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So no one drives from Boerne to watch the Spurs either?
Well... you would think.
Except that it's apples and oranges.
You're talking a LOT more people, all of whom will be traveling at the same time. The outlet malls are open all day, and you can get there and leave pretty much whenever you feel like it during business hours. There's no big traffic jam on I-35 getting in or out.
Game day would be totally different. For a noon kickoff, somebody in NE SA or south Austin is looking at an hour and a half in traffic, assuming there's some infrastructure built in the immediate vicinity of the stadium to handle traffic. Three lanes each way on I-35 are going to get backed up with that many people on the road at the same time, period. Add time onto that for those further out. So somebody out in La Cantera will have a two-hour drive, meaning they have to leave before 10 AM every Sunday just to get there in time for kickoff, and won't get home until 5:30 or 6 PM.
Want to tailgate? Either leave at the crack of dawn, or drive up the night before and get a hotel room. Does San Marcos have enough hotel rooms? They better build them -- quickly.
Are people going to put up with that little ordeal if the team sucks?
So no one drives from Boerne to watch the Spurs either?
The Spurs are contenders.
I went to the Texans' home opener this season. There were empty seats, despite a quality opponent (Steelers). Now I did not go to HTown to see them, but was in town and thought I'd check out a game at Reliant Stadium.
In addition, there was a load of Steelers fans there. If the opponent had been, oh, say the Browns, I doubt that place would've been 3/4ths full.
When a team sucks, well, the seats empty fairly quick.
Last edited by Marcus Bryant; 10-17-2005 at 12:19 PM.
And no one in Lowell would drive to a Pats game when they sucked?You're talking a LOT more people, all of whom will be traveling at the same time. The outlet malls are open all day, and you can get there and leave pretty much whenever you feel like it during business hours. There's no big traffic jam on I-35 getting in or out.
Game day would be totally different. For a noon kickoff, somebody in NE SA or south Austin is looking at an hour and a half in traffic, assuming there's some infrastructure built in the immediate vicinity of the stadium to handle traffic. Three lanes each way on I-35 are going to get backed up with that many people on the road at the same time, period. Add time onto that for those further out. So somebody out in La Cantera will have a two-hour drive, meaning they have to leave before 10 AM every Sunday just to get there in time for kickoff.
Certainly no one drove to see the Cowboys from Plano when they sucked, right?
1. Cabella's is in extreme northern Hays county (about 1 1/2 miles from Travis county);
2. The parking lot has been relatively empty since a couple of weeks after the grand opening. Especially for the beginning of hunting season. The number of people going through the store has been orders of magnitude lower than what was initially expected.
Look, I don't want anyone to think that I'm a booster on the order of Buddy Holly. I just think a regional stadium would draw at least as well as the Superdome on a good day -- and that's all Tom is really looking for.
You got the link. I work in Buda. I drive by it everyday, and stop in sometimes and look around and BS.
Nothing happens in Buda without everyone knowing about it.
So you all know the expectations for revenues and traffic right?You got the link. I work in Buda. I drive by it everyday, and stop in sometimes and look around and BS.
Nothing happens in Buda without everyone knowing about it.
I will also add that Reliant Stadium is by the Astrodome. Yes, it's not a short drive from a number of spots in the Houston metro area, but it wasn't too hard to get to from downtown.
And that was in one of the largest metro areas in the US.
From an attendance standpoint, I think a team would have to be located within Bexar County. You only build a regional stadium to attempt to make it into the Austin TV market in a significant way.
Regional teams (New England, Carolina, Tampa Bay) have people that identify with the particular area that they come from. If TPTB put up a stadium in San Marcos (which they can share w/ Texas State if they ever go D-1) and call the team the SA Saints, Austinites will flip you the bird and stay home to watch the Cowboys.
I agree that Austinites are an arrogant, insular, self-absorbed bunch of pricks for the most part, but the NFL is the NFL, and the I-35 corridor will be built out soon enough. The only question is whether to try for a team now or 10-20 years down the road when the price of admission will be in the billions, not millions.
, I wasn't aware Boerne was a huge population center. I was thinking it was a small town, and that the number of people traveling to SA for a Spurs game would be in the dozens, with a negligible impact on I-10.
Has it grown to a million people recently?
Are you really that much of an idiot, or are you just playing stupid to be difficult?
The logistics of moving what would be the vast majority of fans long distances to the game when there's only one corridor to get there has to be taken into account.
If somebody wants to bring SH 130 into the conversation -- well, that would be another option for folks north of Austin, but then a new road has to built from 130 to San Marcos. It's possible, but it just adds $$$ and takes a while to get done.
