well I'm not talking about you. My guess is the people that don't use there seats aren't posting on TA, they don't care.

The demand comes from very little chance of buying individual game seats in the reserved area.

IMO, which is just that, I'd rather sell less season tickets and have a few more to sell to those that can't buy season tickets but want to come to some games and not flop out on the berms.

There is a problem in Olsen with empty seats in the reserved section. Chronic empty seats. Again that's probable not you, but there are seats that are never used.

I don't care how it looks per say, I just think it's stupid when there are people that will use them but can't because they can't buy a reserved seat.

Berm adds a nice element for casual fans. Even though we have season seats...my wife enjoys moving down to the berm during the night games after a few innings if there's room. Bit more rowdy. The left field berm faces the Raggies so you can hear them a bit better.

I'm in for protecting the berms.....

Going to make some comments about seating capacity of Olsen. Permanent seating is 5450, but with Berms, it is 6100. There are people that like the Berms; throw down a blanket, relax, let the kids go. So don't count those out. Yes, there are people on the Berms because they couldn't get a seat. But that is generally a problem for any crucial/rival series. If you use the 6100, there are only a few games over capacity. Just as there was before the rehab of Olsen. The rehab was aimed more at the extra's in the facilities, not seats. Check the average attendance for the years preceding the rehab. Aggie Alley sure wasn't about seats (chair or bleacher). I attend baseball games, college and professional, at over 20 plus stadiums each year. When I say professional, most of those are in the minor leagues. And the minors have some superb new stadiums, and most all have Berm seating. Will be at the Braves Spring Training at Wide World of Sports at WDW in March. Berm seating there is $20-26 a game. That is the cheap seats.
As for Olsen, I do hope any added seating is made in the outfield area, especially Aggie Alley (great for a covered Homerun Porch).
We have several other facilities(non revenue sports) to complete before getting back to Olsen.
And the extension of the netting past the dugouts, nothing wrong with it. I have yet to have it obstruct my view at a game and it sure doesn't take away from the experience.

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I'm a season ticket holder of 27 years.
There is no way I would pay money to sit on the berm. I will say it's likely fine if you're not that interested in the game or have small kids or something.
But the berms do not offer a great experience so much of your fan base.

Also when they initially had plans for rec center renovation it included some bleachers seating for Olsen where Aggie alley was. Unfortunate looks as if somewhere along the way that idea was scratched.

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I agree the berms are a horrible place if you really want to watch the game. Good place for families with the kids who can't sit still.

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Berm is only good for kids when it isn't packed to capacity, there isn't much room for the kids to run around at all. Unless you go to the playground where you'd be better off watching from home.

Seats or bleachers in the outfield.

Any additions to Olsen will be based upon the calculated revenue that will be produced. They will add more suites at the top before they add more seating in the bowl. The structure for additional suites was put in place with the expansion. If they have enough folks wanting suites at Olsen they will add them as they produce more revenue than general admission seats.

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Any additions to Olsen will be based upon the calculated revenue that will be produced. They will add more suites at the top before they add more seating in the bowl. The structure for additional suites was put in place with the expansion. If they have enough folks wanting suites at Olsen they will add them as they produce more revenue than general admission seats.

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And reduce capacity by another 1000, with season tickets sold out? No, that won't happen. You are overestimating what they would make from the suites. It's one thing to put them in as part of the initial renovation, and quite another to do it after the fact, even if they took steps to make it easier in the renovation. In football, our suite revenue is outstanding, but that's because the entire state is our relevant market for football. In baseball, you are basically talking about Brazos County as your potential suite owner pool, and the market for suites just isn't nearly as strong in baseball, as a result.

If you visit the suite level and look at the names on the suites, those boys aren't from Brazos County. The suites are all multiple year commitments at a steep price. A good percentage of total ball park revenue comes from those suites. The structure for the suites is out board of the upper deck. They would lose three rows of general admission seats that they would gladly trade out for suites. They may make up the seat loss somewhere if and when they did it, but more suites will be the domino that has to fall in order to get additional seating elsewhere.

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...If not, its a waste of money and if you don't like the berm, don't go out there, there are actual seats available.

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I have to take issue with this statement, and it's nothing personal. As a non-season ticket holder, (too busy with kids activities and live too far away, to know when we can and can't commit to games until the last minute), there is no way to buy individual reserved seats from 12th man foundation for any games I have looked at, even this week for games in May. You can only buy general admission over the internet. I have seen some seats release a few days before games, when you are actually at Olsen for other games, and check with the ticket office before leaving. It has been this way for years from what I have seen and it is very frustrating.

Sitting on the berm is great for my kids, as they love to run for shagging fouls, etc, but for me and my wife, this sucks. So we end up sneaking into some section we aren't assigned to, feeling like we are cheating or stealing, like second class citizens. There is no posted policy anywhere on where GA tickets can legally find an unclaimed seat and sit, and so the only place we feel like we can legitimately be, is on the berms or standing.

To make matters worse, most ball parks allow folks to move around some after the 6th inning or so, as obviously, those fans aren't showing up, if the seat is empty. But for some reason, Olsen doesn't do this.

