Silenoz wrote:I personally think the red and black would look cool as hell (/duck)
Besides, EWU may as well try something to make their stadium stand out from those of AA high schools.
The first issue was; we needed stadium improvements. Field turf was one of the options along with increased and improved seating. The seating improves the experience for the fans, while the turf helps with recruiting and on field performance for a program built on speed (Woodward Field's natural turf is like U.S. Open rough in September, and a monster truck rally in November). We average 5500 attendance in a 10,000 seat capacity stadium. So I'm ok with the turf decision until the attendance numbers come up.
The second issue is that even with a terrific product on the field, playoff teams, and the occassional NFL athlete, we are still losing fans, including alumni, who drive an extra hour down the road to watch Idaho or a 1-12 WSU team because they have larger marketing budgets and are WAC and PAC-10.
So while the marketing factor may not amount to much nationally, it should create a substantial amount of press locally, perhaps even regionally which can make all the difference in the world. Get local football fans, high school players and coaches from Spokane to take the short, 20 minute drive out to Cheney to see a very entertaining and successful product, and they just might return. And better name recognition within our recruiting region can't hurt. I'm also guessing there will be a whole bunch more video clips of EWU home games on FSN and NW Cable News at least for this upcoming year than before which, again, can't hurt.
We'll see about ugly. As mentioned earlier, sometimes ugly is beautiful as in Montana's copper and gold (ugliest and best uni's ever) and can become a sense of pride.
I just hope they move the track.