What An Odd Football Stadium

I like that stadium. A little unusual but good on the eyes

I think a large portion of that cost was initial foundation work for the 40,000 seat expansion. They did it early. To go back later and dig to retrofit the foundation would be more expensive, IMO.


When Buffalo, NY built their minor league baseball stadium in 1986 they spent $42 million, expensive for a minor league stadium in the '80s. Their plan was to eventually get an MLB franchise, so they built the minor league facility with oversized foundation work, so the 18,000 seat stadium could be expanded to 45,000 seats. Going back and digging and retrofitting the foundation can be expensive. They ate the cost early to save money later.

Except their chances of an MLB franchise are nil with Cleveland and Toronto being so close.

Well, that makes sense if you think they can support football, and that they need 40K seats. That would be more than twice the number they are drawing now, and would not really be up to major conference standards, if that is their dream.

They are reporting attendance around 18K, not bad, but that still might mean they should have built the thing to seat 25K originally, not 15K.

I'm not sure this whole story is that convincing a tribute to good planning.

I guess that is the big advantage, maybe a big local alumni base. But, they are C-USA. Can't be that big a draw, and competing with ACC for the casual fan. TV games tough to beat, too.

No idea, maybe it's a cheap ticket, big family draw?

Are you sure that breakeven covers the investment cost?  Usually, attendance doesn't cover operating expenses, even big schools. I doubt a big TV contract here, either.

What is the ROI on the 45M?

There was a naming gift to help build it, and it does produce a lot of revenue to the alumni fund through the seat licensing.

It's never really clear, what real revenue and expenses are.  Usually the Income Statement for college sports is nothing like the real expenses of the athletic activities.

Quick look on the web, their total athletic budget is not greatly different than ours.  10/15% higher expenditures on operations.  They have greater attendance than we do, so more revenue, and have a seat license fee for season tickets which is not revenue goes to the alumni fund.  Good seats, $2500 up front, plus annual fee, plus $190 for a ticket.  

The alumni fund and naming gifts are the investment side separate from operations. So this license money contributions total looks pretty good, except of course that the alumni who spend on the football, in its absence might have built a library or funded scholarships and so on.  And it's not

For 2010-2014 subsidies to cover operating losses in athletics at UNC-Charlotte were $85,854,522 of its $116,678,876 total spending (or 74 percent) since 2010. Student fees comprise nearly three-fourths of those subsidies, adding up to $64,390,891 over the last four years.

Certainly biggest budget item in expenses is football of course, biggest revenue item,too, very likely the biggest operating deficit...numbers of scholarships, coaching salaries, travel, game day, all that.