(05-01-2022 12:28 PM)TealNation Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:19 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:09 PM)TealNation Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:01 PM)Blue_Trombone Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 11:50 AM)JMURocks Wrote:  Our AD has made comments along the lines of demand/attendance will dictate that. Lots of speculation and debate, my guess is maybe 5 years from now we could break ground. If we start selling out all games, it could happen sooner than later. Right now, we generally can sell out the opener, homecoming and parents/family weekends.

AD has stated that the target capacity is around 40k once all expansion phases complete. 2nd phase would build out the east grandstands to match the west, and 3rd phase would expand and bowl in the endzone.

Any chance y'all just build out the lower bowl in the near future? Would really give y'all's stadium a more 'complete' feel and would look better on TV seeing how the least attractive side of your stadium is what would get the majority of the TV time.

Rather than a huge expansion, I could see JMU potentially doing a nice renovation to the smaller side and end zone to really tie the stadium together. Maybe bowl it and add more premium seating spaces on the smaller side. That would save from potentially sacrificing atmosphere unless a large expansion is absolutely needed.

I supposed it’s *possible* but nothing we’ve heard from any official sources indicates a move that direction. Our AD in an interview shortly after the SBC announcement (November timeframe?) spoke more about when we would start phase 2, which has been on the drawing board a long time.

I'm sure those guy's have growth projections and trends. Just an alternative thought, as a 15k expansion is pretty significant. A 40k stadium could very well be warranted and makes sense.

AD had stated prior to SBC move that the long term trends and demographics at JMU would eventually mean stadium expansion even if we remained FCS. Just due to things like student and community population growth, increasing alumni base, etc.

Phase 2 is probably closer to 35k capacity, it hasn't been precisely stated. Phase 3 with the endzone gets us to 40k.

Like Hazed mentioned, we've been averaging around 22-23k with some sellouts, having teams like Moorehead, Towson and Elon on the schedule. Official capacity is 25k. Spring football game had a large turnout this year, and the admin has stated ticket interest/sales are jumping too. I suspect we will sellout and show the demand needed to justify seating expansion.

South Alabama had a sellout in Ladd Stadium in 2014 when we hosted Mississippi State, 38,129. You can check the first 2 minutes of this game to see the crowd.

That was a hot, miserable day. If USA stadium talks weren’t serious before this game, they became serious afterwards due to the issues experienced. The Ladd Stadium board was in control of gameday operations and completely dropped the ball. With temps in the 90’s and the heat index over 100 they ran out of water! Many people passed out and/or treated for heat exhaustion and the stadium didn’t have any water. Having to shuttle from the mall to the stadium due to parking constraints was also a disaster. Some people didn’t arrive until the second quarter/halftime. It turned a lot of people off to USA football games. Hopefully now that COVID is winding down we can’t start to build back up at Hancock Whitney Stadium and give them a better experience now that we can control all aspects of gameday.

(05-01-2022 12:59 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:28 PM)TealNation Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:19 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:09 PM)TealNation Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 12:01 PM)Blue_Trombone Wrote:  Any chance y'all just build out the lower bowl in the near future? Would really give y'all's stadium a more 'complete' feel and would look better on TV seeing how the least attractive side of your stadium is what would get the majority of the TV time.

Rather than a huge expansion, I could see JMU potentially doing a nice renovation to the smaller side and end zone to really tie the stadium together. Maybe bowl it and add more premium seating spaces on the smaller side. That would save from potentially sacrificing atmosphere unless a large expansion is absolutely needed.

I supposed it’s *possible* but nothing we’ve heard from any official sources indicates a move that direction. Our AD in an interview shortly after the SBC announcement (November timeframe?) spoke more about when we would start phase 2, which has been on the drawing board a long time.

I'm sure those guy's have growth projections and trends. Just an alternative thought, as a 15k expansion is pretty significant. A 40k stadium could very well be warranted and makes sense.

AD had stated prior to SBC move that the long term trends and demographics at JMU would eventually mean stadium expansion even if we remained FCS. Just due to things like student and community population growth, increasing alumni base, etc.

Phase 2 is probably closer to 35k capacity, it hasn't been precisely stated. Phase 3 with the endzone gets us to 40k.

Like Hazed mentioned, we've been averaging around 22-23k with some sellouts, having teams like Moorehead, Towson and Elon on the schedule. Official capacity is 25k. Spring football game had a large turnout this year, and the admin has stated ticket interest/sales are jumping too. I suspect we will sellout and show the demand needed to justify seating expansion.

That's really awesome, especially in a time where physical attendance is dwindling nationwide. A lot of the larger stadiums across the country are shrinking capacity and renovating with more premium seating.

