Griz expansion sells out in one day

[GrizinWashington]

Non-priority (GSA) tickets for the Griz expansion went on sale today, and sold out the same day. A message on the phone number explains that all seats are sold. Rumor has it that they were gone in the first hour. The GSA priority tickets were gone months ago.

They should have gone with the 4,000 expansion.....

[SonomaCat]

Has anybody figured out yet what portion of the new seats sold were additional marginal sales and what portion went to people moving from another section?

The views from the new section look pretty nice ... I think they would be much more desirable tickets than a lot of the other sections.

[GrizinWashington]

Has anybody figured out yet what portion of the new seats sold were additional marginal sales and what portion went to people moving from another section?

The views from the new section look pretty nice ... I think they would be much more desirable tickets than a lot of the other sections.

I don't know. But I was told today that no season tickets are available, so I'm guessing that for those who chose to move, others have already purchased their former tickets.

[crazycat]

That's good, I guess. I keep thinking about that column Jeff Welsch wrote a few weeks ago and it shed a different light on things. Coming from Portland his opinion carries a lot of weight with me. I'm a little torn. Having a big stadium and big crowd is cool, but where do you draw the line GiW? Just curious.

[Eastcoastgriz]

That's good, I guess. I keep thinking about that column Jeff Welsch wrote a few weeks ago and it shed a different light on things. Coming from Portland his opinion carries a lot of weight with me. I'm a little torn. Having a big stadium and big crowd is cool, but where do you draw the line GiW? Just curious.

Are you saying there can be too many fans at a game???

[crazycat]

That's good, I guess. I keep thinking about that column Jeff Welsch wrote a few weeks ago and it shed a different light on things. Coming from Portland his opinion carries a lot of weight with me. I'm a little torn. Having a big stadium and big crowd is cool, but where do you draw the line GiW? Just curious.

Are you saying there can be too many fans at a game???

Yes. Would you want a 50,000 seat stadium in Missoula for Griz games? Sold out every home game and playing NAU. Wouldn't that just seem a little weird. Don't you move up to another division at some point? UM already has bigger crowds than a lot of FBS teams.

[Eastcoastgriz]

That's good, I guess. I keep thinking about that column Jeff Welsch wrote a few weeks ago and it shed a different light on things. Coming from Portland his opinion carries a lot of weight with me. I'm a little torn. Having a big stadium and big crowd is cool, but where do you draw the line GiW? Just curious.

Are you saying there can be too many fans at a game???

Yes. Would you want a 50,000 seat stadium in Missoula for Griz games? Sold out every home game and playing NAU. Wouldn't that just seem a little weird. Don't you move up to another division at some point? UM already has bigger crowds than a lot of FBS teams.

So it's a bad thing when 50K show up for the Yale / Harvard game??

I would love to have 50K at every game regardless of what division we play in. That being said 50K might bring enough $ to afford to move to the next level.

[Cat-theotherwhitemeat]

I've come to the conclusion that with all the small mindedness in Missoula, no matter how many people attend the games, the Griz will move up when Catherine Zeta-Jones and I have our first child together.

Here she is now saying "Come get me WhiteMeat!"

[Bleedinbluengold]

It was my understanding that the 1-day sell-out was a mere formality, since GAA members had already committed to buying the seats...which is why they were built in the first place. I might be wrong, but I thought I read that the reason UM went forward with expansion was because people had already committed to buying the seats.

[crazycat]

That's good, I guess. I keep thinking about that column Jeff Welsch wrote a few weeks ago and it shed a different light on things. Coming from Portland his opinion carries a lot of weight with me. I'm a little torn. Having a big stadium and big crowd is cool, but where do you draw the line GiW? Just curious.

Are you saying there can be too many fans at a game???

Yes. Would you want a 50,000 seat stadium in Missoula for Griz games? Sold out every home game and playing NAU. Wouldn't that just seem a little weird. Don't you move up to another division at some point? UM already has bigger crowds than a lot of FBS teams.

So it's a bad thing when 50K show up for the Yale / Harvard game??

I would love to have 50K at every game regardless of what division we play in. That being said 50K might bring enough $ to afford to move to the next level.

Oh, I understand that line of thought. I guess what I'm wondering is, per Welsch's story and my own life experiences, do I like it better now or better the way it was 30-40 years ago. A 50,000 seat stadium, I assume, would bring many other things with it...good and bad. I've been to quite a few major college football games and I enjoy them, but I can also say there are many things I enjoy at Bobcat Stadium (or W-G Stadium) better. Just not sure the trade off is worth it. Obviously a school will build as long as it can show where bigger creates more revenue, so I'm not talking about something that I'm going to fight tooth and nail for. I'm just wondering, will I like the games any more when our stadium holds twice as many fans. I really can't say with any certainty either way.

[Eastcoastgriz]

Oh, I understand that line of thought. I guess what I'm wondering is, per Welsch's story and my own life experiences, do I like it better now or better the way it was 30-40 years ago. A 50,000 seat stadium, I assume, would bring many other things with it...good and bad. I've been to quite a few major college football games and I enjoy them, but I can also say there are many things I enjoy at Bobcat Stadium (or W-G Stadium) better. Just not sure the trade off is worth it. Obviously a school will build as long as it can show where bigger creates more revenue, so I'm not talking about something that I'm going to fight tooth and nail for. I'm just wondering, will I like the games any more when our stadium holds twice as many fans. I really can't say with any certainty either way.

I know I like out stadium better now than when it was first built. 25K is a lot more fun than 13K. I too have been to a lot a major stadiums both college and professional. Have always enjoyed being part of a 70,000 person event. The key to making the expansion work is to able to efficiently handle traffic both coming and going.

