It’s undoubtedly going to be a very nice facility and one we can be proud of. But, I was noticing a lot of concrete walls which separate sections of fans. Looked kind of odd.
The end court seats, I was told by the tour guide, are the original layout of the old Pavilion, so they do not “slope” like the side court. The secitons are not flowing together when they meet, hence a big concrete block separating them. Therefore, the end court seats are lower in height than the side courts. I thought that would look rather weird.
At any rate, we’ll see how it turns out. At this point, it is what it is.
Steel was put in and a different slope created on the sideline. They pushed the sideline up and at a different angle to accommodate the new student section.
Did she say they are expecting to finish it at the end of the year and also specifically that all OOC will be at TSU (that’s a little different than “by” the end of the year and that there will be OOC games played at TSU)? The ticket office is saying that the expectation is that the project will hopefully be done by December and just a few OOC games will be at TSU, with some still at the Fertitta Center.
I’m not wild about committing any sort of significant sum of money for season tix with no idea of how many games will be at the Fertitta Center since GA tickets at TSU will probably be like $5-$10 each again.
Most of the seats (like 4500 out of 7100) are in the endzones & corners and will have the same sightlines as the old arena (or worse if blocked by one of the dividing walls). The actual seats will be new in those sections, and they will have better amenities on the concourse not to mention new scoreboards to look at.
But they aren’t the reason $60M was spent. That money was spent so that the 2600 along the sidelines have a first class experience. Why? Because they are the ones coughing up the dough.
Thanks. I don’t think that’s inconsistent with what the ticket office is saying then, though of course we’ll see what actually happens. Hopefully we get a few good OOC games at the Fertitta Center. Hopefully we play as well there as we did at TSU last year too.
How will it compare with SMU’s Moody Coliseum? I’m not sure how much their upgrade cost but it’s really nice. Of course, it feels much nicer when full. Last year, SMU had a drop-off in attendance with all of the injuries. Like SMU’s first season in its upgraded facility, I expect that Fertitta will be rocking.
Wonder if UC will begin their games in the newly renovated 5/3 Arena this year. Went to their site and from the update videos, looks like they might be on the same boat as we are.