SEC Universities Benefited From Moving Games to Campus

Southeastern Conference schools long held on to their decrepit, metropolitan football stadiums like Emily Grierson clinging to her husband’s corpse in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.”

In the story, reality eventually outweighs romance. The same has been true for the SEC.

Over the past decade, the universities of Alabama and Mississippi, Mississippi State University and Auburn University have moved all their in-state games on campus. Despite the tradition and festive atmosphere of Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., and Mississippi Memorial Stadium in Jackson, Miss., the schools benefited more financially by playing at home.

Now University of Arkansas Athletic Director J. Frank Broyles faces the same decision because of a $45 million expansion of Razorback Stadium at Fayetteville. Talk has been that the university will move one of its three annual games in War Memorial Stadium at Little Rock to Fayetteville, because more on-campus games will be needed to help pay for the expansion.

Broyles says that decision will be made by an independent consultant that’s being brought in to survey the financial and political ramifications of the situation. Warren Stephens, president of Stephens Inc. of Little Rock and a major supporter of the university’s athletic department, is one of a number of big time Little Rock boosters who have already said what their ramifications will be.

If less than three games per year are played in Little Rock, Stephens says he will “reconsider” all of his annual $150,000 contribution to the athletic department. His company also helps sell $1.1 million in advertising for Arkansas’ coaches’ shows, and Stephens says less games in central Arkansas will likely lead to less advertising.

“I don’t think our contribution would be at the same level if games are moved to Fayetteville,” Stephens says. “I doubt we would ever say we’ll never contribute again, but it likely wouldn’t be at the same level.

“And because 80 percent of the advertising money for [football coach] Houston Nutt’s and [basketball coach] Nolan Richardson’s television shows comes from here, you’re going to have a hard time marketing those shows to people if the games are out of here.”

Broyles says it’s not about money.

Stadium Key to Revival

He says the No. 1 issue in his mind is what will make Arkansas a nationally competitive program again. He believes a top-notch stadium is the key.

“Since 1992, we’ve won 45 percent of our conference games,” Broyles says. “If we want to win more, we have to have a stadium that will attract the best athletes. We cannot expect Houston Nutt to recruit with a very inferior stadium.

“If we don’t expand and improve our stadium, we can drop some men’s sports and live on a slimmer budget. We’ll have to to finance all of our obligations, because we won’t be selling football tickets because we won’t be competitive anyway.”

It’s not that Broyles doesn’t want to play in Little Rock. The likely reality is that it simply won’t be feasible while the university is trying to retire a $30 million bond issue that the UA Board of Trustees recently approved for Razorback Stadium’s expansion.

But Broyles does not want to make any assumptions. In the meantime, the Razorback Foundation Inc. is kicking in the additional $15 million needed for renovation.

The plan is to take 50,000-seat Razorback Stadium up to 73,000 seats. Broyles says even if the program sells only 50,000 tickets, it could still come close to paying off the debt service on the stadium. But the athletic department is trying to decide how best to sell an additional 25,000 tickets to a fan base that is mostly regionalized.

Only about 30 percent of Arkansas fans hold season tickets for both stadiums.

How The Others Did It

Auburn stopped playing games in Birmingham’s then 73,000-seat Legion Field in 1988 when it boosted its own stadium to 85,000 seats. Auburn sports information director Kent Patridge says there was a large outcry from Auburn patrons in the northern portion of the state. But being able to have the Iron Bowl, Auburn’s annual game with arch-rival Alabama, as part of a season ticket package boosted sales.

Prior to then, the big intrastate game was always played in Birmingham.

“We used to not have any home games on campus with our biggest rivals, because Georgia and Tennessee wouldn’t come here until we expanded,” Patridge says. “The ‘Bama game was always in Birmingham, and our season ticket package didn’t have any marquee games at home.

“But after moving all of our in-state games here, we have to turn away 10,000 to 12,000 requests for season tickets every year.”

Alabama is also weaning Birmingham away. With the Crimson Tide only 50 minutes Tuscaloosa, sports information director Larry White says the demand for Alabama to play in Birmingham was great.

But after spending $35 million to take its stadium to 83,000 seats and add 81 skyboxes, it just made more sense to play at home. So Alabama has agreed to play two games in Birmingham through 2001 and at least one there through 2008.

“From a financial perspective, there’s just no reason to play in Birmingham,” White says. “The biggest reason to bring all of our games home, however, is the recruiting situation. You can designate one game away from campus every year to bring recruits in, but historically some of our games in Birmingham were our biggest ones.

“Then we wouldn’t be able to get our recruits there to see them. It’s just better if they can see the big games and get a feel for what it’s like on campus.”

