Isn't Bjork experienced in revamping old buildings? Look at the building at Ole Miss; that was completed under his watch. In addition, don't shrink the building down seat wise keep it where it is; remember, we used to sell this place out a short time ago.

BTW, Role Call for today?

ill admit I have not been to a basketball game in probably 5-6 years

pretty much went to every home conference game in the BCG and Turgeon years

Ive seen some things have been added ect to make it more basketball friendly..but the structure was not built as a basketball only facility..it was a special events center thus it lacked basketball amenities.

There was no hanging scoreboard ect when it opened
The seats originally on the south end didnt even stretch to the floor..there was just a huge open space behind the court.

it has come along way since then but im sure still lacks being a true basketball arena

I just dont see a new arena being in the plans in the next 5 years...it has only housed Aggie basketball for 20 years as

I don't know if Simpson Drill Field is a sacred cow, but if it is not, that's where the arena should be built. It's so obvious for multiple reasons.

Reed Arena is old?

Gulp. If there was any doubt about my status as an "Old Ag" you just put that to rest.

Replacing Reed Arena right now would be a massive waste of money. I don't think the arena is why people don't go to the games.

Frok said:

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Replacing Reed Arena right now would be a massive waste of money. I don't think the arena is why people don't go to the games.

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We've recently built a new baseball stadium, softball stadium, and track and field stadium. If those weren't wastes of money then building an actually good basketball arena wouldn't be either.

bobinator said:

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Frok said:

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Replacing Reed Arena right now would be a massive waste of money. I don't think the arena is why people don't go to the games.

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We've recently built a new baseball stadium, softball stadium, and track and field stadium. If those weren't wastes of money then building an actually good basketball arena wouldn't be either.

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We definitely did not build a new baseball stadium. We took out seats for berms, built suites, a new club and new locker rooms. Other than that they put lipstick on a pig. Even now, Blue Bell is probably worst in the SEC west.

It was a renovation, but same idea. If spending 25 million on a sport that probably loses money isn't wasting money then a new basketball arena isn't.

bobinator said:

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It was a renovation, but same idea. If spending 25 million on a sport that probably loses money isn't wasting money then a new basketball arena isn't.

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Pshaw...merely a facelift for the old lady...with a bleacherectomy.

Bluecat_Aggie94 said:

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Reed Arena is old?

Gulp. If there was any doubt about my status as an "Old Ag" you just put that to rest.

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this

Bluecat_Aggie94 said:

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Reed Arena is old?

Gulp. If there was any doubt about my status as an "Old Ag" you just put that to rest.

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Here's how old I am. My dad played basketball at Baylor. First time he visited me at A&M when we walked by G Rollie i asked about playing there. He looked at me and said never did it was built years after I graduated.

Regarding BB Park, the renovation (if that is the correct term to use) was a waste of time. The original Olsen Field was once considered the best NCAA baseball stadium in the country. The place used to rock on Fri- Sat- Sun games. The original stadium had character and characters too. So we jacked with Olsen and made BBP, cut our capacity down by approx 2100 seats, lost the atmosphere, lost Aggie Alley all for the sake of a few new suites and semi-cold beer and crappy wine. Not a good trade Mr. Byrne.

Plus doing that p****d off a bunch of season ticket holders, me included.

monarch said:

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Regarding BB Park, the renovation (if that is the correct term to use) was a waste of time. The original Olsen Field was once considered the best NCAA baseball stadium in the country. The place used to rock on Fri- Sat- Sun games. The original stadium had character and characters too. So we jacked with Olsen and made BBP, cut our capacity down by approx 2100 seats, lost the atmosphere, lost Aggie Alley all for the sake of a few new suites and semi-cold beer and crappy wine. Not a good trade Mr. Byrne.

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Yes, back in 78.

deh40 said:

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bobinator said:

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Frok said:

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Replacing Reed Arena right now would be a massive waste of money. I don't think the arena is why people don't go to the games.

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We've recently built a new baseball stadium, softball stadium, and track and field stadium. If those weren't wastes of money then building an actually good basketball arena wouldn't be either.

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We definitely did not build a new baseball stadium. We took out seats for berms, built suites, a new club and new locker rooms. Other than that they put lipstick on a pig. Even now, Blue Bell is probably worst in the SEC west.

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One of the most ill-conceived capital projects I can remember. People shouted me down when I questioned spending $20 million to take out seating when moving to the SEC, and making ZERO structural changes/updates to the facility itself. So after $20 million invested, we still have a 43 year-old stadium with some nice cosmetic brick work around the exterior.

Hop, the misunderstood hero.

