A Comment From The Nt Daily Article On The Football Stadium

LAZER · September 21, 2008

The following was posted as a comment on the NT daily website and I thought it was interesting. The writers name is Tobi Padwick.

NT daily

Tobi Padwick

posted 9/19/08 @ 12:59 AM CST

I am a denton resident and a fan of the business of college athletics. I am greatly encouraged by the way the UNT student body seems to be pushing for the construction of the new stadium. Jacqueline Giroir's letter above shows that today's UNT student really are on board with helping the university improve in ways that often are lost on students at other schools. Kudos to her and all of you.

The new stadium will allow the existing fouts feild site to be reclaimed by the university for other uses --- not an insignificant thought as the university is somewhat landlocked.

UNT probably has one of the 10 worst stadiums in Division 1. That hurts recruiting a lot. UNT recruits locally against SMU (great facilities and a high profile former NFL head coach in June Jones) and TCU (good facilities and a lot of national success in the last 15 years). The new stadium could give UNT 3-5 more top recruits each year which could deliver a number of wins each year.

One thing that I think is left unstated is that UNT made a commitment to Todd Dodge that they would provided him with a new stadium to help him recruit if the high profile Southlake football coach took the UNT job. He did and now UNT really should honor their word. The guy probably had effectively a lifetime contract at southlake that he gave up on good faith. He probably would have been strongly considered for the Baylor and SMU openings if he had turned UNT down. His struggles at UNT have hurt his career prospects more than a little.

It would make the University look awful if they once more appeared to be all talk and no action. Whether you like football or not is almost irrelevant. This is about perception of the university on a state and even national level.

Getting back to the stadium itself, Fouts feild was a 20K stadium with a track that was expanded to 30K. The stadium has about 10K seats in the end zone set far from the feild, surrounding the track. A number of D1 colleges with similar stadiums have similar attendance problems.

Just looking at the two mockups I have seen of UNT's new stadium, it appears the new stadium will have the current mean green village athletic center in one end zone and shorter end zone seating on the opposite end. I would speculate that probably at least 25K of the seats will be on each of the sidelines. This dramatic increase in the number of good seats in the stadium will likely help increase regular attendance at the games.

UNT seems to draw 15-20K a game at Fouts, but then again they play in a conference of teams no one in Texas cares about. They have drawn more for other Texas teams... if memory serves they drew 25K for SMU in 2006 and 29K for Baylor in 2003. Even after the game 1 route at Kansas State, UNT drew almost 23K for the home opener vs. nearby Tulsa.

With UNT's enrollment, based on it's attendance history, I think in the new stadium UNT would average at least 20-24K... even in the sunbelt. It is a very appropriately sized stadium for UNT's enrollment and historical fan support levels. Your AD has done a fine job in only asking for what is actually needed.

The new, larger Stadium would likely help in getting home and home games against likely good draws like SMU, TCU, Tulsa, OSU, Baylor, Houston, and Texas State. Those games could sell out a 35K UNT stadium. Fouts is a tough sell for a lot of those schools, but the new stadium could make those games happen. Even A major BCS schoolthat has a number of alumni in Dallas like Arkansas might consider a home and home with UNT in a new stadium. If spurred by some of these sellout non-confernce games UNT's average attendance reaches the 25-30K range there is a small possibility they could end up in the same conference as SMU and TCU (a higher caliber athletic AND academic conference) and be on the fringe of BCS status.

As a citizen of Denton that excites me. UNT with that caliber of football team could bring a lot of media exposure to UNT's music programs. It could be the missing piece to transform Denton into what Austin USED to be before all the yuppie skyscrapers started coming in --- THE place to be in Texas.

Along these lines I have a proposal. If you guys vote for the stadium there is still 30M that needs to come from the community (mostly Alumni). I think eventually that money will come, but will it come quickly enough to retain Coach Dodge and honor your university's commitment to him? I think this is where we, the residents of Denton, should come to the aid of out university partner. I think Mayor Mark Burroughs should lead the City of Denton to back a loan to finance any of the remaining $30M that your alumni may not contribute in a timely manner.

The City of Denton owes a lot to our partnership with UNT and we have a lot to gain in tax revenue if UNT turns Denton into more of a destination city. I think at minimum, the city can act as co-signer on the outstanding amount. I think, at minimum, we could pay the interest on the loan for up to 8 years while the athletic department collects any outstanding funds via tickets sales and donations. It could be funded by some minor fractional sales tax increase or some such.

Or perhaps, if City-wide support is there, maybe the city should just assume a large part of the remaining 30M.

I hope that Denton residents who feel as I do --- that we SHOULD be helping UNT grow --- will join me in writing Mayor Burroughs at markb@markburroughs.com and encourage him to see if the city can help.

Mayor Burroughs' official city email address is mark.burroughs@cityofdenton.com, so please write him there if you are a Denton resident and agree that the City of Denton should effectively guarantee this stadium gets built if the UNT student body support it.

This was his next post

Tobi Padwick

posted 9/19/08 @ 11:35 AM CST

I sent the following letter to the mayor and the Denton council members. I hope anyone who feels as I do will also write them and encourage the City to get involved in funding the new stadium.

