Our stadium

[cthenrys]

We make revenue from their dollars. Give Tech fans a game to look forward to, be competitive, and make it fun and fans will show up. We missed a good opportunity last season. After the Duke game we should have moved our game against Georgia into the MBS. Everyone knew they would show up strong with their fan support. We could have sold 70,000 tickets vs 55,000 tickets and had a huge payday.

Selling home games to MBS is the beginning of the end.

 

[JacketOff]

That is one of my points. Since the two concerts that were cancelled because of Covid, everything has gone to the MBS. I just wonder if either we've given up, we're not trying hard enough or we just can't get the concerts. Those would help with our revenue. With the World Cup coming to Atlanta, I don't think we can get any matches due to our artificial turf. I'm pretty sure they want real grass and I would hate to see Athens get a game since they use real grass.

The World Cup matches will be played in MBS. The city of Atlanta placed the bid with MBs being the venue. Unless MBS collapses between now and 2026 there’s a 0% chance any of the matches would be played at Bobby Dodd or in Athens.

However FIFA mandates all World Cup matches must be played on natural grass, so MBS is going to install natural grass and there will be a grace period of about 2 months where they cannot host events there so the grass can have time to grow in. That period of time will probably see BDS used as an event center for concerts and what not in Atlanta

 

[GT33]

We make revenue from their dollars. Give Tech fans a game to look forward to, be competitive, and make it fun and fans will show up. We missed a good opportunity last season. After the Duke game we should have moved our game against Georgia into the MBS. Everyone knew they would show up strong with their fan support. We could have sold 70,000 tickets vs 55,000 tickets and had a huge payday.

I'm not sure how much MBS would charge us to hold the game there, but if we could sell 15k seats at $100/each for the nosebleeds, that would yield $1.5M every other year. That's nothing to sneeze at.

The larger issue is our best year under the current regime we sold $3M less in season tickets AND increased personnel costs by $7M/yr. That's right, all the hypey and despite having the mutts at home we sold less $$ in football tickets than the boring, nobody wanted to go to the games option years. We came out the blocks under the new regime with a whopping $10M/yr deficit where we used to average around a $1M/yr annual operating margin and had a $6.5M rainy day wad. Last numbers I saw we were nearly $3M in the hole and that was 2 fiscal years ago. They did not post the Rona year and sure as hell are not going to post FY 2022 financials.

The saving grace here is many of us opened our wallets very generously in years 1 & 2 of this experiment because we wanted to see the transition not become a disaster. Personally, I significantly upped my donations right off the bat, then was asked & acquiesced twice more in the next 12 months to pony up more. I liked Choice, had fond memories of Coleman, etc and hell even though Brent Key might have the right DNA. We followed that up with more $$ when the football season in 2020 was shut down. I got booted out of my chairbacks, gave them the same money even though I got relegated to the upper deck. They asked for more again because revenues were down & what's a man to do. Many of us opened our wallets again. We got burned.

I said enough's enough this year. I reverted back to Johnson levels of giving until I'm convinced GT is going to use my money wisely & not waste it on fools. I support good causes & right now I'm not convinced our sports team leadership in the primary revenue sports isn't infested by stooges. I did take some of what I normally donate and tagged it to the baseball & golf teams. Some good will be done with that money, no doubt. Football and basketball need to earn back elevated giving levels by myself and many friends of mine. It sucks it has come to this, but when I hear Stansbury laughing & making light of our predicament when casually talking about our football & basketball teams, well, it just pisses me off. He's not serious about turning our ship around and the faster he gets out of dodge & someone new sends the losers and incompetents to join him the faster we'll be on the road to recovery.

 

[Oakland]

I'm not sure how much MBS would charge us to hold the game there, but if we could sell 15k seats at $100/each for the nosebleeds, that would yield $1.5M every other year. That's nothing to sneeze at.

The larger issue is our best year under the current regime we sold $3M less in season tickets AND increased personnel costs by $7M/yr. That's right, all the hypey and despite having the mutts at home we sold less $$ in football tickets than the boring, nobody wanted to go to the games option years. We came out the blocks under the new regime with a whopping $10M/yr deficit where we used to average around a $1M/yr annual operating margin and had a $6.5M rainy day wad. Last numbers I saw we were nearly $3M in the hole and that was 2 fiscal years ago. They did not post the Rona year and sure as hell are not going to post FY 2022 financials.

The saving grace here is many of us opened our wallets very generously in years 1 & 2 of this experiment because we wanted to see the transition not become a disaster. Personally, I significantly upped my donations right off the bat, then was asked & acquiesced twice more in the next 12 months to pony up more. I liked Choice, had fond memories of Coleman, etc and hell even though Brent Key might have the right DNA. We followed that up with more $$ when the football season in 2020 was shut down. I got booted out of my chairbacks, gave them the same money even though I got relegated to the upper deck. They asked for more again because revenues were down & what's a man to do. Many of us opened our wallets again. We got burned.

