How much does the Pitt admin care? How much of their own money are they willing to use? I believe the admin and BOT likes their current location, its their cheapest option.
The MONEY for the New Pitt Stadium
- Thread starter ZetaZetaBeta
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I cant imagine people are driving in from the suburbs to the north shore, paying for parking then taking the T over to downtown. Why wouldn't they just park along a line outside of the city for free? I don't know, im a south hills guy so I have the benefit of T stops all along my route so maybe it's different for people coming in from north or east.. Is a parking lease that much cheaper in north shore than city? I'll be honest, in morning at the north shore stop, I see people getting off the T, not a whole bunch getting on. But I haven't made it a point to research this so maybe you are right.
Even if this is happening, isn't this a positive sign for the usage of public transportation? OK, parking company benefits from it and maybe that was intended but still, that is life.
It is cheaper to park on the North Shore and ride the T over. Downtown parking can be really expensive per month in comparison.
Have they figured out how to eliminate the Park and Ride in the North Hills yet? Hmm.
They didn't need much GOP support....always a 2-1 County commissioners cabal. It's even worse, now with the gerrymandered 15-seat council and Fitzgerald as exec. The real clincher was the southside rental balancing the HF rental....with support from the legislature.
The Northshore lots are cheaper than dahntahn....and the T is free. There isn't ANY real transit from the North or west burbs unless you're in close. Some of the dahntahn garages are over $15/day.....I've paid over $20 in the Steel Bldg.
Rs controlled county government in 1996, the year they nixed the Oakland plan but allowed the North Shore plan to continue. Not hard to figure out who convinced them to do that.
Of course. I even see the point of the Churchy LaFemmes who believe earnestly that winning college sports is immoral. But I guess I don't understand why they hang out so fervently on Pitt SPORTS message boards that ( normally on boards for other schools anyway) you'd think consist, good or bad, of Pitt sports SUPPORTERS. I guess in an odd way I can admire their bizarre commitment to advocacy of our sports mediocrity (or worse). But I just don't get it.
Ok, match me for $1,000,000, of course, that is if you have it....
See my original response.
Hint - hahahahahahahahaha.
What a clown.
It would be like flying in one of those little puddle jumpers where everyone has to sit in a certain seat to equal out the weight.
If Pitt's leaders would of maintained Pitt stadium or rebuilt it, Pitt would had more success in football and they wouldn't get left out when the power programs split off. That's called foresight. Nordy's foresight was basketball. WRONGO! Football drives the money train.
Well, Nordy wasn't there in the mid 70s when the startling leap of success didn't result in stadium refurbishing, or in the early 80s when the fear of the boosters overtook the cowardly lions and self-sanctioning began, and the early 90s with the J. Dennis Reign Of Error.
So fast forward to 1996 (and the couple years thereafter) when these facility opportunities arose; the program is possibly the worst in the country in 96, still pretty sadsack by 99. And the stadium might be the worst in the country, too. Again, the fault of the ghosts of Pitt's past, but very much the reality.
Meanwhile the more successful conference football schools are wild wild west trying to set the stage to be poached by better conferences, leaving the rest in the dust. You or I didn't necessarily know this at the time but no doubt Nordy did, later in the early 00s trying his best to salvage the conference, as we do know now. If Pitt would have ended up in the latter, which thankfully didn't happen but seemed highly possible in the early 00s, football would almost certainly have to be dropped here. It's hard enough for us to attract flies when the theoretical chance of championship exists; imagine our state of interest if we're UConn. Nordy had to anticipate that and was smart enough to know the Heinz solution would leave is with that clean out.
What do you think his viable options were at that point?
I'll certainly agree he made huge mistakes after that, as has his successor. But at that sliver of time I don't think Pitt could have done better.
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Not true. The Pete is used for a lot more than basketball. A Pitt Stadium would be used for football 6 or 7 times a year, maybe some track or soccer...maybe. Then nothing. Very poor use of a resource if a football stadium were there. It's being used much better now, especially given the financial arrangement we now have for using Heinz Field for football.
Look, I don't like Heinz Field and never did. But until someone comes up with a better option, it's all we have. No one has even come close to presenting a viable option to Heinz Field.
That's like saying if you have no money, no job, but buy a house, you will get rich. LOL! Funny thing is that this scenario actually happened with the mortgage brokers not so long ago, then it caused the housing bubble to burst. They don't call them "brokers" for nothing. If we had refurbished old Pitt Stadium and sunk more money into it, all the while getting maybe 30,000/game there, our bubble in the college football world would have burst also.
