Are there solutions to the mid week home games?

[cvilleelkscoach]

While I agree there are issues with the BJC, what is lost in the conversation is the reason the facility was built the way it is. It was designed as a multi use convocation center. The large floor space was to hold job fairs, large dinners, concerts, monster truck stuff, other entertainment things. The center has many different layouts including a theater. It was also designed for hockey but the ice making equipment was pulled after the design was complete.

As for down sizing, many events sellout or near sell out. It makes no sense to give up all that space and revenue. One of the desires is to redesign creating a club level much like the Schott at OSU. Why, income. That should come as no surprise. The layout of the building is a real challenge for b-ball. But as other posters have said, getting to SC in the winter can be a real challenge. The same day trip on a week night is not going to happen for many. Hell PSU had to fight the conference to get more weekend games. Especially on Saturday’s.

 

[UncleLar]

While I agree there are issues with the BJC, what is lost in the conversation is the reason the facility was built the way it is. It was designed as a multi use convocation center. The large floor space was to hold job fairs, large dinners, concerts, monster truck stuff, other entertainment things. The center has many different layouts including a theater. It was also designed for hockey but the ice making equipment was pulled after the design was complete.

As for down sizing, many events sellout or near sell out. It makes no sense to give up all that space and revenue. One of the desires is to redesign creating a club level much like the Schott at OSU. Why, income. That should come as no surprise. The layout of the building is a real challenge for b-ball. But as other posters have said, getting to SC in the winter can be a real challenge. The same day trip on a week night is not going to happen for many. Hell PSU had to fight the conference to get more weekend games. Especially on Saturday’s.

And if they play games in Rec Hall, people are even LESS likely to go. The idea for a unique one time event was great but nobody wants to go there regularly for hoops.

 

[psu00]

It would mean that the sections along the baselines today suddenly become center court seats, collapsing the slow rise bleachers to the end zones, and going with something more like 8-10 rows of steeper bleachers. The goal would be that those end zone seats could end up another 40-50 feet closer to the court and feel like they're actually in the same zip code as the game. And then have temporary bleachers in the other end zone that could also be steeper and put seats closer to the court.

No idea if any of this is at all feasible, but feel like the only realistic options is retrofitting the BJC in some way. Today's option of closing off the upper deck might look better from an environment standpoint, but leaves too many people with absolute crap seats in a 9-10k crowd (whereas, put 9k in the RAC and there isn't a bad seat in the house).

Any retrofit for basketball would need to be temporary at the BJC as the original plan would still be needed for concerts, graduations, THON, etc.

If they put in temporary steeper bleachers behind each basket and curtained off the ‘end zone’ seats behind them (rather than the whole upper deck), you could leave the sideline upper decks open and the configuration would end up a lot like Indiana’s Assembly Hall.

 

[Erial_Lion]

Agree completely. And, I’d still want the ability to put 15k in there for a weekend home game against OSU. But I think we need something like psu00 mentioned as a secondary configuration for those games that have no chance of drawing 10k+.

 

[Kiber]

The city of Lincoln also has a population of close to 300K people while all of Centre County is little more than half that

City of Lincoln is about twice the population of all Centre County, PLUS Rte 80 (a major US East-West super highway) literally runs right thru Lincoln. I know Winters in Lincoln can be brutal, but having a major Interstate run right thru Lincoln sure makes transportation easier.

 

[LioninNC]

Home basketball games are never going to be played at Rec Hall excepting for an OOC game during Christmas break once every year or three. Forget moving home games to Rec Hall, expanding Rec Hall, or building a new basketball arena. Not feasible for several reasons in each case.

Sorry, but I don’t understand why midweek games couldn’t be played at Rec Hall. Other major schools use a similar approach. Villanova plays midweek/lower expected attendance games at their small on campus Pavillion and the weekend/large attendance games at the Sixers arena. St Johns does this with their on campus arena and MSG. UConn uses this approach too. There are probably others I can’t think of.

Just tell the Big Ten “the BJC is under construction during the week” and this is what we are doing. If you don’t like it, tough. What are they going to do, throw us out of the conference?

 

[Kiber]

Any retrofit for basketball would need to be temporary at the BJC as the original plan would still be needed for concerts, graduations, THON, etc.

If they put in temporary steeper bleachers behind each basket and curtained off the ‘end zone’ seats behind them (rather than the whole upper deck), you could leave the sideline upper decks open and the configuration would end up a lot like Indiana’s Assembly Hall.

Said many times.... I'm not sure of the temporary reconfiguration. But I find it almost impossible to believe that a school with top notch engineering programs, like Penn State, could not put some of their engineering programs on this topic and come up with several great plans.

