(05-12-2013 01:30 AM)CoastalVANDAL Wrote:  Someone else brought up the idea of fully expanding the dome and investing in a set up for basketball.Syracuse does this with great success joining the ACC next year.Syracuse has separate practice facilities for both sports and an easy set up.Syracuse 52k for football and 31k for basketball and both can play on the same weekend.

So much so that their fans never stop clamoring for separate facilities, and football has to play its biggest games at New Meadowlands. The ACC isn't happy about 49K for football - they took 'Cuse for the NY market, not their stadium.

Why anyone would encourage Idaho to do anything beyond putting their FBS program out of its misery is beyond me.

Yeah we were in a bowl game and about 4 seconds in 2 or 3 different games away from back to back bowls, enroute to 14 wins in 2 seasons about three years ago when, if memory serves, your program didn't even exist, so why don't you kindly shut your trap about who should play in what division until you actually beat an FBS team.

The dome isn't an ideal situation, it was built and maintained by bean counting presidents who wanted a jack of all trades athletic facility. The problem is it works alright for many sports and is good for only our indoor track programs. Since literally every sport uses it for practice and conditioning it's used thousands of times a year including academic classes, civic events, concerts etc, but it's a crutch we leaned on too much. Want to renovate the dome? Do it outside of football season, put both basketball teams in the 1500 seat memorial gym, keep all the AD offices and locker rooms open, find an alternate venue for tennis workouts, put a bubble over the outdoor track for our indoor teams, move graduation, the log jam builds up rapidly. Its a small football stadium but it's probably the one of the best college fieldhouses in the country. In an ideal world we would build an outdoor football stadium and renovate the dome to make it a better basketball arena and shift the court so the floor space is shared more (in bball season with the spectrum up about 1/3rd of the floor is taken up by the court, bleachers, etc) for other sports to use, but that's not going to happen. Instead it will eventually be an intimate, expensive to renovate stadium capped at around 27k with some awkward looking seating arrangements to keep the roof on it, but it will be loud if there's ever a good product to watch.

(05-14-2013 05:13 PM)nsavandal09 Wrote:  Yeah we were in a bowl game and about 4 seconds in 2 or 3 different games away from back to back bowls, enroute to 14 wins in 2 seasons about three years ago when, if memory serves, your program didn't even exist, so why don't you kindly shut your trap about who should play in what division until you actually beat an FBS team.

The dome isn't an ideal situation, it was built and maintained by bean counting presidents who wanted a jack of all trades athletic facility. The problem is it works alright for many sports and is good for only our indoor track programs. Since literally every sport uses it for practice and conditioning it's used thousands of times a year including academic classes, civic events, concerts etc, but it's a crutch we leaned on too much. Want to renovate the dome? Do it outside of football season, put both basketball teams in the 1500 seat memorial gym, keep all the AD offices and locker rooms open, find an alternate venue for tennis workouts, put a bubble over the outdoor track for our indoor teams, move graduation, the log jam builds up rapidly. Its a small football stadium but it's probably the one of the best college fieldhouses in the country. In an ideal world we would build an outdoor football stadium and renovate the dome to make it a better basketball arena and shift the court so the floor space is shared more (in bball season with the spectrum up about 1/3rd of the floor is taken up by the court, bleachers, etc) for other sports to use, but that's not going to happen. Instead it will eventually be an intimate, expensive to renovate stadium capped at around 27k with some awkward looking seating arrangements to keep the roof on it, but it will be loud if there's ever a good product to watch.

I have been reading about this expansion on the message boards. Is that a reality or a hope? How have the new suites done? Are they sold out or is it a bad time to sell those? I have a ton of respect for UI. When we were leaving the Big West, all of us, I remember our last game at Boise and our announcers (one who is the Asst AD) seeming so happy it would be our last trip to Boise because the press facilities were so bad. But they never said a bad thing about Idaho, always complementary. I do think the Kibbie is a crutch, and puts Idaho in a terrible situation. Too much has been spent on it to walk away and not enough money exists to start from scratch. The fix back in the old Big West days was to play at Wazzou's stadium - and there seemed to be some good crowds there. Any chance of sharing that space with them again or is there is a serious plan to renovate/expand the domb? Also- I hate to say it - but the name has got to go. Kibbie just doesn't sound very tough or big time. Maybe get a sponsor.

