More Stadium Memories

I was walking across campus this morning and ran into a friend of mine here at the University of Memphis. He's a big college football fan and our conversation quickly turned to the results of this past weekend and the upcoming playoffs and bowl games. As we chatted the topic of stadiums came up. He had been to watch a game at a university whose name I will not mention and was not at all impressed by the stadium. I have heard others remark that it is lacking in many ways, but I haven't been there to have an opinion on it, so I will not mention the name. He reads this blog and has remarked more than once that I should place more attention on stadiums and arenas.

He and I are about the same age, and we talked a bit about how much stadiums have improved over the last thirty years. In my retrospective piece on Texas Tech's Jones AT&T Stadium, I mentioned how much that venue has improved in the last two and half decades. Its development has been a remarkable. Although you still must contend with the West Texas heat if you go to a game early in the season, it is a terrific example of a modern, big-time college football stadium. I have mentioned that Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee is my favorite. Like Jones Stadium, it has been modernized in many ways. Oddly enough, the number of seats in the place increased and then decreased a bit after I completed my undergraduate studies there. When I was an undergrad, the stadium was not completely enclosed on the upper deck. That changed in 1996, when the north upper deck was completed. Additional facilities were incorporated into that expansion, and although the then-available amenities were nothing like those available today, they too saw some upgrades. A new press box, suites, amenities, and a new brick façade followed. The addition of the luxury boxes actually caused a slight reduction in overall seating capacity. Anyway, I thought I would do a retrospective on Neyland Stadium tonight and have an additional post in the future with a current take on it. 

The stadium can bee seen on the right in the first photo, taken from the roof top deck of Carrick Hall in February 1990. It is the only photo I have that shows the bulk of the stadium prior to installation of north endzone upper deck in 1996 and the brick façade in the early 2000's. The second photo below is a view that no longer exists. This is a view looking south across the stadium in the summer of 1993. That portion of the stadium was enclosed by a new upper deck section three years later. Note that there is no press box on the east side of the stadium. The third photo is the start of the game against LSU on September 25, 1993. UT's Pride of the Southland Marching Band forms a "T" and the team and spirit squads run onto the field. You can clearly see the open upper deck on the north side. You can see some better photos of that area of Neyland in my post from last year on bowl games here. The last photo of the set is not of the stadium, per se, but rather of my brother and I at a game on September 2, 1995 in which we beat East Carolina 27 to 7. I am the one on the right. Just like Neyland, I have expanded a good bit over the years!

By July 1996, the upper deck addition on the north endzone side of the stadium was well underway. You can see the work progressing nice in the first two photos of this set. The addition was complete by the time of the third photo, taken in December 1996. Finally, you have a good look at the stadium with the end zone complete taken on May 11, 1997. 

As is the case with Jones Stadium, photos from today would show a stadium very different than the one you see in these photos. Tennessee has added loads of new amenities and Neyland is very much a modern and quite luxurious college football stadium.

I can't help but wonder what the future of collegiate stadiums will be. The trend where colleges battle to “stay competitive” by building more support facilities and increasing the extravagance of stadiums and arenas is not slowing down. How far could it go? You can look to professional stadiums for a clue. It's not comparing apples to apples, but what those stadiums have is a precursor to what big time college teams will likely have in the future. Sure, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA, and AT&T Stadium in Dallas benefit from community investment which is typically not the case in collegiate athletics, but at least some of their top tier amenities could be within reach of programs like those at Michigan, Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama.

The University of Memphis does not have its own on-campus stadium or basketball arena. The men's basketball team plays in the FedEx Forum, the home to the NBA Memphis Grizzlies. It's a great facility and despite being miles from campus is in many respects worth the trade off of not having an arena on the university's grounds (although I have known loads of students who hate the fact that they simply can't walk to a basketball game). The football team plays at the Liberty Bowl which is also a couple of miles from campus. But it is not in the same league as the FedEx Forum. It is lacking in many ways. It has extremely limited food options, limited to no loge or suite seating, and has a beat up and run-down appearance and condition. 

The Liberty Bowl is undergoing updates as I write this. Millions of dollars are being spent to try to modernize and improve it. The plan calls for some significant and decades overdue renovations. Yet, even when it is done, it will pale in comparison to Neyland Stadium, Jones Stadium, and most Power Four conference venues. Indeed, I would go far as to say that Neyland Stadium was far nicer and had as good or better amenities when I started college in 1988 as the Liberty Bowl has now in 2024 (before the completion of the renovations which are in-progress as I write this). The differences between the haves and the have nots is notable. The divide could get larger if the river of money flowing through the big time programs continues or gets bigger. To quote Joe Pesci’s character in Casino it's "always the dollars”. Having more money to spend on your stadium can bring in more dollars in the long run. And that may be what college athletics is all about these days.