Mississippi State stopped playing in Jackson’s 62,000-seat stadium in 1990 and is considering expanding its stadium from 40,656 seats to 52,000 by 2001. Ole Miss spent $14 million to expand to 50,000 seats, add 29 skyboxes, 1,000 club-level seats and field lights. It stopped playing in Jackson in 1996.

Both Mike Nemeth, MSU’s assistant athletic director for media relations, and Ole Miss Athletic Director John Schaeffer cite on-campus atmosphere and a better home-field advantage as a major reason for their move. In Ole Miss’ case, its guarantees from season ticket sales have climbed from $757,520 in 1996 to $920,371.

Schaeffer says Ole Miss’ situation is very similar to Fayetteville’s because both cities are small-to-medium sized.

“A ballgame in Oxford, Miss., or Fayetteville is a happening,” Schaeffer says. “The atmosphere is different from a city where the crowd is kind of absorbed by the city a few blocks from the game. I still get letters from people in Jackson who want us to play there, and we just have to explain that we’re committed to the stadium we have here and it’s not in our best interest to go to Jackson.”

As many business people as there are in Little Rock who don’t want to see Razorbacks games go, there are just as many in northwest Arkansas itching to keep them.

Joe Fennel, owner of Jose’s restaurant on Dickson Street, says he would obviously love to have more “game days” when fans pack Fayetteville’s entertainment corridor near downtown. But he says the students are forgotten in the debate.

“I know athletic budgets and big money runs these things,” Fennel says. “But I think we should consider the students and what’s easier on them. Think about the team and where they’ll have more success. It makes sense to play more games in Fayetteville, even though Little Rock has supported games well and it’s been a tradition for [more than 40] years.

“If we’re going to have this big new stadium, it will give people a chance to come up here and see how much growing northwest Arkansas has been doing.”

Fennel cited improvements in the number of local hotels, which has swelled far past what is needed to accommodate large game day crowds. And while Bill Clodfelter, manager of the Fayetteville Clarion Inn and the Clarion Inn and Convention Center at Bentonville, says having additional games in Fayetteville is not a make or break issue for his company it certainly would have a tremendous impact.

“We feel the loss of the airport here. That would help us add back some of our lost revenue,” Clodfelter says. “Fayetteville’s hotel market seems to benefit more from games than Little Rock’s does, simply because we’re a smaller community and they still have more hotels down there.”

Increase Campus Visitors

Both Arkansas sports information director Rick Schaeffer and Chancellor John White say football game weekends in Fayetteville have another potential. There are university alumni all over the state with children who may not have seen where their parents went to college.

Schaeffer says football games would be a great opportunity for kids to come up and find their parents’ names on the Senior Walk, take in the atmosphere of campus and see university landmarks like Ole Main.

“Having more games on our campus will increase the number of visitors to our campus,” White says. “In turn, that will increase prospective students’ familiarity with the UA. As they walk across our campus, I am sure they will conclude this is where they want to attend college.”

The Little Rock Chamber of Commerce released a statement saying the Razorbacks should continue to play in Little Rock. The chambers of commerce in northwest Arkansas have not yet banded together to keep the Hogs home, but Perry Webb, president and chief executive officer of the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, says that could happen in the future.

“It’s a no-brainer to see the relationship between more football games and the economy of northwest Arkansas,” Webb says. “We don’t have an official position at this point, and we don’t want to do anything in a knee-jerk reaction way that would cause more problems that it would cure. When we do decide something, it will be after a lot of discussion with the UA.”

Stephens says even after Razorback Stadium is expanded, he questions whether or not there’s enough market for a bunch of new seats and skyboxes. He is currently a season ticketholder in both Little Rock and Fayetteville, but says he doesn’t always use his Razorback Stadium tickets because of the travel involved.

“I know there’s a new highway and all,” says Stephens, who also supplies the university’s coaching staff with five airplanes for recruiting.

“But we can fly up, so that makes it easier for me than most people to get there and I still don’t come sometimes. I just think realistically the program needs to continue playing games in Little Rock.”

Regardless of how many games the Razorbacks end up playing in Fayetteville, Broyles reiterates one of his oft-quoted lines about the need for a new stadium.

“We have to prepare for success now to be able to take advantage of it when it comes,” Broyles says. “With Houston Nutt here and his staff here, a winning season last year and a good bunch of young players on campus, we have top- notch everything except a new stadium. Getting that stadium and filling it up are what is going to help us reach our goal of winning a national championship.”

Jim Harris of the Arkansas Times contributed to this report.