 

[Kiber]

Sorry, but I don’t understand why midweek games couldn’t be played at Rec Hall. Other major schools use a similar approach. Villanova plays midweek/lower expected attendance games at their small on campus Pavillion and the weekend/large attendance games at the Sixers arena. St Johns does this with their on campus arena and MSG. UConn uses this approach too. There are probably others I can’t think of.

Just tell the Big Ten “the BJC is under construction during the week” and this is what we are doing. If you don’t like it, tough. What are they going to do, throw us out of the conference?

We could just put the request on either Ohio State or Michigan letterhead and the B1G would just blindly approve it.

 

[psu00]

Just tell the Big Ten “the BJC is under construction during the week” and this is what we are doing. If you don’t like it, tough. What are they going to do, throw us out of the conference?

No need to lie. Just inform the conference our home venues are the BJC and Rec Hall and problem solved.

 

[NoVa Lion]

Sorry, but I don’t understand why midweek games couldn’t be played at Rec Hall. Other major schools use a similar approach. Villanova plays midweek/lower expected attendance games at their small on campus Pavillion and the weekend/large attendance games at the Sixers arena. St Johns does this with their on campus arena and MSG. UConn uses this approach too. There are probably others I can’t think of.

Just tell the Big Ten “the BJC is under construction during the week” and this is what we are doing. If you don’t like it, tough. What are they going to do, throw us out of the conference?

How does having weekday games at Rec Hall solve the problem? Rec Hall only holds 6K so attendance would now be less than it is now and with all bench seating fans would expect to pay less for tickets, so attendance would be down and revenue would also be down and fewer students would be able to attend. Not seeing how that is better than the current situation. In fact, it would be far worse.

 

[WDLion]

Sorry, but I don’t understand why midweek games couldn’t be played at Rec Hall. Other major schools use a similar approach. Villanova plays midweek/lower expected attendance games at their small on campus Pavillion and the weekend/large attendance games at the Sixers arena. St Johns does this with their on campus arena and MSG. UConn uses this approach too. There are probably others I can’t think of.

Just tell the Big Ten “the BJC is under construction during the week” and this is what we are doing. If you don’t like it, tough. What are they going to do, throw us out of the conference?

The fans that go to games don't want them played in Rec Hall.

 

[Art]

Sorry, but I don’t understand why midweek games couldn’t be played at Rec Hall. Other major schools use a similar approach. Villanova plays midweek/lower expected attendance games at their small on campus Pavillion and the weekend/large attendance games at the Sixers arena. St Johns does this with their on campus arena and MSG. UConn uses this approach too. There are probably others I can’t think of.

Just tell the Big Ten “the BJC is under construction during the week” and this is what we are doing. If you don’t like it, tough. What are they going to do, throw us out of the conference?

Other conferences don't have gate sharing agreements and I think the Big Ten would have difficulty with a home venue that seats about 6,500.

The Big Ten wouldn't throw PSU out if it moved basketball home games to Rec Hall. It might cut PSU's share of the conference revenue distribution by, say $5mm or so, which is the amount attributable to basketball.

 

[Madsol]

Lincoln is the Nebraska state capitol.

I know. But Harrisburg is the Pennsylvania state capital so that doesn't always mean anything.

 

[psu00]

So far this year, (not counting games in NYC or the Palestra), Penn St averages 6,974 fans per weeknight home game. That includes big matchups with Wake Forest, Maryland, and Indiana.

On weekends, the average is 8,906 which includes Bama and Ohio St.

 

[Cletus11]

I know. But Harrisburg is the Pennsylvania state capital so that doesn't always mean anything.

The largest city in Nebraska, Omaha (with population of 500,000) is an hour away. So Nebraska has a lot more local population within one hour drive then PSU does. Plus just like the Nebraska football team always selling out, there is no professional sports in Nebraska so they have a huge local following that never went to Nebraska.

 

[WDLion]

The largest city in Nebraska, Omaha (with population of 500,000) is an hour away. So Nebraska has a lot more local population within one hour drive then PSU does. Plus just like the Nebraska football team always selling out, there is no professional sports in Nebraska so they have a huge local following that never went to Nebraska.

Lincoln is 193 mi. from Kansas City.

 

[Cletus11]

Lincoln is 193 mi. from Kansas City.

what does that have to do with anything. same thing as Philly and Pittsburgh, too far to drive for a weeknight game. Omaha is an hour away, NOT to far away to drive to a weeknight game, that was the point. As I also noted, you have a lot of people in Nebraska that grow up Nebraska fans as that is their team because no pro teams, so a larger non alum fanbase willing to travel and goto a game.

 

[Madsol]

The largest city in Nebraska, Omaha (with population of 500,000) is an hour away. So Nebraska has a lot more local population within one hour drive then PSU does. Plus just like the Nebraska football team always selling out, there is no professional sports in Nebraska so they have a huge local following that never went to Nebraska.

Re: Omaha, I agree. I said us much in an earlier post in this thread.

