Florida to shrink capacity in The Swamp?

-THE DUDE-

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Give me the bleachers all day long i don't care...my favorite NFL team has bleachers too and it's the best NFL stadium by far. Allows for much better viewing when you cram everyone in there and not worry about a bunch of space. I can handle that for a couple of hours. I also prefer to stand all game if possible even in my advancing age.
 

ChiefGator

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If you want seats that are the correct size for mature adults there will be fewer of them. I don't go any more for a variety of reasons, and standing at all is one of them.
 

NVGator

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I've got 4 season tix for sale. Chair style. NE Endzone under the cover.
 

MADGator

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I was just talking with my folks about this last night. Fact is, if you're in the bleachers you're in for a very uncomfortable 3.5 hours. And lord help you if you're near the end of the aisle - musical fukking chairs on top of everything else.

So my question is, if they reduce capacity, how do you do that? I mean, Stricklin is talking about getting rid of the bleachers but the damn things are so close to each what the hell else are you going to put there? Not chairbacks, that's for sure. If he's talking chairbacks that sounds like major renovations to fit them in, and how many rows would need to be taken out? Stadium renovations is not my day job so I'm really curious and confused.
 

ChiefGator

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I was just talking with my folks about this last night. Fact is, if you're in the bleachers you're in for a very uncomfortable 3.5 hours. And lord help you if you're near the end of the aisle - musical fukking chairs on top of everything else.

So my question is, if they reduce capacity, how do you do that? I mean, Stricklin is talking about getting rid of the bleachers but the damn things are so close to each what the hell else are you going to put there? Not chairbacks, that's for sure. If he's talking chairbacks that sounds like major renovations to fit them in, and how many rows would need to be taken out? Stadium renovations is not my day job so I'm really curious and confused.


I bet chair backs, fewer of them.
 

AlexDaGator

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I was just talking with my folks about this last night. Fact is, if you're in the bleachers you're in for a very uncomfortable 3.5 hours. And lord help you if you're near the end of the aisle - musical fukking chairs on top of everything else.

So my question is, if they reduce capacity, how do you do that? I mean, Stricklin is talking about getting rid of the bleachers but the damn things are so close to each what the hell else are you going to put there? Not chairbacks, that's for sure. If he's talking chairbacks that sounds like major renovations to fit them in, and how many rows would need to be taken out? Stadium renovations is not my day job so I'm really curious and confused.

There are temporary chair backs that latch onto the bleacher. They fit the allotted space. You can prepay for the season and they come in and install them for you before each game.

You can see them in this picture:

ben-hill-griffin-stadium-section-504-view.jpg


So you can make some changes within the existing footprint. I'm not sure how much space the permanent chairbacks in the club levels take up.

On a side note, we used to be right on top of the opposing team. I remember when we played somebody and I was in the second row around the 35 or 40. You felt like you could just lean over a touch a helmet. Then the SEC passed a rule that you had to put opposing fans or alumni (anything but students) over the opposing team. That's that blue chairbacks you see on the student side between the 30's. But it looks like they took a couple mores sections away from the students and gave it to alumni with those other sections with chairbacks a little higher and to the left. The first few rows on the student side between the 30's are for opposing coach's wives, player's parents, opposing team VIPs, that sort of thing. I think that's the first 10 rows. Then the next 15 or so go to our alumni (where you see the blue chairbacks).

I spent the entire 1995 and 1996 seasons between the 30's and about 30-35 rows up. Best seats in the damn house. The Law School block was the biggest block. It was so big (about 700 tickets), it was two adjoining blocks. We'd always get a great skinny section down low, then another section further up. Don't know how they came up with it for each game (SQ???) but every game we always had about 100 primo seats. We had mini-blocks within the law school block so friends could sit together and tried to rotate them but for the most part, we issued them on a first come, first served basis and I always ended up with great seats.

Couple more pics showing the installed temporary chairbacks:

ben-hill-griffin-stadium-section-57-view.jpg


ben-hill-griffin-stadium-section-16-view.jpg


Alex.
 
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jereed16

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Kinda liked the old north end zone. I think if the stadium was a bit smaller, it would create more competition for tickets and be bette overall. Big like it is now is good when you have the 2006-2009 teams but nothing worse than seeing a bunch of empty sets.
 

AlexDaGator

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Kinda liked the old north end zone. I think if the stadium was a bit smaller, it would create more competition for tickets and be bette overall. Big like it is now is good when you have the 2006-2009 teams but nothing worse than seeing a bunch of empty sets.

Well, the students aren't what we had in the 90's either. We were passionate football fans, willing to camp out for tickets, sell plasma for gas money to roadtrip to an away game, that sort of thing.

Many of these current students are more like what you would envision attending MIT. They might be more into calculus and physics than blocking and tackling.


Alex.
 

MADGator

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Well, the students aren't what we had in the 90's either. We were passionate football fans, willing to camp out for tickets, sell plasma for gas money to roadtrip to an away game, that sort of thing.

Many of these current students are more like what you would envision attending MIT. They might be more into calculus and physics than blocking and tackling.


Alex.
Truth.

As for those temporary chair backs, I hate the F’ing things. They make an incredibly small seating area even smaller. It’s a cash cow for the school but for those that have to deal with them it sucks.

My folks had season tickets for years; they’re up in age now but they said one of the reasons they gave them up was because of the difficulty they had getting in and out of their seats. It doesn’t bother me that much (yet) but I imagine a lot of others feel the same way.
 

Gator by the Sea

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You guys are sure bringing back some good memories. I didn't miss a game in the Swamp from '91-99 (and saw quite a few games in Jax and true road games, too). Since 2000 I've tried to make it to at least one game a year, but it's not the same as when we were students in the early to mid '90s. If you pull up a YouTube video of an old game--'95 Tennessee game would be a great choice--you can even hear the difference on TV. The Swamp used to be the loudest stadium in the country because the students stood and yelled the whole game. Good times, indeed.

Go Gators!
 

aka

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The walk down memory lane isn't going to fix things. Winning, of course, cures everything. But, adjusting the Swamp to align with reality may not be a bad idea.
 

78

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So what happens when we get good again and they're turning away math geeks at the turnstiles? :dunno:
 

FireFoley

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I am probably in the minority here, but I am quite fine if they shrink the capacity b/c we have not been good for 10 years and getting a seat for much less than face value is very easy. But regardless of whether they take seats out or even add seats, the first thing that needs to be done is to refurbish the place. The place is a dump and needs to be updated and I don;t mean fancy scoreboards, lights etc. The bathrooms are disgusting, as bad as the old Wrigley field. The aluminum bleachers are older than dirt. Just like Fooley let the team rot, he let the stadium rot as well. We have a very transient fan base that does not travel to away games or bowl games, so if sometime in the future the team gets good, make them pay to come watch by taking 5000 or 10000 seats out. Most of the people at the games anyway are just banging on their devices and I am not just talking about the students. Even the old people really don;t give a SHYT about watching the game.
 

InstiGATOR1

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Overall I think you have to make the stadium more comfortable for people or in today's world they will stop coming....

I think as in all worlds always, you need to make people feel they will miss something or they might stop coming. When was the last time you felt like you might miss something if you were not at a UF football game?
 

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