The renovations started in June 2011, the money and project was approved before we agreed to move to the SEC. it was a park designed for the Big XII. My guess is they didn't want to roll it back since it took Blue Bell coming in to push the project over the starting line in the first place.

In regards to other poster saying Olsen rocked Friday Saturday Sunday just wasn't true. One reason Byrne reduced seating was because Olsen was empty for most games they didn't have the sips playing. I didn't get season tickets from 2005-2011 because you could sit in GA or buy discounted game packs for just about any games you wanted. You could buy individual game seats for any series you wanted. The demand wasn't there.

Byrne went for smaller venue with more seats generating higher revenue, at the time the AD wasn't flowing with money.

I think we all agree the berms where stupid, at least on the 3rd base side.

BQ90 is wrong.

I can remember games at Olsen on Tues nights with 5-6000 people; hell I was there. There was a time you couldn't get tickets to games. How times do we sell out Olsen Field now? We don't and yet the capacity is less now than it was before the renovations. The original concept and configuration of Olsen was fine. The renovation killed it.

Correct on the berms. There was a time we were going to build bleachers in left center; never happened. Olsen is like everything else now: standardized and not worth the rffort

monarch said:

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BQ90 is wrong.

I can remember games at Olsen on Tues nights with 5-6000 people; hell I was there. There was a time you couldn't get tickets to games. How times do we sell out Olsen Field now? We don't and yet the capacity is less now than it was before the renovations. The original concept and configuration of Olsen was fine. The renovation killed it.

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Maybe for a game here and there but not consistently. I moved back to BCS in 2004, it was easy to get reserved seats or even sit in GA until the remodel. Again my group bought discounted 6 game passes from the Aggie store on Harvey that's out of business. They where old army passes or something like that. We did the same thing for MBB. I think we maybe paid $20 for 6 games, tu games excluded. It was cheaper than walk up GA

Season tickets now are sold out and has a waiting list, very few individual seats are sold. It's hard to walk up and buy reserved. Pre renovation it was easy. That is fact. Why because of the reduced capacity and people don't want to sit on the berms.

That was Byrnes plan all along to create a demand. Also to have seats generate revenue all year, hence the club and suites.

Hindsight we can say it was wrong. Again they had plans for seats on third base side but the money wasn't there. I can remember talk at the Dugout Club that Olsen might be done in phases until Blue Bell came in with the money to finish.

As far as atmosphere I think it has suffered some with teams, there was more interest in playing the in state teams in most of these non football sports. Also part of it is that GA section has been reduced couple times to account for the demand.

Why do we historically suck at basketball? A thread on our basketball board about how our basketball arena is crappy evolved (devolved?) into a thread about how crappy our $20M baseball renovation was.

CapCityAg89 said:

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Why do we historically suck at basketball? A thread on our basketball board about how our basketball arena is crappy evolved (devolved?) into a thread about how crappy our $20M baseball renovation was.

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You just answered your own question. Fans have historically cared more about baseball than MBB here.

Some think a new arena will magically fix everything for MBB attendance. Ironically many want a smaller venue but are upset about a smaller Olsen.

Honestly I don't care, but I just don't see where the money comes from for a new basketball only arena. I don't see a corporate deal occurring like the sips have. I don't see the University ponying up money that doesn't make more room for graduations. And I don't see enough MBB fans to do a capital campaign like Kyle.

They sell booze now, that was supposed to fix all the attendance problems.

BQ_90 said:

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CapCityAg89 said:

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Why do we historically suck at basketball? A thread on our basketball board about how our basketball arena is crappy evolved (devolved?) into a thread about how crappy our $20M baseball renovation was.

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You just answered your own question. Fans have historically cared more about baseball than MBB here.

Some think a new arena will magically fix everything for MBB attendance. Ironically many want a smaller venue but are upset about a smaller Olsen.

Honestly I don't care, but I just don't see where the money comes from for a new basketball only arena. I don't see a corporate deal occurring like the sips have. I don't see the University ponying up money that doesn't make more room for graduations. And I don't see enough MBB fans to do a capital campaign like Kyle.

They sell booze now, that was supposed to fix all the attendance problems.

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FIFTEEN graduation ceremonies due to social distancing this winter...

BQ_90 said:

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CapCityAg89 said:

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Why do we historically suck at basketball? A thread on our basketball board about how our basketball arena is crappy evolved (devolved?) into a thread about how crappy our $20M baseball renovation was.

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You just answered your own question. Fans have historically cared more about baseball than MBB here.

Some think a new arena will magically fix everything for MBB attendance. Ironically many want a smaller venue but are upset about a smaller Olsen.