Their addresses are viewable via the links on left at http://www.cityofdenton.com/pages/councilmembers.cfm

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Dear Mayor Burroughs and council members,

I purchased a home in Denton a couple of years ago because I liked the collegiate atmosphere that permeates throughout Denton. I went to school at UT and Denton reminds me quite a bit of Austin back then. It is a progressive community that really profits from having two large public Universities as partners. I think that is a big part of why CNN ranked Denton as #58 on their best places to live list in 2006 and why so many other magazines have a favorable opinion of this City. The music and art loving UNT student body gives Denton a spark of life that other communities just don't have. As a resident of Denton, I am a fan of the University of North Texas as a university and think we should help them whenever helping them is within our means.

UNT is currently trying to get a new $60M stadium built to replace the decaying Fouts Feild. Their plan is to have the student body donate $30M via student fees and then try to collect a matching $30M from alumni and donors. The latest poll from the NT daily suggests 3/4 of the UNT student body are firmly behind voting for an athletic fee increade to fund the stadium expansion. The UNT SGA is apparrently on their way to having the issue put before the student body in a vote. If the students approve the fee increase, the remaining $30M would have to come from public donations. It seems that UNT has a commitment for probably at least 3M from alumni and backers and likely a lot more.

I think this is where the City of Denton comes in. I think we should do what is required to get construction started on that facility immediately.

Some stadiums that have been built in the last 5 years were able to lock in costs by having the money up front. As all materials have to be hauled in and we have seen deisel prices go from $1.45 a gallon to $4.75 in that time period, that amounted to a huge savings in getting those stadiums built. Currently instability in wall street has caused oil prices to drop below $100 a barrel. The fundamentals of world demand suggest this is a temporary phenomenum. If we back UNT's stadium move we could potentially save our University partner millions of dollars.

The benefit for UNT

Fouts stadium is one of the worst facilities used by a member of the 120 or so universities that play Division I FBS football. It has electrical issues, seating issues, ect. that discourage major universities from playing games in Denton --- retarding the percieved stature of UNT. It is a 20K stadium with a track that has been expanded to 30K by adding end zone seating. The 10,000 end zone seats have to bend around the track which puts fans sitting in those seats half a football feild away from the action and as such are rarely filled --- artificially suppressing fan support levels.

I study football stadiums, attendance numbers, and conference realignment as a hobby, so I have some limited insight into this. While success on the feild does help a university move into a higher tier conference with more academically prominent partners, average attendance plays a huge role (academic reputation, research dollars, TV markets, and recruiting impact play roles as well). Attendance numbers are a simple way to guage the financial health of a university's football program. Fouts Feild kills UNT's attendance as only 20K of the seats are good seats and 10K are essentially overflow seats for big games. Looking at the mockups, it appears the stadium UNT is trying to build would probably have fewer than 6 thousand end zone (overflow) seats out of their 35K total capacity. There would be no track around the stadium, meaning that viewers would be much closer to the action. Most of the new stadium's seats would be good sideline seats. Even the end zone seats would be an improvement over Fouts Feild in that it appears they would be right up against end zone.

IMO, this is an extremely good stadium plan that is modest in it's asking price and well thought out in terms of seating placement and future expension potential. I think it would likely allow UNT to better leverage their large student enrollment into at least 20-24K attendance for most games and potentially a lot more. Against local and large texas area universities that travel fans, like Tulsa, TCU, SMU, Houston, Baylor, Texas State, Oklahoma State, and even OU and Arkansas you could see sell outs of this new stadium based local excitement over the matchup and the opponent's travelling fans.

Many of these universities will not play at Fouts Feild because the facilities are so poor that TV is not an easy option, capacity is too limited, and other concerns. These schools would likely enter into home and home series at the new stadium. One sellout a year would spike UNT's average attendance up to 24-26K or so, which would put UNT's average attendance on par with schools like Colorado State and well ahead of CUSA members Tulsa (~23K), Tulane (~22K), Houston (~20K), SMU (~17K), and Rice (~15K).

Potentially, that could spur those schools to invite UNT into their conference to allow travelling UNT fans to add to their programs' financial health. UNT moving into a conference with strong academic schools like SMU and Rice can only help it's national standing.

Even if those schools chose not to invite UNT, the stadium will almost certainly allow UNT to fill their out of conference schedule with schools off of that list, which will help the state and national perception of UNT as well as their home attendance numbers. If that occurs and UNT is winning and averaging that kind of attendance, an invitation from TCU's Mountain West Conference is not out of the question either. BYU, Utah, TCU, Colorado State and the other member schools of the MWC are a much better caliber of athletic and academic schools than UNT's current conference.

Additionally, the current stadium drives away many of the better recruits. The proposed stadium would be at least on par with most of the schools UNT competes with for recruits, allowing Coach Todd Dodge a fair chance to succeed. With 3 or 4 more top recruits each year, married to the potent offensive scheme of coach Dodge and the defensive schemes of proven defensive coordinator Gary DeLoach, there is no reason UNT can't again become a winning football program if not a dominant one --- which will also help attendance.

