Fans tend to look at capacity to determine if a stadium or arena is legit.
Coastal is building 20700 seats but will have a lot of suites for a small stadium especially.
Tulane built small for the AAC but has a high percentage of premium seating.
Some arenas have reduced capacity by a good bit to add premium seating.
Now a suite at most G5 schools would be much cheaper than a suite at a P5.
The regular seats are also cheaper.
Is there a general rule like every premium seat equals four or five regular seats ?
Two things matter the most revenue and game day experience.
So if Coastal can generate revenue equal to a 24k stadium without suites vs 20k with suites that is best for them.
Northwestern reduced capacity by about two thousand for basketball this year. USC built a smallish basketball arena by PAC 12 standards.
Some of the newer NFL stadiums are lower capacity but heavy suites.
Premium seating is an easy sell and when asking for the big donations it gives an A.D. something to offer.
Sponsor our program we will advertise for your company and you can offer employees and clients use of a suite.
For easy math are you better as a mid major with five thousand seat arena with suites or a six thousand seat arena without ?

ODU is rebuilding Foreman Field and replacing the east and west grand stands and not adding many suites for the first phase since most of the money is needed to replace general seating and bring amenities up to modern standards. We already have many suites in our north endzone so we are not hurting that bad for new suites. A premium lounge area that will hold like 300 people (higher donors) is being on the west grandstand. Additional suites will come in future phases. Capacity after the first phase will be 21,400. Not big but still a long way to go until the stadium is completely redone. I do think for FBS a minimum of 30,000 seats is needed to be respectable.

Our basketball arena is like a small NBA arena (8,600 capacity) with suites all around the top level. Its a perfect fit for ODU and is a great arena.

The trend is for fewer seats and more premium seating. That is where the money is made. Suites, club seats and loge boxes produce millions for teams in the pros and colleges. Expect more as the years go by. When TCU rebuilt their stadium seating capacity ended up about the same but there were about 30 suites and 2000 club seats added. TCU is now adding 22 more suites and 1300 more seats in a new club section and loge boxes. The revenue going forward is huge compared to regular seating. The basketball arena rebuild also added a number of premium seats with their own private club.

Say a school is building a new arena

Choice A one upper level and one side suites

Choice B Upper level seating on both sides no premium seating but 1000 extra capacity.

Which arena would get the best revenue ?
My guess is A but B would have a higher single game gate maybe.
The further you are from averaging a sell out the bigger the advantage for A.

(01-18-2019 10:16 AM)Big Frog II Wrote:  The trend is for fewer seats and more premium seating. That is where the money is made. Suites, club seats and loge boxes produce millions for teams in the pros and colleges. Expect more as the years go by. When TCU rebuilt their stadium seating capacity ended up about the same but there were about 30 suites and 2000 club seats added. TCU is now adding 22 more suites and 1300 more seats in a new club section and loge boxes. The revenue going forward is huge compared to regular seating. The basketball arena rebuild also added a number of premium seats with their own private club.

Agreed.

Revenue per home game is more significant than the number of tickets sold and far more significant than any school's fishy reported attendance numbers.

But, for anyone who wants to make comparisons of that revenue, good luck getting any college (or pro) team to publicly release accurate reports of revenue per home game in any sport.

(01-18-2019 05:23 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(01-18-2019 10:16 AM)Big Frog II Wrote:  The trend is for fewer seats and more premium seating. That is where the money is made. Suites, club seats and loge boxes produce millions for teams in the pros and colleges. Expect more as the years go by. When TCU rebuilt their stadium seating capacity ended up about the same but there were about 30 suites and 2000 club seats added. TCU is now adding 22 more suites and 1300 more seats in a new club section and loge boxes. The revenue going forward is huge compared to regular seating. The basketball arena rebuild also added a number of premium seats with their own private club.

Agreed.

Revenue per home game is more significant than the number of tickets sold and far more significant than any school's fishy reported attendance numbers.

But, for anyone who wants to make comparisons of that revenue, good luck getting any college (or pro) team to publicly release accurate reports of revenue per home game in any sport.

Agreed. Sports teams want the public to view them as entertainment. Universities want the public to view them as educational. Neither wants the public to evaluate them the same way that Disney and Apple and General Motors are evaluated.

But other than the Green Bay Packers (which is a public company and releases financial statements), the closest I've seen to accurate reporting was in 2010 when the financial statements of 6 MLB teams were leaked to Deadspin.

Pirates, Rays, Marlins, Angels, Mariners, and Rangers financial statements from 2008 & 2009