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Future of Alumni Arena


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This is purely just based off speculation but given how nearly every home game this season has been standing room only, perhaps sometime in the future the school may consider expanding the arena's seating capacity? Obviously there are more pressing needs such as keeping Oats and getting the dedicated practice facilities he is asking for which should be covered first. If we continue this success for the foreseeable future, the university should at least consider it. We have room surrounding the arena to expand the seating to possibly have a bowl format. The empty space corners which currently have no seating could be turned into additional seating. Standing room only puts a cap on the school's revenue per game, surely as the program grows they would look to expand? Again, purely just an idea 

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A bowl-style arena would be great and likely increase our already strong home-court advantage but I think overall facilities needs would outweigh changes to AA's seating. For one, this has been the only season where people have consistently showed up, it will take a lot more than that.

Secondly, AA is a mixed-use facility. The seats are often collapsed for events/practices/etc.

I'd love to see it but, I think it would be pretty distant in the future at this point.

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I don't know how fiscally possible it is to renovate Alumni right now.  Houston's renovation cost 60 million and they got 20 million in one donation.  However I think there are minor upgrades to Alumni we can do.  Such as upgrading the two scoreboards behind each basket.  Make them more modern and digital.  This is more aesthetics.  We begun selling alcohol this season I wonder how that's going?  Our game day atmosphere is great.  Alumni has a great intimate feel to it and gets loud when its packed. 

Elsewhere a dedicated practice facility with modern amenities for the men's and woman's teams would be great.  That entices recruits. I think that more than Alumni renovations would be great and show recruits, Oats and FLJ that we are committed.

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Great thoughts. You need to think big. UB and many of its fan base for all too long have been we can’t do this, we can’t do that, why why why? You have to believe, imagine and then work your butt off to achieve. I always say why not. We can grow and achieve great things here at UB. Just need leadership to bring it to reality. 

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Money would be much better spent on an upgraded practice facility. Alumni Arena is perfectly fine as a MAC arena and having a top notch practice facility in line with the new field house for the football team would do so much more for drawing recruits. 

We would have to perform near the level we currently are for another decade with a  move to a bigger conference to really justify a new arena. Or maybe Khalil Mack will decide to throw money at us.

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Man I posted this same exact thing earlier in the season and got eaten alive haha but I love it! I get all giddy thinking of expanding athletic facilities at UB. Totally agree we have way more pressing needs. I really like alumni and the new video board was a massive upgrade when I was in school there but it would be cool to expand on it. Digging down to make a bowl would be neat. Someone mentioned they move the seats for other events etc. so I don’t have any type of solution for that but getting permanent seating on the south side and filling the corners would be cool. That being said the south seats are actually pretty darn nice for being foldable 

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No. The reason why I say that is because of all the uses that Alumni serves right now for UB. Commencement is currently held inside Alumni. If you had the Bowl Style seating throughout the arena you will not be able to fit as much. Granted, they have now split the commencements in two to accommodate more people (instead of 4 tickets they now give 6). 

I only see us upgrading seating facilities if we create another big project on campus. Now aesthetics I believe can improved like @DooleyBull06 mentioned. 

What this team has done this season, I think UB might be in a position to secure a large sponsor for a name arena opportunity.

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55 minutes ago, BullsFan14 said:

What this team has done this season, I think UB might be in a position to secure a large sponsor for a name arena opportunity.

Come see your UB Bulls as they look to extend the nations’s longest win streak at the Cellino & Barnes Center!

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2 hours ago, dutchcountry7 said:

If next year's team goes 20-11 will the arena be standing room only?

Let's work on ensuring the team keeps winning so that the arena becomes a problem before we focus on all the shortcomings of Alumni arena. 

Yes....like I said.... “if we continue this success for the foreseeable future,” as well as “as the program grows they would look to expand?” 

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Honestly, out of all the capital projects possible for the athletics department, making changes to alumni would probably be bottom of the list.  Not that it couldn't be better, but I think that money would be better spent on making the football stadium not a terrible place to watch a game, or on training/practice facilities which will help lure recruits.  Top of my list would be a dedicated basketball facility for practices, training, etc.  State of the art.

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12 minutes ago, UBigbobby said:

Honestly, out of all the capital projects possible for the athletics department, making changes to alumni would probably be bottom of the list.  Not that it couldn't be better, but I think that money would be better spent on making the football stadium not a terrible place to watch a game, or on training/practice facilities which will help lure recruits.  Top of my list would be a dedicated basketball facility for practices, training, etc.  State of the art.

I love how so many "Buffalo people" crush our football stadium. I see the games just fine from my seats, in fact, I've never once had a problem seeing the game well. For all those who don't like it, please make a donation to the UB football excellence fund today, and make it a big one to fix this "terrible place". 

I do however agree with the rest of your statement.

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8 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

I love how so many "Buffalo people" crush our football stadium. I see the games just fine from my seats, in fact, I've never once had a problem seeing the game well. For all those who don't like it, please make a donation to the UB football excellence fund today, and make it a big one to fix this "terrible place". 

I do however agree with the rest of your statement.

uhh...I have.  The track makes me disconnected from the game.  I do not enjoy watching games there.  I'm glad you do.  However, many people in the community do feel this way, as you admit, and that's a problem if we want people to actually come to games.

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1 minute ago, UBigbobby said:

uhh...I have.  The track makes me disconnected from the game.  I do not enjoy watching games there.  I'm glad you do.  However, many people in the community do feel this way, as you admit, and that's a problem if we want people to actually come to games.