(05-13-2013 10:11 AM)slycat Wrote:  Is the football stadium expansion approved and have a construction start date or is it just wishful thinking at this point?

Hard to say the A.D. claimed the 50 million dollar plan for a 6k arena and dome expansion was close .Then the school president left for Texas tech so that could slow it down.Twenty million would get the dome to 22k adding one endzone section and balconies.A second plan was shown with the roof off .My guess is the roof removal plan is just to show its possible and that the dome is not capped at 30k .I believe an arena and the first phase of dome expansion will get done.

The Question really is should Idaho take the arena money and finish expanding the dome instead.Idaho already does what Syracuse does just not as good .The dome has a rubber floor making basketball set up time consuming Bleachers will not slide.So it is one time a season instead of back and forth.

Idaho does not need 49k for football and 31k for basketball.
Idaho needs 25-32k for football and 6-10k for basketball.
Dome expansion would allow for a better basketball set up .
A new arena fixes basketball but may leave us with 80% of the seats we need for football.The smallest MWC stadium is 25k so we need to be at that number or higher.

I am all for an outdoor stadium but would really like to see what a 26k plus KB dome would be like.When people think of domes they think NFL stadiums or huge.The KB Dome can be loud with 12k in it a big dome would look empty and not be loud.

Expansion has been talked about for years. Our AD Rob Spear has been around for 9 years with 3 full time presidents and now 2 interim presidents and he could only get the green light for minor but necessary and excellent support facilities. We built a fantastic weight room, a state of the art hydro-rehab suite, a lighted practice field, renovated locker rooms etc so even though the dome and spectrum are pathetic capacity wise, the support facilities will be among the best in the conference. That also helps offset the recruiting negatives of the small dome. Anyways Spear made some headway then our president got hired at Texas Tech and Spear probably won't be able to get anything going until the new president gets hired and settled in. My take on it is he's had 5 opportunities to say the smallest stadium in the FBS by a massive margin simply won't do and neither will a rotating home court between an 80 year old gym on the national historic registry and plywood on the floor of a giant arena is a bad idea too. He hasn't convinced anyone yet, why should we think the 6th time will be the charm? Others have more faith.

As it stands the dome expansion and a new bball/events arena are on the school's 5 year strategic plan. What does that mean? Basically the school is looking at building them and maybe it wants to build both, but wishing and cutting checks are 2 completely different animals. In either case the new science building is higher on the priority list (should be completed this year). They haven't released any blueprints, timelines, actual cost estimates or fundraising efforts so you can read between the lines there. I can say the end walls were designed to be punched out (unfortunately our brilliant AD spent ~25 million to replace the end walls with the current windows for meeting fire codes, added floor egresses and an overpass that is like 50 feet from the west wall so guess who will have to pay to disassemble/demo those brand new additions to make more room!). Some renditions of endzone seats are floating around, and they can cantilever a small upper deck on one of the sides, in addition to digging down the field to add 5-10 more rows of seats on each side. But those are renditions not blue prints. The east end of the building has all of our offices, locker rooms and meeting spaces plus some other rec facilities like a second weight room and racquetball courts so I doubt we can expand that way.

Maybe plans are in motion exist and they're just in the secret phase but if I was an AD looking to land a stable conference I'd show off every plan I had to be more attractive, but that's more speculation. The AD said we can expand to 22k and build a 5k events center for $50 million total, but he has a long, long, long history filled with many examples of saying stupid stuff that was hilariously if not tragically wrong (then again so have I) so who knows.

The Kibbie dome was named after Sam Kibbie, a rich guy who went to UI, didn't graduate but donated a ton of stocks to help build the dome. He's dead and the family doesn't contribute much to athletics so I wouldn't be shocked to get a sponsor, it just makes too much sense to score some easy money.