No stadium is used only 6 or 7 times a year. Soccer, track, lacrosse, practice for all those sports including football, band practice, concerts, and you build it with office and classroom space, conference rooms, shops, weight rooms, meetings are held, etc. Check out Florida State's and Notre Dame's stadiums. They're not just football stadiums used six or seven times a year.
Have you noticed how many schools put money into their old stadiums renovating them: Cincinnati, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Houston, etc., etc. I guess all those academics making that decision aren't as bright as you.
Last year they started the Football Championship Fund with money going exclusively Football.
they have a list of the donors on the school website.. you can put it in and they list all donors and what level they are in. I checked it out to see all the nfl football players we have and how much they donated. I saw Bill Fralic and wife on that list and a bunch of car dealerships.. Not one other football player's name.
I'll assume our abundant volume of current and former NFL millionaires donate to other functions of our athletic dept..
Most of them had their football program well funded before that. They were subsequently enjoying success on field and presumably the box office, which meant that it was reasonable to upgrade their facility.
Pitt had tightly constricted the program itself and it was in death throes. Yes, chalk that up to abysmal leadership for sure. But it also meant it was suicidal on two fronts to throw a ton of money to renovate Pitt stadium (or build a whole new Pitt- owned stadium).
One, it was a zero sum position. The money put in would leave even less money to spend on the program... coaches, recruiting, payola. Pitt had already dried up that to near nothing as it was.
So with even less to spend on the team, it would suck even more than it did at that time.
Which means (after the initial curiosity to see the renovations), the stadium would have been even emptier than it was before. Because no matter how nice or if on campus or off, nobody goes to see a team that sucks. Don't believe me, check the crowds at our basketball games last year and for the foreseeable future. The Pete is no less nice a facility now as the last decade and it is ON CAMPUS, but crowds recently have stunk... with likelihood of near emptiness this coming year.
Again, yes, the abysmal Pitt administrators bear heavy blame for their awful management of football (and now basketball). Bunches of pansies that should be heaved off the top of Cathy. Including the present group, for killing a top 10 hoops program.
But in the sliver of time that all the facility activity was in swing in the late 90s, they made the smartest ... really only ... decision they could.
It's not zero sum. It's a mistake to assume that X dollars towards the stadium is X less to the football program. Else, every single program that puts money into their stadium before fully funding and endowing their football program is making a mistake.
Please. Let's have any ounce of reality. It's simply delusional to think it would have been anything but the case. They spend squat as it is. Add the principal and interest and maintenance on an upgraded stadium? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Look I'd love if Pitt had been smart enough to capitalize on football's improbable 70s success and had kept and increased their success in the early 80s, and invested in facility upgrades when they should have. But they didn't. And it became too late.
I frankly think Cincy upgrading their stadium is a rather dubious decision. I hope for their sake that the Big 12 does remain viable and takes them soon. Otherwise I really don't think it was wise.
Pitt spends more than most teams on the schedule. YSU. OK St. GT. Rice. NC State and Virginia. We spend about identical to Cuse, NC and Duke. We spend less than PSU, Miami, Virginia Tech. We also spend more than BC and Wake Forest, and the same as Louisville. Those teams have their own stadiums (except for Miami) and yet many of them have yearly football expenses less than or the same as Pitt. How can that be?
We make less money on ticket sales and concessions (we get a small piece of each) and we pay rent to the Steelers. It's not our stadium but we don't play for free.
Actually, we pay rent to the Pittsburgh Sports Authority, not the Steelers.
Other than a 10-year run for football and a similar 10-year run in hoops, Pitt Athletics has been abysmal for the past 75 years.
On top of that.....The non-revenue sports at Pitt across-the-board flat-out suck and very rarely have winning seasons let alone win championships
But Pitt makes up for these deficiencies with a donor base that is a national embarrassment and complete laughing stock.
And yet, some people on this board think we can pull the funding together to build an on-campus Stadium. Or better yet, that the will to do such a project would actually be there.
Here's a News Bulletin. If the Pitt campus was more level with a couple hundred acres available for development......
The Pitt Administration would build everything BUT an on-campus Stadium.
It's how we roll........
On top of that.....The non-revenue sports at Pitt across-the-board flat-out suck and very rarely have winning seasons let alone win championships
But Pitt makes up for these deficiencies with a donor base that is a national embarrassment and complete laughing stock.
And yet, some people on this board think we can pull the funding together to build an on-campus Stadium. Or better yet, that the will to do such a project would actually be there.
Here's a News Bulletin. If the Pitt campus was more level with a couple hundred acres available for development......
The Pitt Administration would build everything BUT an on-campus Stadium.
It's how we roll........
