Episode Details

Penn State released a statement last Friday that the university has decided on the future of Beaver Stadium. The program intends to renovate the historic stadium instead of building a new facility on a new footprint. 

That’s big news, right?

Today, the BWI Daily Edition digs into the “if” “and” and “buts” of the statement to parse through the words and explain to fans what the real news was last Friday. Then, host Thomas Frank Carr and senior editor Nate Bauer discuss what the program can do, and what they must do in order to renovate Beaver Stadium and launch Penn State fans into the future of college football. 

Penn State isn’t renovating anything

So instead of building new, the program wants to renovate the existing structure. But that doesn’t mean what you think it means; according to Bauer, 

“A renovation is not a renovation, okay? In this context of what Beaver Stadium is, they will tear down what exists in phases so that they can continue to play football in Beaver Stadium while handling it piece by piece, by piece, by piece by piece.”

Next, he and T-Frank discuss what that will do to seat capacity and the badge of honor that Penn State fans have about the 107,000-seat capacity of the stadium. 

They also discuss financing and how the athletic department and the university must tackle a project that will likely cost more than half a billion dollars. Bauer doesn’t see this coming off without someone getting upset about where the money comes from.

“What is the appetite going to be if this major project, Beaver Stadium project, demands ticket increases? Right. And not just like five, ten bucks a pop, but doubles ticket costs, doubles seat, licensing costs. What will the appetite be for that ten years from now? I have no idea. I just it’s very fascinating to me for Penn State to be in this position right now because this is all happening currently.”

So what is the landing position, then? What are you aiming for if you’re at Penn State and you imagine a new stadium? The trend nationally is to build smaller stadiums and charge a higher entry price. Is that in the DNA of the program?

“Okay, So I think that there is a middle ground. Look, you’re not going to sell 100,000 seats at Beaver Stadium to just the upper class. It’s not going to happen. But you cannot build an experience that is ultra-elite and only provides a premium experience. It’s just you cannot have that type of capacity. And I don’t think that that’s what they want.”

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