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Over the last couple of weeks there has been a fierce war or words between fans of the two schools over Robins Stadium. In several posts JMU fans sneer at the capacity of Richmond's on campus stadium that is scheduled to host its first game on the 18th of Sept. The stadium capacity is 8700. It seems to me that many of the JMU posters are upset that hords of JMU alums will no longer be able to invade the game at Richmond like they did when the game was played at old UR Stadium, which has a capacity of around 22k, One JMU Barney calls the UR AD an alcoholic. UR folks refer to JMU fans as "Barneys". JMU fans refer to UR fans as "Ticks". If emotions are running this high in late July, just imagine how bad it could become the week of the game. The game is on Nov.6th.

jrj1976urspider wrote:Over the last couple of weeks there has been a fierce war or words between fans of the two schools over Robins Stadium. In several posts JMU fans sneer at the capacity of Richmond's on campus stadium that is scheduled to host its first game on the 18th of Sept. The stadium capacity is 8700. It seems to me that many of the JMU posters are upset that hords of JMU alums will no longer be able to invade the game at Richmond like they did when the game was played at old UR Stadium, which has a capacity of around 22k, One JMU Barney calls the UR AD an alcoholic. UR folks refer to JMU fans as "Barneys". JMU fans refer to UR fans as "Ticks". If emotions are running this high in late July, just imagine how bad it could become the week of the game. The game is on Nov.6th.

Fear not, my arachnid friend. The rest of the world hates JMU too.

My apologies to JMU DJ, bandl, and mcveryl. Those guys are pretty cool.

why would you downgrade your stadium size? I know the fact that the stadium is on campus is a big deal but unless there is an expansion plan I don't see why you would sacrifice the $$$ to do that

In order to gain city approval for the on campus stadium, the seating of 8700 was agreed upon. The old stadium is located off campus, not far from downtown Richmond. While that facility seats around 22k, the condition of that stadium is just plain aweful. The old stadium is owned by the city of Richmond, not the University of Richmond. On the University of Richmond campus there is not enough room to build a stadium the size of the old stadium. I would like to see the new stadium seating capacity expanded to around 12k. The University of Richmond is a small private university with an undergrad enrollment of around 2800 to 3000. I don't think it needs a stadium of 22,000.

UR Spiders 2008 FCS National Champions!

jrj1976urspider wrote:In order to gain city approval for the on campus stadium, the seating of 8700 was agreed upon. The old stadium is located off campus, not far from downtown Richmond. While that facility seats around 22k, the condition of that stadium is just plain aweful. The old stadium is owned by the city of Richmond, not the University of Richmond. On the University of Richmond campus there is not enough room to build a stadium the size of the old stadium. I would like to see the new stadium seating capacity expanded to around 12k. The University of Richmond is a small private university with an undergrad enrollment of around 2800 to 3000. I don't think it needs a stadium of 22,000.

UR Spiders 2008 FCS National Champions!

Wofford has an enrollment of about 1350...our Stadium capacity is approximately 15k

you guys can do better

youngterrier wrote:

jrj1976urspider wrote:In order to gain city approval for the on campus stadium, the seating of 8700 was agreed upon. The old stadium is located off campus, not far from downtown Richmond. While that facility seats around 22k, the condition of that stadium is just plain aweful. The old stadium is owned by the city of Richmond, not the University of Richmond. On the University of Richmond campus there is not enough room to build a stadium the size of the old stadium. I would like to see the new stadium seating capacity expanded to around 12k. The University of Richmond is a small private university with an undergrad enrollment of around 2800 to 3000. I don't think it needs a stadium of 22,000.

UR Spiders 2008 FCS National Champions!

Wofford has an enrollment of about 1350...our Stadium capacity is approximately 15k

you guys can do better

And your average attendance was less than Richmond's last year... and less than the new Richmond stadium capacity.

So, not sure what your point is... except that y'all average a half empty stadium.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

youngterrier wrote: Wofford has an enrollment of about 1350...our Stadium capacity is approximately 15k

you guys can do better

And your average attendance was less than Richmond's last year... and less than the new Richmond stadium capacity.

So, not sure what your point is... except that y'all average a half empty stadium.

we were 3-8 last year and Richmond was the defending national champs with many starters back, what do you expect...(I thought it was around 6-8k though)? my point was that Richmond, being of a greater number of students and Alumni, should in fact have a bigger stadium and expect greater attendance than just 8.7k. I thought reading comprehension would have figured my point, but it's clear that you don't possess such skill set from an App state education

apologies to the App State alum who do possess such skills, I just don't think this guy likes me

Richmond's new stadium capacity IS too small! It shows that the program has no ambitions of growing. Richmond is happy where they are at and there is nothing wrong with that. JMU, on the other hand, does have intentions of growing their program/stadium and there is nothing wrong with that either. There is no reason to get in a pissing match over it, but it is what it is. Have fun boys. It will be fun for the next 5 years or so, but I see a day where JMU>Richmond and there won't be any denying it!