I said enough's enough this year. I reverted back to Johnson levels of giving until I'm convinced GT is going to use my money wisely & not waste it on fools. I support good causes & right now I'm not convinced our sports team leadership in the primary revenue sports isn't infested by stooges. I did take some of what I normally donate and tagged it to the baseball & golf teams. Some good will be done with that money, no doubt. Football and basketball need to earn back elevated giving levels by myself and many friends of mine. It sucks it has come to this, but when I hear Stansbury laughing & making light of our predicament when casually talking about our football & basketball teams, well, it just pisses me off. He's not serious about turning our ship around and the faster he gets out of dodge & someone new sends the losers and incompetents to join him the faster we'll be on the road to recovery.

I really mean this...thank you.

 

[Adadu]

That is one of my points. Since the two concerts that were cancelled because of Covid, everything has gone to the MBS. I just wonder if either we've given up, we're not trying hard enough or we just can't get the concerts. Those would help with our revenue. With the World Cup coming to Atlanta, I don't think we can get any matches due to our artificial turf. I'm pretty sure they want real grass and I would hate to see Athens get a game since they use real grass.

Wont be happening at college stadiums. Fifa has seating rules that require all (or nearly all) world cup spectator seats to have their own independent backs mostly to avoid overcrowding issues on top of the natural grass requirement.

Edit: my bad saw this was already noted.

 

[GTBlaze]

I went to a tech game a couple years ago and it was miserable - brother had season tickets on 30 yard line and it was the most uncomfortable game. It because of the bleacher seating but because we were packed in like sardines with other people.

 

[g0lftime]

I went to a tech game a couple years ago and it was miserable - brother had season tickets on 30 yard line and it was the most uncomfortable game. It because of the bleacher seating but because we were packed in like sardines with other people.

I agree with that. I had season tickets for three years(I live 6 hours from Atlanta). First year no stinger seats but everyone around me did. Next two years I got them just to stake out my own territory.

 

[Buzztheirazz]

They really should put seats throughout the entire stadium. It’s 2022. People want to be comfortable. You’re fighting against them sitting on their couch.

 

[forensicbuzz]

They really should put seats throughout the entire stadium. It’s 2022. People want to be comfortable. You’re fighting against them sitting on their couch.

Agreed. And the seats should be larger and more spread out for the comfort of the fans. I hate sitting on top of other people. I'm not standing the whole game. People who do take the fun from the game for people who don't want to, and then they get belligerent about it. I'm all about standing for the right moments in the game (3rd down, goal line, etc.), but I have no interest in standing for 3-4 hours in the heat (even at night it's still pretty hot).

 

[g0lftime]

Agreed. And the seats should be larger and more spread out for the comfort of the fans. I hate sitting on top of other people. I'm not standing the whole game. People who do take the fun from the game for people who don't want to, and then they get belligerent about it. I'm all about standing for the right moments in the game (3rd down, goal line, etc.), but I have no interest in standing for 3-4 hours in the heat (even at night it's still pretty hot).

Some fans like to stand the entire game. Good reason to have a beer/food garden area. Everyone there would be standing.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Some fans like to stand the entire game. Good reason to have a beer/food garden area. Everyone there would be standing.

I'm okay with people standing the whole game. There should be designated areas for standers, like behind all those that want to sit down and cheer and then get up and cheer and then sit back down and cheer.

 

[slugboy]

A couple of items to think about

• Regarding atmosphere and making Bobby Dodd more inviting, Atlanta United showed that Bobby Dodd can be a vibrant venue. On the other hand, the Atlanta Hawks seem to do as much as you possibly can for a game that has TV timeouts to make the venue interesting, including halftime concerts, having a star player or two, and still aren't getting a full arena. Some of having a full arena is the sport, and some is the environment you make.
• Why can't we be like Truist? Truist Park is a great spot. It has a ton of surrounding parking, and surrounding amenities--stores, restaurants, etc. If you want the Truist feel, I think you'd have to knock down all the East Campus dorms and some of the other buildings, too.
• How about concerts and other things for the 300-349 days we don't have a Football game? It's something to pursue, but what I said about Truist Park comes back--surrounding amenities and parking would help a ton. Also, a Rammstein concert every night is going to make studying on East Campus kinda tough.
• How about more skyboxes? Our first real attempt at that was the club seats (which used to have the flip cards/flip boards way back in the day--yes, students could sit right in the middle). We could probably sell more skyboxes, and nicer skyboxes, but we'd have to figure out where to put them. Club seats aren't premium skyboxes.

There are a lot of things that the AA could do if it had money and time, but even those things aren't a silver bullet. Mercedes-Benz is probably a smart choice for big games--and if it had the surroundings that Truist does, it would be a no-brainer.

