents.
There were a lot of people sitting in the upper level student sections today, and seemingly very few of them in the 200 level student sections. Which seemed really odd to me.
Edited to ask, are those 200 level seats no longer student seats? Maybe that's why it looked that way?
Most people in my section booed her and yes it certainly was about the DJ situation. But I guess I'm just making stories up. Other sections may have other reasons for booing but the consensus in our section was about DJ. H2P
It is and has always been a question of, is this a good use of the better part of $500 million or so of the university’s money. The answer is and has always been, are you out of your F’in mind?
I thought the same yesterday, because it seemed like a crying shame to waste 3+ full sections of students up top, but then I thought I would probably need to see that happen a little more consistently before I made any wholesale changes. I'd hate to designate more of the lower bowl to them only to see them revert to old habits.
Don't know what Lyke, or whomever, is doing to get them showing up as they are now, but it's been fantastic. As was the idea to put them directly behind the goal posts. That used to be our section, but they moved us up to the 200 level, which is fine by me. The students are almost part of the experience, whereas we're just watching it.
Yeah, but spending half that for a volleyball (etc.) arena is like saying a $300k house is too much money and then buying a $120k car and continuing to rent. We're officially hood rich.
When has rationality had anything to do with the economics of div. 1 FB? 99% of div 1 teams have their own stadium. That’s the bottom line. You can compete completely or compete with one arm tied behind your back. The current stadium situation is a liability…the atmosphere and size of the stadium are used as negative recruiting tools. And with the strong possibility of future conference reconfiguration, can Pitt afford to be seen as an outlier as regards it’s commitment to big time FB?
Then move down to FCS. No shame in that. If Pitt wants to be in a major conference, they'll need a 55K stadium, even if they don't use all of those seats every week.
In any case, there won't be a new stadium. We're at Acrisure as long as Acrisure is standing.
TCU's 47,000-seat stadium didn't seem to prohibit them from being successful last season.
I don't get this obsession with refusing to concede what our average crowd size actually is.
I get it. But it doesn't matter if our average crowd size is 35K or 40K. We're going to be at Acrisure for at least as long as Acrisure is standing. It makes the most sense.
Maybe. But what doesn't make sense is to leave a stadium seating 68 and build one at 55. People were saying Heinz was too big when it was 65; only knocking off 10k is pissing in the ocean.
It was pretty consistent last year and you don’t have to go all in at once. Add two or three more sections in the lower bowl. There aren’t as many seats there and it’ll pack the entire corner on the visitor’s side. They handful of season ticket holders who show up will fill in the sidelines or south end zone corner better as well. You can still have spillover in the upper deck as the students continue to prove they’ll show up in huge numbers.
Looking to the future, Pitt athletics HAS to capitalize on the current student interest into future season ticket sales.
They literally don’t though. A lot of teams are fine under 50,000. It isn’t happening anyway so it doesn’t matter.
Well then most people in your section are stupid because she had zero to do with it. The only boos I heard were from the student section and they weren't booing because of basketball.
She had zero to do with it? Who made the decision if you are "in the know" and why was the decision carried out 10 months later?
Because of things at Minnesota painted her to be perceived as...e.g. labor unfriendly. It has been fueled to apply pressure by current labor movements at Pitt through various sympathetic student organizations.
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Yeah, there are about 10 different threads on this site alone about it. It falls under the university's federally mandated Title IX policy which covers sexual misconduct that includes domestic violence and results in formal inquiries and judicial hearing process as well as allowing for appeals with a university review board. The new Chancellor had only taken office on July 17th. Had nothing to do with the process which had been in motion for months.
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Be careful. As soon as you start mentioning anything political or not related to sports, your post gets deleted or the entire thread gets deleted. But I get what you're saying Paco, and agree. It's too bad the student organizations aren't very smart about any of this.
It’s not the decision that’s really in question. It’s the preposterous lateness in reaching it. Forget the superficial nature of fans who are ticked from it, or even the team and coach … the inexcusable delay no doubt caused major pain to the victim and family (who quite understandably probably assumed this whole past year, as DJ happily participated with the team, including free junket to Europe, etc., that she’d been given the James Franklin treatment by Pitt).
All big, administratively clumsy schools (and companies, government, etc etc) make mistakes … but have to hand it Pitt, it can royally F things up sometimes…this could be considered technically a ‘good’ decision but the nature of it screwed absolutely everyone involved. Embarrassing.
Yeah but she only started in mid July... and probably took some time to become aware of it. Why didn't Gallagher boot him beforehand?
That’s fair to note. The error/blame with the process in this case likely belong with the Transition team between Gallagher and JG.
The bigger issue is that it’s been clear through our history that there are varies degrees of disinterest, disconnect and outright contempt between Pitt leadership and its revenue sports that have severely damaged both the sports and the university itself (loss of prestige, revenue, donations etc) as a result. And just when you think they are starting to finally get it, something egregious like this arises.
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I don't disagree, but I'm not sure that was happening here. It seems like they are going a good job all around in supporting athletics and the coaches, with exception of not committing to an on campus stadium.
Indeed, they did seem to be, as I mentioned previously. Until this stupid situation.
98% of all colleges play football on-campus. Wonder why that is????
Even Duquesne, located in the city of Pittsburgh, has an on-campus stadium.
How can a school with Pitt's football tradition and NINE national championships not have its own on-campus stadium? It screams small-time.
We rent the same stadium as the Pittsburgh Steelers!
Most NFL teams rent their stadium!
No shame in renting and it really is only 4 miles off campus! I would love an on campus stadium but there really is no room unless we extend the campus which is unlikely.
I would be much more in favor of extending the T underground to Oakland!
Most NFL teams rent their stadium!
No shame in renting and it really is only 4 miles off campus! I would love an on campus stadium but there really is no room unless we extend the campus which is unlikely.
I would be much more in favor of extending the T underground to Oakland!
