Unless everyone is willing to write larger checks forever (ticket prices, parking, OBC donations, concessions, etc.), this is not a good use of current capital.  While the stadium is outdated and small, it is only used 6 time/year for home football games.  The ROI on this type of project is too low.  It would be nice if we had a larger donor (or corporation) that was willing to pay for a large portion, but I'm in the camp that says until we have a capacity issue, there is not a big reason to expand.  I'd absolutely like to see some renovations done, and maybe that includes adding a couple thousand seats.  Adding a second deck to go on top of the 70% full deck makes no sense to me. 

I don't think anybody here necessarily disagrees with you here.  But still, it's good to speculate for if/when the day comes that we take our football program to the next level, what we are going to do about it.

Well, since we're dreaming ~$50 million dollars worth of dreams, I may as well dream big...

I'd have a plan of "Where do we want to be in five years" for the athletic department, and I'd start executing it... by working backwards.

Which athletic conference do we want to be in?

The MAC?
Conference USA?
The Big East?
ACC?

Personally, I think we'd be a decent fit in the Big East; nice regional rivalries would exist, (although UC would let that happen when pigs fly) and we could maintain our history with Miami and Marshall.

For us to even be considered for admission, we'd need to at least look like a Big East school.

The average Big East athletic department looks like:
Average Football attendance of ~40K
Average Basketball attendance ~10K
Athletic budgets are in the ~$35MM range

So, How do we measure up?
Where are we weak?
How do we fix it?

This is about as far as I get before I get away from a workable plan, and into the "magic happens" portion of my dream.

The real problem is not (necessarily) an OU problem.

It's an Athens, Ohio problem.

We don't have a major corporate presence in the area for corporate sponsorship; we don't have media reach, and we don't have armies of people who follow us simply because their grandpa and their dad did.

Frankly, we need to build a fan base, and I think the way we do that is to be patient, and continue to win.

Only I'm nearly 50 now, and frankly, I've been AWFULLY DARN PATIENT.

I do think, though, that we need to leave the MAC.  

Other than easy wins over Miami and our "ultra low travel costs", what does this conference provide to benefit us?

It's holding us back; Just like Peden is.

Thank goodness for Jim Schaus and Frank Solich.

Go Bobcats!

-john

How about a season overview?

Two complete sell out games that had record attendance and over 25,00 in attendance (New Mexico State and Akron). 

An average of 21,843 fans at 91% capacity

Students were turned away from three games

and an 8-4 record. Not bad at all.

We are currently advertising extremely well and having people show up for football games. I'd say its getting time where we NEED to do a major expansion/renovation. I'm not talking about 40,000 seats. Somewhere between 32,000-35,00 which would be on par with average attendance of some schools such as UC (32,293), Marshall (25,893), Vanderbilt (32,873), Connecticut (36,668), Boston College (35,709), Boise State (34,018), Northwestern (33,442), TCU (33,868), UCF (34,283), UNLV (21,199), Washington State (28,791), and Wake Forest (31,967). 

All those schools average between the numbers we should have for seats. If we have a 35,000 seat stadium, we could attract teams such as UC, Connecticut, Wake Forest, Washington State, UCF, USF, TCU, Northwestern, Boise, etc... 

Having games against those teams would mean chances of playing games on national T.V. 

Get rid of play games on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Alumni cannot make games on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. to support the Bobcats. Our lowest games were Eastern Michigan and Bowling Green. Games that were nationally televised. 

Imagine playing a game at 4 p.m. Saturday against Cincinnati on lets say ESPN 2. In a 35,000 seat stadium. We could easily have around 30,000-32,000 Bobcat fans and 3,000 Cincinnati fans show up for a packed house game. NATIONALLY TELEVISED. 

 I think we should heavily market games in cities that are within an hour drive of Athens that has a decent population such as: Lancaster (38,780), Parkersburg/Vienna/Marietta/Belpre (62,767), Nelsonville/The Plains (8,323) and Chillicothe (22,296). Those eight cities could showcase 132,166 people to Bobcat Athletics. 

Improvements such as roads could help get people to the games. With US 33 getting a bypass around Nelsonville, we could reach out to further out cities such as Baltimore, Pickerington, Circleville, Canal Winchester, and of course Columbus. We could also make it easier to get from a major international airport (CMH) to Athens in an hour and 15 minutes. This could also encourage teams to come to Athens. 

Peden Stadium Improvements:

1st. Demolition of Student Side, Concessions, Current Scoreboard, Restrooms, Visiting Locker Rooms, and maybe the corner bleachers. 

2nd. Tear down the corner sides of the North. Make a grand entrance on the North side that has a permanent Bobcat Athletic Store that sells officially licensed merchandise, a Bobcat Club with a bar????, a nice grand entrance that is domed, a hall of fame just for football, tickets sales, and of course make this entrance out of bricks. 

3rd. Make a fun center with interactions, glitz, glamour, hoo rah. Also add seats across the North EndZone with a huge high def scoreboard. 

4th. Make student side seats double deck with all new concessions, restrooms, and Visiting Team locker room. Move Marching 110 to the south side closet to entrance of field so it would be easier to get up and down. This would also leave a nice long section of stands on the lower deck for students to STAND. The second deck will be for students who want to sit down (only part of the upperdeck) and the other side will be sold to visiting team fans as their noise would be drowned out by the student section.

5th. The Indoor Practice Facility which is schedule to break ground in Jan. Will go along the back in of the New double deck grand stand that will hold an indoor practice field and our new Locker rooms as I have been told.

6th. New sound system throughout the stadium. 

The completion of this project would add 8,000 to 11,000 seats. More advertisement that would encourage people to go to games. Also add billboards along US 33 and 35. Encourage new teams to come down. More national exposure. And just a much more friendly stadium with better concessions, more fans, better teams, and just more of a college feel and fun. 

Sounds like someone has been helping his or her kids or grand kids make their Christmas lists for Santa.  

Sorry, but mid-week ESPN games have helped fan interest and national notice innabigway.

I agreee that three games in such as 12 days can be tough...but we gotta be able to do MAC that.