On-Campus Arena

[hoyaball]

Question for those of you in the know: is there a viable option for Georgetown to build an on-campus arena with, say, 8-10 thousand seating capacity? Even as a long-term option? Thanks.

[DFW HOYA]

Jan 16, 2017 7:03:56 GMT -5 hoyaball said:

Question for those of you in the know: is there a viable option for Georgetown to build an on-campus arena with, say, 8-10 thousand seating capacity? Even as a long-term option? Thanks.

Without a major campus reconstruction and the completion of the Metro plan to split the Blue Line and drive light rail from Rosslyn to Thomas Circle along an M street tunnel ($3.3 billion in 2015 dollars), no.

Could they conceivably build a new arena on the Yates footprint? Conceptually, yes, but without the institutional will to do so, it will never happen. One need only walk past the decade-long eyesore that was once hailed as the most important athletics project in University history and know that things will eventually get in the way.

What was once promised:


What was delivered:

[iheartdurenbros]

During event for women's basketball, I asked about renovation of McDonough. Plans are to add seating capacity of close to 5,000. Parking is issue for any arena beyond that. The community of Georgetown will not allow any more parking on campus than it already has.

[bankshot53]

The city has a say too. There's no room to expand the footprint of McDonough Arena, which lies on the western boundary of the campus. There is a plan to renovate Yates but it is focused on student activities more than intercollegiate athletics. The property owned by Visitation looks inviting but surely is off limits.

[bostonfan]

If they could expand McDonough to 7 -8000 that would be best and would make for a nice venue for a lot of the early season out of conference games for the men's team. The facility would also serve as the home fore the woman's team and could be utilized for some of the other larger capacity on-campus events I would think that should be possible without expanding the existing footprint of the building. The other big hurdle would be to develop some type of shuttle service to get people to and from the games so they could eliminate the parking/traffic issues that the neighbors would complain about. I think all this is possible to do, if the school wanted to do it and made it a priority, but I don't see that happening in the near future.

[drquigley]

Watched Gonzaga last night. Very good team BTW as their ranking would indicate. I was surprised at how small their gym looked. Just checked and saw that the McCarthy Center only holds 6,000. I'm not an architect or structural engineer but can't believe that McDonough couldn't be easily expanded to meet that, and perhaps 2,000 more, size. However, besides the cost, engineering, parking, political etc obstacles wouldn't it be a problem deciding what games would be played there? Can't think it would make sense if we were only playing OOC cupcake games there. Can we arbitrarily decide what BE games to play there and which to play at Verizon? Don't we have to commit to Verizon for all our BE games? How do other BE teams play at their own gyms for some BE games and not others? I could see playing Creighton and maybe Butler and Xavier at an 8,000 seat field house.

[hoyaboya]

Jan 16, 2017 11:53:41 GMT -5 drquigley said:

Watched Gonzaga last night. Very good team BTW as their ranking would indicate. I was surprised at how small their gym looked. Just checked and saw that the McCarthy Center only holds 6,000. I'm not an architect or structural engineer but can't believe that McDonough couldn't be easily expanded to meet that, and perhaps 2,000 more, size. However, besides the cost, engineering, parking, political etc obstacles wouldn't it be a problem deciding what games would be played there? Can't think it would make sense if we were only playing OOC cupcake games there. Can we arbitrarily decide what BE games to play there and which to play at Verizon? Don't we have to commit to Verizon for all our BE games? How do other BE teams play at their own gyms for some BE games and not others? I could see playing Creighton and maybe Butler and Xavier at an 8,000 seat field house.

Villanova only plays a few of their Big East Saturday home games at the 76ers arena in Philadelphia: Marquette, Providence, St. John's. The rest of the Big East home games are on campus at the much smaller arena.

[hoyalove4ever]

It COULD happen with a lot of money, a take-no-prisoners attitude, and some luck, but I would be shocked if that occurs.

