Tcu To Get $15 Million For Football Field Renovation

SUMG · June 3, 2008

I haven't found confirmation (on the net) of this yet...but:

Channel 8 news (at 5) reported that the Amon Carter Foundation is giving TCU $15 million to renovate the football stadium.

I know $15 million isn't a huge amount...compared to what UT and A $ M do, when they renovate...but man would I love for us to have $15 million to work with.

GMG!

Superfrog · June 3, 2008

This gift is in addition to the endzone suites that are currently under construction. The overall plan is leave the lower half of the lower bowls as they are......leave the field the same..........add a new press box, add suites or club level seats under the top deck. Obviously, the restrooms and concession stands need to be upgraded in major way.

This will reduce capicity by 4,000 to 42,000 seats

Webcam for endzone project.

Edited June 3, 2008 by Superfrog

SUMG · June 3, 2008

This gift is in addition to the endzone suites that are currently under construction. The overall plan is leave the lower half of the lower bowls as they are......leave the field the same..........add a new press box, add suites or club level seats under the top deck. Obviously, the restrooms and concession stands need to be upgraded in major way.
This will reduce capicity by 4,000 to 42,000 seats
Webcam for endzone project.

Congrats on your upgrades.

And if you all need any expertise in the area of waterless urinals....man, did you come to the right board.

Finally, we all YEARN for the day, when there's a webcam set up, showing the progress on our new stadium. May it happen soon.

Green P1 · June 3, 2008

This gift is in addition to the endzone suites that are currently under construction. The overall plan is leave the lower half of the lower bowls as they are......leave the field the same..........add a new press box, add suites or club level seats under the top deck. Obviously, the restrooms and concession stands need to be upgraded in major way.
This will reduce capicity by 4,000 to 42,000 seats
Webcam for endzone project.

Reducing capacity to under 45K!!! Many on this board would suggest you should drop down to 1AA if your plans include a stadium that small.

ShopMeanGreen · June 3, 2008

Texas Tech did the same thing a couple years ago. The field and the lower level are unchanged but a bunch of nice indoor/outdoor boxes and a nice facade was added. I think about 62M worth. No seats were added other than the boxes but they sell for a much higher price.

drex · June 4, 2008

I know that there has been stadium talk ad nosium, but isn't it a crying shame that the 'leaders' at North Texas cannot get a damn football stadium considering the money that they are making. Why is it that North Texas attracts such sub par leaders?

MeanGreen61 · June 4, 2008

Reducing capacity to under 45K!!! Many on this board would suggest you should drop down to 1AA if your plans include a stadium that small.

Tulsa's stadium renovation (Skelley Stadium) will reduce it to around 26,000 capacity, but there will be new luxury boxes.

KRAM1 · June 4, 2008

Way to go TCU! Another "older" stadium getting a new facelift. Nice to see, but it will be even nicer to watch UNT's new stadium going up. I agree with drex to some extent here. I thought one of the reasons that Jackson was hired in the first place was due to his numerous "big time" connections with "big time" $$$$ folks. If that's really the case, where is he on the stadium deal? Maybe he is actively working for funding for the stadium along with "other" things and the word has just not leaked out. What do you think? I think lots of the work is going on behind the scenes right now. I think we'll hear something positive "officially" in the near future...at least before the end of the year!

UNTLifer · June 4, 2008

I would be shocked if Jackson is working on funding the new football stadium. He has fallen way below expectations when he was hired.

Superfrog · June 4, 2008

Way to go TCU! Another "older" stadium getting a new facelift. Nice to see, but it will be even nicer to watch UNT's new stadium going up.

I think a new stadium or serious upgrades could do wonders for the UNT program. I like that TCU is trying to preserve history and for some reason I like the nostalgia of older stadiums. Something about going places that have history appeals to me more so than new stadiums like SMU's. Don't get me wrong, new stadiums are nicer and more fan friendly, but watching a game where Sammy Baugh, Davey O'Brien, Bob Lilly, Jim Swink and Ladainian Tomlinson played adds to the experience for me.

June 4, 2008

Way to go TCU! Another "older" stadium getting a new facelift. Nice to see, but it will be even nicer to watch UNT's new stadium going up. I agree with drex to some extent here. I thought one of the reasons that Jackson was hired in the first place was due to his numerous "big time" connections with "big time" $$$$ folks. If that's really the case, where is he on the stadium deal? Maybe he is actively working for funding for the stadium along with "other" things and the word has just not leaked out. What do you think? I think lots of the work is going on behind the scenes right now. I think we'll hear something positive "officially" in the near future...at least before the end of the year!

The main reason for Jackson's hiring was his connections in the legislature to get us state funding. At about the same time, the state made drastic cuts in funding for universities and authorized the institution to make up the difference. The College of Law is his chief project now and hopefully that will come to fruition with the next meeting of the state legislature.

He does know some monied people but it would seem that he wouldn't even ask them about a stadium until the law school is up and running.

KRAM1 · June 4, 2008

And, he has done such a great job on the law school!

The Fake Lonnie Finch · June 5, 2008

I've been to three or four TCU games over the past two decades, and I can honestly say it's a pretty good place to watch a game. They're doing the right thing in renovating instead of building a completely new stadium. The location of the current stadium is fine.

That's the thing about Fouts. The location is fine. It's on campus. But, on or off, here or on Bonnie Brae...it doesn't make a difference unless you are putting butts in the seats. And that, my friends, only comes through winning consistently.

TCU has done it. And, they've done it amidst quite a few conference changes. Their athletic director(s) are to be applauded for seeing the big picture.

Cowtown · June 5, 2008

TCU has been in a massive re-build for the last decade.

