FB: Duke 28, Wake Forest 21 Post-Game Thread

[Mal]

BTW: Wallace Wade was almost full two weekends ago vs. Miami. Definitely not "half empty" -- although I realize you're talking about what it looked like on TV. I think a revamped WW could stand to have less seats, but move all the seats much closer to the field. I know that's not going to happen, but I'd love to create the football equivalent of the intimate atmosphere in Cameron. Focus on creating a stadium that gets very loud despite a smaller crowd. My fear is that the redesign is basically just going to bring us up to par with other schools, without attempting to think outside the box and create something unique...

Interesting thought. It would be cool as a branding experiment to build your program as "the one with the cozy little stadium where the fans are right on top of the field." Might come off as somewhat lame if we were doing it, as everyone would rather "college football's version of Cameron Indoor Stadium" not actually be visible from Cameron Indoor Stadium. Regardless, I imagine the economics of college football necessitate getting as many bodies in seats for your limited number of home games as possible, in a way that's not as true for hoops? The difference on gate receipts between a 50,000 seat stadium and the Big House for the University of Michigan is just too great to pass up. There are obviously more home games in hoops, but even a huge arena is 1/5 the size of the biggest football stadiums. Those numbers probably more than offset the higher average face value on ticket prices for basketball games.

As it is, Duke and Wake are already playing in far and away the smallest stadiums of any power conference schools, so if we wanted to take that approach we could, although it would probably be just as expensive to pull the stands in and heighten the pitch as it will be to add some more on. We'll be getting a lot more intimacy by just taking out the track and adding more seats down low, too, of course.

Btw, yes, I was referring to what I saw on TV against Miami. "Half empty" was a bit hyperbolic, I guess, but when they did flash to the East side, I cringed a little.

[uh_no]

Btw, yes, I was referring to what I saw on TV against Miami. "Half empty" was a bit hyperbolic, I guess, but when they did flash to the East side, I cringed a little.

there were a couple sections that were sparse near the duke tunnel...maybe ~50%, and the tail end on the home side was extremely sparse...but the rest of the stadium was packed...