Keenan wrote:Richmond's new stadium capacity IS too small! It shows that the program has no ambitions of growing. Richmond is happy where they are at and there is nothing wrong with that. JMU, on the other hand, does have intentions of growing their program/stadium and there is nothing wrong with that either. There is no reason to get in a pissing match over it, but it is what it is. Have fun boys. It will be fun for the next 5 years or so, but I see a day where JMU>Richmond and there won't be any denying it!

Why? Don't CAA teams have a knack of beating MAC or Sun Belt teams in half empty stadiums?

Keenan wrote:Richmond's new stadium capacity IS too small! It shows that the program has no ambitions of growing. Richmond is happy where they are at and there is nothing wrong with that. JMU, on the other hand, does have intentions of growing their program/stadium and there is nothing wrong with that either. There is no reason to get in a pissing match over it, but it is what it is. Have fun boys. It will be fun for the next 5 years or so, but I see a day where JMU>Richmond and there won't be any denying it!

Had you ever even been to the dump that was City Stadium? I think it was made from leftover sheet metal scraps from the Bismarck. From both of my visits to Robins Stadium during it's construction and now completion, the new facility looks top of the line, and there is no reason to believe that in 5-10 years Richmond couldn't have the go ahead from the city, the infrastructure on campus (ingress/egress and perhaps a parking structure), and ample attendance justification to expand the capacity of their facility if they want to. The primary goal of the UR administration and fans was to bring the football program back to campus, and they did. At the end of the day it might be a difficult ticket for visiting fans. Tough $hite for us.

As far as where JMU is in 5 years, who knows. If their 5 year plan involves relegating themselves to a POS conference like the Sun Belch, playing schools they have no history of competition with, having no opportunity to win a national title or gain national prominence, and completely watering down the quality of their student body for purposes of paying for the expansion of their athletics, then they can be gone in my opinion. Hopefully that's not the case.

My brother is a Richmond grad that went there never left the area. As is posted above, Richmond did what they needed to do to get their football out of the dump and back on campus. They do hope to upgrade the surrounding infrastructure so that they can get approval to expand the stadium in the future.

I always liked going to UR games because I felt that they didn't have much, if any of a home field advantage at City Stadium. Now being on campus, with a smaller facility, they will.

JMU, like W&M and other schools will not be able to bring all the fans that they have had in the past to UR. The stadium is now on campus and the home field advantage will increase for both reasons. Good for them. We will have to adjust to it.

The bottom line is they have made their choice and it is there right to do so. UR football tickets just went from undifferentiated commodities to premium products. Their home field advantage went from almost zilch to, I'm guessing significant, since there won't be many visitors there. Every other year it will be harder to compete with them. I can't fault them for that.

youngterrier wrote:we were 3-8 last year

Delaware was 4-8 in 2008 and averaged over 21,000.

Sorry UR fans but, IMO, while architecturally fitting, the size of that stadium is inappropriate for a school fielding one of the top mid-major programs in the country. Got to side with JMU fan on this one.

I understand & agree that a primary motivation for building a new stadium should not be to accomodate fans of visiting schools, however... What D-I school has ever built a new stadium less than half the capacity of their previous one and less than their season average attendance? It makes no sense to further limit demand for tickets while, at the same time, moving games on campus closer to the students.

Strictly from the revenue standpoint, why in God's name would UR want to limit ticket sales and keep away hundreds, if not a few thousand, JMU, W&M, ODU and UD fans willing to pay full price to see a game? How does UR expect to increase it's own fanbase if it's already maxed out capacity? How do you expand a stadium when the tiny campus already has a nightmare on its hands with gameday parking?

Most of all, where will UD play it's next home-away-from-home game when our administration screws up again?

How can you really knock Richmond for just having to deal with the reality of the situation. They were never going to be able to build a similar size stadium of what they used to have on campus. Of course they would've built it bigger if they could've, but they weren't allowed to. At least this way, they get the stadium on campus and later they can expand it up to 12k or 13k. And let's be real, they are not going the JMU route. Eventually, JMU is going to want to be a low level FBS team and they will leave the CAA - Richmond is never going to want to do that. They don't need a 20k+ stadium for their ambitions and that's fine. So the stadium is on the small side for a few years? Big deal. Eventually it will be big enough for what they need, they'll have it on campus (which should be a big selling point considering most of the people complaining about the stadium come from schools with their stadiums already on campus), and they're going to have an incredibly good home field advantage. All Richmond needs to worry about it what works for Richmond, and they've done that. Good for them.

