Bigger stadium may not necessarily mean better
• Paying the price for a bigger stadium
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer
When the 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium opened in 1975, it rose as a $37-million statement about the University of Hawai'i's aspirations to play football on the highest level and its pursuit of Western Athletic Conference membership as a vehicle to get there.
But as UH President Evan Dobelle begins considering plans for a West O'ahu campus that could include a new 60,000-seat stadium, some people in the stadium construction industry say the pricetag could range from $200-$300 million.
Furthermore, people in college sports say stadium size wouldn't guarantee the school a financial windfall or a place in a more prestigious conference, such as the Pac-10.
Dobelle offered the possibility Wednesday of eventually moving the football team out of Aloha Stadium and into a new facility to be built near Kapolei, suggesting a stadium could be part of a UH complex that would include the medical school and research facilities.
The proposal focused attention on the questions of a future home for the football team and what role a stadium might have in down-the-road conference affiliation.
The last major repairs on Aloha Stadium were conducted six years ago, and stadium management estimates the 104-acre facility is good for perhaps 15 years of use before costly wholesale renovations are necessary.
The bill on major repairs has already run more than twice the original purchase price.
State officials, including Gov. Ben Cayetano, have told UH the most economical option may be to sell Aloha Stadium's land to developers, sell the existing stadium for scrap and use the money to build a replacement facility on vacant land that is part of the planned four-year West O'ahu campus.
In Dobelle's example, the stadium would be built to also attract other sporting and entertainment events. It would be partially underwritten by sponsorships and run by UH, which would receive signage, parking and concession rights fees.
Last year, UH said it paid the stadium, which is run by a stadium authority under the state's Department of Accounting and General Services, about 6.5 percent of the $3.2 million it collected in gate receipts. The school receives no share of concession, parking or signage revenue.
"When you modernize or upgrade facilities, you immediately upgrade everything," said June Jones, UH football coach. "That facility would not only be a premium facility for us but for the whole state, everybody, and attract more events."
"If you are going to be a public official planning appropriately for the future and think the Pac-10 might be accessible, then you have to take into consideration what size stadium you need," Dobelle said Wednesday.
He has since clarified his stance, saying a new stadium isn't tied to a bid for Pac-10 membership. Dobelle said he will let his upcoming meeting with the school's coaches determine whether UH looks beyond the 22-year association with the WAC
Dobelle also said the original 60,000-seat figure he offered was just an example.
"It is fluid," Dobelle said Friday of seating projections.
No matter what the capacity, stadium size does not guarantee profitability.
Michigan, for instance, has the nation's largest stadium capacity (107,501), and has not had a crowd smaller than 100,000 since 1975. But its athletic department has been operating at a deficit the past two years.
"All I'm saying is I want to win the national championship and is the WAC the place to be to win the national championship?" Dobelle said. "With the new (Bowl Championship Series) rankings, you have to play higher-end teams to get to the bigger bowls. Maybe it is the Pac-10, maybe it is independent, maybe it is the WAC or the Mountain West."
Times have changed
When it comes to Division I-A stadiums, a lot has changed from the time UH made its debut in its Halawa home.
Since then, only one all-college Division I facility (West Virginia in 1980) has been built with a seating capacity of 50,000 or more.
Instead, the trend has moved toward renovating existing facilities and away from building larger new ones.
Twelve of the 15 NCAA Division I-A stadiums completed or scheduled for completion between 2000 and 2003 have involved renovations or expansions, according to Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal.
The only new one with a seating capacity above 40,000 is the 65,000-seat Steeler Stadium in Pittsburgh, which opens this month as dual home to the NFL Steelers and University of Pittsburgh.
The $280.8 million price tag is one of the main reasons why schools are reluctant to start again from scratch, said Scott Radecic, a 1983 All-American linebacker at Penn State who now designs stadiums for Kansas City-based HOK Sports, an international sports architectural firm.
Radecic said cost and "the history in some of these buildings" dissuade most schools from starting over.
