SMU Stadium expansion

[Greenwich Pony]

I can't seem to locate it at the moment, but I do recall seeing some plans for adding an upper deck to the east side of Ford. I think that would probably be better than enclosing the horseshoe. I don't recall if the additional deck would get us to 44K, or if that also meant closing the horseshoe. Again, I can think of other "bucket list" projects (IPF/Soccer Stadium/Swim Center)before we expand Ford. After all, we aren't exacty packing them into Ford at the moment from the looks of things.

Oh, and a side note looking at the picture of the day, we have to keep those blue jerseys and that football uniform. It looks amazing.

[SMU_Alumni11]

I can't seem to locate it at the moment, but I do recall seeing some plans for adding an upper deck to the east side of Ford. I think that would probably be better than enclosing the horseshoe. I don't recall if the additional deck would get us to 44K, or if that also meant closing the horseshoe. Again, I can think of other "bucket list" projects (IPF/Soccer Stadium/Swim Center)before we expand Ford. After all, we aren't exacty packing them into Ford at the moment from the looks of things.

Oh, and a side note looking at the picture of the day, we have to keep those blue jerseys and that football uniform. It looks amazing.

IPF yes. Soccer and swim no. We need to get in a revenue based conference before committing money to non revenue sports. If anything baseball would be better

[orguy]

Stadium expansion?

Put the crack pipe down.

[Greenwich Pony]

Considering our past and current commitment to football (and I did list the IPF first in the list), if we let the non-revenue sports just die, then what is the sodding point? Hopefully we've turned a corner in basketball, and we have sunk a bunch of money into football for mediocrity. Does neglecting our other sports take away from the revenue programs? If it does, then perhaps it is time to fold up and go home. If we don't have the coin to sit at the table with the big boys, then we need to rethink this.

[SMU_Alumni11]

I'm just saying the elective sports if you will provide no benefit in the form of money or prestige among other schools. Since we can assume these sports pull in no money on their own them if they cause a school to be in a deficit with no hopes of making money from outside sources or revenue and the deficit is material just shut the down til we can get into a conference that matters. Soccer I'm sure is fine but sports like equestrian rowing or swimming seem pointless to have. I think it would be better to have baseball in my opinion and build on football and basketball to get to a big 12.

[PK]

I'm just saying the elective sports if you will provide no benefit in the form of money or prestige among other schools. Since we can assume these sports pull in no money on their own them if they cause a school to be in a deficit with no hopes of making money from outside sources or revenue and the deficit is material just shut the down til we can get into a conference that matters. Soccer I'm sure is fine but sports like equestrian rowing or swimming seem pointless to have. I think it would be better to have baseball in my opinion and build on football and basketball to get to a big 12.

You do realize, don't you, that in order to qualify as a D1 school you have to maintain a certain number of non-revenue sports and I believe we are close to having the minimum number of those as it is. Therefore to be in any D1 conference you need these other sports. Now then, lets talk about our real problem and what we need to do to get our largest revenue sport, football, to the level it needs to be to encourage inclusion into a P5 conference. Any suggestions?

[jpe747]

PK I wish there was a way to get into a P5 conference. The best way is become a powerhouse team. Win 10+ games a year. Stronger recruitment. We all agree on the problems. I'm just not sure there are any shortcuts. And, I don't think we realize how hard the above is to do.

The other way might be fill the stadium every game. Get the big conferences excited about our fan base. However, that may be a tougher challenge then the above.

[SMU_Alumni11]

I say PK, cut it down the highest expense non-rev sports to the min, as first plan, allocate that money to football coach searching. Find someone who shows loyalty, desire to build SMU, has a fun game plan, and most importantly recruits like he cares. Once we can obtain that, its simply marketing to people in some creative way to draw fans, slowly but surely. Thirdly start building or renovating structures that we can sell on. Unfortunately top tier education just doesnt cut it with athletes nor does the beauty or number of fountains a school has. That's my very broad but hopefully good 3 points that people can fill in with beautiful details to boost them up.

We need to start somewhere and the first place is finances to get us the max talent we can get and work our way up. Keeping JJ after thing might show, "we stand by our backstabbing, lazy coach" kind of loyalty, but what it says to me is, "give us mediocrity, 6-6 kind of records and you can stay and collect a nice $$$"

[PK]

I say PK, cut it down the highest expense non-rev sports to the min, as first plan, allocate that money to football coach searching. Find someone who shows loyalty, desire to build SMU, has a fun game plan, and most importantly recruits like he cares. Once we can obtain that, its simply marketing to people in some creative way to draw fans, slowly but surely. Thirdly start building or renovating structures that we can sell on. Unfortunately top tier education just doesnt cut it with athletes nor does the beauty or number of fountains a school has. That's my very broad but hopefully good 3 points that people can fill in with beautiful details to boost them up.

I have not seen a copy of the athletic department's budget, but I would bet that the budgets for non revenue sports are already pretty damn low as it is. The elephant in the room is the football program and its budget. We have spent a lot of money on facilities and coaches without much in the way of return on investment. When I say "we", the majority of that "we" is our big donors that made Ford Stadium and the associated other facilities possible and the C of C who are footing JJ's salary. JJ complained that he didn't have a good enough recruiting budget in Hawaii and I think was excited that he would have a much better one here at SMU. What he has done with that budgeted amount of dollars is a mystery to me because the results have not been impressive. In all schools, the revenue sports support all the other sports and is not unique to SMU. So as I said earlier, the problem is how to deal with the elephant in the room.

I don't have any magic answers to the problem, but gutting the other athletic programs is not an answer in my opinion. BTW, don't forget Title IX. That does have an affect on the budget which we have little control over. However, some of the resulting sports such as rowing and equestrian are not particularly expensive operations.

As for the elephant, number one priority in my opinion is to replace the coaching staff with one that will work intensively on creating relationship with high school coaches and on recruiting vigorously to bring our talent level up to the point we can compete with the teams we want to be peers with. A staff that will promote the program to the university community and the general public at every opportunity, including in interviews and other media events and in general visibility in the community.

All the answers involve money. I donate what I can to the cause, which isn't all that much on the grand scheme of things, but that is all I can do. Hopefully there are many more doing the same thing.

[MV pony]

Just throwing money at the problem is not the answer. That's where we are now. If your donations are not well spent you are just throwing your money away.

[PK]

Just throwing money at the problem is not the answer. That's where we are now. If your donations are not well spent you are just throwing your money away.

Very true. Not advocating throwing money at the problem, but money is a big part of solving the problem...used intelligently.

[RednBlue11]

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[Stangs1970]

This is the most important hire in history.

1. Has to be right because the entire D1 bigger conference rides on this selection.
2. To get to the big boys conference we will need a bigger stadium.
3. Thank God for Bball it has made us valuable to a bigger conference.
4. We are Dallas College football markets only hope.

We need a mustang mania type program again.

[Rebel10]

Don't need stadium expansion until we start filling it up. We need an IPF.

[Dutch]

why are we even discussing stadium expansion? we can't sell out what we've got. baylor is at the absolute pinnacle of their popularity, and they wisely only built a 45,000 seat stadium, b/c they also know that even though they are in the big12, when they sucked they didn't fill floyd casey. i think being in dallas would be different b/c there are so many alumni from other schools here. but until we're in the big10 or another where we're a sellout draw every week, there's no reason to continue this conversation.