Memorial Stadium upgrades after 2026 from A.D Troy Dannen
- Thread starter HBK4life
- Start date
If you're going to exaggerate, at least pull out 1492 or a 1776.
I think it will be maybe about 10%. My suspicion is that the seats won't be much wider. It will just force fatties to squeeze in between the armrests. Twp seats taken out in my row would make a huge difference. I'm not sure how many seats are in a row in the lower bowl in west stadium but it seems like about 20 to me.
My family had season tickets long before Devaney and we continued to support through all the recent bad years. The product better vastly improve or people will be looking at a half-full stadium.
I have season tickets in the south stadium, right over where the visiting team enters the field, (used to be where we entered the field) and even I agree with this. If we’re gonna spend the money, spend it on getting the team better and back to winning ways. Do that, and suddenly the pocket books will open up and we can potentially have both. But make a winning team 1st.
So how many seats will be lost by putting chair backseats in the East and West stadium?
15-18,000?
15-18,000?
The Kansas City Chiefs were not getting a new stadium. They were getting 800 million in enhancements to the current stadium and in the parking lot that were laughable at best.
The KC Royals new ballpark and Arrowhead enhancements were voted down…not a new stadium for the Chiefs.
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how many seats on east and west sides now? how wide are bench seats? how wide are new seats? how wide are the arm rests? do they fold up?
Same point. Voted down massively expensive shit for the stadium
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Does the foundation need to be dealt with as well? Adding that many seats is going to put loads of stress on that old building
i guarantee you the added seat backs will weigh less than the 2 fatties eliminated per row
I have a pair of season tickets in the west stadium (Sec 28/R18), I've had them for 30 years now. Much like the situation in Kansas City I would suggest that before we start demanding more money from donors we put a winning product on the field. NIL (yes I know it's the way of the world now) has almost destroyed my interest in college athletics. Why, when these kids are getting money in amounts that I don't (and can't) make in my job (that I've had for 35 years), should I be expected to fork out thousands of dollars for scholarships? They can pay for their own books and tuition as far as I'm concerned. I've said it before and I'll say it again I still control my checkbook and I have absolutely no problem saying no, and I won't be afraid to say no to DONU, you can keep the tickets.
I believe that in a row of 24 seats you will lose 4 seats making it a 20 seat row. That's a lot of seats lost when you start adding it up.
We've had them on the cheap for a lot of years. Time to either pay up or watch from home. We've considered letting ours go for probably the past 10 years. It's gotten harder to find the time to make the drive down and back. It will be interesting to see what the proposals will be. I can't imagine that they'll be able to raise them all that much.
Yes but they will make up for the lost revenue by getting rid of the seating licensing grandfather clause. Not saying they should get rid of it but it sounds like it is coming soon.
The good news is you're NOT grandfathered.
I agree. When we were sent survey a couple years ago, my response on many was other...put better product on the field and win. Game day experience isn't that important. I want to be excited about going to and coming home from Game rather then mundane and pissed
a lot of good insights here on what was planned vs what is changing.. To me, this outlines a lot of why Trev left imo.
Nebraska AD Troy Dannen updates the future of the Memorial Stadium project and what's next
Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen gave a long-awaited update to the Memorial Stadium project and outlined what the next steps are.www.on3.comThe immediate focus is now on the East and West Stadium and not the south end zone
On Thursday, Dannen met with a small group of reporters to outline the plan. In short, the project is still happening, but the map to complete it will change.
“The project remains on track,” Dannen said. “However, the timing and the sequencing is going to be different than I think might have been projected earlier. Going forward, we’re going to really focus the architects on East and West Stadium. The rationale for that quite simply is East and West (Stadium) has the potential to monetize itself.
“The landscape of what’s going on right now, the ability to generate money, I’m going to have a pretty big spot on my budget for new money that needs to be generated. I think there was speculation that the south was coming down at the end of the ’24 season. That is not happening.”
However, “The south end zone project is still a part of the scope,” he said.
None of the work, though, to the East and West stadiums will begin until after the 2025 football season. The plan is to have chair-back seating in the East and West stadiums and tie each seat to a licensing fee. The new premium East and West chair-backed seats would have access to several new in-stadium amenities.
That would also mean a stadium reseat would take place, and NU’s ticket grandfathering system, which went into effect in the 1990s, would end. Currently, a large chunk of Nebraska’s season ticket holders are grandfathered into their original donation fee, while new ticket holders might pay thousands more annually for the same seats.