It sucks being willing to buy seats, and the university not having any assignable seats available for sale online.
Something I have seen, which is a good idea, is locally, the minor league hockey team allows season ticket holders to indicate which seats they won't be using for games and get credit for them against additional seats at future games. This allows the re-sale of the unused reserved seats to the public, which allows fans to fill those seats. It also provides an incentive for the season ticket holder to turn them in, when not in use.

I'll get season tickets once my kids go off to college, and I can make games on my schedule, but until then, I am in the same boat as a lot of other Ags within a 2 or 3 hour drive, which have to just luck out, when we drive up.

I would be interested in a 10 game or 20 game package, if that were available, much like minor league hockey and minor league baseball around here offer. That would allow me to pick 4 or 5 games I could make for certain, eat the other 5 or 6 games, but at least know I would have assigned seats for all 4 in my family.

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If you visit the suite level and look at the names on the suites, those boys aren't from Brazos County. The suites are all multiple year commitments at a steep price. A good percentage of total ball park revenue comes from those suites. The structure for the suites is out board of the upper deck. They would lose three rows of general admission seats that they would gladly trade out for suites. They may make up the seat loss somewhere if and when they did it, but more suites will be the domino that has to fall in order to get additional seating elsewhere.

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Try 8 rows. The suites take up half the rows of the upper deck, and those are not general admission seats you are replacing on the 3rd base side--those are reserved seats sold as season tickets. You couldn't make up the loss for more than a handful of suites by converting the LF berm to seating. As to the owners of the suites, that's the point--we don't have a local market demand for more. If out of town interest had been high enough, we would probably have built more at the time--we built what the market dictated.

Twk, next time you are at the ballpark take a look either side of the suites. You will see the suite expansion area is all ready there. It has railing around it all ready and is used as a handicap viewing area right now I believe. You will see some folks from the suites sneaking a smoke out there sometimes. Never the intention to go all the way to the end. Adding these suites would affect very few current seats.

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Twk, next time you are at the ballpark take a look either side of the suites. You will see the suite expansion area is all ready there. It has railing around it all ready and is used as a handicap viewing area right now I believe. You will see some folks from the suites sneaking a smoke out there sometimes. Never the intention to go all the way to the end. Adding these suites would affect very few current seats.

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So, you're going to eliminate ADA seating to add suites? I suspect that would bring it's own set of problems, but I guess you're just talking about adding, what, maybe four to six suites (2 or 3 on each end)? That's not exactly going to be a game changer. We're getting pretty far off the OP if we go any further down this rabbit trail.

it's maybe 8 ADA seats at the most. I haven't paid that much attention I think they can add 2 suites on each side or two bigger ones, which then may not take up that many reserved seats.

But I doubt the demand is there for additional suites. Not with the cost of suites at Kyle taken a large portion of those donors capital.

If I had to bet, the next "expansion" will be a deck or something along those lines in the outfield once the Rec Center is done, maybe next year but I bet in two years.

I think it will take winning a NC to replace the berms IMO. The demand just isn't there.

A GA ticket will get you a seat anywhere on the upper deck first base side bench seats. You won't be sneaking in or cheating. You can sit anywhere in sections 201-204. For most games, if you show up an hour early, you can have your pick of GA seats, and they're the same exact kind of seats as you would get in the reserved section on the opposite side.

okay, game #1 attendance (6,800) over the permanent seating capacity (5,450)

There is still plenty of room to put bleachers between the added on rec and the outfield wall. There is also alot of room to put bleachers on the right center side of the green monster as well.

I don't think we can put snything that close to the tracks (rf).

Every other SEC has either bleachers in the outfield or grass seating right on the outfield wall. Its completely legal to do that.

Yea thats my bad. Wasnt thinking he was meaning railroad tracks. Only think is if you literally mean on the railroad tracks, that wouldnt work. There is not a switch there to allow other trains to come through at the same time. If you are talking about taking the wheels off some boxcars and just placing them in the outfield, that could be cool to sit on.

I am talking about anything in RF near the tracks. Didn't have the scoreboard there in early/mid 00s and had to move it to the left side due to the vibrations?

I am fine with putting outfield seating. I have stated it on this thread (I think) or at least a few others.

The Rec center doesn't look like it will be finished anytime soon, so no sense in talking about expansion in left field. Also Rob said other sports are priority for upgrades

When there is enough purchase pressure to sell out the current permanent seats 80% of the games and purchase pressure to convert most of the existing GA/student seats to season seats, you're well positioned for an expansion.

I disagree that an external analysis purely on stated attendance is sufficient. You need marketing and cash flow analysis as well. But this is certain: being ranked in the top 10, making the CWS, and winning the CWS will help with attendance. To the greatest extent possible, baseball at A&M should be paired with softball and the two together need to be self-funding at least on year-over-year expenses.

It will be great if the planned softball upgrade gives them the same kind of facility scaled to likely attendance potential and expandable that BBP/Olsen provides for baseball.

Similarly, if ANY team at A&M has EARNED a premier facility from an achievement standpoint, it's T&F. Hopefully that becomes a magnet for amazing regional events if not also national events.

I don't think 80% is necessary for expansion. I'm looking at around 40% ~ 15 home games where attendance exceeds permanent seating capacity (5,450).

got over 5,000 for game #2, but less than 5,450