Honestly I don't care, but I just don't see where the money comes from for a new basketball only arena. I don't see a corporate deal occurring like the sips have. I don't see the University ponying up money that doesn't make more room for graduations. And I don't see enough MBB fans to do a capital campaign like Kyle.

They sell booze now, that was supposed to fix all the attendance problems.

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Baseball hasnt really consistently drawn more than basketball, so it's hard to truthfully say that more people care about baseball than basketball when 4500 ppl attend each game. Sure 4500 seems terrible for hoops and fantastic for baseball, but they're still the same number and most years hoops actually outdraws baseball in per-game attendance by 1000.

monarch said:

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BQ90 is wrong.

I can remember games at Olsen on Tues nights with 5-6000 people; hell I was there. There was a time you couldn't get tickets to games. How times do we sell out Olsen Field now? We don't and yet the capacity is less now than it was before the renovations. The original concept and configuration of Olsen was fine. The renovation killed it.

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Was G. Rollie White always filled up when you went to basketball games, too?

1999 was possibly our greatest baseball season ever and our average attendance was 4,727.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/baseball_RB/reports/1999_attendance.pdf

TXAggie2011 said:

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monarch said:

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BQ90 is wrong.

I can remember games at Olsen on Tues nights with 5-6000 people; hell I was there. There was a time you couldn't get tickets to games. How times do we sell out Olsen Field now? We don't and yet the capacity is less now than it was before the renovations. The original concept and configuration of Olsen was fine. The renovation killed it.

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Was G. Rollie White always filled up when you went to basketball games, too?

1999 was possibly our greatest baseball season ever and our average attendance was 4,727.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/baseball_RB/reports/1999_attendance.pdf

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It wasn't the greatest season ever, but that's a side note.

A&M was No. 3 in national attendance in 1999. The 4,727 numbers means very little to what size you need a stadium to be because the first 10-15 games of the season were in early-to-mid February in bad weather against directional non-name schools. Conference games probably averaged 6000-7000 in decent weather.

And FYI, I bet the current seating configuration of Olsen Field doesn't even hold 4800 now. It's 6100 with the berms.

The is zero reason to spend any money on Reed right now beyond basic upkeep. Reed has nothing to do with our success or failures as a basketball program.

I was responding to an assertion about having "5-6,000 fans at Olsen Field on Tuesdays" and how you could "never get tickets."

The current permanent seating capacity at Olsen is 5,400, I believe. We don't even always have that many for multiple SEC games a year even though certainly some GA folks will still go/end up out on the berms.

I'm not sure the basketball board needs to litigate Olsen's berms but obviously it was a way to have space while keeping the budget manageable...to bring it back to Reed, there's obviously a lot of competing projects people want to see done and not nearly enough money.

agsalaska said:

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The is zero reason to spend any money on Reed right now beyond basic upkeep. Reed has nothing to do with our success or failures as a basketball program.

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Fans make or break college venues. Whatever facility we have is going to suck if the fans aren't there and they aren't involved.

Reed will magically be a better arena if the team starts winning and gives fans a reason to come out.

I'm not optimistic we'll get Reed replaced any time soon because they keep redoing things inside it. Didn't they just do a locker room overhaul like a year ago?

My only point with the other venues is that if building new facilities for non revenue sports isn't "wasting money" than neither is building a decent basketball arena.

Reed is a disaster when it's full. The game atmosphere is fine, but getting food, drinks, to the restroom, etc is awful.

Tobias Funke said:

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CapCityAg89 said:

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After seeing Dickies last weekend, Reed sucks. That place is beautiful.

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A brand new place was nicer than a 25 year old place? Weird

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Tech's arena was built at the same time as Reed and it is ten times as nice. First class basketball arena.

Gap said:

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We don't need an expanded arena. We need a higher quality arena in central campus. Ending up at 10,000 seats is plenty. B/CS is a college town. Half of basketball games are played on week nights. That isn't going to change.

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This. It's not the size of Reed that is an issue, its the lack of amenities. Do like Auburn did. Build a smaller, but much nicer arena. I believe the new sip arena is also going to be smaller (than the Drum).

An amazing 8k arena that is accessible and basketball specific from east side is all we need. Should support multi-purpose within a basketball footprint only by setting a stage over one end side to side at most so the revenue features can be used for other events. Or things like volleyball that fit on a basketball court.

Keep Reed for all the everyday uses. We must pull in enough revenue to support our same coaching approach for basketball as for football eventually. Hoping the SEC becomes a true basketball conference and those fans travel somewhat well. Could soak 1/5th of a smaller arena.

For some games Reed could be used, I guess. But it should feel like a downgrade to go there.