Oh, plus there are lots of regular, non-student, empty seats.
Yes, TCF Stadium, when the University of Minnesota made its case to hit up state taxpayers and students for it, was going to be such a big deal, such a big success…
Since the 50,800-seat stadium opened in 2009, the number of student season-ticket holders has dropped from 10,248 to 4,953 last year.
Oh and we’ve been treated, since the opening of this pathetic hole, to the entire panoply of excuses – no alcohol (they fixed that), the team loses sometimes, heavy traffic, it’s really a commuter school (but TCF Stadium was going to strengthen the campus community!), bad WiFi, competition from tv…
Hey. Did anybody mention all of that while people were discussing whether they wanted to spend everyone’s money on a huge new stadium?
Did anybody talk to any students?
… [W]hen I arrived at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2005, I didn’t identify myself as a Gopher. I came to study and get my degree, not to frolic in the flamboyance of our college sports teams and most certainly not to fund a $288.5 million TCF Bank Stadium. Yet this was an identity that was forced upon me. It was built into my tuition. It was assumed, because I lived within the University community, that of course I was a Gophers football fan and that I would have no qualms about chipping in for the sake of sport. It is a ridiculous and insulting assumption … We should be fighting for the separation of university life from collegiate sports. … Yes, TCF Bank Stadium has already been built, but we still have time to rethink the future of university sports. The recession affords us the opportunity to look critically at the institutions we have designed, modify them and maybe even start over…
OTOH, that separation she’s talking about is definitely happening. Professional coach, professional players, professional stadium, almost exclusively non-students in the stands… It’s happening!
June 17th, 2014 at 8:07AM
That, despite college football stadia outdoing the Grand Opera in social-laddered seating. I just completed a survey the local director of athletics sent me, offering several options for what they call club seating and loge seating and two configurations of enclosed seating. Several of the prototypes are at Minnesota. It’s enough to make the Kaiser’s head spin.
June 17th, 2014 at 9:03AM
Stephen: My favorite part is the people who are allowed to drink alcohol and those who are not.