As far as WSU goes our brilliant AD is completely against it. He's worried the luxury suite owners would be pissed to lose their seats they paid 6 figures for. Maybe he's right, but WSU has plenty of box seats they can go into. I love the idea, a big tripping block that holds up expansion is the people who say "Why expand if your average attendance is ~75% capacity and there's rarely a sell out" and our fearless AD (did I mention how brilliant he is?) says he doesn't have the political capital to argue against that. Well the problem is the small attendance limits us so even if the program takes off it will be years before we can add seats. BJC expanded their stadium when they sucked and we beat them 13 some odd times in a ro, then they got better and they haven't looked back. Anyways you're right we had bigger crowds back then when we were pretty good and had some cheap ticket giveaways to boost attendance, but I say play a regional opponent at WSU, promote the hell out of the game, sell 15,301 tickets and there's your backup. He's a ***** and won't go for it. I'm not sure how WSU or Idaho fans would like it but I wouldn't mind 1 game if it added credibility to the expansion movement. Speaking of the suites they cut 700 seats off our capacity but doubled our ticket revenue, not counting the Litehouse foods sponsorship deal. They're awesome seats right on the action instead of in the middle decks, but a bad product on the field has to hurt those sales, I think they sold out last year though. It may be a crappy stadium, but dammit it's OUR crappy stadium, and our kickers love it, and it's here to stay.

(05-13-2013 10:06 AM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 01:37 AM)Atlanta Trojan Wrote:  What is y'all's current basketball arena like?

To me. I would not want TROY playing football In a dome. Part of the atmosphere is playing outside. I'm sure it's cold up there but that's something y'all are use to, and might work to your advantage when a team like TROY comes visit, when we are use to the southern warmer winters.

Its more than cold in Moscow ID. December is the coldest month if the year. Can you say human freese warning?

When it's cold, I can bundle up and stay warm. When it's too hot, as it often is for SB football games in September, it's just something you've gotta live with.

(05-14-2013 07:48 PM)nsavandal09 Wrote:  Expansion has been talked about for years. Our AD Rob Spear has been around for 9 years with 3 full time presidents and now 2 interim presidents and he could only get the green light for minor but necessary and excellent support facilities. We built a fantastic weight room, a state of the art hydro-rehab suite, a lighted practice field, renovated locker rooms etc so even though the dome and spectrum are pathetic capacity wise, the support facilities will be among the best in the conference. That also helps offset the recruiting negatives of the small dome. Anyways Spear made some headway then our president got hired at Texas Tech and Spear probably won't be able to get anything going until the new president gets hired and settled in. My take on it is he's had 5 opportunities to say the smallest stadium in the FBS by a massive margin simply won't do and neither will a rotating home court between an 80 year old gym on the national historic registry and plywood on the floor of a giant arena is a bad idea too. He hasn't convinced anyone yet, why should we think the 6th time will be the charm? Others have more faith.

As it stands the dome expansion and a new bball/events arena are on the school's 5 year strategic plan. What does that mean? Basically the school is looking at building them and maybe it wants to build both, but wishing and cutting checks are 2 completely different animals. In either case the new science building is higher on the priority list (should be completed this year). They haven't released any blueprints, timelines, actual cost estimates or fundraising efforts so you can read between the lines there. I can say the end walls were designed to be punched out (unfortunately our brilliant AD spent ~25 million to replace the end walls with the current windows for meeting fire codes, added floor egresses and an overpass that is like 50 feet from the west wall so guess who will have to pay to disassemble/demo those brand new additions to make more room!). Some renditions of endzone seats are floating around, and they can cantilever a small upper deck on one of the sides, in addition to digging down the field to add 5-10 more rows of seats on each side. But those are renditions not blue prints. The east end of the building has all of our offices, locker rooms and meeting spaces plus some other rec facilities like a second weight room and racquetball courts so I doubt we can expand that way.

Maybe plans are in motion exist and they're just in the secret phase but if I was an AD looking to land a stable conference I'd show off every plan I had to be more attractive, but that's more speculation. The AD said we can expand to 22k and build a 5k events center for $50 million total, but he has a long, long, long history filled with many examples of saying stupid stuff that was hilariously if not tragically wrong (then again so have I) so who knows.

The Kibbie dome was named after Sam Kibbie, a rich guy who went to UI, didn't graduate but donated a ton of stocks to help build the dome. He's dead and the family doesn't contribute much to athletics so I wouldn't be shocked to get a sponsor, it just makes too much sense to score some easy money.