The benefits for Denton

A sellout game would likely have over 10,000 visiting fans descending on Denton for a weekend. In the short term, that would be a tremendous positive impact to our hotels, resturants, night clubs, and grocery stores. These visiting fans could see UNT's students in bands play at local clubs helping these young musicians expand their fan bases and further their musical dreams. If we do a good job in selling our other offerings, a portion of those people could come back for other Denton offerings like the Jazz festival or the North Texas State Fair or just to see some of these kids play in their bands.

I cannot think of anything else that could legitimately deliver that kind of visitor traffic to our city. There is money to be made here and maximizing Denton's potential is your primary job. If you can do that while helping UNT, all the better I say!

How this might work.

I think the most financially responsible role you could play for your constituency while helping UNT is to simply assist in getting this done in a timely manner. The City could simply back a loan to get the stadium built as soon as possible. (If Texas law allows this.)

1) The City borrows the $60M after securing committments from UNT to pay them back.

2) The City uses the loan to pay all of the construction costs up front, allowing the delivery of materials as soon as possible, hopefully while delivery fuel costs are supressed.

3) The City pays all interest on the loan. (Optional, although I do feel the City should make a financial contribution to this as we WILL profit from it.)

4) UNT pays off the loan as alumni contributions, new stadium revenue, and student fees come in.

The City could also additionally contribute some of the costs of the principle of the loan --- part of the potentially outstanding $30M. You obviously have a better pulse on the desires of your constituents, but IMO as a Denton resident and taxpayer, this stadium would help generate city revenue that I as a resident would benefit from, so it only seems fair that we should volunteer to pay at least part of that $30M.

If there is community support to take an even larger role and pay some of the principle, could that be paid from sales tax? I have had some difficulty finding the total sales tax revenue taken in by Denton in fiscal year 2007.It looks like Denton and the Denton county transportation authority charge about a 2 cents in sales tax. How much revenue would a quarter or even a half cent sales tax increase create in a 3 year period? Would that be enough to pay for the stadium? Would a plan like this work under Texas law?

I hope you will consider these ideas and take action to help UNT in it's effort to reach it's potential. I encourage you to publically and formally meet with the UNT President Gretchen Bataille and Athletic Director Rick Villarreal and tour Fouts Feild and the site of the new stadium in Mean Green Village with the stated intent of providing financial assistance towards this endeavor. I hope you will stand up and ask them what you can do to help this stadium happen. I hope you will do what you can within the confines of Texas law to help this get done. At the end of the day, UNT needs this stadium for it's growth and the City of Denton needs UNT to take this step forward for our future health.

Tobi Padwick

Denton Resident

JayDub · September 21, 2008

I wish to nominate Tobi Padwick as "Denton County Resident of the Year" (if such an award exists).

oldguystudent · September 21, 2008

I wish to nominate Tobi Padwick as "Denton County Resident of the Year" (if such an award exists).

I second the nomination. Let the motion be put forward.

LAZER · September 21, 2008

I know that I have a biased opinion but he really has a point. Denton really benefits from UNT and would benefit even more if the stadium was built. He should enter this in an editorial in the paper so that more denton residents see it.

good_ken · September 21, 2008

I know that I have a biased opinion but he really has a point. Denton really benefits from UNT and would benefit even more if the stadium was built. He should enter this in an editorial in the paper so that more denton residents see it.

Denton would quickly become Sanger or Pilot Point if UNT wasn't in Denton.

September 21, 2008

I would hope that Brett Vito would be able to get Mr. Padwick's comments as a guest column in the DRC. He just might start a grass roots campaign that explodes into vast community support.

We have bad-mouthed Denton residents for not supporting North Texas athletics but have we ever really asked them for support? I remember one time that we did. The Chamber of Commerce held their annual meeting at the time of the Baylor game. Results? A (Fouts Field) record crowd of almost 30,000. If we get the new stadium I hope that we can convince them to make that an annual event.

I don't see Denton as much different than any other college town other than a few hide behind the fact that they have closer ties to TWU than UNT. However, TWU sponsors fewer sports, plays at a lower level, and has fewer fine arts events. For the good of the community they should support both, at least to some extent. I think that we do very little to encourage the townspeople's support our university. We need an intense campaign to get Dentonites (and Denton Countians) involved, which should include a lot of personal contact, and continue it for several years. For now though, the problem is there are too few good seats available.

In the meantime, if Tobi Padwick can actually get some help for us from the City of Denton that would benefit UNT in two ways: it would provide some sorely needed cash immediately and it would get the residents involved in the activities at North Texas because they will have invested in its future.

I can see more and more breakthroughs from the status quo of years past and I like it.

GreenAlums · September 21, 2008

I appreciate Mr. Padwick's comments and his committment to the level of sending a letter to the city. I would send one but since I don't live in Denton (just Denton county) they may not be too inclined to listen. Maybe we have not asked the city for help? I also don't know the relationship between the University and the City but none the less, it seems like a relationship that should grow stronger from wherever it is now to a great deal more. I would like to think our chancellor or president have spent some time in City Hall recently. Like I said earlier, I wonder what would happen if another city were to be interested in partnering with us to build a new UNT stadium? Would that get ther attention??