Plans for stadium at JSU reach stalemate
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704010330
April 1, 2007
Plans for stadium at JSU reach stalemate
By Sid Salter
[email protected]
From the standpoint that Mississippi State, Ole Miss, USM, Alcorn, Valley and Delta State all have on-campus football stadiums, Jackson State University has a compelling argument that Mississippi taxpayers should help the school build a similar facility for JSU's "Blue Bengal" Tigers.
For many JSU fans and for many African-American Mississippians, the argument begins and ends in that obvious inequity. The old JSU Alumni Field stadium was torn down to make room for a new science building and the Tigers have played at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson since 1967.
DOLLARS AND SENSE
Yet from almost every other aspect, the new stadium push for JSU makes zero fiscal sense and precious little common sense.
The current proposal to fund a new stadium for JSU called for $66 million in bonds to build a 45,000-seat stadium. The stadium would be located from Terry Road and Gallatin Street to the edge of the Lynch Street campus in west Jackson, in keeping with city revitalization plans.
The bill authorizing the bonds died in the Senate Finance Committee this year. But the issue isn't going away.
During the 2006 season - a rebuilding year, to be sure - JSU football averaged an attendance of 18,750 fans at five games at Veterans Memorial Stadium - a stadium that seats 60,492. The high attendance was the Southern University game with 37,907 fans and the low attendance was the Alabama A&M game with only 8,453.
Memorial Stadium will hold over 60,000 fans. The stadium recently had a $15 million renovation.
The stadium is costing Mississippi taxpayers about $1.425 million in operating costs based on its 2006 budget. Excluding TV rights and other revenue items, JSU's share of receipts at the stadium in 2006 was in the range of $1.5 million with the school getting 93 percent of gate receipts and half of concession and parking revenues.
Those numbers suggest that for JSU to generate operating funds sufficient to operate a new stadium, significant growth in attendance fueled by a winning product on the field is only a small first step toward sustaining a new stadium.
THREE LEGS OF TRIPOD
To succeed with a new stadium, Jackson State will need what State and Ole Miss got in their stadium expansion programs:
The financial support of local government through local tax revenues dedicated toward stadium construction or expansion projects.
Alumni participation in significant private sector investment in the project - whether by direct capital donation or through a major program of skybox rentals and other modern-era revenue enhancements.
Significant support from athletic foundation programs.
For JSU to erase its status as the only Mississippi football playing university without an on-campus stadium, all three legs of the stadium development tripod have to be in place - state support, local government support and alumni support. I hope that support comes.
Tearing down a 60,000-seat stadium to build a 45,000-seat stadium for a school that's averaging 18,750 fans per football game is a difficult proposition. But it will never sell without Jackson and JSU's alums stepping up to the goal line with the Legislature.
That's how it got done in Oxford and in Starkville.