GannonFan wrote:How can you really knock Richmond for just having to deal with the reality of the situation. They were never going to be able to build a similar size stadium of what they used to have on campus. Of course they would've built it bigger if they could've, but they weren't allowed to. At least this way, they get the stadium on campus and later they can expand it up to 12k or 13k. And let's be real, they are not going the JMU route. Eventually, JMU is going to want to be a low level FBS team and they will leave the CAA - Richmond is never going to want to do that. They don't need a 20k+ stadium for their ambitions and that's fine. So the stadium is on the small side for a few years? Big deal. Eventually it will be big enough for what they need, they'll have it on campus (which should be a big selling point considering most of the people complaining about the stadium come from schools with their stadiums already on campus), and they're going to have an incredibly good home field advantage. All Richmond needs to worry about it what works for Richmond, and they've done that. Good for them.

What he said.

GannonFan wrote:How can you really knock Richmond for just having to deal with the reality of the situation. They were never going to be able to build a similar size stadium of what they used to have on campus. Of course they would've built it bigger if they could've, but they weren't allowed to. At least this way, they get the stadium on campus and later they can expand it up to 12k or 13k. And let's be real, they are not going the JMU route. Eventually, JMU is going to want to be a low level FBS team and they will leave the CAA - Richmond is never going to want to do that. They don't need a 20k+ stadium for their ambitions and that's fine. So the stadium is on the small side for a few years? Big deal. Eventually it will be big enough for what they need, they'll have it on campus (which should be a big selling point considering most of the people complaining about the stadium come from schools with their stadiums already on campus), and they're going to have an incredibly good home field advantage. All Richmond needs to worry about it what works for Richmond, and they've done that. Good for them.

I agree that over time (4, 5 seasons tops) demand will cause supply to be increased, to perhaps 13K, and it won't be an issue with the local politicans and neighborhoods. (and increase the visitor's allotment by 600-800 )

93henfan wrote:
Fear not, my arachnid friend. The rest of the world hates JMU too.

My apologies to JMU DJ, bandl, and mcveryl. Those guys are pretty cool.

GannonFan wrote:How can you really knock Richmond for just having to deal with the reality of the situation.

Because no one was kicking them out of University of Richmond (now, City) Stadium. Yes, the place was not beautiful and needed updating, was not close to campus, but moving was not a necessity. There was plenty of parking, plenty of capacity to accomodate higher demand games (especially with ODU coming on) and easy access in and out. The old stadium was not hurting UR's ability to recruit top notch players.

I've yet to hear the plan to update the capacity of their field beyond 9K. Even with the tiny digs, they are already going to have trouble parking people on or near the campus, nevermind moving the traffic on the campus roads on gameday. The FB crowd is not the same as the hoops crowd. Much to the neighbors' chagrin, the FB ticket holders are not likely to park for two and a half hours and promptly leave. Chances are better that UR will never be able to expand that field beyond a few hundred.

IMO, UR made this move with something very specific in mind and it probably doesn't include CAA FB over the long haul. The school that initially hesitated and was the last to join the CAA when they took over control of the FB league, appears to be moving in a direction opposite other schools in the conference.

JMU appears to have a different agenda than many of the schools it plays in FCS. Thats fine, its their prerogative, but why do they get so upset with the other schools and start the name calling???

If you don't like FCS football, fine leave. If you do, we enjoy the rivalry and you have done well. Do what is best for you.

There is no need to try and dictate to others what is right for them.

jrj1976urspider wrote:Over the last couple of weeks there has been a fierce war or words between fans of the two schools over Robins Stadium. In several posts JMU fans sneer at the capacity of Richmond's on campus stadium that is scheduled to host its first game on the 18th of Sept. The stadium capacity is 8700. It seems to me that many of the JMU posters are upset that hords of JMU alums will no longer be able to invade the game at Richmond like they did when the game was played at old UR Stadium, which has a capacity of around 22k, One JMU Barney calls the UR AD an alcoholic. UR folks refer to JMU fans as "Barneys". JMU fans refer to UR fans as "Ticks". If emotions are running this high in late July, just imagine how bad it could become the week of the game. The game is on Nov.6th.

????

