Good. But it cannot replace the post-game concert.
Should We Build a Bigger Stadium
- Thread starter Rotonda Jim
- Start date
But when it comes FB venues I have to float my boat the same as 23. MS is not as uncomfortable as some of the higher profile programs. Aluminum bench seats are something to consider replacing with an upgrade. Particularly on the west side. NEZ should have been done with more amenities to please a wider scope of Saturday fans.
I’m all for upgrades, but some of you realize that most college football stadiums have mostly plain bleachers, right? It’s hardly unusual.
Most Power 5 have been replacing them with bleachers with backs. The newer stadiums have chair-backs. IU cant because of leg room - a mistake made in the plans from the 1950’s.
If you aren't improving, you are falling behind. IU went cheap in the 50s and the prevailing mood remains “do the minimum - never lead - when is Midnight Madness?”
Sigh.
The reason those seats are uncomfortable is because we lose games, a lot
These same issues magically disappear at a relic like Camp Randall.
These same issues magically disappear at a relic like Camp Randall.
That is what I hoped would happen when they hired a new director but of course IU music department was too high brow for that to happen.
The easy fix..., with a low financial outlay (when compared to installing fixed padded backed seats) is to do what I mentioned somewhere on here recently (perhaps in this thread) and simply roll out some doubled camping pad type of foam padding [of the type that doesn't absorb water] and then cover it with some lace on, water proof tarp type material (easy to pull off and store after football season)...
A simple upgrade such as that might go at least a little way towards retaining some of the "bail at halftime" crowd...
Those bleachers get pretty hard after a couple of hours and those mediocre rental seat backs have become thin in the padding department...
The other option is to simply contract with a outfit that can fabricate a far better version of the aforementioned rental seat backs and install them on every seat number...
Either solution is both doable and with the new income headed our way relatively affordable...
Another, perhaps better, approach might be to provide a mix of the above and adjust seat pricing accordingly... Say a half or a third of the best seats (think lower and centered) having the seat back version and the rest padded as I mentioned above... Install them in the shape of Crimson Block I and call it the Block I Club seating, or the Crimson Club seating (to at least make you feel like you're getting something special and upgraded) and you've covered several customer complaints...
If you wanted to go cheap and just a little a bit spiteful towards visitors (except toward the students, they stand up most of the time anyway) you could leave the outer edges/corners bare metal, thus mitigating some of the installation costs and giving the consumer a tiered pricing choice...
-Free advice that's expected to go unheeded per usual ...-
The Department of Bands, long a part of the Jacobs School of Music, has had responsibility for the basketball pep band and Marching Hundred for decades. But the SOM has primarily been known for their output of internationally renowned vocalists, rather than instrumentalists. Assuming a highly rated music school would naturally produce a high level marching band has always been a misplaced expectation, based on the recognized strengths of the SOM.
Philharmonics absolutely everywhere...disagree.
(you can look that word up as well)
As badly as our PU troll friend butchered his googled response...there are some limitations with IU's student musicians. Many play string instruments which don't translate well. That saidm plenty of brass, percussion and woodwind masters to create a magnificent marching band.
If it were a priority as it is at Ahia.
Speakers work as well as a band
When the little man in the little red Big Ten hat walks out on the field, instead of playing a commercial or a dumb pizza man game, play THIS:
Or if we're behind, maybe THIS:
Or if they are taking 15 minutes to review a plain IU TD, play THIS:
Something people will sing and smile to - with cowbell:
Yeah, I know exactly what I’m talking about here, as any IU grad like me would. You sure like to follow me around, don’t you? I’ll take it as the compliment that it is. Thanks!
Met the O’Jays when they played at the Auditorium as the featured act at the long since defunct Homecoming Variety Show.
You promised to put me on ignore. You also swore you would never respond to one of my posts ever ever ever again
keep your promises Ordy.
No, I didn’t promise any such thing. I do appreciate your continued responses to each of my posts, however. It’s gratifying to know that you consider me to be so relevant here. I take it as a great compliment.
Have never promised you anything like that. Please go back through each and every post of mine, most of which you’ve responded to. I’m sure you’ll post it if it’s there.
Thanks again for the compliment of your automatic responses to all of my thoughts. It’s a great compliment that you’ve become so enamored with everything I have to say here.
I have a suspicion that Mellencamp may be similar to SSAH in that extensively renovating it would cost as much as simply building a new facility. And building a new one would at least theoretically give Dolson et al the opportunity to solve the "football only weight room" problem.
Personally I don't really care which other schools share their weight rooms or don't--I just think IU shouldn't have to do so, especially if an already existing facility like Mellencamp can be converted into a 2nd weight room for everyone but the football team, and there's enough $$ coming down the TV pipeline in future years to bankroll it.
