Should LE stadium be expanded and if so to what size (attendance wise)? If not - why not? I would like to add 20,000 more seats. I think there is a large enough BYU fan base within 100 miles of the stadium to support it. It could become one of the top 20 college stadiums in the nation.

Here are two pictures of the proposed expansions:

stadium update: Today i noticed a huge new wall in the southwest side and went to investigate, they are building a large room/offices for the band...sad day for me.

As far as expansion goes, people in the late 70s and early 80s thought that expansion was a joke. They doubled the size, i think that asking an extra 15,000-20,000 wouldn't be too much to ask for. However, I guess it'd be most likely to get a 2nd deck on the east side then make the stadium a bowl...too bad because that'd be awesome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_football_stadiums_by_capacity

Above is a link to a site that gives stadium size (number of seats) in descending order. Most of the top college teams play in large stadiums and to large crowds (80,000 plus). For example: Penn St. (107,000+), Michigan (106,000+), Ohio St(102,000+), Tenn (102,000+), Georga (93,000+), LSU (92,000), Alabama (92,000+), UCLA 91,000+), Florida (89,000+), Auburn (87,000), Texas (85,000), Nebraska (85,000+), Oklahoma (82,000), Clemson (80,000).

If BYU wants to considered among the top 20 teams in the nation then we should have a stadium at least equal to their average stadium capacity (around 85,000)

Eventually at some point I think it will be expanded, but I don't know what the factors are to make that happen. We're just finally back to selling out all the games after dipping down for a number of years, so I don't know if you can say that we're at that point of need. It would be better to do expansion now if it's ever going to happen because it's only going to get more expensive.

I know that they have had quite the increase in Cougar Club memberships because of the treatening letter they sent out to those of us who weren't in the CC that we could be forced into the end zones if we didn't capitulate and that worked on me because I don't want to go to the end zone.

One of the issues I see too is that LES, unlike a lot of stadiums its size, doesn't, besides Stadium of Fire, seem to be able to attract other resources of revenue. The stadium basically sits empty most of the year. Most facilities that size in a market like this would be able to offset some costs by making additional funds on other events. Everything in Utah seems to go to RES period. We don't have any state playoff games, bowl games, professional soccer, etc. to offset the cost of maintaining yet a larger facility. The RES has all of those and was looking to even add a Division 1-A bowl game to even augment that income more.

So I don't know if the money base is there to do it. Besides the cost associated with construction, you would also have an increase in the upkeep costs and unless you were immediately able to fill a large part of that additional seating then I think the bottom line would indicate that its not currantly feasible.

snoscythe wrote:

Here are two pictures of the proposed expansions:

Thank You Sno! My thoughts exactly. +1

Hey, why don't we start a new thread every week about stadium expansion?