I just don't think a south upper deck will ever be built. There are a lot of empty seats in Tiger stadium for many games--even in the national championship year. A south upper deck would be expensive and might be empty a lot. Nobody wants to see that. People just won't pay surcharges for seats that high with a poor view of the field--not with almost every game on TV. It would never pay for itself. Schools with already big stadiums (90,000+) are not adding to capacity . . . they are adding more high-surcharge premium sideline seats Parts of the lower bowl are over 80 years old and will have to be replaced soon for structural reasons. Sideline seats are now paying expensive surcharges and will not put up with the poor condidion of the lower bowl much longer. I think that will happen first. Joe Dean once did a study on completing north and south zone upper decks and found that it would be far, far cheaper to just go over to the River Road and build a shiny, new 100,000-seat Tiger Stadium. I don't think there will ever be a south upper deck.
yeah, i think tiger stadium is pretty much at its final form. i dont think they have much room to tell you the truth. only renovations with follow.
Have to disagree with that one, many schools have built some kind of luxury boxes in their endzones recently, including Bama.
After some thought I do agree with those that say enclosing the south might not be great. However, I do think TS will need another expansion (not quite as drastic as those in the past, but nonetheless. Anyway, so I would propose the following. 1. Increasing the length of the partial wrap around the south on both sides. I don't mean coming all the way around, just a bit more. This would allow for more seating up top, increase the number of luxury boxes by a little bit, all while not diluting the seat prices, or having too many extra seats on those crap OOC game days. Also, in the future, the luxury box levels could eventually wrap all the way around, it would be a more low profile addition, one that braught in money, and didn't add more potentially empty seats. 2. Also, and of course I did no market research for this, but I think there is a good sized niche for a bit more affordable boxes. Boxes that not just big shots can afford but for special group occaisions. 3. Also maybe add one more section to the uppers in the north direction. It wouldn't cover up too much of the north facade and would add the same benefits outlined earlier. This is just a guess, but I imagine that would bring the capacity close to about 100,000 which I think would be suitable for LSU, a great milestone for the stadium, and would make those big SEC matchups even louder and more accessible to those who don't have season tickets and out of towners who want to come in for the game but are unsure whether they'll even be able to get a ticket. 4. I guess I'd consider TS done at that point. Other than renovation work on the dorms and original sidelines, I guess I too would like the facade power washed and the arches put in on the south side. Anyway, my $.02... any comments, suggestions?
My guess would be that this wouldn't be cost efficient. It would cost a lot of money to do it & wouldn't bring in near enough revenue to give reason behind it. I'd bet there is. It would be nice, but could become very difficult to reserve and thus they wouldn't stay "affordable" for long.
If you check the photoshopped image on post 2 you will see that such an expansion would require the closing or rerouting of a major campus street and the 80-year-old oaks along it. Probably just ain't going to happen. I'd actually prefer a brand new, state-of-the-art, 100,000-seat Tiger Stadium out on river road. Plenty of free parking close to the stadium and a spectacular view of the Mississippi River from the upper decks. This would free up the old site for a future, larger Pete Maravich Center in 20 years or so.
