115,000!??!?! Can A&M even fill that?? I think there is prolly only a few places in the country that could fill it up on a consistent basis. BR being one of them since we almost pack that many in already and so many are always looking for tickets. Do they consistently sell out the current facilities???
I guess you could read into that if you really want to. When I saw it, I just thought Aggie Engineering. Nothing to do with the tragedy of a few years back. If you ever worked with an Aggie Engineer, you would know exactly what was implied and how I took it. The most A.R. engineers I ever worked with graduated from aTm. Goes back to one of my favorite Aggie Jokes. The Aggie Joke Line. Call 1-800-AGGIE-IQ to head the Aggie joke of the day. (Get all the way to the end and there is no 'Q' on the phone. Problem now is that newer phones actually have a 'Q' on them.)
There have been many games at LSU where there were empty seats in the upper decks. This weeks game with Troy is NOT a sellout, in fact. In the Curley Hallman years there were vast empty areas. LSU and other schools with big (90,000+) stadiums have all had trouble filling them at times when the team ain't winning. The large number of TV games now available makes it hard to sell $36 tickets with a poor view sky-high in an endzone. People will pay remarkable prices for sideline seats, but not for the endzone nosebleeds. LSU made the decision to upgrade the premium sideline seats that pay top surcharges, rather than risk empty endzone upper deck seats. The costs for these stadium additions are huge and they can never pay for themselves with the cheap tickets that must be sold there. But A&M has alumni money to burn, they say.
Its not about filling it. Its about building it and laying claim to it. In Texas, its all about having the biggest thing around, or at least claiming to. :lol:
If Texas A & M started winning and being a contender in the Big12, they could fill it. I was at LSU for the Hallman years and we did not fill Tiger Stadium every night, yet today it seems they can't pack enough fans into the place. Same can happen at College Station where the Aggies are the only game in town. I think there is far less risk in building these mega college football stadiums in cities where the college rules the city, compared to putting them in bigger cities where people don't have the same passion for the school. Plenty can point to SC/UCLA, both teams when winning can bring around 90,000 to a game. But when they are losing, it is not rare to see crowds of less than 40,000. To me, the difference is in the smaller college towns even when the team is losing the fans still show up at a higher rate than the big city colleges. I don't think this is a bad idea for Texas A & M, this is probably part of the process of upgrading their program and getting back into the national scene. I'm sure they will use it to the fullest extent in recruiting against Texas.
No way the aggies sell out that 115,000 seat stadium on a consistent basis. Michigan will just add more seats to be bigger. They play in a dug-in bowl and they can easily add more seats. They have a thing for having the biggest stadium in the country. They made their stadium bigger so they could be bigger than Tennessee and Michigan sells out now. Ohio State could also sell out a 115,000 seat stadium.