 

[WDLion]

what does that have to do with anything. same thing as Philly and Pittsburgh, too far to drive for a weeknight game. Omaha is an hour away, NOT to far away to drive to a weeknight game, that was the point. As I also noted, you have a lot of people in Nebraska that grow up Nebraska fans as that is their team because no pro teams, so a larger non alum fanbase willing to travel and goto a game.

Just saying many Nebraskans aren't that far from a city with pro teams.

 

[psugisher]

Does anyone remember what the attendance was for the early years of the BJC for basketball? For some reason I thought it was regularly packed. I've been at a few games over the past 10 years where the place was almost full and the atmosphere was great. It's not often but there have been some awesome nights at the BJC. Winning certainly helps. Hopefully the team gets some support the second half of the conference season. There could be a lot on the line.

 

[Erial_Lion]

Does anyone remember what the attendance was for the early years of the BJC for basketball? For some reason I thought it was regularly packed. I've been at a few games over the past 10 years where the place was almost full and the atmosphere was great. It's not often but there have been some awesome nights at the BJC. Winning certainly helps. Hopefully the team gets some support the second half of the conference season. There could be a lot on the line.

Completely sold out every game the first season. Heck, Rene’s women’s team was drawing over 10k some nights.

 

[UncleLar]

Other conferences don't have gate sharing agreements and I think the Big Ten would have difficulty with a home venue that seats about 6,500.

The Big Ten wouldn't throw PSU out if it moved basketball home games to Rec Hall. It might cut PSU's share of the conference revenue distribution by, say $5mm or so, which is the amount attributable to basketball.

What would ever make you think that? There's absolutely nothing in the revenue distribution agreement that's attached to attendance at all. Yes they share gate revenues based on attendance, but those are on a per game basis that has both minimum and maximum numbers attached to it. I suspect for most games, PSU meets the minimum numbers now and probably would at Rec Hall too. Plus, those gate revenue figures are a rounding error when compared to the TV revenue and NCAA revenue numbers. There are tons of reasons not to play games at Rec Hall but the idea that we might lose substantial revenue sharing bucks is absurd (we lose a lot more real attendance $$$ than we would revenue sharing $$$).

 

[NittPicker]

Does anyone remember what the attendance was for the early years of the BJC for basketball? For some reason I thought it was regularly packed. I've been at a few games over the past 10 years where the place was almost full and the atmosphere was great. It's not often but there have been some awesome nights at the BJC. Winning certainly helps. Hopefully the team gets some support the second half of the conference season. There could be a lot on the line.

I believe you're right about that. It was a combination of the team being competitive with future NBAer Calvin Booth and the novelty of the new arena. I recall people being upset because some donors bought up the better seats but never went to the games. I don't think that's a problem nowadays.

 

[psu1969a]

That's not true. We can hold the games wherever we want.

WRONG! Period.

 

[psu1969a]

All of you naysayers and experts. How many of you are season ticket holders & attend 90% of home games? If you are season ticket holders where do you live?

I am not a naysayer nor an expert; I am a season ticket holder who lives 4 miles from the BJC and we attend 90% of the home games unless we are ill or the WEATHER IS BAD.

BJC is a convocation arena. It was designed to hold concerts, graduation ceremonies, home builder shows, garden shows, THON, truck pulls, and a whole slew of events other than basketball. If you want an exclusive BB building, get out your collective checkbooks and make a BIG donation with stipulations on design and size ala Pegula.

PSU needs 5K-6K students at home games for MBB (a student season ticket is $35.00) and 1K-3K for WBB (attendance is free) games. I will not drive to State College in expected or real bad weather. Remember I live 4 miles away from BJC. I would not take off work to drive over 1 hour to State College for BB game that last around 1.5 hours. Nor would I drive to go to a game starting at or after 8:00 PM when I have to get up for work at 6:00 AM.

As for Rec Hall or Palestra as a venue. Both are terrible, period. Besides the parking is terrible at both locations.

Instead of bellyaching, get off your ass and get yourself and friends to enjoy a game at BJC. Is it the best? NO. At lease it is not a converted hockey rink.

 

[Sproul]

They should renovate Rec Hall to add about 3,000 more seats and move the games there...done. There is basically no other way to pack out the BJC...just not gonna happen and most of that is due to location imho....look where you're currently drawing your crowd from....Lewistown, Mifflinburg, Huntingdon? Central Pa is not the hotbed for disposable income to go to basketball games.

basketball has to be played in the biggest venue on campus. It’s a rule. Rec hall is not an option, even before the cost of renting that floor every week.