Previous stories on HuskerOnline have outlined Nebraska’s grandfather ticket pricing, and our studies have found that no other stadium in the country has anything like it in terms of tens of thousands of ticket holders locked into sweetheart seat-donation prices from the 1990s.
“If the East and West project is going to generate money, it’s going to generate it from premium seat licenses for the privilege of accessing those seats, and the amenities that will go with those seats that are going to be different, new, and improved,” Dannen said. “There will be a new price tag on every seat. If that is going to happen, it has to.
“If you ever have a reseat, you have to have at least a year’s notice for your fans. In a perfect world, we’d be looking at something post-’25 into ’26 before really anything tangible inside East and West can happen.”
Dannen continues to explore options with South Stadium
As the focus moves to the East and West stadium for 2026, what can be done to improve and upgrade the south end zone?
The original plan called for a complete demolition, which would have forced around 23,000 ticket holders to miss at least the 2025 and 2026 seasons while it was rebuilt. Dannen wants to continue to explore options. There are no current plans to add chairback seating to the north end zone because the structure of the aisles won’t allow it.
“What I have not gotten into yet is understanding does South have to come down to rebuild South?” Dannen said. “Does it have to come down all at once? Can it come down in phases? Is there another model of that if we have an extended period of time that the whole thing doesn’t come down, but pieces of it do, and we build around it, and we never really harm the capacity?”
Another point that both Dannen and head football coach Matt Rhule brought up is neither was too wild about creating a giant wind tunnel in South Stadium for two seasons with an open end zone that currently sits 98 rows high.
“Coach and I joked, I think we understand why we were in the option for all those years, because of the wind tunnel effect,” Dannen said. “I think you really have to assess the impact on the competitiveness of the team and how we would play by the other impacts that would come if the south end zone sat empty for a season or a period of time.”
However, one thing you can expect to come to the south end zone is a new video board. You’ll also see new and improved stadium WiFi by this season.
“I do plan to go to the board to get a south end video board before the ’25 season,” Dannen said. “The north board’s old. It’s beyond its useful life. It’s still working but given where the seats are and everything else, it feels like the board needs to be in the south. Then, when we eventually build, we can build around it, or we can take it down, relocate it, and put it back in. That’s another big number that we’ve got to figure out whether it can happen or not. I hope when we start ’25, we’ll have a big board down there.”
Raising the money and the overall pricetag
We don’t have answers to the overall project’s price tag or money raised thus far.
Dannen did not have answers on either topic, mainly because several unknowns remain. A big one is the role of the third-party group Nebraska Philanthropic Trust.
The NU Board of Regents contracted the Omaha group led by Sue Morris for $5.5 million to spearhead fundraising efforts for the project over the top of Nebraska’s in-house foundation and development offices.
“They still have the contract with the board,” Dannen said of Nebraska Philanthropic Trust. “I’m not sure at this point in time whether we will actively fund raise until we have a real project, until we have the drawings, until we know what’s viable, until we know what the costs are, and frankly until we know what the other effects outside of the department, the other effects of the enterprise are going to have on our ability to either carry debt or have other expenses in the budget.
“I’m not sure we’ll be doing a whole lot other than discussing the project versus actually asking because we just don’t have something right now to ask for other than support the concept.”
Thursday, Dannen also made it clear that there have been zero conversations about asking for public dollars for the stadium project.
“I anticipate at some point in time, I will ask everybody for everything,” Dannen said about raising money for the project. “Once we have a project, once we have a financial model that doesn’t compromise our ability to compete in the new world of college athletics. Really, if I’m on the other side and I read all the antitrust settlement stories right now, before you come ask me for money, I need to know what’s going to happen to the department.
“I need to know how the college athletic department is going to run and function before I’m going to financially support it. There are a lot of unanswered questions that I think our development folks would need to be prepared to answer before we get to that point.”
An on-campus hotel and entertainment district is no longer on the radar
When Alberts first began planning for his initial $450 million stadium project, one of the places he looked at for inspiration was Wrigley Field.
Omaha native Tom Ricketts owns the Chicago Cubs. Since purchasing the Cubs, Ricketts has acquired nearly all the property around Wrigley Field to create an entertainment district and built a boutique Marriott hotel across the street from the ballpark.
Alberts had grand plans of doing something similar at Nebraska, attempting to find and create new revenue streams.
Dannen said creating Nebraska’s own on-campus entertainment district is currently not on his radar.
