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Post by brandon on Apr 25, 2022 16:06:55 GMT -6
After a long conversation, we are going to try to play 1 game a year there even with a new stadium...
To me, I say play Chattanooga there every year...
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Post by tuna85 on Apr 25, 2022 16:49:29 GMT -6
This is a smart marketing move for both UNA and Jax State. A game right at the doorstep of the state's largest city, with a large alumni base, in amongst two of state's fastest growing counties. Bring it on! Rocket Bowl🚀 or maybe Rock It Bowl🥊🥊 Let's get ready ta rumble! I know you’ve always supported this. Congrats on getting a game in your backyard. I think it’s a great move, when it’s all said and done. Just hate to miss out on seeing JSU one last time in Braly (hopefully not, but you know). I’ll admit it might not be a terrible idea to start out facing JSU in this, since they’ll likely bring a decent amount of fans. It would be interesting to keep it a semi-regional game - maybe play KSU there, Chattanooga, etc. I get it. Being the old timer that I am, a game versus Jax St at Braly would be momentous. I would make the drive to either location. This may be a needed move to make a stadium happen. I don't know. I do know they need to get a move on if I will ever be able to sit in it. Time waits for no one. I do think this is a good move to reach the folks in Athens, East Limestone County, Madison and Huntsville. Maybe it can be a good boost to the alumni chapters too.
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Post by unafied on Apr 25, 2022 19:35:36 GMT -6
There’s a new TimesDaily article up about this. The quote that sums it all up is here:
“Lions athletic director Josh Looney believes the revenue generated at Toyota Field will surpass UNA’s other four home games — Virginia Wise, Tarleton State, Austin Peay and Tennessee Tech — combined at Braly Stadium when looking at ticket sales and luxury seating.”
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Post by unalions on Apr 25, 2022 19:52:57 GMT -6
I know you’ve always supported this. Congrats on getting a game in your backyard. I think it’s a great move, when it’s all said and done. Just hate to miss out on seeing JSU one last time in Braly (hopefully not, but you know). I’ll admit it might not be a terrible idea to start out facing JSU in this, since they’ll likely bring a decent amount of fans. It would be interesting to keep it a semi-regional game - maybe play KSU there, Chattanooga, etc. I get it. Being the old timer that I am, a game versus Jax St at Braly would be momentous. I would make the drive to either location. This may be a needed move to make a stadium happen. I don't know. I do know they need to get a move on if I will ever be able to sit in it. Time waits for no one. I do think this is a good move to reach the folks in Athens, East Limestone County, Madison and Huntsville. Maybe it can be a good boost to the alumni chapters too. It was the nostalgia aspect for me in Braly that disappoints me the most with this. With 2020 dampening the first time they had come to Florence in almost 30 years, I was envisioning a packed Braly with both bands, finally through the transition, in the same conference with our rival Gamecocks. Maybe I thought it was 1992. LOL. Sigh. I'm old. This, I assume, is about new and modernization. I'm on board with that, too. I just feel like my daydream will likely never happen now with their move to FBS. They will have no reason to ever travel to Florence again. What I wonder about, is the stadium's willingness to convert to football for one game a year. It's a huge undertaking and pretty expensive. Hence, why UWF will no longer be in Blue Wahoos stadium. I assume they will look for other football games, maybe from local high schools for a few weeks to offset the expense and hassle. There's also the aspect of media. Playing football on a baseball field is pretty terrible for the media. The pressbox is basically in the corner of the endzone and cameras usually have to be placed on scaffolding in random spots amongst the seating. Granted, I'm just going off my experience here in Pensacola. It should sell out easily. I was thinking that both bands combined will take up a good 700-800 of the 10K capacity that day. LOL.
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Post by roaringsince96 on Apr 25, 2022 21:03:12 GMT -6
Well this appears to be working…people have reached out to us already to let us know they plan on going. Do not think I would wait to get your tickets for the game…likely sold out. Great revenue for us and a home game. I really hope this is the one game we pull off. Turnovers that were instant touchdowns against us last year cost us the game.
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Post by brandon on Apr 26, 2022 5:31:44 GMT -6
I'm happy about this personally... I know many people don't like a neutral site game or an off campus home game, but I kinda do. Especially if you are playing it in your region, in a unique venue, and where the alumni is strong.
The only problem I have, and it's not a huge problem, is that it's JSU...
I would have rather played Austin Peay or Chattanooga there.
Maybe, if we continue this in the future, we can either make this a rivalry game with Chattanooga or make this game a big ooc game every year. For example, get schools like Montana, Delaware, Villanova, or some school like that.
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Post by unafied on Apr 26, 2022 7:09:16 GMT -6
I'm guessing this is a trial run to see how it goes. How many tickets will UNA fans buy? Will the coaches be happy with the stadium? Will the media? Will it truly make enough revenue to justify us doing it again?
Social media has caused a lot of us fans to nitpick everything our team does, but overall I'd say there's more positives to this than negatives. I truly wanted to go to a packed Braly and send the chickens to FBS with a loss, but it is what it is. The fanbase NEEDS to at least pack out the home side in all the other games at Braly, and show that we are ready to get the ball rolling on a new stadium.
For years Bama played in Legion Field to make it easier for the huge alumni base in Birmingham to make it to a game. There's a lot of similarities here. There really aren't any downsides to having a bigger presence in Huntsville.
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Post by unalions on Apr 26, 2022 8:22:44 GMT -6
I’m hearing, seriously, (I asked if it was a joke, lol) that there will only be one end zone for this game. WTF? Lolol.
