August 17th, 2010 
Dave Cooperman 
By Dave Cooperman
I didn’t know August 17th was Festivus, but while Otto’s Army is airing out our grievances, I figured I might as well get involved. Tim Schlittner called out Doug Marrone for the double standard he applied in the Delone Carter situation. Tom Sullivan piggybacked a Doug Hogue quote into a rant about our depleted fan base. I wholeheartedly agree with Schlittner and I mostly agree with Sullivan.
I would have been all in with Sully had he mentioned that the Carrier Dome as a football facility offered no incentive for the fence sitting fans to show up on Saturdays. Now don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of love, respect and great memories for the Dome. It sits in the middle of campus, it serves beer and the basketball atmosphere is in my biased opinion unmatched anywhere else in the country.
That said, it offers no additional benefit other than the game. Yeah, the diehards only need the game, but it’s more than the diehards that fill the stadium and buy the food and souvenirs that essentially pay for the program to thrive.
My dream of an open air stadium on South Campus isn’t going to happen, and I can live with that, but the Carrier Dome needs an overhaul. They need to add some warmth in the corridors. They need to improve the subpar concessions, consider replacing the benches with seats, HD video screens and an official Syracuse merchandise store. Club 4-4 is a start but it’s a small step, not a leap. If you aren’t going to have one of those college football cathedrals that draw 100,000 fans per game in losing seasons, then you need to give people an incentive to show. Right now the dome dogs and uncomfortable seats don’t cut the mustard.
TCU recently announced a 105 million dollar project to improve their stadium. Rutgers Stadium has made improvements and expanded over the past few seasons. Minnesota built an open air stadium on campus. We aren’t talking Notre Dame, Ohio State and USC here - these are programs that are either on our level or below it.
Syracuse athletics may be the only game in town, but that doesn’t mean that the city and school should treat its paying public like second class citizens. It is long overdue for the Carrier Dome to enter the new millennium – and make the needed improvements - so it becomes a destination as opposed to a reason to stay home.
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Bulldoze the dome, build a 30,000 seat hoops venue in it’s place. On south campus, build a 60,000 seat outdoor venue. Syracuse, we introduce to you the football tailgate.
Clearly this will cost hundreds of millions of dollars that the University won’t allocate, but it would transform the athletic department.
While Dome improvements would certainly be welcome it all comes down to the age old question – who is going to pay for them? I’ve got premium A level seats and frankly pay too much for my tickets already. You raise the price of the cheap ones and we end up with an emptier dome. Got to get Gross raising even more money
I have been to games under Jake and now Gross. With Jake, it was truly a collegiate atmosphere. Gross is too concerned with the corporate dollars and not concerned with the in-house atmosphere. Between possessions instead of the band playing there is LOUD advertisements, often from conflicting sponsors. In between plays there is piped in music and more sponsor mentions. Going to games just isnt fun for the fan anymore. And dont get me started on the douchebag male cheerleader who yells into a microphone before the game…
Did the public chip in for Minnesota’s new stadium? I think that is a great model for us and would be interested to know the ratio of public/private money raised for that stadium.
In this political climate I’m not sure you’re going to find a lot of politicians willing to push such a thing, especially given the fact that every government excpet for the feds (who can print money) are broke. Bragman secured some state cash to build the dome 30 years ago, but that was a different time. Plus CNY doesn’t have the pols with the political clout to make that happen.
Meh – I hear what you’re saying, but like some of the other posters have pointed out, who’s going to pay for this? The reason why Gross had to whore out the Dome was because the program is in the red. Yes, it felt more like a “college” atmosphere during Crouthamel’s days, but for the most part a) the team was winning (which always helps an atmosphere) and b) he was a horrible fundraiser, so he didn’t do ANYTHING to generate revenue. There has to be a happy medium between Key Bank sponsored first downs and nothing at all, right? I think the FieldTurf upgrades and “dressing up” of the Dome was a good first start.
There’s no QUESTION the Dome needs a massive overhaul, but I just don’t see it until the coffers are filled again, and there is money to go around. Also, as much as I like the “idea” of an open air stadium for football, the reality is that if you’re worried about attracting the casual fan now, wait until you try to draw a local Syracuse fan to an outdoor football game when it’s 20 degrees below zero. That cranky old guy who yells at everyone to sit down during football games will probably die of exposure.
Tim – the Minnesota stadium is somethign to be jealous of. It is beautiful, perfect for their campus and is a model the University should follow. In terms of the funding, this is from Wikipedia:
During the remainder of 2005 the university concentrated on drafting a stadium proposal that would draw the support of state politicians. The final plan proposed that the state of Minnesota would contribute 40% of the stadium cost while the university would raise the remaining 60% on its own. Portions of that 60% were to be funded by the TCF naming rights, while the remainder would come from a $50 per semester student fee, private donations, the sale of 2,840 acres (11.5 km²) of university land in rural Dakota County back to the state, and game day parking revenue.[17] Even though the university proposal drew widespread legislative support, the stadium effort suffered a setback when the 2005 legislative session ended before the stadium bill could be heard.[19] Late in 2005 when it became evident that this would happen, the university and TCF Bank announced that it had extended the naming rights deal to June 30, 2006.[18]
1st off… to the author: right now you can’t say TCU is at or below our level… they are far above it.
2nd off… to “tim”: Minnesota is a PUBLIC school, Syracuse is a PRIVATE school… I really doubt the state or local government are going to be wanting to give us $ to replace a perfectly fine football stadium.
At the end of the day the dome is an unbelievable ally that the team seems to seldom use. We need to use the pass as an advantage with our roof. I’ve been at games at the dome that were louder than the final 4′s and world series games I’ve attended. We don’t need a new stadium in Syracuse, we just need to win.
I am the author and TCU is absolutely not on our level from an athletic department standpoint. From a 2009 football standpoint they were far above us and Notre Dame, Ohio St., USC, Michigan…you get the idea. One great season does not forever change the perception of a program.
The revenue that Syracuse brings in from the Big East BCS and TV deal on an annual basis far exceeds that of TCU. If that wasn’t important then the summer of conference expansion wouldn’t have dominated the headlines with everyone trying to secure a spot in the BCS and with better TV deals.
I was only talking about football, seeing as the article is about a football stadium… so strictly from a football point of view TCU is better. Historically we are both very similar. They’ve been to more bowl games than us, have a win percentage similar to ours (.525 vs. .583), 2 national titles to our 1 (and an 87 half), and we each have 1 heisman winner. BUT, recently they’re trouncing us. They finished in the top 25 in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008 AND 2009. TCU’s success is hardly 1 season, and you as a sports blogger should recognize that. Compared to our recent misfortunes on the football field (no bowl win/top 25 finish in that stretch aside from 01) I think any rational person would say when it comes to football TCU is above our level.