[Farm93]

"The Bears will add to the weirdness ahead by moving their bench to the west sideline, leaving the student section right behind the visitors' bench on the east side."

For a cash-strapped athletics department, kal seems to have forgotten that seats right behind team benches can command fairly high ticket prices.  Put the students where you want, but sell tickets and get your debt-laden sinkhole of a department budget some help.

https://www.si.com/college/cal/news/wiln...c-finances

The other part of the equation is the value of placing students where they will most likely be on TV during game action.   For example, for Stanford it is a horrible look that the "Sunny" side is often empty, or worse loaded with visitors.   There could be a revenue hit compared to sticking them in an endzone, but presumably it would be offset by building a better stadium environment reputation for those watching on TV.   The impression of a bad stadium environment hurts recruiting and conference realignment negotations.   I would slide the students to 135, 136, 137 and 138 so that they are visible on TV when the team takes the field and would appear in background from many camera positions during game action.

The sunny was never as popular with older fans because of its potential to cook fans during day games, but now that Stanford is in the ACC I would guess Stanford's only day game at home this season will be the Cal Poly SLO game next week.    Older fans remember those sunny side experiences, but new students have no idea and probably would have no preference.    A similar logic applies for the football team too.   I recall the big advantage of the original move was for the Stanford football team to get into the shade, but if all of the ACC games are at night it might be nice to have our team in the background of the TV shots too.

And then because the shady side commands a higher donation premium, the AD could then have access to the current student seats.   And those are seats that alums value more...at least based on the current donation requirements for equivalent sunny vs shady seats.

[Farm93]

"The Bears will add to the weirdness ahead by moving their bench to the west sideline, leaving the student section right behind the visitors' bench on the east side."

For a cash-strapped athletics department, kal seems to have forgotten that seats right behind team benches can command fairly high ticket prices.  Put the students where you want, but sell tickets and get your debt-laden sinkhole of a department budget some help.

https://www.si.com/college/cal/news/wiln...c-finances

The other part of the equation is the value of placing students where they will most likely be on TV during game action.   For example, for Stanford it is a horrible look that the "Sunny" side is often empty, or worse loaded with visitors.   There could be a revenue hit compared to sticking them in an endzone, but presumably it would be offset by building a better stadium environment reputation for those watching on TV.   The impression of a bad stadium environment hurts recruiting and conference realignment negotations.   I would slide the students to 135, 136, 137 and 138 so that they are visible on TV when the team takes the field and would appear in background from many camera positions during game action.

The sunny was never as popular with older fans because of its potential to cook fans during day games, but now that Stanford is in the ACC I would guess Stanford's only day game at home this season will be the Cal Poly SLO game next week.    Older fans remember those sunny side experiences, but new students have no idea and probably would have no preference.    A similar logic applies for the football team too.   I recall the big advantage of the original move was for the Stanford football team to get into the shade, but if all of the ACC games are at night it might be nice to have our team in the background of the TV shots too.

And then because the shady side commands a higher donation premium, the AD could then have access to the current student seats.   And those are seats that alums value more...at least based on the current donation requirements for equivalent sunny vs shady seats.