07.25.12
Beaver Stadium Boodle Bonked
I’ve yet to see any newspapers contemplate what the near total destruction of Penn State’s football program will do the school and the economy of the region.
Beaver Stadium is one of the largest outdoor football venues in the world. And now it is stuck with a team that will be less and less capable of filling it.
From an old Harrisburg Patriot News article I pulled an estimate of what a family of three spends on a Saturday spent at State College and in Beaver Stadium.
$476.30 This was in 2010. Gas prices are higher now, so let’s jigger up to an even five hundred for gas, and then subtract assuming most of the fuel cost will be distributed at the local start point. Final tally — $465.00 — modestly.
On a standard banner game day, attendance = 110,000
Divide by 3: 3666
3666 x $465.00 = $17,050,000
When attendance dwindles to 66 percent — $11,253,000
Fifty percent — $8,525,000.
Keep in mind I’m reasoning the cost of running the gigantic facility will remain about the same.
Nonsense, say the Penn State loyal. We’ll never forsake our team!
Oh yes they will.
At least four years wandering the wilderness with lousy, if any TV contracts at home and a team that will be about as good as … UCLA.
Now that the Bruins are a regular doormat in the Pacific conference, the school never fills the Rose Bowl. This news piece, at the LA Times, indicates a low of 43,000 for a winning game in 2011.
The lost money on game days in State College, over the course of at least half a decade, will cripple the local economy and the school. Penn State lived by football and Joe Paterno. Austerity is coming.
Penn State will be wondering what the heck it can do with Beaver Stadium, now that it looks like one of the construction marvels of the world, stuck in the middle of nowhere, its reason for being knee-capped.
Can it do the world’s biggest Easter Egg roll? Sunday craft and antiques fairs?
U2, Brad Paisley or Lady Gaga will probably not be planning stops in State College.
Fergie was planned in 2008, it sez here.
Alas, it was canceled. Disinterest.
The State College daily, the Centre Daily Times is here.
Read a few stories. The citizens can’t quite get their heads around the magnitude of the disaster.
It will be as if you were living in a beach resort and woke up one day to find the sand and ocean taken away.
OnTheWaterfront said,
July 25, 2012 at 10:33 am
The $476.30 is probably too high now, if one assumes a precipitous drop in ticket prices (and parking).
George Smith said,
July 25, 2012 at 10:52 am
Yep. It illustrates a high water mark. Anyway you slice it the impact will be breathtaking.