Here is each teams top attended home game I believe. The only one I’m not sure about is Georgia State. If they had a game with higher attendance in the Georgia Dome I couldn’t find it. I also put the team each team was playing, the attendance number and they’re listed in order of highest to lowest:

Marshall- 41,382 WVU
UL- 41,357 Southern
USA- 38,129 Miss State
Southern Miss- 36,641 Miss State
App State- 35,126 Wake Forest
Texas State- 33,133 Houston
StAte- 31,243 MTSU
ULM- 31,175 Baylor
Troy- 29,612 Boise
JMU- 26,069 Richmond
GS- 25,735 ULM
Georgia State- 24,333 Tennessee State
ODU- 21,944 Norfolk State
Coastal- 18,674 ULM

(04-30-2022 08:24 PM)CW Fishman Wrote:  Largest crowd at Cajun Field was in 2009 against Southern 41,357

1. 41,357, Southern (9/5/09)
2. 38,783, Texas A&M (9/14/96)
3. 36,170, Southern (8/30/14)
4. 36,133, Alabama (10/6/90)
5. 33,828, McNeese State (9/15/07)
6. 32,823, North Texas (10/15/11)
7. 30,176, Arkansas State (11/6/76)
8. 30,028 New Mexico State (11/2/13)
9. 29,775, Troy (10/8/11)
10. 29,758, Tulane (10/6/12)
11. 29,031, FIU (11/1/08)
12. 28,871, Nicholls State (9/14/13)
13. 28,866, Grambling State (09/09/18)
14. 28,752, Northwestern State (11/12/77)
15. 28,741, Nicholls State (9/17/11)
16. 28,176, ULM (11/5/11)
17. 27,814, San Jose State (10/30/93)
18. 27,300, Northern Illinois (10/15/88)
19. 26,891, McNeese State (9/10/16)
20. 26,824, Northwestern State (9/12/15)

I hope as we move along as SBC competitors, USM will appear on UL’s largest crowd list often, and vice versa. The potential is huge.

2014 vs App St was the most lively crowd in the SBC era for GS. Thursday night and rockin'. Would've been higher attendance if a Saturday.

(05-01-2022 11:50 AM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 07:25 AM)b2b Wrote:  When is JMU going to finish the 2nd half of the stadium?

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Our AD has made comments along the lines of demand/attendance will dictate that. Lots of speculation and debate, my guess is maybe 5 years from now we could break ground. If we start selling out all games, it could happen sooner than later. Right now, we generally can sell out the opener, homecoming and parents/family weekends.

AD has stated that the target capacity is around 40k once all expansion phases complete. 1st phase was completed in 2011. 2nd phase would build out the east grandstands to match the west, and 3rd phase would expand and bowl in the endzone.

Why was it built this way to begin with? No offense but I always thought it was a bizarre approach to expanding the stadium.

(05-02-2022 09:41 AM)b2b Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 11:50 AM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(05-01-2022 07:25 AM)b2b Wrote:  When is JMU going to finish the 2nd half of the stadium?

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Our AD has made comments along the lines of demand/attendance will dictate that. Lots of speculation and debate, my guess is maybe 5 years from now we could break ground. If we start selling out all games, it could happen sooner than later. Right now, we generally can sell out the opener, homecoming and parents/family weekends.

AD has stated that the target capacity is around 40k once all expansion phases complete. 1st phase was completed in 2011. 2nd phase would build out the east grandstands to match the west, and 3rd phase would expand and bowl in the endzone.

Why was it built this way to begin with? No offense but I always thought it was a bizarre approach to expanding the stadium.

My guess is it was seen as a cost effective way to rebuild one section at a time, rather than the entire stadium at once. If we touch/connect to the old east side, it pretty much has to be demolished and rebuilt to meet new building codes/ADA standards, etc. I've seen this mentioned with stadium projects at other schools also.

Would also say, this approach has given us some real first class facilities on the West side, including club level, suites and high quality press and television booths. When they rebuild the east side, the AD stated it would "mirror" what we have on the west.

For anyone interested, here is the original concept/design. There were a few tweaks made to Phase 1, and likely would be some revisions to phase 2/3 also.

(05-01-2022 03:53 PM)High Country Student Wrote:  Here is each teams top attended home game I believe. The only one I’m not sure about is Georgia State. If they had a game with higher attendance in the Georgia Dome I couldn’t find it. I also put the team each team was playing, the attendance number and they’re listed in order of highest to lowest:

Marshall- 41,382 WVU
UL- 41,357 Southern
USA- 38,129 Miss State
Southern Miss- 36,641 Miss State
App State- 35,126 Wake Forest
Texas State- 33,133 Houston
StAte- 31,243 MTSU
ULM- 31,175 Baylor
Troy- 29,612 Boise
JMU- 26,069 Richmond
GS- 25,735 ULM
Georgia State- 24,333 Tennessee State
ODU- 21,944 Norfolk State
Coastal- 18,674 ULM

Georgia State's first game ever vs Shorter had just over 32k in the Georgia Dome. We were only supposed to have seating in the lower bowl but so many students came out they had to open a few sections in the 200 level.

you just had to bring up that 2010 Friends of Coal Bowl...

I just hope that most of us can get back to averaging 25k+ per game in the SBC.

I hope we can get the crowds for Marshall back to 30k average. When the crowd is packed on a beautiful day I don't think many stadiums can compare to the Joan.

You can skip ahead to 30:50 for a chant the Belt schools are going to become very familiar with. Personally this is one my favorite memories for a home crowd!

