Our Jack Trice stadium
- Thread starter Knownothing
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In the last week or two before the game. The vast majority of tickets are sold many months in advance.
I was east side lower, south 15 yard line and I can tell you the reason I was late getting back in was because of freaking unGODly slow concession lines, and there were a ton of people up in the concourse with me. I think I stood in line for 20 or 25 minutes. I tried talking my 10 year old out of it but the kid was hungry. I don't know what you can do about it but it was unbelievably frustrating.
To everyone involved in the whole stadium capacity vs. TCU crowd size debate -- I have this to say: winning cures all ills. Iowa State has come a LONG way since the 2000s when we were regularly pulling around 40-45k per game. I still know casual ISU fans that are still stuck in the 90s when all you did was show up for the Iowa game, and if they beat the Hawks, then who cares how the rest of the season went because nothing else was worth cheering for.
I had to remind someone that ISU beat Texas Tech last year 66-10 when they told me that ISU was probably going to lose our road game against the Raiders. Their reason? We lost against Iowa.
ISU die-hards like the ones that visit this site, have known for at least two off-seasons how much this team was going to improve and are enjoying the results today. We are the ones who noticed the votes that Iowa State received on the AP Top 25 after the OU win. We are the ones who, following the Texas Tech win, immediately took to Twitter to throw up the #CollegeAmesDay hashtag, because we knew, before the rest of the fan base, that Iowa State was surely on the verge of being ranked and deserving of a visit from ESPN's morning show the following Saturday.
ISU casuals, they probably found out on Tuesday of last week that ISU got ranked. I guarantee you a conversation between one of us and one of them at work went like this: "Oh, the TCU game? Isn't it supposed to be below freezing and windy this Saturday? No way Sharon lets me takes the kids up in that kind of weather. Oh, TCU is ranked? We'll probably lose that one anyway, I've seen too much heartbreak over the years. No kidding? We're #25? When did that happen? Well, we've already made plans for Saturday, I promised..." yadda yadda.
Luckily, that generation is aging. The generation that grew up with ISU from 2000-present knows that the program is capable of so much more. They're having kids themselves now that are growing up as die-hard Cyclone fans, putting additional butts into seats and increasing our average gameday crowd little by little, piece by piece.
Additional seating will happen. Eventually. Right now there's no reason. Our largest crowds are helped by raucous K-State, Iowa, and UNI fans. Pretty soon even KU will draw capacity crowds and a NEZ will become more of a possibility. But let's enjoy what we have now, first.
I had to remind someone that ISU beat Texas Tech last year 66-10 when they told me that ISU was probably going to lose our road game against the Raiders. Their reason? We lost against Iowa.
ISU die-hards like the ones that visit this site, have known for at least two off-seasons how much this team was going to improve and are enjoying the results today. We are the ones who noticed the votes that Iowa State received on the AP Top 25 after the OU win. We are the ones who, following the Texas Tech win, immediately took to Twitter to throw up the #CollegeAmesDay hashtag, because we knew, before the rest of the fan base, that Iowa State was surely on the verge of being ranked and deserving of a visit from ESPN's morning show the following Saturday.
ISU casuals, they probably found out on Tuesday of last week that ISU got ranked. I guarantee you a conversation between one of us and one of them at work went like this: "Oh, the TCU game? Isn't it supposed to be below freezing and windy this Saturday? No way Sharon lets me takes the kids up in that kind of weather. Oh, TCU is ranked? We'll probably lose that one anyway, I've seen too much heartbreak over the years. No kidding? We're #25? When did that happen? Well, we've already made plans for Saturday, I promised..." yadda yadda.
Luckily, that generation is aging. The generation that grew up with ISU from 2000-present knows that the program is capable of so much more. They're having kids themselves now that are growing up as die-hard Cyclone fans, putting additional butts into seats and increasing our average gameday crowd little by little, piece by piece.
Additional seating will happen. Eventually. Right now there's no reason. Our largest crowds are helped by raucous K-State, Iowa, and UNI fans. Pretty soon even KU will draw capacity crowds and a NEZ will become more of a possibility. But let's enjoy what we have now, first.
Truthfully, I'm interested in a NEZ "expansion" mostly just for cosmetic appearances.
If I were doing this, I would take down at least part of Jacobsen, extend the lower bowl and concourse all the way around, perhaps regrade the hills to have some hillside above the bowl (not sure that's possible at all), rebuild the Jacobsen so there's a glass facade overlooking the concourse and NEZ (kind of like what's there now, but much more imposing).
Quite honestly, I don't think Jack Trice will ever need to go above 65k, however, design it in such a way that if it somehow does become necessary you can mimic the SEZ, or even enclose the NEZ or SEZ upper deck completely.
That's ultimately the problem. Any real addition of seats likely means you have to remove almost all of the jacobsen building. Just looking at distances, even just adding a new lower bowl section, if similar distances to the existing sections, goes back 175 feet from the field so you'd be running through most of the jake.
Of course, given unlimited funds you could certainly do something like that. You'd mirror the SEZ, knock down both the jake and the olsen building, and build a new, taller building where the olsen building is now to house athletic department offices and whatnot.
I agree its probably a ways off though. In the nearer future iif any seats get added its likely because A) there's more demand for another premium section like the SEZ club and possibly B) demand for more student tickets (though this would be unlikely to be the primary reason as that would in no way pay for itself)
Of course, given unlimited funds you could certainly do something like that. You'd mirror the SEZ, knock down both the jake and the olsen building, and build a new, taller building where the olsen building is now to house athletic department offices and whatnot.
I agree its probably a ways off though. In the nearer future iif any seats get added its likely because A) there's more demand for another premium section like the SEZ club and possibly B) demand for more student tickets (though this would be unlikely to be the primary reason as that would in no way pay for itself)
I think you are right, club sections/premium seating will dictate the next and any other future renovations. Any future reno designs will be based around adding premium sections wherever it may be.
This thread is awesome. I forgot to DVR the game (boo) and was asking some friends that didn't go how it sounded on TV and they said is sounded great. We were 2/3 of the way up in Section T (SE side around the goal line) and couldn't tell how loud it was due to the wind and being high up. But during the three turnovers in the second half, I've never seen so many people jumping around and screaming their heads off at JTS before. So awesome to be there. If we could have had 4,000 more Cyclone fans there filling it in, it would be been the perfect crowd.
http://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=3204246
If you have ESPN3, the TD is at the 1:06:00 mark, review shortly after. Sounds awesome! (You're welcome)
The greatest Cyclone Power chant I've ever heard.
Sure, I could have used “us”. I bought a ticket to the game, other ISU fans did not.
We were opposite you, and in the fifth row upper deck. The volume was AWESOME! I forgot to DVR also, so I watched it yesterday afternoon on my computer on watchESPN. Just as great the second time around.
This discussion isn't what I expected. If it were up to DurangoCy:
1. Triple the press box and enclose the west concourse - tomorrow
3. NEZ - 5-10 years
4. 3rd deck on east side (or expand current deck) and enclose that concourse, 10-20years
1. Triple the press box and enclose the west concourse - tomorrow
3. NEZ - 5-10 years
4. 3rd deck on east side (or expand current deck) and enclose that concourse, 10-20years
I think we need to use the next $50 million donation and give it to the Chamber of Commerce, get some national engineering firms to relocate to Ames so we can keep our graduates and grow our local fan base. Then expand.
I did the same on ESPNGO. Did you happen to watch the post game footage on there? Had a lot of footage of the crowd after the game and CMC locker room speech and the press conference footage.
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