 

[Art]

What would ever make you think that? There's absolutely nothing in the revenue distribution agreement that's attached to attendance at all. Yes they share gate revenues based on attendance, but those are on a per game basis that has both minimum and maximum numbers attached to it. I suspect for most games, PSU meets the minimum numbers now and probably would at Rec Hall too. Plus, those gate revenue figures are a rounding error when compared to the TV revenue and NCAA revenue numbers. There are tons of reasons not to play games at Rec Hall but the idea that we might lose substantial revenue sharing bucks is absurd (we lose a lot more real attendance $$$ than we would revenue sharing $$$).

When it comes to imposing financial penalties on schools, the conference commissioner has reasonably broad discretion, I can't say if any would be imposed should PSU choose to move basketball to a smaller venue. But don't think that approval wouldn't be sought from the conference if it decided to do so.

 

[Ranger Dan]

New arena like John Paul Jones arena at UVA, but with no more than 10k seating at full capacity.

 

[ILLINOISLION]

Said many times.... I'm not sure of the temporary reconfiguration. But I find it almost impossible to believe that a school with top notch engineering programs, like Penn State, could not put some of their engineering programs on this topic and come up with several great plans.

Heck, an underclassman having Happy Hour would just need a couple of dry cocktail napkins to draw up a plan that’s better than what’s in operation now!

 

[WDLion]

Heck, an underclassman having Happy Hour would just need a couple of dry cocktail napkins to draw up a plan that’s better than what’s in operation now!

The BJC isn't nearly as bad as some here portray it.

 

[Ranger Dan]

All of you naysayers and experts. How many of you are season ticket holders & attend 90% of home games? If you are season ticket holders where do you live?

I had season tickets for the first couple years after the BJC was opened. I was young, and living in the Hershey/Harrisburg area. It was an hour and a half drive home without football traffic. I’m a good bit older now and live further away. I would have to take the day off if I attended a 9:00 tip game and drove home 2 hours or more.

 

[Ranger Dan]

The BJC isn't nearly as bad as some here portray it.

It’s not all about the design... it’s that it’s half empty most of the time. Smaller arena will get filled easier, and would provide a better home court advantage.

 

[JeffClear]

New arena like John Paul Jones arena at UVA, but with no more than 10k seating at full capacity.

PSU averaged about 9K last year so a 12k arena probably wouldn’t be too big.
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/2020/Attendance.pdf
I found it interesting that Pitt averaged 6,700 last year.
Must have been a big year at the opera.

 

[Kiber]

The BJC isn't nearly as bad as some here portray it.

It's actually worse.

The top bowl is OK. The bottom bowl is horrendous. Distance from court, dead spaces ......

I like what someone else mentioned earlier about specially designed temporary bleachers for each baseline area. The sidelines are not that bad. Could be a little closer to action, but not bad. The biggest problem is the vast open dead spaces at each end. I'd say either shift the court so it is closer to one end of the arena, and then curtain off the other end. Or, go with the specially designed temporary bleacher seats that would be erected and put at each end-line for every game.

 

[LioninNC]

PSU needs 5K-6K students at home games for MBB (a student season ticket is $35.00) and 1K-3K for WBB (attendance is free) games.

How much does Penn State make on student tickets? Given the student attendance, it can’t be much. Why not let all students in free for all or at least the week night games? I still remember when I first heard they were going to start charging students for basketball I thought it was a bad idea.

 

[Dunkindonuts]

I had season tickets for the first year of the bjc. 95-96. I sat one row from the very top of the arena, in the end zone portion. In all my life I have never been further from the action. And I have seen basketball at the staples, at American airlines in Phoenix, the summit in Houston, market square in Indy, and about 20 others. The Bryce Jordan Center is an abomination.

 

[UncleLar]

When it comes to imposing financial penalties on schools, the conference commissioner has reasonably broad discretion, I can't say if any would be imposed should PSU choose to move basketball to a smaller venue. But don't think that approval wouldn't be sought from the conference if it decided to do so.

All Sandy Barber would have to do is point to the 107,000 seats at Beaver Stadium and ask when the 50,000 seat stadiums at Indiana, Minnesota, Rutgers, Maryland, and Northwestern are going to have a financial penalty imposed.

 

[UncleLar]

basketball has to be played in the biggest venue on campus. It’s a rule. Rec hall is not an option, even before the cost of renting that floor every week.

That's a new one. Props for being original. Now tell me where I can find that rule because I've never heard about it nor seen it before.

 

[Art]

All Sandy Barber would have to do is point to the 107,000 seats at Beaver Stadium and ask when the 50,000 seat stadiums at Indiana, Minnesota, Rutgers, Maryland, and Northwestern are going to have a financial penalty imposed.

Your point is valid, but maybe you want to make the case? Hell will freeze over before Barbour advocates for PSU with the conference.

 

[UncleLar]

Your point is valid, but maybe you want to make the case? Hell will freeze over before Barbour advocates for PSU with the conference.

Plus there are already revenue sharing minimums in place. As long as PSU pays those minimums, the conference has no reasonable leg to stand on when it comes telling PSU where they have to play the games.