Marshall vs Purdue 2015

(05-04-2022 06:35 PM)trickyfish Wrote:  I hope we can get the crowds for Marshall back to 30k average. When the crowd is packed on a beautiful day I don't think many stadiums can compare to the Joan.

You can skip ahead to 30:50 for a chant the Belt schools are going to become very familiar with. Personally this is one my favorite memories for a home crowd!

Marshall vs Purdue 2015

I expect App to average over 30k in 2023. We will have home games against ECU, Marshall, Coastal and Georgia Southern. Those are 4 games that should all draw at or around 30k. If we make the FCS game parents weekend that will draw 30k as well. Depending on who we play from the other division we could have 30k for every game in 2023 but I won’t guarantee it. Ideally I would have liked to see one of Marshall, Coastal, and Georgia Southern in Boone this year so we would play two out of those 3 and JMU one year in Boone and the other two the opposite year in Boone. Instead attendance may be inflated every other season because of how good the matchups are the years we play 3 of them in Boone.

Nobody is going to average 30K. That is crazy. Run the numbers. If we do 24+ it will be fantastic. Don't look at attendance as much as % of stadium filled. I hope we tear down the end zone erector set even though I love sitting behind the goal posts....24000 in a 30,000 seat stadium look so much better to espn than 24000 in a 39000 stadium. Remember people, we are FBS and not P5. Perception is everything.

(05-04-2022 09:04 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  Nobody is going to average 30K. That is crazy. Run the numbers. If we do 24+ it will be fantastic. Don't look at attendance as much as % of stadium filled. I hope we tear down the end zone erector set even though I love sitting behind the goal posts....24000 in a 30,000 seat stadium look so much better to espn than 24000 in a 39000 stadium. Remember people, we are FBS and not P5. Perception is everything.

This. Atmosphere matters.

(05-04-2022 09:04 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  Nobody is going to average 30K. That is crazy. Run the numbers. If we do 24+ it will be fantastic. Don't look at attendance as much as % of stadium filled. I hope we tear down the end zone erector set even though I love sitting behind the goal posts....24000 in a 30,000 seat stadium look so much better to espn than 24000 in a 39000 stadium. Remember people, we are FBS and not P5. Perception is everything.

I don’t disagree with the notion of maximizing your attendance in a stadium that doesn’t have way more seats than what you’re bringing in but I still think App will average over 30k in 2023 and it’s pretty hard to convince me otherwise. We averaged 29,389 this year against Elon, Marshall, Coastal, ULM, South Alabama, and Georgia Southern. We are trading Elon, ULM and South Alabama for Gardner Webb, ECU and a team from the west. The ECU game is a rivalry game. That should easily bump us over 30k. Not to mention two of our home games this year were on Thursday. We won’t have more than 2 Thursday games. Georgia Southern also only had 28,000 and that number could go up considering it was on Thanksgiving weekend this year.

(05-04-2022 09:15 PM)High Country Student Wrote:  

(05-04-2022 09:04 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  Nobody is going to average 30K. That is crazy. Run the numbers. If we do 24+ it will be fantastic. Don't look at attendance as much as % of stadium filled. I hope we tear down the end zone erector set even though I love sitting behind the goal posts....24000 in a 30,000 seat stadium look so much better to espn than 24000 in a 39000 stadium. Remember people, we are FBS and not P5. Perception is everything.

I don’t disagree with the notion of maximizing your attendance in a stadium that doesn’t have way more seats than what you’re bringing in but I still think App will average over 30k in 2023 and it’s pretty hard to convince me otherwise. We averaged 29,389 this year against Elon, Marshall, Coastal, ULM, South Alabama, and Georgia Southern. We are trading Elon, ULM and South Alabama for Gardner Webb, ECU and a team from the west. The ECU game is a rivalry game. That should easily bump us over 30k. Not to mention two of our home games this year were on Thursday. We won’t have more than 2 Thursday games. Georgia Southern also only had 28,000 and that number could go up considering it was on Thanksgiving weekend this year.

Teams definitely need to be calculated though when expanding a stadium and make sure they’re consistently filling their stadium for multiple years before expanding and don’t expand too much too quickly.

Best crowd game I have ever been to at Marshall was when we played Kansas St. Place was rocking! Purdue and Wvu game comes in 2nd and 3rd.

(05-05-2022 02:00 PM)muherd34 Wrote:  Best crowd game I have ever been to at Marshall was when we played Kansas St. Place was rocking! Purdue and Wvu game comes in 2nd and 3rd.

The Purdue game was the best experience I've ever had at a Marshall game. The 2 Pick-sixes rocked the place. It was so hot that day too, but such a good game.

(05-05-2022 02:23 PM)Surbadger Wrote:  

(05-05-2022 02:00 PM)muherd34 Wrote:  Best crowd game I have ever been to at Marshall was when we played Kansas St. Place was rocking! Purdue and Wvu game comes in 2nd and 3rd.

The Purdue game was the best experience I've ever had at a Marshall game. The 2 Pick-sixes rocked the place. It was so hot that day too, but such a good game.

Agreed! Hot as hell but what a great game. The other great time I remember was the Dobson One-handed catch vs ECU. The student section went berserk, that's a fun memory.

Marshall vs ECU - Dobson Catch