[crazycat]

I like W-G just the way it is. I think the new addition will be cool. I think a re-model on the other side would look good, too.

Yes, traffic is an issue with growth. I don't know much about the street layout in Missoula, but I know that getting out of MSU games right now is a hassle and that's just 14,000, so what will it be like with 20-25-30K? I think MSU needs to plan and develop the land adjacent to the stadium and to the south. That would make it more accessible both before and after the game.

Another thing about big stadiums is you spend a lot of time walking from the parking lot to the stadium and around the stadium, to-from seat for restroom, concesessions, etc.

The collegiate atmosphere seems to get lost in some of those giant stadiums. Not the older, traditional ones, but the new ones have a very corporate feel. That's a concern I would have for W-G.

[GrizinWashington]

More the merrier. I attended many-a-game at Dornblazer, and not ONE of those games felt "collegiate".

[GrizinWashington]

It was my understanding that the 1-day sell-out was a mere formality, since GAA members had already committed to buying the seats...which is why they were built in the first place. I might be wrong, but I thought I read that the reason UM went forward with expansion was because people had already committed to buying the seats.

Not entirely true, bbg. Due to the studies done, UM had little concern that the seats would all sell (and I have no doubt that many of the suites were "spoken-for" in advance), but seats were not actually available for purchase even by GSA members until last November.

[crazycat]

More the merrier. I attended many-a-game at Dornblazer, and not ONE of those games felt "collegiate".

You got me there. Dornbla's'er was kind of a scary place. Remember all those Hamm's beer bear costumes that would roam around the sidelines during the game?

It's great that W-G is right on campus. My only knock on it is they pipe in too much music (yes, I fault MSU for this, too), but it's somewhat excuseable with the lack of a big band. I'd like to see 200-piece bands at both schools. That's an area where bigger would definitely be better, because big time college bands really set apart the college game. So do big student sections. More guys like John Belushi ("COLLEGE") in place of the wife-n-kid crowd is better, too. This, of course, is just my lame opinion on the matter. I still wear jeans that don't hang down past my knees and comb my hair. Wow, what a loser I am.

[GrizinWashington]

More the merrier. I attended many-a-game at Dornblazer, and not ONE of those games felt "collegiate".

You got me there. Dornbla's'er was kind of a scary place. Remember all those Hamm's beer bear costumes that would roam around the sidelines during the game?

It's great that W-G is right on campus. My only knock on it is they pipe in too much music (yes, I fault MSU for this, too), but it's somewhat excuseable with the lack of a big band. I'd like to see 200-piece bands at both schools. That's an area where bigger would definitely be better, because big time college bands really set apart the college game. So do big student sections. More guys like John Belushi ("COLLEGE") in place of the wife-n-kid crowd is better, too. This, of course, is just my lame opinion on the matter. I still wear jeans that don't hang down past my knees and comb my hair. Wow, what a loser I am.

I completely 100% agree, CC. Stop the canned music and mike the band.

[theblackgecko]

More the merrier. I attended many-a-game at Dornblazer, and not ONE of those games felt "collegiate".

You got me there. Dornbla's'er was kind of a scary place. Remember all those Hamm's beer bear costumes that would roam around the sidelines during the game?

It's great that W-G is right on campus. My only knock on it is they pipe in too much music (yes, I fault MSU for this, too), but it's somewhat excuseable with the lack of a big band. I'd like to see 200-piece bands at both schools. That's an area where bigger would definitely be better, because big time college bands really set apart the college game. So do big student sections. More guys like John Belushi ("COLLEGE") in place of the wife-n-kid crowd is better, too. This, of course, is just my lame opinion on the matter. I still wear jeans that don't hang down past my knees and comb my hair. Wow, what a loser I am.

I completely 100% agree, CC. Stop the canned music and mike the band.

Oregon had no canned music when I was there. There was something scary about hearing the band play Ludacris' hit when the team was on offense.

From the people that I've communicated with in Montana's band, they would be all for it, but someone in the AD likes the canned music, and the players like it too. I've no understanding why.

[grizband]

More the merrier. I attended many-a-game at Dornblazer, and not ONE of those games felt "collegiate".

You got me there. Dornbla's'er was kind of a scary place. Remember all those Hamm's beer bear costumes that would roam around the sidelines during the game?

It's great that W-G is right on campus. My only knock on it is they pipe in too much music (yes, I fault MSU for this, too), but it's somewhat excuseable with the lack of a big band. I'd like to see 200-piece bands at both schools. That's an area where bigger would definitely be better, because big time college bands really set apart the college game. So do big student sections. More guys like John Belushi ("COLLEGE") in place of the wife-n-kid crowd is better, too. This, of course, is just my lame opinion on the matter. I still wear jeans that don't hang down past my knees and comb my hair. Wow, what a loser I am.

I completely 100% agree, CC. Stop the canned music and mike the band.

Oregon had no canned music when I was there. There was something scary about hearing the band play Ludacris' hit when the team was on offense.

From the people that I've communicated with in Montana's band, they would be all for it, but someone in the AD likes the canned music, and the players like it too. I've no understanding why.

It was a constant fight with the administration to get the band more playing time. I don't know whether the AD or the boosters preferred canned music, but we always got pushed to the back.

[crazycat]

From the people that I've communicated with in Montana's band, they would be all for it, but someone in the AD likes the canned music, and the players like it too. I've no understanding why.

Well they're 18-22 yr olds and probably have no concept of what college football traditon is (they have an idea of what Madden 2007 tradition is though). The AD likes it cuz he's a cheapskate like every AD in America. That's too bad, bucause you guys have the resources to do this.

[GrizinWashington]

Crazy, as I noted above, I agree completely with you on this. But I'm confused by the "cheap" comment. Are bands expensive to the AD??