[drquigley]

Jan 16, 2017 12:25:24 GMT -5 hoyaboya said:

Jan 16, 2017 11:53:41 GMT -5 drquigley said:

Watched Gonzaga last night. Very good team BTW as their ranking would indicate. I was surprised at how small their gym looked. Just checked and saw that the McCarthy Center only holds 6,000. I'm not an architect or structural engineer but can't believe that McDonough couldn't be easily expanded to meet that, and perhaps 2,000 more, size. However, besides the cost, engineering, parking, political etc obstacles wouldn't it be a problem deciding what games would be played there? Can't think it would make sense if we were only playing OOC cupcake games there. Can we arbitrarily decide what BE games to play there and which to play at Verizon? Don't we have to commit to Verizon for all our BE games? How do other BE teams play at their own gyms for some BE games and not others? I could see playing Creighton and maybe Butler and Xavier at an 8,000 seat field house.

Villanova only plays a few of their Big East Saturday home games at the 76ers arena in Philadelphia: Marquette, Providence, St. John's. The rest of the Big East home games are on campus at the much smaller arena.

I was getting at the fact (impression?) that under BE rules games had to be played at an 8,000+ seat arena. Anyone else familiar with this policy?

[FromTheBeginning]

SJU plays most of their BE games on campus - under 6K capacity

[reformation]

Gtwn should do the same as St Johns--Just upgrade McDonough back to 5k , use the original footprint--better to pack the arena with a great student experience than always play in front of a largely empty verizon-it would be a great thing for the Univ as a whole. A lot more students will attend + people who want to go will find a way to deal with the parking. Games were great there before the move to Landover. I bet it would mean a couple of extra wins per season + better atmosphere should help recruiting--would make the few games we play at Verizon a nmore special experience for those games too--I'm sure we could get a waiver from BE to play in the smaller arena as does SJU.

[HoyaChris]

I would certainly donate to expanding McDonough, but only if there is an airtight guarantee that we will never, ever, ever agree to play ODU in the venue.

[reformation]

Would have to think this issue sees the light of day next year as I would guess ticket sales, attendance et al will continue to fall though the floor at Verizon. I would think at some point, the empty seats at verizon have to cause some real pain to the Univ.

[4aks]

Back nearly 20 years ago, Arlington County had proposed a conference center in Rosslyn, built on the space that is now a tiered park over I-66.

This would be a good location for a University-owned arena ... don't need to crowd campus ... it's about a mile away, next to the metro stop, with some highway access too.

[DFW HOYA]

Jan 17, 2017 22:42:06 GMT -5 4aks said:

Back nearly 20 years ago, Arlington County had proposed a conference center in Rosslyn, built on the space that is now a tiered park over I-66.

This would be a good location for a University-owned arena ... don't need to crowd campus ... it's about a mile away, next to the metro stop, with some highway access too.

That's the best case scenario, as well as a serious look at Rosslyn for a future satellite campus a la Continuing Studies.

[hoyas315]

[DFW HOYA]

Jan 18, 2017 13:55:35 GMT -5 hoyas315 said:

These are for Big East games. A 2005 NIT game with Boston U drew less but this was not a portion of the season ticket policy.

[reformation]

Does anybody know what we actually pay for rent at Verizon

[drquigley]

I doubt if anyone here can answer that. But the question is what is the difference between our rent at Verizon and what the mortgage on a new on campus arena would be. Also what percentage of the gate do we get v. total gate for an on campus arena. If we build a 6-7,000 seat arena and could still play 10,000+ attendance games at Verizon then we would have the best of all worlds. As bad as we are right now and as lousy as our attendance is I don't think it matters to Verizon since the arena isn't being used on game days/nights and the cost of turning on the lights and paying a few dozen staff cant be that much. I'm sure our rent covers these costs and leaves a few bucks for brother Ted.

[eagle54]

Jan 18, 2017 21:49:31 GMT -5 drquigley said:

I doubt if anyone here can answer that. But the question is what is the difference between our rent at Verizon and what the mortgage on a new on campus arena would be. Also what percentage of the gate do we get v. total gate for an on campus arena. If we build a 6-7,000 seat arena and could still play 10,000+ attendance games at Verizon then we would have the best of all worlds. As bad as we are right now and as lousy as our attendance is I don't think it matters to Verizon since the arena isn't being used on game days/nights and the cost of turning on the lights and paying a few dozen staff cant be that much. I'm sure our rent covers these costs and leaves a few bucks for brother Ted.

I think DFW knows what we pay and how much of our budget that expense is as I recall it's the reason we spend top 10 in the country on basketball in addition to the coach's salary.