“It’s not on my personal radar right now. I’m staying in Haymarket. I feel like we’ve got Wrigleyville two blocks away. It’s an amazing area,” Dannen said. “Now, is there more to come? I will tell you my focus is right now on getting the stadium up to speed and if things come that are around it, there will be private people who want to invest. If they feel like there’s a return, they will seek to invest around the stadium but I’m not contemplating building an entertainment district and a hotel in order to get the stadium done.”
Also, don’t expect to see alcohol sales inside Memorial Stadium for the 2024 football season, although, “There will be a point in time in which I’m sure that we will go to the board and ask for that consideration,” Dannen said. “Certainly not this year. When I was at the meeting where the board approved it for baseball, there was talk about a more comprehensive look at alcohol. We sell alcohol at all of the facilities that we do not own, in which Nebraska plays athletics. Not at the ones that we do own.
“The other comprehensive look will be for those events that are coming in, as we talk about how do we utilize the stadium and monetize the stadium beyond the seven Saturdays or whatever per year, alcohol will have to be sold in order for those events to take place. They won’t come if you don’t. I think there’ll be a broader analysis, not specific to football that needs to take place.”
The stadium changes would have been Trev’s legacy.
He spent a lot of time and effort on it.
His bosses say we don’t want to divert donor money from DONU when state money is tight.
He goes to a place where money is never an issue.
DONU hires an AD who is more “flexible”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but whether you’re grandfathered in or not you still had to pay some donor fees depending where your tickets are in the stadium.
No. There are some folks that don't pay any booster money. Those are folks that have had tickets prior to the 90s. There was a waiting list for years but just prior to our back to back championships, that waiting list essentially evaporated because we got a letter asking if we wanted additional tickets. Then win 2 NC and boom there's huge demand again.
When that happened, booster money for where our tickets in west stadium went up for our section for new ticket holders. Ours didn't because we were GRANDFATHERED. However my dad thought it only fair to pay the new booster level which has remained the same to this day. So technically I would say those tickets are NOT considered GRANDFATHERED since we're paying the going rate.
My question is how will they do a reseat? Based on priority points like they do the Seat Yourself process??
His focus for his legacy should have been bringing Nebraska football back to a national power.
Going from the fact that the original stadium had a capacity of 31,000 which included the current east and west stadium lower stands and second tiers (which the west second tier has already be converted to chairbacks).but lets just assume 31,000 seats would be converted to chairbacks while also assuming 4 seats would be lost for every 24 a reduction of approximately 17% which would equate to a loss of about 5,100 seats. Obviously it should be a little less than this, given the west second tier already has chairbacks.
Thanks, depending on how large they make the seats probably determines quantity of seats will be lost..
I would think a little more than 5,000.🤷🏽♂️
I would think a little more than 5,000.🤷🏽♂️
I answered the survey the same way, and added that Come Running Boys should be permanently banned. A lot of other people complained about the ear-splitting song too, which is why it got moved from high volume at the end of third quarter to lower volume at the end of first quarter.
But we should look at it another way so we can change with the times. Just think, if Trev's vision goes on as planned, if the product on the field continues to suck we can all hang out in the new Internet cafes in south stadium and look at our phones, then walk around the 360 degree concourse and hook up with all our friends in the communal watch rooms.
I happen to like “Come a Running Boys”
“For Nebraska and the scarlet For Nebraska and the cream ,thou they go through many battles our colors are still seen”
What’s not to like about it, has history behind it.
I don't know what's not to like about it, other than it turns me off. Just personal preference I guess.
Sort of like I never thought much of Raquel Welch. What's not to like there? I always thought she was a woman with a smoking hot body, but marginal looks otherwise.
I also like that song.
I do wish the “STAND UP AND SHOUT” would be permanently banned from all UNL facilities
Nothing offensive, but I at times like to know how old people are ?
I would think the younger folk would luv this..
They should add a donation option to contribute towards getting rid of the "it's third down" nonsense. Makes me want to puke. Reminds me of Kstate.
Ha- all the game day music and whole vibe needs to be worked on. Time to change it all imo.
Man...some of you seem like you hate going to the games.
The shit you guys notice and complain about is amazing Haha
When I go to a game it goes like this...
Get in, take a piss, get soda and fill it with booze.
Me and friends go to our seats, we watch the game.
Probably pour in more booze to our cups. Game ends, we go.
The shit you guys notice and complain about is amazing Haha
When I go to a game it goes like this...
Get in, take a piss, get soda and fill it with booze.
Me and friends go to our seats, we watch the game.
Probably pour in more booze to our cups. Game ends, we go.
That would be acceptable. Don’t want to drop below 80,000 in a conference where the big boys have 100,000 plus.
