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Joe Albi stadium

E

Eagledawg

Active member
With the athletic dept. always under financial strain I was just wondering if it makes any since to play a game in Joe Albi stadium. I live on the West side of the state and have never seen Joe Albi but remember the cougars use to play there and I think it seats about 25,000. Would it be a big enough money maker to play one marque game a year there such as Montana? Would Montana bring more fans if they had more tickets avail? Would more Spokane people attend who otherwise might not? The cougars do this with a game in Seattle at the Clink and so do the Zags with the battle in Seattle. This would be a temporary just until the Gateway project could be completed and might even speed it up. What do you think is Joe Albi a possibility or is it a dump?

How about this for thinking outside the box, play a home and home with the UW but play EWU's home game at the Clink. Sure it might be full of Husky fans but EWU would probably clear more than the payout for playing at Husky stadium. The Huskies did this with Air Force a few years ago. The Huskies play at Boise State in 2015 their stadium holds 31,000, I wonder what their payout is?

Is any of this a possibility or is it stupid talk?
 
Eastern started playing at Joe Albi Stadium in the 80's when they joined the Big Sky and through part of the 90's. The students decided they wanted the games back on campus and I think that was the right call. Playing games in Spokane only contributed to the notion that Eastern was a "commuter school" back then. Ultimately, the solution is to continue to invest in the infrastructure of the Cheney campus, and the stadium is a huge part of that. I wouldn't support playing games at Joe Albi unless it was some sort of one-off deal that was going to bring a much larger gate than playing in Cheney (where you are pretty much limited to 11k-ish folks).

On your second point, I don't ever see us getting a home and home with a Pac-12, be it with whoever. We used to play some games against Idaho at Joe Albi after they "moved up", but those kind of games kinda went by the way-side a while ago.
 
EWURanger said: I wouldn't support playing games at Joe Albi unless it was some sort of one-off deal that was going to bring a much larger gate than playing in Cheney (where you are pretty much limited to 11k-ish folks).

That was my point, don't move all the games to Joe Albi, just one game a year that could/would draw more than Roos. Say it was a big showdown type of game playing Montana at Joe Albi how many fans would attend? 15,000? 20,000? 8,000? If it less than 10,000 then I have serious doubts about the gateway project expanding to 18,000. If you could play one game there and draw 15,000 then I would say the gateway project would be justified. Don't get me wrong. I don't want games at Joe Albi but one game a year might be worth it if it was to speed up the gate way project.

Anybody: Throw out some numbers on top attendance for a really big game? I use Montana because they would probably travel the most. Would Montana travel more people if Eastern had a bigger venue?
 
WAY too many negatives for playing at Joe Albi

1.) The players love the red turf and the red turf was put in for a reason.

2.) We played the Montana schools at Joe Albi prior to 2004, the turnout was always good, but heavily in favor of the visiting team. Not much fun to play in front of 12000 griz fans and 5000 ewu fans on your home field. If we played the Griz there every year, the Griz would buy out 2/3 of the tickets...even with our increased attendance

3.) Its only 15 miles but we would lose a good portion of our student attendance

4.) Its not our home field

5.) Even if we sold out the 25,000 seats for Albi, it would only raise pennies compared to what we need for the budget and especially the gateway project.

Its a decent stadium but I doubt its even being considered for a game...
 
marceagfan5 said:
WAY too many negatives for playing at Joe Albi

1.) The players love the red turf and the red turf was put in for a reason.

2.) We played the Montana schools at Joe Albi prior to 2004, the turnout was always good, but heavily in favor of the visiting team. Not much fun to play in front of 12000 griz fans and 5000 ewu fans on your home field. If we played the Griz there every year, the Griz would buy out 2/3 of the tickets...even with our increased attendance

3.) Its only 15 miles but we would lose a good portion of our student attendance

4.) Its not our home field

5.) Even if we sold out the 25,000 seats for Albi, it would only raise pennies compared to what we need for the budget and especially the gateway project.

Its a decent stadium but I doubt its even being considered for a game...
Click to expand...

:+1: The increase in attendance this past season was tremendous and starting the year pre-season #1 should benefit the brand further. A win over UW wouldn't hurt either :-) A man's got to dream!
 
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