You may be spot on with the cost of a retrofit vs starting over. The footprint becomes a bit awkward without tearing MP down. Running out of real estate. I suppose a SOTA facility could be built in what is now the orange lot and make the MP real estate a nice tailgate park.
The shared weight room thing is not a thing for me. Purdue fans cling to it out of desperation, but It is a fantastic facility and with the many football-only amenities we now have, tough to believe it is a show stopper for a sport-specific athlete.
What I do not understand about the “turn Mellencamp into the weight room” argument is the difference in size. Right now IU has one of the largest weight rooms in the country. You could probably put 12 of those into Mellencamp. Obviously you are not going to do that for the other programs currently using the FB weight room so you would only be taking a fraction of that building. What do you do with the rest of it?
It's just stupid. Are football players having to wait on equipment? Are other sports getting reserved time? Are football players afraid they'll catch volleyball cooties?
There isn’t one student, player or recruit who wants any of this awful boomer music!! I respect John Mellencamp’s contributions to IU but his music is dog shit. No one under the age of 30 wants to hear any of this stuff. Nobody is going to come or not come to a game because of the music that’s played. Win and consistently win… That will fill the stadium. Upgrade the practice facility first. Take care of the student athletes, not some old people who want to hear the freakin O’Jays instead of J Cole.
The entire thing is fabricated by those that need to weaponize it. Just dumb.
Right, which means you use the rest for other tools. But as stated above it may be cheaper to raze the building and start from scratch.
I have no problem with the stadium playing a little music for everyone across age groups, but primarily playing music from 50-60 years ago is definitely not the answer to the MS attendance or atmosphere problems. Generally, primarily playing music that is *currently* popular helps, regardless of what you personally think about it. We can't keep doing the hokey pokey and "hoosier wipeout" while the world moves on. It's embarrassing and sucks the energy out of the place. There is a need to cater to the students, players, and people under 40 as well.
My 20-something waitress walked by signing The Beatles "I Saw Her Standing There" a few minutes ago
They still SING 'Hang On Snoopy" at OSU
They sing Sweet Caroline everywhere
I think some 60's and 70's pop will still sell.
They play Phantom of the Opera over at Ped State and have no trouble selling it out regularly...
Haven't heard much rap up at Wisconsin either...
He did get me though... I've gotten so used to that I never considered it real hard core rap... Don't care for the guy but have to say he won that one... 😖 Let's just say I'm not exactly a connoisseur of the genre and leave it at that...🙈😞
No...we're good on the size of the stadium. Most recruits care more about more personal facilities...locker room, weight room, dorms, student centers, nutrition centers, etc...
As per the stadium...I think they just need to keep looking for ways to modernize, and improve the game day experience.
I think they hit a homerun with the design, functionality, and overall effect with the North End zone. I think the South End Zone was largely a strikeout. Whereas the NEZ looks like it was always apart of the stadium, it looks well planned and thought out...the SEZ looks like an afterthought. I think they should have either mirrored the NEZ, and used the south largely for the purposes they are. Or they should have Built a big building that looks like the outside of the NEZ. And built in some seating, luxury boxes, etc... on the back side of it. What they did looks like they ran out of money and just finished it however they could.
Anything they do going forward, should tie in the VERY COOL look and architecture of the North End Zone.
Maybe turrets on the Northeast and South East Corners, that have luxury boxes in-between them. Same for the Northwest and Southwest corners, with a huge press box/entertainment center in between them.
It'd change the overall exterior shape of the stadium to more of a rectangle. But all the architecture would tie together. It'd look like we purposefully built a brand new stadium this way. You make it seat 53-55K people. It'd make it a lot louder enclosing it more like this.
And I think the architecture on the NEZ is so cool, you could use it as a template for a bunch of other buildings on the sports complex.
Another ad for Prohibitionit doesn't seem to bother you as much when you're at Lambeau.
They play Rossini at every game. From 1829.
If its got a beat and some soul, it’ll be welcome.
it would have to become some kind of "multi-use" facility, possibly including therapy, study halls etc.
I'm not gung-ho one way or the other about which approach re: Mellencamp is taken as long as IU ends up with a new, state-of-the-art indoor facility, either somewhere else nearby or on Mellencamp's current site.
About the only new places I could imagine as possible sites would be either 1) north of the Tennis Center or else 2) north of the outdoor FB practice fields in the grassy area in the middle of those parking lots (west of Kaufman)
Either way (a new build on one of those sites, or overhaul Mellencamp on its current site), I think a new indoor practice facility is crucial in the short term. And some minimal # of MS suites would IMO be "semi-crucial" in the medium term, with possible addition of more MS general seating in the hypothetical long-term.
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