Actually know where our new seats are now. Went from row 7 on the hashmarks to row 46 on a 45 degree angle to the corner of the endzone. (And yes the new seats are more expensive than our old far better seats)
I spent 38 years with that same view. Seeing the “digital” view from our new seats honestly made me sad.
I went to the open house last night and took a good look around the new South Endzone.
A few observations: overall the new facilities are stellar. The suites, loges, etc are really nice and probably as nice or better than others I have seen. There seems to be a good mix of seating types as well with plenty of premium options which were lacking before. That means a lot of revenue options for the University.
I noticed that it seems like all of the suites have been sold and have names on them already. I kind of snuck past the lady directing people away from the side that wasn’t “open” to see if there were names on all the suites. They appear to all have been sold. That’s a good sign from a fundraising standpoint.
The other thing that is a good sign for fundraising is it looks like pretty much every open space and room has a name on it. That means those folks paid to have their name there or they donated enough to be recognized. Back in the 90s I served on the board of a charitable foundation and this concept of naming spaces was in its infancy. It has been very well executed in this new endzone area.
The new recruiting rooms and spaces are just stellar! Between those spaces and the locker room I think it will make a great impression on recruits. The family recruiting space is in the corner at field level right near the MUSS. It’s a really nice space in a great location I think.
The new locker room is of course spacious and amazing and visitors locker room is appropriately spartan.
I checked out some of the new seats and sightlines and the new seats look great and the views are good. I know some will be disappointed at having a different view than they had before but the views in and of themselves are good.
The new Endzone gives a new feel to the whole stadium. I think the new structure alone will really trap the sound unlike before. Add in the additional fans and the stadium is going to be even louder I expect.
Finally I asked a few people about what the capacity will be including standing room. Usually the venue capacity listed is just the physical seats and standing room is in addition. My guess is that a complete sellout could be north of 53K. We shall see. Lots of new concession areas and bathrooms and the concourse going all the way around the stadium is a nice addition.
Great summary Guba! A couple additional items: I’ve been told the recruiting/promo area is supposed to have some specific branding from Steve Smith Sr. Yes, all 14 Private Suites are taken (required a long term gift of $1 million each, BTW), all loge boxes are sold, all ledge seats are sold, all club seats are sold and there’s only a small handful of terrace seats available at the very top. They’ll likely be sold in the next week.
I fully expected everything to be sold. That’s good news. Any idea on what the full capacity will be including standing room? Or is SRO part of the 51444 number?
It’a not part of that number.
But it’s also not an official capacity, as it all depends on the fire marshal allowing more people in.
The sellout is every seat sold, then they’ll sell SRO tickets beyond that which allows the record attendance.
That’s what I figured. I expect that a sellout with full capacity in SRO could be above 53K or so. I bet we see numbers like that for USC and Florida and maybe even Oregon this year.
Well, I look it like this. Before they rebuilt the South End Zone, the highest attended game in Rice-Eccles History was the Michigan game in 2015. The listed attendance for that game was 47,825, which came at a time when the stadium’s listed capacity was 45,807. That’s 2018 fans more than listed capacity. Well, if you take that number (2018) and add it to the new listed capacity (51,444), that would give you an approximate standing room capacity of about 53,462. Btw, the new capacity of Rice-Eccles now makes it larger than several other Pac-12 Stadiums. As per listed capacity, Rice-Eccles is now the seventh largest stadium as per capacity in the Pac-12.
Given that number I could see over 54K for some of those games. That’s just based on there being a lot more real estate at the top of the new endzone. It would be hilarious if we had a big game against USC, UW, ASU or Oregon later in the season when the team down the road is playing Directional State and Utah finally has a bigger crowd.
The Pac-12 stadium listed stadium capacities are as follows: