Chicago Tribune ranks Big Ten Stadiums

[mikemarc1]

We come in at 12th. No issue with the ranking per se, but the fact they attribute our low ranking to the fact "the stadium is not on campus"...what a joke!!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-big-ten-stadium-rankings-photos-photogallery.html

 

[BigLou]

The thing is, if you are parking in the Scarlet, Green. Yellow, or white lots, you basically do not see any academic buildings as you enter the campus. So it can seem like the stadium is not on campus.

 

[brgossRU90]

When did they move it? I must've missed that.

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

I'd rank it 7th

 

[ScarletDave]

Another great, fact-filled article by the media involving Rutgers. Seriously, what makes a person qualified anymore to do a job? Are people just getting lazy as a whole??

 

[derleider]

We come in at 12th. No issue with the ranking per se, but the fact they attribute our low ranking to the fact "the stadium is not on campus"...what a joke!!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-big-ten-stadium-rankings-photos-photogallery.html

Maryland ranked ahead of us? No way.

 

[RC1991]

I guess Busch must have seceded from the rest of the campuses.

 

[RU Mike73]

Something to be said for the HPSS part though.

 

[Scarlet16E]

I emailed Teddy Greenstein at the Tribune to correct this error.

 

[derleider]

I guess Busch must have seceded from the rest of the campuses.

Seriously. While the stadium is somewhat isolated from the academic core of Busch, thats just as true for alot of schools. The Big House, Beaver Stadium, and Memorial Stadium in Champaig all come to mind.

In fact nearly every stadium in the Big Ten you could approach and see just about as much of the campus as you would with RU, for obvious reasons - its a big building that needs alot of parking - not ideally suited to being in the center of campus, and in fact ideally suited to being at the very edge of campus.

Of the 14 schools only MD, MSU, and OSU have stadiums that are really in the heart of campus with significant non-athletic facilities on all sides. MN is borderline. The other 10-11 schools fall into everything in between - from off campus (NW) to adjacent but not really in the main campus (NU and others.)

The real issue is that our campuses are broken up, so you dont even really get that on campus feel that you do at other Big Ten schools. At last not at the scale and density you get at the others.

 

[rutgersguy1]

I guess Busch must have seceded from the rest of the campuses.

The engineers, scientists and computer geeks shall rise again!!

 

[jmc11201]

Northwestern is pretty bad. Not really sure what the criteria is...whether best stadium or best gameday atmosphere, but Ryan Field falls pretty short on both.

 

[Scarlet16E]

Seriously. While the stadium is somewhat isolated from the academic core of Busch, thats just as true for alot of schools. The Big House, Beaver Stadium, and Memorial Stadium in Champaig all come to mind.

In fact nearly every stadium in the Big Ten you could approach and see just about as much of the campus as you would with RU, for obvious reasons - its a big building that needs alot of parking - not ideally suited to being in the center of campus, and in fact ideally suited to being at the very edge of campus.

Of the 14 schools only MD, MSU, and OSU have stadiums that are really in the heart of campus with significant non-athletic facilities on all sides. MN is borderline. The other 10-11 schools fall into everything in between - from off campus (NW) to adjacent but not really in the main campus (NU and others.)

The real issue is that our campuses are broken up, so you dont even really get that on campus feel that you do at other Big Ten schools. At last not at the scale and density you get at the others.

There's no excuse for the Big Ten media to not know the stadium is on campus. It has no bearing on where the academic buildings are releative to it. The soccer stadium is just yards away. The Rutgers Golf course is across the street. The Bubble (where winter track meets are held) is also across the street. The tennis courts are on the same parking lot. The Rutgers visitor center is also just yards away. Then the Werblin Center (swimming) and finally the Hill Center and CORE, SERC, and other academic buildings are pretty darn close too. Lastly, television often shows a shot of Waksman from the stadium leading into and out of commercial breaks during games.

 

[AreYouNUTS]

We come in at 12th. No issue with the ranking per se, but the fact they attribute our low ranking to the fact "the stadium is not on campus"...what a joke!!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-big-ten-stadium-rankings-photos-photogallery.html

I would put HPSS behind all but: IU, PU, Northwestern and Maryland, so 10th - something like this:

1) The Shoe *
2) Memorial (Nebraska)
3) Beaver ([sick]) *
4) Camp
5) Kinnick
6) The Big House
7) Spartan Stadium *
8) Gopherville
9) Memorial (Illinois)/* HPSS *
11) Ryan Field
12) Byrd *
13) IU
14) Ross-Ade *

* designates stadiums I've attended game at (Rutgers or other)

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

But it is on campus... sigh... come on man!

 

[Terry_2426]

Just got this back on Twitter from one of the people who worked on the list:

"Apologies for the error on Rutgers stad location. Being fixed for web."