As far as WSU goes our brilliant AD is completely against it. He's worried the luxury suite owners would be pissed to lose their seats they paid 6 figures for. Maybe he's right, but WSU has plenty of box seats they can go into. I love the idea, a big tripping block that holds up expansion is the people who say "Why expand if your average attendance is ~75% capacity and there's rarely a sell out" and our fearless AD (did I mention how brilliant he is?) says he doesn't have the political capital to argue against that. Well the problem is the small attendance limits us so even if the program takes off it will be years before we can add seats. BJC expanded their stadium when they sucked and we beat them 13 some odd times in a ro, then they got better and they haven't looked back. Anyways you're right we had bigger crowds back then when we were pretty good and had some cheap ticket giveaways to boost attendance, but I say play a regional opponent at WSU, promote the hell out of the game, sell 15,301 tickets and there's your backup. He's a ***** and won't go for it. I'm not sure how WSU or Idaho fans would like it but I wouldn't mind 1 game if it added credibility to the expansion movement. Speaking of the suites they cut 700 seats off our capacity but doubled our ticket revenue, not counting the Litehouse foods sponsorship deal. They're awesome seats right on the action instead of in the middle decks, but a bad product on the field has to hurt those sales, I think they sold out last year though. It may be a crappy stadium, but dammit it's OUR crappy stadium, and our kickers love it, and it's here to stay.

Idaho averaged over 80& of capacity in a 1-11 SEASON.
I read that a school needed to average 85% of capacity to justify expansion. SJSU averaged 11k in a 30k stadium during a ten win season.
Then were invited to the MWC of course they have a market with potential.Potential if the large number of people ever care about the team.Averaging a sell out is pretty hard if you have no overcapacity like APP ST or GA Southern.no grass hills in the dome also capacity is listed higher than the number of seats a lot of times.

(05-14-2013 07:48 PM)nsavandal09 Wrote:  I say play a regional opponent at WSU, promote the hell out of the game, sell 15,301 tickets and there's your backup. He's a ***** and won't go for it. I'm not sure how WSU or Idaho fans would like it but I wouldn't mind 1 game if it added credibility to the expansion movement.

I can't see why Wazzu fans would care about the Vandals playing in Martin Stadium. Most Cougs like Idaho, except when they play each other. Mostly, though, I think the proximity allows you to test the waters with a bigger opponent (as you said), and then use the facilities in Pullman for a year or two if/when you finally get the green light to tear the roof off the Kibbie Dome. Good luck.

As a 'Cuse fan I'd like a separate basketball facility. Simply because I think it'd provide a better basketball environment. The Carrier Dome is great, but we're lucky to have such great fan support, if we didn't have 20k+ fans every game the atmosphere would be poor. The Carrier Dome is a football stadium, before a basketball arena. So there are bleachers instead of individual seats, and the court is fairly far away from the stands.

Sharing the Dome certainly makes sense from a money standpoint. You don't have to pay for a separate facility, and the Dome has more cash flow with more use. I'm sure this really helps the athletic department.

If Idaho is going to spend that much money on a new facility, would think it would be good to build a new facility so that the old facility could continue to be used as is for other sports. Another larger dome or an outside football field. Might cost a little more but bet would not be a huge difference. That way many things would not have to be torn down and could continue to be used during construction, so has a lot of advantages.

(05-14-2013 09:21 PM)OrangeCrush22 Wrote:  As a 'Cuse fan I'd like a separate basketball facility. Simply because I think it'd provide a better basketball environment. The Carrier Dome is great, but we're lucky to have such great fan support, if we didn't have 20k+ fans every game the atmosphere would be poor. The Carrier Dome is a football stadium, before a basketball arena. So there are bleachers instead of individual seats, and the court is fairly far away from the stands.

Sharing the Dome certainly makes sense from a money standpoint. You don't have to pay for a separate facility, and the Dome has more cash flow with more use. I'm sure this really helps the athletic department.

Hard to compare the domes but it seems like a 26-30k dome would be better for basketball .The basketball set up could be ten thousand for example.