Stadium Talk By Tobi Padwick

LAZER · October 9, 2008

About two weeks ago Tobi Padwick, a Denton resident and UT alumni, posted a comment on one of the NT daily stadium articles. I do not remember which one but I posted a link and pasted his comments. Tobi Padwick was calling on the city of Denton to help UNT build the stadium and to do so he wrote a letter to the Mayor Mark Burroughs. The following is another great post by Tobi Padwick which includes the mayor's response.

Side note: Homeboy CheckFacts is back I hate that guy........

Nt daily

Update on Denton support for UNT's new stadium...

As you may recall I am a Denton resident in favor of the city helping UNT, one of our city partners, get your stadium built for the positive financial implications it would have for UNT as well as Denton.I wrote the following letter to Denton's Mayor Mark Burroughs and the City Council...

"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"

I am pleased to announce that Mayor Burroughs has been quite responsive, sending me the following letter:

"Great thoughts and very well presented. I have forwarded your letter to our Economic Development Office for comment and/or use.

Thank you for this input and perspective. We will consider your points.

Mark B."

...

I strongly encourage any Denton residents who feel as I do to send Mayor Burroughs and the City council letters encouraging them to take action. Lets encourage the City to do what is possible to help the Student's Stadium along. There are a lot of us who want to see UNT excell. We are a large voting block. Let's be respectful, but make ourselves heard. This is important to the future of Denton. Please join me in writing our city leadership. Lets show them this is something we beleive in our core is essential to Denton's future.

mark.burroughs@cityofdenton.com

pete.kamp@cityofdenton.com

charlye.heggins@cityofdenton.com

jack.thomson@cityofdenton.com

chris.watts@cityofdenton.com

Rudy.Moreno@cityofdenton.com

joe.mulroy@cityofdenton.com