ODU Will Spend $55M on 22K Seat Stadium

Cerebus · June 10, 2016

PO: ODU proposes 22,130-seat football stadium to be built without new student fees

Quote

Old Dominion’s Board of Visitors approved plans Thursday to build a $55 million, 22,130-seat football stadium that likely will open in 2019, and, surprisingly, would be paid for without increasing student fees.

The plan calls for a smaller seating capacity than preliminary estimates and will house just 2,000 more spectators than Foreman Field, the university’s current stadium. A 35,000-seat stadium was proposed four years ago, and with Virginia Tech, Virginia and Wake Forest slated to play in the new stadium, some alumni had called for 25,000 to 30,000 seats.

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“We’re going to have the finest stadium in Conference USA,” athletic director Wood Selig said. “We will be the only program in the league – and one of few in the nation – with all chair-back seating.”

The expansion won’t add any luxury suites – Foreman Field’s 27 luxury suites have been sold out since the school started playing football – but will add 176 loge seats.

Norfolk State and JMU have larger stadiums in FCS.

untjim1995 · June 10, 2016

This seems very F_U--like. Build a smaller stadium and hope to be able to expand it later.

Matt from A700 · June 10, 2016

The rendering still looks like the stadium will hold a lot more people. I like the elevated seating area in the end zone.

Is it safe to say Apogee is currently the nicest stadium in C-USA... can anybody weigh in on that who have been to a few more of the stadiums in the conference? Everyone pushs a UNT-UTSA rivalry, maybe our players will start a scrum with ODU over who has the nicest stadium.

Ben Gooding · June 10, 2016

7 minutes ago, Matt from A700 said:

The rendering still looks like the stadium will hold a lot more people. I like the elevated seating area in the end zone.

Is it safe to say Apogee is currently the nicest stadium in C-USA... can anybody weigh in on that who have been to a few more of the stadiums in the conference? Everyone pushs a UNT-UTSA rivalry, maybe our players will start a scrum with ODU over who has the nicest stadium.

So Miss has a nice place. FAU's a little basketball-ish but it seems nice. I haven't been to that one though.

Edited June 10, 2016 by Ben Gooding

TreeFiddy · June 10, 2016

Nothing says small time like building a new stadium under 25k seating. Glad The decision makers ignored some of those around here that were calling for smaller than 30k

Wag Tag · June 10, 2016

2 hours ago, Cerebus said:

PO: ODU proposes 22,130-seat football stadium to be built without new student fees

Norfolk State and JMU have larger stadiums in FCS.

Wow. Looks like a step backwards.Pitiful. I guess they will sell out when they play Allen HS! It wasn't long ago D1 dictated a mandatory stadium size.

greenjoe · June 10, 2016

Lots of steel and not much brick. I bet the 22K is the seating capacity without the upper deck on the "student" side. I'm not sure it's the nicest, but it might be the smallest.

I like Rice Stadium. It's huge and has hosted a Super Bowl. Of course, it's way too big for Rice so they cover up the end zone seats with a big tarp.

UNTLifer · June 10, 2016

That rendering is confusing. In the first picture, it appears that the fans enter on ground level, but would then have to go up a level to access their seats. It is nice enough looking, but why build that small? Their current stadium looks very small with the renovation "squaring off" the sideline stands and adding upper levels and end zone seating. They are only gaining a few thousand seats for the money being spent.

Aquila_Viridis · June 11, 2016

Yeh but their existing stadium architecture is whack.

Whatever they are doing is better than what we're doing because there is a level of commitment well beyond ours. That could change of course but I gave up hoping for that. I think they are serious about getting in AAC.

TreeFiddy · June 11, 2016

1 minute ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Yeh but their existing stadium architecture is whack.

Whatever they are doing is better than what we're doing because there is a level of commitment well beyond ours. That could change of course but I gave up hoping for that. I think they are serious about getting in AAC.

What makes you say their commitment level is well beyond ours?

Aquila_Viridis · June 11, 2016

Their budget is much more. They have built strong support for basketball over years.

Wag Tag · June 11, 2016

16 minutes ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Yeh but their existing stadium architecture is whack.

Whatever they are doing is better than what we're doing because there is a level of commitment well beyond ours. That could change of course but I gave up hoping for that. I think they are serious about getting in AAC.

Yea , a 22,000 seat stadium proved that? Lol

NorthTexan95 · June 11, 2016

Weird that they are spending so much to accomplish so little. It's as if they are saying they don't expect to grow much at all in the foreseeable future. Seems it would be better to save their money until they have enough to do something bigger.

TreeFiddy · June 11, 2016

ODU's budget is higher, they also sponsor several additional sports than we do. Does anyone recall how much our budget was expected to increase in order to cover baseball?

The biggest thing for us in the short term is likely to just figure out a way to keep our budget at the current level with the expected shortfalls in TV money and increase in COA. By the way, did we ever see any official numbers on our COA? It seems a lot of the schools have been pretty mum on this topic after the initial fanfare.

TIgreen01 · June 11, 2016

Good for them and their fans. Don't get the negativity. It looks nice and is sized for their fan base. I'd rather have a full stadium at 22k than looking at 8k empty seats. A full house, regardless of size adds so much to the atmosphere. Expand later, once you've got serious demand for the extra seats AND have got prices adjusted to match.

Cerebus · June 11, 2016

They have 14000 season ticket holders. They have put in extra temporary seating at their old stadium that raised capacity above this level.

They seem to be leaving money on the table. Also, with interest rates at what they are, it's one of the best times to borro.

UNTexas · June 11, 2016

So, essentially ODU's new stadium isn't competitive with CUSA stadiums nor Collin County Texas High Schools.

NTXCoog · June 11, 2016

18 hours ago, greenjoe said:

I like Rice Stadium. It's huge and has hosted a Super Bowl. Of course, it's way too big for Rice so they cover up the end zone seats with a big tarp.

Rice stadium holds 47k, big, but not the huge 70k that it used to be.

And the end zone tarps don't cover seats. They cover where the seats used to be before they ripped them out because they needed to be condemned.

untjim1995 · June 13, 2016

On ‎6‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 8:53 AM, TIgreen01 said:

Good for them and their fans. Don't get the negativity. It looks nice and is sized for their fan base. I'd rather have a full stadium at 22k than looking at 8k empty seats. A full house, regardless of size adds so much to the atmosphere. Expand later, once you've got serious demand for the extra seats AND have got prices adjusted to match.

I'd love to only look at only 8k empty seats at Apogee, instead of 18k empty ones. Hell, it is fairly easy to look at 8k empty seats at the Super Pit most of the time...

I think ODU is doing it all right for now. They have used basketball to set this all up, which was genius. Its something we could have done a long time ago, just to differentiate ourselves from the SWC teams in Texas. If we ahd done it right in the 80s and 90s, we would have been a lot further down the road, budget-wise and conference-wise than we are today.