I hope that’s a very late April Fools joke.
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Post by unafied on Apr 26, 2022 10:20:49 GMT -6
I’m hearing, seriously, (I asked if it was a joke, lol) that there will only be one end zone for this game. WTF? Lolol. I hope that’s a very late April Fools joke. One of the articles I read yesterday, maybe the one on the Trash Pandas' site itself, said that they would only "play towards" one endzone. So there will be two endzones... but after each possession change, the offense and defense will simply switch sides. I believe it's a safety measure due to the outfield wall being very close to one endzone. The same thing happened years ago when Northwestern played someone at Wrigley Field. Now, you can debate whether this means a baseball stadium should even be used for football in the first place, but the reasoning behind doing it makes some sense I guess.
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Post by unalions on Apr 26, 2022 11:47:43 GMT -6
I’m hearing, seriously, (I asked if it was a joke, lol) that there will only be one end zone for this game. WTF? Lolol. I hope that’s a very late April Fools joke. One of the articles I read yesterday, maybe the one on the Trash Pandas' site itself, said that they would only "play towards" one endzone. So there will be two endzones... but after each possession change, the offense and defense will simply switch sides. I believe it's a safety measure due to the outfield wall being very close to one endzone. The same thing happened years ago when Northwestern played someone at Wrigley Field. Now, you can debate whether this means a baseball stadium should even be used for football in the first place, but the reasoning behind doing it makes some sense I guess. The end zones at Blue Wahoos field were almost all the way to the fence lines. I thought they were all the way to them but there was a few feet left. There was never any talk of possibly needing to play in one direction. Lol. I’ve never heard of such a thing until today. And yes, the “debate” online has started. Saw one JSU fan say football shouldn’t be played on a baseball field, another joked about “one way football”, and that this was a mistake by UNA. Folks, including me, just like to be contrary online. Lol. We shall see how it all works out.
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Post by unafied on Apr 26, 2022 13:13:29 GMT -6
One of the articles I read yesterday, maybe the one on the Trash Pandas' site itself, said that they would only "play towards" one endzone. So there will be two endzones... but after each possession change, the offense and defense will simply switch sides. I believe it's a safety measure due to the outfield wall being very close to one endzone. The same thing happened years ago when Northwestern played someone at Wrigley Field. Now, you can debate whether this means a baseball stadium should even be used for football in the first place, but the reasoning behind doing it makes some sense I guess. The end zones at Blue Wahoos field were almost all the way to the fence lines. I thought they were all the way to them but there was a few feet left. There was never any talk of possibly needing to play in one direction. Lol. I’ve never heard of such a thing until today. And yes, the “debate” online has started. Saw one JSU fan say football shouldn’t be played on a baseball field, another joked about “one way football”, and that this was a mistake by UNA. Folks, including me, just like to be contrary online. Lol. We shall see how it all works out. I think it's perfectly reasonable to critique the idea of playing in a baseball stadium. I think obviously we'd all like for Huntsville to have a football stadium the quality of Toyota Field to play in, but it is what it is. As long as UNA gets that increased amount of revenue they say this will bring in, and tons of publicity in the Huntsville market, this is by no means a "mistake". Anyone saying that is just operating on emotions, ha. It'll probably get a lot of hate from the JSU fans just because. Hopefully we'll beat their butts and make them hate it even more.
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Post by unalions on Apr 28, 2022 18:37:22 GMT -6
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Post by roaringsince96 on Apr 28, 2022 19:11:06 GMT -6
I took a client to J Alexander’s today. So I got to see the stadium up close. It looks small…hope a lot of fans will be able to ride a bus over, not a ton of parking, so that will be familiar to UNA fans. I suggest exiting down towards the restaurants and the red lights, much easier to get back on 565.
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Post by unalions on Apr 28, 2022 19:53:02 GMT -6
I took a client to J Alexander’s today. So I got to see the stadium up close. It looks small…hope a lot of fans will be able to ride a bus over, not a ton of parking, so that will be familiar to UNA fans. I suggest exiting down towards the restaurants and the red lights, much easier to get back on 565. I haven’t been to a J Alexander’s in well over 25 years but I loved it back then! Used to frequent the one on the way to Nashville way back in the day when my friend worked at Opryland. Lordy, dating myself here. Lol.
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Post by unafied on Apr 29, 2022 6:13:43 GMT -6
I took a client to J Alexander’s today. So I got to see the stadium up close. It looks small…hope a lot of fans will be able to ride a bus over, not a ton of parking, so that will be familiar to UNA fans. I suggest exiting down towards the restaurants and the red lights, much easier to get back on 565. They've said they can accommodate 10,000 fans for the game. I'm hoping that if ticket demand is strong, they find a way to add some additional seating to that number. Wikipedia lists capacity at 7000, but I'm not sure if that includes suites and any potential standing-room only. My guess is that there will be SOME temporary bleacher seating added. I suppose how much depends on how the field is eventually laid out. The left field wall is 326 feet from home plate. The entire field + two endzones would need 360 feet. But they've already said they'll only have one endzone, which would need 330. So I suppose you could potentially squeeze field + one endzone parallel to the 3rd base line, and maximize room in center and right field to add bleachers. Kind of hard to describe in words without a visual aid what I'm getting at, but yeah... hopefully they maximize the seating. And hopefully there is enough demand in the first place for them to NEED to maximize that seating.
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