Still not really sure how something like that gets overlooked.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

I emailed Teddy Greenstein at the Tribune to correct this error.

Me too...poor teddy...good guy to fix it and reply to us all. Maybe they will actually check out the tailgate and gameday experiences of visiting fans before publishing the next such ranking because, clealry, they had no idea where the stadium was in relation to the campus, so had could they know anything else. The only negative they cite now is the name.

 

[Jim_from_RU]

We come in at 12th. No issue with the ranking per se, but the fact they attribute our low ranking to the fact "the stadium is not on campus"...what a joke!!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-big-ten-stadium-rankings-photos-photogallery.html

No way Maryland and Northwestern should be ahead of us. No feakin way.

 

[chitownUofI05]

Teddy Greenstein is a Northwestern grad who is an insufferable hack. Wouldn't read too much into it.

 

[sct1111]

So we lost points because we have a corporate sounding name? Did Minnesota lose points for their corporate sounding name? Has this person been to our stadium? I'm guessing not.

 

[njcanesfan]

Have any of you guys ever been to the SWAMP? Florida's "athletes village" is pretty cool... football, basketball, soccer, baseball, swimming, indoor track, all within 5 mins walk of each other. Most of the indoor stuff is in the same building, still pretty cool. Been through Lousivilles athletes village too, pretty cool as well.

 

[Upstream]

Me too...poor teddy...good guy to fix it and reply to us all. Maybe they will actually check out the tailgate and gameday experiences of visiting fans before publishing the next such ranking because, clealry, they had no idea where the stadium was in relation to the campus, so had could they know anything else. The only negative they cite now is the name.

They also imply that other negatives include lack of restrooms and no elevator on the press box side of the stadium.

 

[motorb54]

Is the press box on the west side?
There is certainly an elevator there.
Is he complaining that the sportswriters have to walk up a ramp to get to the press box?
Really? These clowns get paid to go to sporting events.
I guess we should provide these guys Audi club like facilities/amenities.
Maybe that's why Politi is such a dick!

 

[Sir ScarletKnight]

They also imply that other negatives include lack of restrooms and no elevator on the press box side of the stadium.

By Press box side, what do they mean? There is an elevator for the Audi club, and an elevator on the "away" side. Where do they think there is no elevator?

 

[JMORC2003]

I emailed Teddy Greenstein at the Tribune to correct this error.

Same here... The best way to combat lazy journalism is to call them out on it. Not saying to be a jerk about it, but let them know they're wrong. Actually one nice thing about digital age is that revisions and edits can be made after the piece goes to "print", so all the more reason to correct errors.

 

[Upstream]

Is the press box on the west side?
There is certainly an elevator there.
Is he complaining that the sportswriters have to walk up a ramp to get to the press box?
Really? These clowns get paid to go to sporting events.
I guess we should provide these guys Audi club like facilities/amenities.
Maybe that's why Politi is such a dick!

The caption to the photo says " In June, Rutgers announced an upgrade that would include improved restrooms and a new elevator tower on the east side of the stadium," implying these are deficiencies that are going to be fixed.

As far as the quality of the facilities/amenities, ummm, yeah, that is a pretty big part of what they are comparing between stadiums.

They're not going to say Rutgers Stadium is nice because it has nice architecture; it doesn't. Prior to the expansion, they may have given the stadium props for being in a natural ravine, with the cannon under a tree on a hill in the open end-zone. But right now the inside of the stadium is mostly a generic bowl. There is pretty much nothing unique or outstanding about it. And it doesn't have size or history to brag about, compared to other Big Ten stadiums.

So really all that is left to rank Rutgers Stadium higher than other Big Ten stadiums is facilities and amenities. When you have a stadium that has porta-potties on the concourse because there is only one men's room with 18 toilets serving 10,000 fans on the lower level west sideline, it is kind of hard to claim the stadium has good facilities/amenities (especially when the stadium had a $100 million renovation less than 10 years ago).

 

[sct1111]

The caption to the photo says " In June, Rutgers announced an upgrade that would include improved restrooms and a new elevator tower on the east side of the stadium," implying these are deficiencies that are going to be fixed.

As far as the quality of the facilities/amenities, ummm, yeah, that is a pretty big part of what they are comparing between stadiums.

They're not going to say Rutgers Stadium is nice because it has nice architecture; it doesn't. Prior to the expansion, they may have given the stadium props for being in a natural ravine, with the cannon under a tree on a hill in the open end-zone. But right now the inside of the stadium is mostly a generic bowl. There is pretty much nothing unique or outstanding about it. And it doesn't have size or history to brag about, compared to other Big Ten stadiums.

