I'm no expert on the subject, but architecture & stadium capacity & all those things that others may find boring are some of my interests. Based on Zach Smith's tweet about the HorseShoe changing forever & the specific use of the words "Numero Uno", I do believe that Ohio Stadium will be expanding. I happened to read many comments from people who don't think the structure of Ohio Stadium can hold more seats, so just to do something interesting, I decided to make this post explaining how I think it will be done. If we do expand the stadium, I think we'll do it the same way that Nebraska is expanding the east stands of Memorial Stadium to increase the capacity from 81,000 to 87,000. And as many would think, I do believe that expansion is most likely to take place in the south stands where the scoreboard is at. We would just build a new facade outside of the south stands, there-fore allowing the stands to expand out & grow taller in the process as seats are added to increase capacity. The old facade will most likely still exist as a large lobby when the new facade becomes the exterior of the south stands. I'm not the best at explaining this, but I hope the links below will help explain what I mean. Keep in mind that the east & west sides of Memorial Stadium were designed to resemble Ohio Stadium.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yHWG9gLUik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz3ykFuTaNk
Why does it make so much sense to me?
- Ohio State is the 3rd largest public university campus by enrollment in the country, & has the largest fan base in college football. So there's more than enough people to fill the seats.
- Ohio State is raising ticket prices. I don't know all the specifics, but it could be used to help fund expansion, maybe that was part of the plan all along.
- Ohio Stadium is the 4th largest stadium in college football by capacity. Who's number 1? None other than Michigan. And as we all know, we want to beat Michigan in every way we can. And when you consider we have a larger fanbase, campus enrollment & more recent success on the field, it just makes sense that we have the bigger stadium. It's likely Michigan won't consider expansion to retake that spot because they want to keep the traditional bowl structure of their stadium.
- We've been setting spring game attendance records like crazy, the demand is high
- It will leave no doubt that Ohio Stadium is the most intimidating atmosphere in college football by far & impress recruits. It will help the team win games by creating a more hostile environment for visiting teams & help lure more top recruits to OSU. Also, imagine if instead of simply making the south stands a taller version of what they currently are, we add another deck to the south stands. That would make Ohio Stadium a double deck stadium all the way around, imagine how insane the gameday atmosphere would be then. Visiting teams wouldn't know what to do, just all Buckeyes as far as the eye can see.
So that's my view on the subject. I hope you at least enjoyed reading this & found it interesting.