For a 60,000-seat stadium in Hawai'i, costs could run in the $200- $300 million range, depending upon amenities, shipping and transportation costs, and when it is built, Radecic said.
Why so big?
Because the UH football team has sold out only about 11 percent of the games it has played in Aloha Stadium, and has averaged 37,710 over the past 15 years, there are questions about going bigger unless there is a demonstrated need.
"Building a bigger stadium only makes sense if you're going to sell it out," said Richard G. Sheehan, a Notre Dame professor of finance and business economics and author of "Keeping Score: The Economics of Big-Time Sports."
"Otherwise why have 10,000 more empty seats on top of the 13,000 you already have?"
Even a 60,000 capacity would put UH well below the Pac-10 average of 66,357.
By 2003, when expansion is scheduled to be completed at Oregon and Oregon State, the conference average will be nearly 70,000.
Pac-10 officials say they aren't considering expansion and if they do, "stadium size will be well down the list of criteria," said Tom Hansen, Pac-10 commissioner.
"Our presidents have made academic compatibility and prominence a priority in evaluating institutions," Hansen said.
"I know if stadium size were the main criteria, we might not be in the Pac-10," said Mitch Barnhart, athletic director at Oregon State, whose Reser Stadium seats 35,362.
TV money talks
Once upon a time, when stadium attendance provided more of the revenue stream, stadium size figured larger in evaluating membership.
Back then Division I-A schools pooled television revenue under the NCAA and College Football Association contracts.
But the Supreme Court in 1983 left colleges free to negotiate their own deals and conferences with the most attractive lineups have been richly rewarded.
The WAC has a three-year football-basketball agreement with ESPN believed to be worth less than $1 million per year while the Pac-10 has an eight-year $170 million football deal with ABC that runs through 2007.
Adding in its regular-season and conference tournament deals with Fox, plus NCAA basketball tournament proceeds, the Pac-10 says it splits about $60 million annually among its members.
That is a pie that Pac-10 schools say they'd be crazy to cut another school in on unless expansion brought considerable additional value to the table.
The last time Pac-10 officials looked at expansion was in the mid-1990s when Texas and Colorado, schools representing the Nos. 7 (Dallas) and 18 (Denver) television markets with 2 million and 1.3 million households respectively, were the ones they talked with.
UH, home to the 72nd largest TV market and 383,000 households, wasn't considered, officials say.
As for the near future, Pac-10 officials say expansion isn't in the cards.
"Hawai'i is a fine institution and without referencing Hawai'i specifically, our presidents have made it clear they are not looking to expand in the foreseeable future," Hansen said.
Jim Livengood, athletic director at Arizona, said it would take membership moves in the Big-12 or Big-10 conferences or a major change in television agreements to cause Pac-10 schools to look at expansion.
Setting an example
Meanwhile, more than 4,300 miles from Aloha Stadium lies a glimpse of what a stadium home might eventually look like for the UH football team.
Not far from the Ohio River rises Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, 42,000-seat home to the University of Louisville Cardinals of Conference USA, and an example for new stadiums that blend public, private and sponsor dollars.
It offers an option for schools, such as UH, that might not have $200-$300 million, and have to be creative in how they pay for stadiums.
Louisville originally targeted 50,000-plus seats, according to Kevin Miller, UL associate athletic director. "But when we looked at the costs we decided 10,000 less made more sense."
Louisville's stadium was built for $63 million, just $18 million requiring bonds, Miller said. Pledges for lifetime seat options and corporate sponsorships contributed $10 million, and the school received $5 million from Papa John's pizza for naming rights.
With Pac-10 faculty groups clamoring for — and getting — more say in the way their schools conduct athletics, Murray Sperber, an Indiana university professor and author of four books on college athletics, says stadium size might eventually mean less than graduation rates.
"It would seem to me that if you spent the (hundreds of millions) it would cost to build a new stadium on upgrading graduate and undergraduate education, you'd have a better chance to get into a conference like the Pac-10," he said.
