McGuirk Upgrade

[Ron Burgundy]

Snap a few pics of the upgrades and pass them along!

[SignMan]

^ I'm 60+ mi from Campus...
maybe someone closer can stop by and do that...

[rsox1221]

Here are those photos, courtesy of the 74 blog. Great work by him.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3IV6ym2k0kI/V ... G_3529.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0-TgJoMpTn0/V ... G_3530.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o3zQVvtn28s/V ... G_3531.JPG

I can't embed them because I don't know what I'm doing but click on them and bask in what could be...

His opinion was also posted on the blog...

There was no handout about the renderings, but adding a deck to the East side and endzone seats would probably push McGuirk from 17,000 to 25,000 or so. That would be sufficient for MAC-level play, but no Power Five team would ever visit. When Michigan visited UConn at Rentschler in 2013 (capacity 40,000), Michigan pushed hard to move the game to a larger venue.

TBH I disagree with that assessment. P5 teams won't visit now for several reasons: there are no facilities (ie bathrooms) and not a lot of seats for their traveling fans. But the #1 reason, at least IMO, is the visiting locker rooms. Those would be embarrassing for a high school to have, yet we use them. If the visiting team facilities were better, P5 teams would come play in Amherst if the stadium looked like that.

Maybe not every P5 team, but at some point you have to put your foot down and stop using Gillette. A P5 home game is the type of game you want on campus more than anything to get the students there. Old Dominion just signed a home-and-home deal with UNC that has the Tar Heels coming to play them in Virginia, and their stadium (Foreman Field) has a capacity of 20,118. Charlotte has a game at home against Duke on the books and their stadium (Jerry Richardson Field) holds 15,314.

If the visiting teams facilities were up to par, P5 teams would have no problem visiting Amherst. You could even make upgrades to that before even taking on doing the rest of the stadium.

[Berkman]

Go to the FB blog and check out the sketches.

http://www.umass74.blogspot.com/

[eldonabe]

That looks nice - I wonder how many seat that adds?

[Calmass9]

For those that are far more in the know than I, when can we realistically expect an upgrade like this to get announced? I've heard rumblings for years..they must have a few donors lined up and just need to get it over the finish line.

[Berkman]

I don't think they have enough funding available to start anytime soon. Probably be 2 or 3 would be my guess. I would imagine these sketches would be used to solicit potential donations.

[Jackman]

That looks nice - I wonder how many seat that adds?

Using my expertise in looking at pictures and guessing, I'd say it's exactly 30k. The lower grandstand should be exactly 8500, so I'd put the upper level and club level at around a combined 8k, and the south endzone at 5k. I have an old drawing somewhere of a proposed south endzone addition that added around 4k-5k seats, and this one seems slightly taller than that. Add 8500 on the existing west side and that would make 30k. I figure they'd go ahead and hit that number for perception purposes rather than leave it a thousand seats short.

Although looking again, the east side lower grandstand looks like it's been torn down and rebuilt, so maybe it's not safe to assume it seats 8500. It still looks about the same height as the west side though, and would presumably be the same length. One big downside with this design is that it would build up the side that looks into the sun, with no tall structure on the west side to block it.

[Old Cage]

^ And just where have you been??

[UMass02]

Nice drawings! It's a shame UMass isn't getting these out to fans and donors, though I guess they are holding back in anticipation of some kind of fundraising campaign. Maybe there are other issues they are waiting to iron out or they are waiting for the right time; maybe after a UMass bowl game win when attention is drawn to the program?

30K is a nice, healthy number that could indeed attract donors. It could also attract other sources of revenue (concerts, special events, etc.) that could help the department.

In the short term, they can try improving the fan experience at McGuirk.

BTW, I was shocked not to see any drawings of bathrooms! Don't they know about the fanbase's fascination with plumbing?!?!?!

[harbo]

^ Isn't that a row of blue porta-potties behind the new south end-zone seats in the first picture?

It's good to see some attention being paid to future expansion plans. Attractive basic renderings with room to add in the extra amenities.

[rsox1221]

I think having the mock-ups is step #1, but they may need to line up some initial large donations before announcing officially with a different number for what they would need to raise to make up the difference. I'm glad they are out in the open though, shows that expansion is a goal that the administration believes it can and will achieve at some point soon.

A stadium like that, if it holds 35,000, we'd never have to play another game at Gillette. To me that's the ideal scenario. Gillette has been a huge help but if we play even one game a year there after we renovate on campus I know I'd be pissed. Defeats the whole purpose. College football belongs on campus.

[njumass08]

There will be so much opposition to this that they have to get all their ducks in a row before they say anything about it publicly. We know we have a lot of people who hate the football team and any money that is spent on it.

[Old Cage]

If we don't play any at Gillette, we are eliminating scores of teams that would play us there, but not on campus. Brigham Young, as an example, has made that clear. They want to play at The Razor for prestige with their many faithful, and build a weekend around the game for fundraising, to say nothing of impressing recruits. Remember the thousands of fans that they brought to Springfield for hoops recently?

I don't know how many like that there are, but as long as we don't have a strong conference affiliation (which could be a LONG time), we can't close any doors.

[rsox1221]

^^
I absolutely agree that we cannot close anything off at the current moment, especially while we are an independent team. That would be a bad business decision without question.

However if we reach a point where we are in a conference, and we have an on-campus facility that resembles those proposed drawings? BYU can take a walk if they don't want to play us there after that. Any other school that refuses to play at an upgraded McGuirk can do the same.

I hate to use them as an example, but look at BC. They have big teams come in to play them relatively often. FSU at least every other year, Notre Dame, USC last season. They play at Alumni Stadium. There's never a question where the game's going to be. You could argue both USC and ND are the two most storied programs in NCAA football and they don't/didn't insist on playing at Gillette.

BC is an ACC team, and that does play a factor, but so long as the facility is up to par teams should not have an issue playing in Amherst.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but if we continue to use Gillette once we're affiliated and have a beautiful campus facility, it sends the message in my opinion that there are some games that are 'too big' or 'too important' to be played at that facility. I think that sends the wrong message to students and your traditional fan base. Then there's the issue of getting students to this huge game that's 2.5 hours away by bus. Then you're going to have people questioning why it was even built in the first place if it isn't going to play host to all your games. It just spirals from there for me.

Right now, we need Gillette, I wouldn't say otherwise. But I want this team and university to get to a point (hopefully soon) where we no longer need them.