Then please round up $$ to change it. I'm not sure how people constantly being negative about it helps UB sell tickets in the future. I'm at every game, and like I said, I see the games just fine. Sorry that it's not to everyone's (including your) liking. Instead of knocking everything UB does wrong constantly, (players, facilities, coaches) push for something to help promote it or make it better. This is supposed to be a UB Fan forum. Yes, everything isn't perfect and things can always be improved, and no I don't see the world with rose colored glasses, but come on. If the small number of people who actually utilize this site, and are "UB Fans" aren't the positive ones, how can we expect John Q Public to get behind UB?

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I don't think you can sugarcoat a glaring problem. In 20 years, there hasn't been a proposed fix to the glaring problem, so even rounding up $ wont really accomplish anything... and it seems "shut up and buy tickets" has just enabled the lack of action on a stadium plan that would create actual pride vs "youre supposed to bleed blue" fake pride.

On priority, ROI is important, can you sell an upgraded arena for a higher ticket price? Gonzaga found their success meant they could, they upgraded their arena, ramped up prices and gained a lot of revenue. Ultimately I think the response to this year's basketball team was slightly underwhelming, so I think we'd be better off going football stadium over Basketball...

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9 hours ago, UBigbobby said:
9 hours ago, skrabukes said:

I love how so many "Buffalo people" crush our football stadium. I see the games just fine from my seats, in fact, I've never once had a problem seeing the game well. For all those who don't like it, please make a donation to the UB football excellence fund today, and make it a big one to fix this "terrible place". 

I do however agree with the rest of your statement.

uhh...I have.  The track makes me disconnected from the game.  I do not enjoy watching games there.  I'm glad you do.  However, many people in the community do feel this way, as you admit, and that's a problem if we want people to actually come to games.

Admittedly I am rarely in the stands for football games.  However, when I do go up in the stands I have never had a problem with seeing the game and the track is a non-factor in watching the game.  You want the front rows to be closer to the field?  Why?  Everyone who has written about getting the front rows closer to the field thinks you will see better.  Unless the front row is elevate you cannot see anything from along the sides of the field.

At Iowa if you are in the first few rows you cannot really see the game, even  from the 50 yard line.  Your view is blocked by players.  At Met Life if you have the club seats behind the bench on field level if you want to see the game you have to go inside and watch it on television.

Regardless of the stadium or arena, if your  seats are low, your view sucks.

As for the highlighted quote from Skrabukes above, thanks.  If you think there is a problem do not just whine.  Become part of the solution and not the problem, DONATE!  Every contribution no matter how small will help.  My first donation after graduating was $15.00.  After graduating law school and getting a job a set aside a few dollars every week and still do that every week now.  As I started earning more I set more money aside and the donations went up.

If you think you cannot afford to do that look at do every day.  For all the people who wanted beer sales at games, give up one beer a week and you will have nearly $300.00 after a year to donate.  If you smoke cutting back one pack a week and setting that aside would lead to a donation of nearly $700.00 (this is based upon $13.00 a pack in New York City, which I believe is low) a year, and you would be healthier.

https://ubfoundation.buffalo.edu/giving/index.php?&custom=0581

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I’m a firm believer the track needs to go. There are stadiums where the front row is elevated so you can see over the top of the bench and still be super close to the action. There are other options. I’ve stood in the front row of the true blue sections for tons of games and felt super distant from the game. Just taking the track out won’t fix the problem...we would need to build stands closer in to the field and likely dig down and make a bowl but getting rid of the track would at least be a start. It’s also just an eye sore. Where everything should be blue and white you have a massive red track. Taking out the track you could at least move the south end zone remotely close to the field as opposed to a different area code. 

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10 hours ago, BrooklynBull said:

As for the highlighted quote from Skrabukes above, thanks.  If you think there is a problem do not just whine.  Become part of the solution and not the problem, DONATE! 

I'd love to be a part of the solution, I just want to know what the solution is. 16 years without an answer so far.

Edited by bull_trojan
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10 hours ago, weareub46 said:

Where everything should be blue and white you have a massive red track. Taking out the track you could at least move the south end zone remotely close to the field as opposed to a different area code. 

Paint the track blue and slap some bleachers in front of the stands, right behind the end zone  (like USC does).  Problems solved. 😉

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42 minutes ago, sdubyas said:

I thought I read somewhere that AA was originally about 8000 seats.  Any one confirm that?  Why was the capacity decreased?

It was. There was just bleacher seating on the south side. When they changed it to nice seatback seats it lowered capacity. Was actually before I went to school there 

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1 hour ago, weareub46 said:

It was. There was just bleacher seating on the south side. When they changed it to nice seatback seats it lowered capacity. Was actually before I went to school there 

Agree. When I was a student from 02-06 it was bleacher seating. Then they renovated and added chair backs which brought overall capacity down. Gift and curse of modernizing. 

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On 2/17/2019 at 1:15 AM, ed said:
On 2/16/2019 at 2:32 PM, weareub46 said:

Where everything should be blue and white you have a massive red track. Taking out the track you could at least move the south end zone remotely close to the field as opposed to a different area code. 

Paint the track blue and slap some bleachers in front of the stands, right behind the end zone  (like USC does).  Problems solved. 😉

It creates problems.  The track becomes unusable because the bleachers would create blind spots on the track for officials.  That is the problem Nevada has with their track around the field.  The built stands over the track so that you run underneath the seats.  That may be nice for football but it prevents them from hosting meets.

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