I just think that the hassle of getting from SA/Austin to San Marcos, and the number of people that would be dissuaded from attending because of that, would exceed the benefit of having the stadium closer to Austin.
Put it in SA, that way at least half your prospective fan base has a easy time getting there, and the outlying fans that would have to travel in anyway at least won't have that big bottleneck at the entry point to the stadium.
Look at precedent: the Dolphins did not build their stadium halfway to Fort Lauderdale. The Chargers aren't looking for a stadium in Oceanside to capitalize on the L.A. market. The Patriots didn't build in Springfield. The Bengals didn't build in the northern suburbs to get closer to Columbus. The ans didn't build halfway to Knoxville. The Panthers didn't build halfway to Raleigh-Durham or Greensboro. The 49ers aren't looking halfway towards San Jose.
It doesn't work. Stadiums downtown, or at least in the major city, already have substantial infrastructure. Facilities out in BFE end up like Texas Motor Speedway. For the races up there, you better drive up on Thursday and have an RV or a trailer set up, or you'll be sitting forever in traffic. They build the racetrack to handle that, and it's part of the culture to begin with -- you spend a weekend up there, and go to the time trials, the Busch race, and the Nextel race. And, they only have a few races a year, not eleven or twelve in a period of four months.
I think the only thing more difficult than convincing SA/Bexar County voters to approve some kind of tax for a new local sports facility would be attempting to convince them to pay a new tax for a new facility in San Marcos.
I agree that South Central Texas needs to jump on any opportunity it can get to land a NFL team.
Ever been to a Longhorn game?The logistics of moving what would be the vast majority of fans long distances to the game when there's only one corridor to get there has to be taken into account.They built in Foxboro, which is halfway between Boston and Providence.The Patriots didn't build in Springfield.
I don't think Bostonians paid for Gilette directly, but yes -- it will be a hard sell in the legislature.I think the only thing more difficult than convincing SA/Bexar County voters to approve some kind of tax for a new local sports facility would be attempting to convince them to pay a new tax for a new facility in San Marcos.
I know that they were expecting it to be the one of the largest tourist destinations in Texas with a huge average number of people per day. Contractors talk.
It is nowhere near that today. Maybe several thousand every day. They also employed hundreds of employees for the opening and layed off around half of them. I know several people who were fired and several that still work there.
Why don't you just concede that I actually know what the I am talking about without the assistance of the internet that a lot of the "experts" on here rely upon.
To get to Foxboro, you can choose between I-95 or I-495. It's right near the interchange.
Texas Stadium is built in the middle of where three freeways come together.
In other words, there already is adequate infrastructure to get people in and out.
UT fans come from the north and south on the road as well as from the city proper and through the air.
But that's college. You are going to have alumni support plus student attendance. In addition, DKR is located in the middle of a decent sized metro area and UT has been one of the largest universities in the nation over the course of decades, churning out tens of thousands of alumni.
When you have a pro team, new to the area, located a sigificant distance away from the stadium...well, it's a different story.
Because you have yet to prove it. The information should be available.Why don't you just concede that I actually know what the I am talking about
I don't get why you're going all whottty on me because I think Texans don't mind driving.
The next expansion team fee will be well over a billion dollars. Why with the damn-near perfect symmetry of eight four team divisions unless there's at least nine zeroes to drool into?
Do you consider Austin to be out in the middle of nowhere?Ever been to a Longhorn game?
I consider it to have mainly one corridor for vehicle access and pretty dated infrastructure.Do you consider Austin to be out in the middle of nowhere?
Yep. This is about as good of a chance as there is going to be for SA to land a NFL team. You have an owner with ties to the area who is apparently not looking to cash out big at the moment. You have the team's existing market which is actually less attractive than SA's.
What needs to happen is that someone needs to sack up and attempt to get a stadium deal for SA in the works pronto. Benson is going to command a sweetheart stadium deal (ala the Spurs) because he undoubtedly can get one back in Louisiana.
I would think that McCombs would kind of be the ideal front man to start a stadium push in SA.
The more I think about it... Austin. That complicates matters and I think it's clear that it would be more trouble than it's worth to bring Austin into the mix.
I don't get why you're going all whottty on me because I think Texans don't mind driving.
My apologies. But so many people in Austin are from somewhere else, and they have their own allegiences.
And they don't mind driving, as long as it's north. They think San Antonio is just a bunch of Mexicans eating tacos in front of the Alamo.
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