Otherwise, having a beefier Marta rail system with a train every 3 minutes so that people don't have to fight for parking might help. (This is stuff that Aladdin would think is fantasy, of course)

I think we should work on a lot of these things--funding and time permitting--but there aren't easy fixes.

 

[bobongo]

A couple of items to think about

• Regarding atmosphere and making Bobby Dodd more inviting, Atlanta United showed that Bobby Dodd can be a vibrant venue. On the other hand, the Atlanta Hawks seem to do as much as you possibly can for a game that has TV timeouts to make the venue interesting, including halftime concerts, having a star player or two, and still aren't getting a full arena. Some of having a full arena is the sport, and some is the environment you make.
• Why can't we be like Truist? Truist Park is a great spot. It has a ton of surrounding parking, and surrounding amenities--stores, restaurants, etc. If you want the Truist feel, I think you'd have to knock down all the East Campus dorms and some of the other buildings, too.
• How about concerts and other things for the 300-349 days we don't have a Football game? It's something to pursue, but what I said about Truist Park comes back--surrounding amenities and parking would help a ton. Also, a Rammstein concert every night is going to make studying on East Campus kinda tough.
• How about more skyboxes? Our first real attempt at that was the club seats (which used to have the flip cards/flip boards way back in the day--yes, students could sit right in the middle). We could probably sell more skyboxes, and nicer skyboxes, but we'd have to figure out where to put them. Club seats aren't premium skyboxes.

There are a lot of things that the AA could do if it had money and time, but even those things aren't a silver bullet. Mercedes-Benz is probably a smart choice for big games--and if it had the surroundings that Truist does, it would be a no-brainer.

Otherwise, having a beefier Marta rail system with a train every 3 minutes so that people don't have to fight for parking might help. (This is stuff that Aladdin would think is fantasy, of course)

I think we should work on a lot of these things--funding and time permitting--but there aren't easy fixes.

The easy fix is just win and Bobby Dodd will once again be a vibrant venue. The only thing missing is the winning.

 

[bobongo]

I went to a tech game a couple years ago and it was miserable - brother had season tickets on 30 yard line and it was the most uncomfortable game. It because of the bleacher seating but because we were packed in like sardines with other people.

Hmm, "packed like sardines", you say. Was the only game you've been to in the last couple of years the Tech - Ugag game? Hmm...

 

[slugboy]

The easy fix is just win and Bobby Dodd will once again be a vibrant venue. The only thing missing is the winning.

Winning is so much better than losing, but we’ve had other teams win (like the Hawks and, often enough, us) and not fill up the arena.

 

[GTBlaze]

Hmm, "packed like sardines", you say. Was the only game you've been to in the last couple of years the Tech - Ugag game? Hmm...

No.. it was the first game of last season when we played NIL and LOST - it was miserable

It was nowhere near a sell out but it was absolutely brutal basically sitting on the stranger’s leg beside me. Made no sense to have us all in that section on top of each other

An no. I am not a fat ***. I weigh 180 pounds

 

[GT flunkout]

No.. it was the first game of last season when we played NIL and LOST - it was miserable

It was nowhere near a sell out but it was absolutely brutal basically sitting on the stranger’s leg beside me. Made no sense to have us all in that section on top of each other

An no. I am not a fat ***. I weigh 180 pounds

I'm sorry the one time you went to a tech game you sat in a row which likely had too many people or some of larger size that encroached on your area. You're probably better off back on your couch than subjecting yourself to the utter brutality of sitting on bleachers with other human beings at a football game. I can't even imagine.

This is college football. 7 days a year. Stop it with the nonsense. BDS could use some minor changes but it is overall a great venue. The only thing we're missing is winning.

I have long advocated tarping off the top half of the upper North (20-25 rows) for all games except those that we can sell to visitors, which is usually only Clemson and UGA. Make the stadium look better and get some decent part-time ad revenue.

We should not be playing home games at MBS. Ever. Period.

 

[g0lftime]

Winning and competing for championships will get a lot of people to overlook a lot of stadium problems. One need only to attend a Duke BB game at Cameron to realize that fact. The seats have backs but there is virtually no leg room. The place is packed and an expensive donation to buy a seat in there. They expect to win and the students put on a show.
If we were playing at a level to win the ACC championship, people would come. Losing to The Citadel and NIU at home plus the last two games in 2021 has been hard to swallow for a lot of fans and killed enthusiasm within the fan base. IIWII.
Now we even bicker about the stadium seats and uniforms.
I do think a standing area, eg beverage/food area, would be a good addition.

 

[bobongo]

No.. it was the first game of last season when we played NIL and LOST - it was miserable

It was nowhere near a sell out but it was absolutely brutal basically sitting on the stranger’s leg beside me. Made no sense to have us all in that section on top of each other

An no. I am not a fat ***. I weigh 180 pounds

You could have gotten up and sat wherever you pleased. Plenty of open area.