(01-29-2023 07:51 PM)ken d Wrote: (01-29-2023 01:44 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote: I just mapped it out, the Liberty Bowl is 2.3 miles from the Campus. Yes, it's an ageing facility, but it's more than adequate and the location isn't so much worse than an OCS that you'd want to drop hundreds of millions replacing it with something 2 miles down the road. As others have noted, Memphis' issues are largely unrelated to the Stadium.
What would an on-campus stadium give Memphis? Would it improve their attendance? More important, would it increase their revenues? If more students were to attend their games, would they sell more tickets or just have more seats filled with no additional revenue and probably a lot of debt service for many years into the future? Spend your money on something else.
At the risk of cutting my own school's throat, I am going to answer that question.
Here's what an on-campus stadium would give The University of Memphis:
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Higher ticket prices. The current stadium is 55,000 seats. We need a 35-40K seat facility to drive ticket prices. The city needs a larger stadium to support the Liberty Bowl game and the Southern Heritage Classic. The hotel and restaurant revenue from out-of-towners attending these games is in the millions. This is one reason the city opposes an on-campus stadium.
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Secondary Revenue - The city owns the current stadium. Money from parking, concessions, suite sales, signage advertising, naming rights, and all non-football events goes to the city. The university gets a cut of some of these for our game days, but not all of them. That's a lot of money, and it's one reason they city has never supported on-campus facilities for the university.
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Jobs The city controls the employment for stadium workers from groundskeepers to parking attendants and all points in between. This is used as a political tool for local politicians to reward their supporters with some extra cash working various stadium jobs (or perhaps being paid for them when they didn't actually work). Other schools hire students to do a lot of these jobs or use them to supplement the income of other school employees. Contracts or stadium services and repairs also fall into the same political arena. Another reason the city doesn't support an on-campus stadium.
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Political Advantage The University can bring the Governor or other state officials to a suite to see a game and those people will never place their feet on the campus. The city owns their own suites as well, and influential figures will find their way into the city's clutches even at a Tiger game. Control of the suites and having them on the campus would increase dignitaries time on the campus dramatically as it is now essentially none. Keep in mind men's basketball is played downtown at the FedExForum. We need those players on campus to see what needs to be done. Perhaps another reason the city doesn't support an on-campus stadium?
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Miscellaneous
High school students attending games never see the campus.
TV coverage never shows the campus.
Restaurants and retailers supporting the school would benefit greatly from the additional business. (There is virtually nothing around the current stadium).
Alumni attending games remain detached from their campus, schools, departments, and faculty. Alumni giving is low.
I could go on some more, but by now you should get it. The University of Memphis is a state school - not a city school. The city has numerous interests in owning and controlling the football stadium, but without the university as a tenant, it would be difficult to justify. Since they own the stadium, the city reaps the vast majority of the benefits of ownership. That's where we have been for 100 years, and it is not going to change for another 25 to 50 years. The city has secured funding for major upgrades to the stadium. Memphis' plight will continue for a few more decades at least.
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How important is an on-campus stadium in realignment/expansion?