They just finished their indoor practice facility and are poised to finish out their athletic expansion with a new state of the art swimmin and divin facility.

They are also working hard on raising funds to build the best music facilities in the state, they have the land already selected...currently it is being used as a parking lot.

All their success has come at a price. The Football parking spot that cost $500 in 98 now costs $2500.

They even have ultra premium parking right next to the stadium with flagstone decks and built in seating, I havent asked what those cost.

Tuition is up, but so is enrolment. They have plans to be at around 10 - 12k students in the next 10 years.

But the TCU model for raising attendance is different from the NT model. Mainly because TCU grads tend to stay in The Fort and further more tend to live within earshot of campus. My neighborhood is full of froggies.

So getting the kids togther and heading to a game is easy, a 10 minute trip from door to parking lot.

Where we can learn from the TCU model is their business and communtiy outreach.

The Problem that TCU is always going to face is they are in a conference with no regional rivals, they play a goofy football schedule where TCU always seems to ge screwed by Thurs night travel. And they have pissed off CUSA. So even if there is another shake up and NT, LaTech & Lafay are added to the CUSA W teams to form a perfect regional conf, IF the Frogs were invited back, I doubt they would take it. I think they are stuck with the MWC...waiting for a call from the SEC or Big 12.

Superfrog · June 5, 2008

TCU has been in a massive re-build for the last decade.
They just finished their indoor practice facility and are poised to finish out their athletic expansion with a new state of the art swimmin and divin facility.
They are also working hard on raising funds to build the best music facilities in the state, they have the land already selected...currently it is being used as a parking lot.
All their success has come at a price. The Football parking spot that cost $500 in 98 now costs $2500.
They even have ultra premium parking right next to the stadium with flagstone decks and built in seating, I havent asked what those cost.
Tuition is up, but so is enrolment. They have plans to be at around 10 - 12k students in the next 10 years.
But the TCU model for raising attendance is different from the NT model. Mainly because TCU grads tend to stay in The Fort and further more tend to live within earshot of campus. My neighborhood is full of froggies.
So getting the kids togther and heading to a game is easy, a 10 minute trip from door to parking lot.
Where we can learn from the TCU model is their business and communtiy outreach.
The Problem that TCU is always going to face is they are in a conference with no regional rivals, they play a goofy football schedule where TCU always seems to ge screwed by Thurs night travel. And they have pissed off CUSA. So even if there is another shake up and NT, LaTech & Lafay are added to the CUSA W teams to form a perfect regional conf, IF the Frogs were invited back, I doubt they would take it. I think they are stuck with the MWC...waiting for a call from the SEC or Big 12.

This is all pretty true......except TCU is not going to increase the enrollment. Applications have increased significantly in the past few years which in change leads to a more selective admission standard. For a couple of years they increased the size of the freshman class, but it wasn't significant at all. They decided to cap the freshman class size where it currently is. Personally, i wish they would increase the size to 10k.

Our attendance woes aren't necessarily a result of no regional rivals. The fact of the matter is/was that UH , Rice, SMU, Tulsa and Tulane didn't bring fans to Fort Worth and TCU fans don't get that excited to play them in return. If we could ever get our marquee games against BYU and Utah on a saturday it would make a big difference.

Cowtown · June 5, 2008

I especially like how they stuck y'all with a Sat night game at UNLV and then follow with a night game at Utah 5 days later...that sucks.

Attendance Woes are the result of having the wrong regional rivals. We are all in the same boat, just on different levels. We play ULM and draw 15k, we play SMU and draw 30K.

You play SMU and draw 30k but play Tech and draw 45K.

The only people around here that are truly happy about their situation are SMU, who have their stadium filled a couple times a year by non conf traveling fans and Baylor who have their stadium filled by whichever traveling big12 team shows up.

This is all pretty true......except TCU is not going to increase the enrollment. Applications have increased significantly in the past few years which in change leads to a more selective admission standard. For a couple of years they increased the size of the freshman class, but it wasn't significant at all. They decided to cap the freshman class size where it currently is. Personally, i wish they would increase the size to 10k.
Our attendance woes aren't necessarily a result of no regional rivals. The fact of the matter is/was that UH , Rice, SMU, Tulsa and Tulane didn't bring fans to Fort Worth and TCU fans don't get that excited to play them in return. If we could ever get our marquee games against BYU and Utah on a saturday it would make a big difference.

FirefightnRick · June 8, 2008

They are also working hard on raising funds to build the best music facilities in the state, they have the land already selected...currently it is being used as a parking lot.

Well, they don't have to work all that hard, it's just money afterall. I remembered your qoute here though and couldn't help but laugh when I saw tcu's billboard on 287 going into downtown promoting their leading college of music. It has an attractive coed sitting at a piano and reads something to the tune of "TCU, Leading the way...1st ALL STIENWAY college of Music in Texas". I mean, here at North Texas we have one of the nations top colleges of music just 35 miles up the road from here that besides all of it's industry leading national and international accolades and state of the art top grade facilities(which now includes one of the largest and most advanced custom hand made pipe organs in the region), has been changing out and upgrading it's Stienway pianos at least since the 80's if not earlier. But unless your actually looking for it or go to school there or recieve their alumni magezine you would never know this nor would you hear about hardly anything that goes on there with that program. Yet TCU, who I doubt even fewer people even know has a college of music, uses their seemingly unlimited supply of money to buy massive billboard space telling the public that they have all Steinway pianos, therefore they are leading the way here in Texas. It's probably just me but it caught me as funny to see that.

Rick

Edited June 8, 2008 by FirefightnRick