So really all that is left to rank Rutgers Stadium higher than other Big Ten stadiums is facilities and amenities. When you have a stadium that has porta-potties on the concourse because there is only one men's room with 18 toilets serving 10,000 fans on the lower level west sideline, it is kind of hard to claim the stadium has good facilities/amenities (especially when the stadium had a $100 million renovation less than 10 years ago).

I can't believe how much that expansion cost. A $100 million dollar expansion in Alabama gets you 30,000 extra seats, new boxes and new training facilities. I mean that much money wasn't even enough to complete the expansion which was supposed to include new locker rooms. While the expansion is kind of nice, it was only 10,000 seats and it certainly doesn't look like $100 million. Why is it SO expensive to build in New Jersey?

 

[PaKnight]

I can't believe how much that expansion cost. A $100 million dollar expansion in Alabama gets you 30,000 extra seats, new boxes and new training facilities. I mean that much money wasn't even enough to complete the expansion which was supposed to include new locker rooms. While the expansion is kind of nice, it was only 10,000 seats and it certainly doesn't look like $100 million. Why is it SO expensive to build in New Jersey?

We did have to move a small mountain.

 

[saran]

Northwestern is pretty bad. Not really sure what the criteria is...whether best stadium or best gameday atmosphere, but Ryan Field falls pretty short on both.

They have beautiful new practice facilities near the water now though. Recruits have to be impressed

 

[Underdogs88]

The caption to the photo says " In June, Rutgers announced an upgrade that would include improved restrooms and a new elevator tower on the east side of the stadium," implying these are deficiencies that are going to be fixed.

As far as the quality of the facilities/amenities, ummm, yeah, that is a pretty big part of what they are comparing between stadiums.

They're not going to say Rutgers Stadium is nice because it has nice architecture; it doesn't. Prior to the expansion, they may have given the stadium props for being in a natural ravine, with the cannon under a tree on a hill in the open end-zone. But right now the inside of the stadium is mostly a generic bowl. There is pretty much nothing unique or outstanding about it. And it doesn't have size or history to brag about, compared to other Big Ten stadiums.

So really all that is left to rank Rutgers Stadium higher than other Big Ten stadiums is facilities and amenities. When you have a stadium that has porta-potties on the concourse because there is only one men's room with 18 toilets serving 10,000 fans on the lower level west sideline, it is kind of hard to claim the stadium has good facilities/amenities (especially when the stadium had a $100 million renovation less than 10 years ago).

Rutgers bathrooms are a 1000 times better than Penn state. At penn state they have troughs and pedal powered sinks. Our bathrooms are modern and have the accelerator dyers. The food options at Rutgers were also a lot better than penn state. Penn state was the first away stadium I ever visited and I will never complain about Rutgers stadium after going there. Our bathrooms and food options are much better. Penn state was straight up Hicksville.

 

[Upstream]

Rutgers bathrooms are a 1000 times better than Penn state. At penn state they have troughs and pedal powered sinks. Our bathrooms are modern and have the accelerator dyers. The food options at Rutgers were also a lot better than penn state. Penn state was the first away stadium I ever visited and I will never complain about Rutgers stadium after going there. Our bathrooms and food options are much better. Penn state was straight up Hicksville.

How the hell are our bathrooms better? On the west sideline, on the lower concourse, there is only one men's room for 10,000 fans. Great, so it has 4 accelerator hand dryers. That is 4 hand dryers for 10,000 fans. And the portapotties on the concourse don't have any sinks or hand dryers. At least they are modern portapotties.

 

[RUsSKii]

I can't believe how much that expansion cost. A $100 million dollar expansion in Alabama gets you 30,000 extra seats, new boxes and new training facilities. I mean that much money wasn't even enough to complete the expansion which was supposed to include new locker rooms. While the expansion is kind of nice, it was only 10,000 seats and it certainly doesn't look like $100 million. Why is it SO expensive to build in New Jersey?

While it is admittedly more expensive to build in the northeast region, the $100 million included the foundation and structural steel work necessary to support a 5-10k south endzone upper deck. It was a lot easier to spend the money then and make the future upper-deck basically an add-on with minimum retrofit/reinforcement required.

 

[Scarlet16E]

We have nice bathrooms on the east side :sunglasses:

 

[WhiteBus]

Rutgers was a beautiful, unique stadium before they closed in the south end. The trees on the hill in the fall were awesome as was the cannon shooting it's big white plum after a Rutgers score from the grassy ledge.

Now it's just another generic stadium....with bad food service.

 

[e5fdny]

The caption to the photo says " In June, Rutgers announced an upgrade that would include improved restrooms and a new elevator tower on the east side of the stadium," implying these are deficiencies that are going to be fixed.

I will believe it when I see it.

There already is an elevator shaft on the East side. Just need to put a car in it.