Is this on another board? I don't remember any particular mud being slung, and certainly not by me. I'm on record as saying that I think it's a great stadium and being on campus will make it that much more of an appealing game to go to.

LeadBolt wrote:JMU appears to have a different agenda than many of the schools it plays in FCS. Thats fine, its their prerogative, but why do they get so upset with the other schools and start the name calling???

If you don't like FCS football, fine leave. If you do, we enjoy the rivalry and you have done well. Do what is best for you.

There is no need to try and dictate to others what is right for them.

Again, ????

Have I missed something? I'm not saying we don't have unruly fans, but I just having seen this "plain hate" here.

Oh, and I completely agree with GF, I just hope that he's wrong about the FBS deal.

"The place was not beautiful and needed updating" - Whose responsibility to accomplish this? We paid City of Richmond $1 per year in rent ... who's to say they don't jack up the rent and still not offer any updating.

"The old stadium was not hurting UR's ability to recruit top notch players". - Most recruits weren't even taken to City Stadium because it was such an eyesore. We already have a couple verbals for 2011. How many do you have?

"I've yet to hear the plan to update the capacity of the field beyond 9k" - We'll make sure to put you at the top of the email list when announcements are made.

"UR made this move with something very specific in mind and it probably doesn't include CAA FB over the long haul." - What is CAA football over the long haul? Northern schools are looking at other options because of geography. Other schools (ODU, JMU, Ga State, even Nova are looking at FBS).

We are happy in FCS football. There are plenty of other schools happy with FCS football. If we have to move to the SoCon or the Patriot because the CAA breaks up, we'll be glad to do it (and those conferences will be happy to have us).

henfan wrote:

GannonFan wrote:How can you really knock Richmond for just having to deal with the reality of the situation.

Because no one was kicking them out of University of Richmond (now, City) Stadium. Yes, the place was not beautiful and needed updating, was not close to campus, but moving was not a necessity. There was plenty of parking, plenty of capacity to accomodate higher demand games (especially with ODU coming on) and easy access in and out. The old stadium was not hurting UR's ability to recruit top notch players.

I've yet to hear the plan to update the capacity of their field beyond 9K. Even with the tiny digs, they are already going to have trouble parking people on or near the campus, nevermind moving the traffic on the campus roads on gameday. The FB crowd is not the same as the hoops crowd. Much to the neighbors' chagrin, the FB ticket holders are not likely to park for two and a half hours and promptly leave. Chances are better that UR will never be able to expand that field beyond a few hundred.

IMO, UR made this move with something very specific in mind and it probably doesn't include CAA FB over the long haul. The school that initially hesitated and was the last to join the CAA when they took over control of the FB league, appears to be moving in a direction opposite other schools in the conference.

UR Stadium was a dump, was too far from campus, and there were constant rumblings from the City that they wanted to tear it down and create more housing as it was not an "appropriate" location for a stadium. So UR was in many ways "forced" to consider the alternatives. The best alternative was to move on campus, and play there for the first time since 1929. So UR worked with the City of Richmond to see what they would be allowed to build. When all the neighborhood complaints, and the parking situation on campus was taken into consideration, the City allowed a special use permit for a stadium with 8,700 seats. So that is what UR built. Now once the neighborhood sees that the games cause no more problems than most all the games at the Robins Center Arena (maybe less as people come over different times and do not all leave at once), I would think UR will add another set of bleachers behind the South Endzone, boosting capacity to 10,300 or so. Once UR builds the parking deck on the lot between the Robins Center and the Pitt Field Baseball stadium, I would love to see UR lower the field, remove the track, and enlarge capacity to the 14-15K range. But for a 2800 undergrad population and the alumni, this is a great stadium! To say that the team that won the national title just 18 months ago is now not on the same page as the rest of the CAA is just ridiculous. You realize, back when UR hesitated in joining the CAA for Football, the school had a very different President, one who did not really value the contributions that athletics can make to a university. We now have one who does. Yes we may not be looking to make a move back up to the FBS, but we certainly are looking to compete at the highest levels of FCS long into the future.

mcveyrl wrote:
????

Is this on another board? I don't remember any particular mud being slung, and certainly not by me. I'm on record as saying that I think it's a great stadium and being on campus will make it that much more of an appealing game to go to.

Well most of the discussion has gone on over on the JMU Board on CAAZone, Richmond's Rivals site, and on discussions started by the OP on the Richmond Times Dispatch site. I would say most JMU and CAA fans in general on here and on AGS have been nothing but complementary to the new stadium, as they in general experience the "loveliness" that was old UR Stadium. I think the OP is trying to stir the pot a little.