Sorry if this post seems long winded, but this subject is near and dear to my heart. I have the Nienas Study bookmarked and have perused it often over the years.
(05-20-2013 01:29 PM)southern edumacation Wrote: (05-20-2013 01:23 PM)mbrunner Wrote: (05-20-2013 12:25 PM)FloridaJag Wrote: This is UTA's football contingency for restarting its football program at the FCS level. With a little modification, I believe they would be ready for the SBC by 2018.
http://www.uta.edu/sportsexpansion/
http://www.uta.edu/sportsexpansion/sports_expansion.pdf
They just need to GO-FOR-IT! They wouldn't regret it! 
wait wait wait...they have gas wells on campus?
On the edges by the parking lots.
(05-20-2013 01:53 PM)GoApps70 Wrote: Sounded kind of discouraging 5,600 attendance when UTA last had football, but a new day
could bring different results, I guess.
There were a lot of factors at play. UTA used to average near 10,000 in the '60's. We were one of the dominant teams in what is now DII. We were the first DI team in the Southland and made the move in 1970. We weren't ready, we didn't have the proper funding and as such, our teams were terrible. We were winless the first year and followed that with wins of 2, 5, 4 and 1. Add to that we demolished our on campus stadium and were coerced into playing at the minor league stadium several miles off campus that would later become the home for the Texas Rangers and it isn't hard to see why the team's attendance lagged.
It would have been difficult in the best of times as UTA started their transition from a traditional campus in favor of a commuter one. There are several examples of on-campus housing being demolished, in some cases for parking lots. Arlington itself was transitioning from a small town to a bedroom suburb who neglected its core, right where UTA sits. Once the NCAA lost their supreme court decision regarding TV finances, the writing was nearly completely on the wall.
UTA, with a new president, Bobby Witt (who would later become Alabama's president) started the transition back to a more traditional campus. The process has been slow, but there has been tremendous momentum of late. When I started in Aug of 2000, the first dorms were built in decades. Parking lots were actually being used for something, usually residential housing. Also, Arlington in the last five years has finally started paying attention to its downtown.
As far as athletics, there was talk in the early '90's of actually dropping to DIII. AD Pete Carlon helped pass the student athletics fee and finally found a stable source of funding for the department. However, our facilities were severely lagging. The junior college I attended in Midland had a far, far better basketball arena than UTA. The baseball stadium was sub-par, though the field was great. Same with softball. In fact, the only decent facility we had was Maverick Stadium, so our track team was doing great.
Enter James Spaniolo. He became president right around the time of the student vote for adding football, soccer and golf. He made a decision that was ridiculed at that time, but one I believe to be the right one. He stated we were finally going to pursue an on-campus multi-use arena. After a longer than announced planning process College Park Center debuted last year, coincidentally during our basketball best individual SLC finish and win total.
The plan when the arena was pursued was to re-look at football in five years. Since the planning process took so long, they did it recently. The admin has stated that baseball and softball were next. A go a little more in detail here:
http://utamavericks.46.forumer.com/curio...85402.html
Plain and simple, this is a different U.
(05-20-2013 01:59 PM)appfan89 Wrote: Just out of curiosity, that report was done in '04. Here we are, 9 years later, and no football team. According to that report, the student body was in favor of increasing their fees to help support the football team, women's soccer and women's golf.
Now, there is 34k students. Will the current student population support re-instituting a football team?
I know of no student body that has ever said no to these kind of things. I see no reason why UTA would be different from the previous body, which had roughly 2/3rds saying yes. There is also some speculation that since the students already approved it, the fee could be levied at any time. I doubt they would do that though.
(05-20-2013 02:24 PM)FloridaJag Wrote: I am looking at UTA - Football and see the following positives.
1. Immediate rivalry with Texas State
2. Natural rivalry with North Texas
3. 4 hour drive to Louisiana Monroe
4. 6 hour drive to Louisiana Lafayette
5. 7 hour drive to Arkansas State
6. Easy to schedule home vs home games with La Tech, Rice, SMU and UTSA
7. All MWC schools will be interested in home vs home because very easy to get to Dallas via Air.
We used to play 2-6 fairly regularly. I agree with one, but only played them twice. In 27 seasons as a U team, we played UNT 12 times, UL-M 11, UL-L 15 and Arkansas St 22. La Tech was an opponent 18 times and SMU was 4.
(05-20-2013 06:16 PM)joshdude182 Wrote: (05-20-2013 05:35 PM)tux Wrote: (05-20-2013 02:24 PM)FloridaJag Wrote: I am looking at UTA - Football and see the following positives.
1. Immediate rivalry with Texas State
2. Natural rivalry with North Texas
3. 4 hour drive to Louisiana Monroe
4. 6 hour drive to Louisiana Lafayette
5. 7 hour drive to Arkansas State
6. Easy to schedule home vs home games with La Tech, Rice, SMU and UTSA
7. All MWC schools will be interested in home vs home because very easy to get to Dallas via Air.
All very true and beneficial for the SBC. I wish they would just pull the trigger.
All true, but one more thing. That study was assuming competition at the FCS level in the Southland conference. For UTA to go FBS Maverick stadium would need a MAJOR renovation/expansion.
I'm guessing you didn't click on the link. From the report:
Quote:Facilities
Option A Renovation of the west side of Maverick Stadium to create 20,000 square feet at a cost of $75 per square foot: $1,500,000.
Option B Construction of a 25,000 square foot facility north of the Gilstrap Athletic Center at a cost of $150 per square foot,
and renovation of Maverick Stadium to create a 5,000 square foot facility at a cost of $75 per square foot: $4,125,000
Option C Construction of a 32,000 square foot facility north of the Gilstrap Athletic Center at a cost of $150 per square foot: $4,800,000.
Option D Construction of a new 44,000 square foot end zone multi-purpose building at a cost of $178 per square foot: $7,800,000.
While this is for locker rooms and such and not capacity, which would have to be addressed, the stadium itself is still used quite a bit by the AISD. Adding attendance capacity will be some, but depending on how it is done, the "underbelly" or end zone complex will be the most.
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FYI - UTA's 2004 expansion plan for Football
