You know what I hate? Keeping up with the Joneses. It is unnecessary and it leads to pointless arguments and headaches. In the end, this philosophy of doing what everyone else does only leads to more problems than solutions.
Why do I bring this up? Because there are so many Ute fans who want to pursue this philosophy by expanding Rice-Eccles Stadium. Let me give a caveat here: expanding the stadium isn’t necessarily a bad idea — in the future.
Too many fans believe that we need a stadium expansion to fit in with the rest of the Pac-12. After all, Rice-Eccles Stadium is one of the smallest venues of all the schools in the conference. But it’s a bad idea.
First, we have to look at the cost of expanding, which would be millions of dollars. While there isn’t an exact figure, the number would be astronomical. The money has to come from somewhere. Either it would have to be bankrolled entirely by wealthy donors or the university would have to raise fees and who wants to add more expenses?
If we expand the stadium, we also have to look at expanding parking areas. Either you have to build new parking garages or raise the fees for parking permits and have more people take TRAX. But the second option won’t work, because TRAX is already jam packed every single home game and it wouldn’t be able to handle the extra capacity. That leaves us with building a new parking structure, something incredibly expensive. By way of comparison, the new parking garage located east of the south medical tower cost about $13.6 million to build.
All it takes is one walk around campus to see how much work the U is already doing. It’s almost impossible to go anywhere on campus without seeing some type of construction. There are so many projects happening now that you have to wonder about the university’s priorities. It seems like expanding the stadium isn’t a top priority, and it shouldn’t be. There are many other projects that could and should be worked on before the stadium.
In addition to all of this, one has to take into account the fact that Rice-Eccles is one of the better venues in the conference. When the Olympics came to town in 2002, they left saying that the stadium was one of the nicest venues they have ever used. Out-of-towners repeatedly say how Rice-Eccles is better than their own. There have already been several investments into the stadium, the most noteworthy being the new video board at the south endzone.
Extra seats don’t do anything if they aren’t being used. Utah may have a great streak right now of selling out home games, but just a few short years ago that wasn’t the case. They only sellout when the Utes have a shot at having a good season.
We also need to look at what expansion would look like. The most common belief is that the work done would be to connect the south endzone with the rest of the stadium. It may add a couple hundred new seats, but I see two problems with this. The first is that these seats are cheap corner seats; not exactly the ones that will net a ton of money. The second is that the south endzone is generally where the students sit and students get into the game for free. More seats that attract students aren’t going to pay off financially.
I’m not against ever expanding the stadium, but we have to realize there is only so much money to go around. Every dollar spent on that one project is one less dollar that could be used elsewhere. In a few years, let’s talk about expansion. But right now is the wrong time to have this discussion.
@JaredWalch