An arena here, an arena there, pretty soon you’re talking real money…
So, baseball’s the new thing at the UO, in case you hadn’t noticed, which means the Athletic Department is going to have to build a brand new baseball stadium. These are some big plans for a brand new AD who was brought in to essentially ensure the building of a new basketball arena. So, new basketball arena, new baseball stadium, a new learning center for athletes… no wonder professors have been harping about Athletics expenditures all year. The baseball announcement has created a new window for criticism, and much of it makes a good deal of sense. Biology prof Nathan Tublitz’ piece in the Register Guard today sticks it to Kilkenny on a number of fronts, including financing and space rental…
How will erecting an arena “continue to pump money back into the university’s budget”? No funds currently flow on a regular or irregular basis from athletics to academics, and there are no plans for such flows to occur. Moreover, if the arena fails to generate sufficient income to make the loan payments, funds will be diverted from academics to athletics.
I’ve been against plans for a new arena from the get go… McArthur rules, and with a little work it could be even better. Also, why can’t we let baseball be the Beavers thing? We already have basketball and football, right? Isn’t it kind of pathetic for us to jump into a new sport just because the Beavs are doing well at it? Then again, maybe Kilkenny’s just trying to stick it to the Em’s. Either way, it all seems a little “color changing helmet“-ish to me.
I FUCKING knew it.
Fuck, there goes my cover.
I’m starting to think Meghann is Bono.
“If you think about it logically, why would Kilkenny take up a second huge project like that? He already has his hands full with the new arena. But you all can go ahead and keep feeding the rumor mill about a new stadium because I know how people like to get off on that.”
No one was saying the stadium will happen immediately. But to think that Kilkenny, Knight and co will be content playing at Civic Stadium for years to come is erroneous. It could be the next project after the arena.
Student housing money paid for the research park land. Maybe putting something on it that students could get more use out of would be a good thing.
Whatever. I don’t really have an opinion way or the other about most of this stuff, I just like throwing ideas out there for people to chew on.
One thing I will say, though, is that baseball is, hands down, the greatest sport ever. No question. I grew up watching my brothers play and will always, always love the game. Long live UO baseball….
Ossie, I missed you so much. My heart has longed for you since Finals Week.
I think you may have mistaken my comment. I really do dislike Bono because he is a poor excuse for the world’s largest humanitarian, and Al Gore is right there in the glove compartment. Also, wicked hangovers are always funny.
Well, I was just making a crude joke comparing Bono and Al Gore to complement the other crude joke I made on the same subject upthread, and then I followed it up by making a further crude joke about Bono, Gore, and Bob Geldof. None of them were particularly funny, but I’m nursing a wicked hangover today, so I don’t much care.
Anyways, I’m going to go get off by feeding the rumor mill some more.
Like I said, I heard from a close source that building a new park is not what Kilkenny or the athletic department wants to do right now. Maybe in the future this will become an option, but for the opening seasons, the UO baseball team will most likely be playing at Civic.
If you think about it logically, why would Kilkenny take up a second huge project like that? He already has his hands full with the new arena. But you all can go ahead and keep feeding the rumor mill about a new stadium because I know how people like to get off on that.
As for the new arena: it is going to happen, so it really is not worth debating about. Sure, Mac Court is awesome, but its just like that old dirty pair of jeans that you don’t want to throw away.
Meghann: as you hinted at, and as Kilkenny said in an ODE article (something along the lines of “it’s a good piece of real estate”), I think Mac Court will be coming down within the next 5 to 10 years. Of course there will be an uproar about it, and yes Ted, the students did build it, but that was a almost a century ago and these are different times. If the University decided to renovate Mac Court, it would just be in the same situation in a few decades when it starts falling apart again; eventually a new arena has to be built and this is the time to do it.
Everyone needs to stop whining about what has already been set in motion and start focusing on what is happening. Phil Knight and many others are going to come through with huge donations to build the new arena because Kilkenny, who is a down to earth “good ol’ boy” type of businessman, was hired as the AD. What we need to focus on is that the University builds the best damn college basketball arena in the nation. If only Howard Roark were around these days to design it for us.
And everyone who is saying that the University brought back baseball just because of the success of Oregon State is as wrong as sexy blond girls who date athletes just because they are athletes. This is something that many, many University of Oregon supporters have wanted for a long time; bringing back the national pastime to Eugene collegiate athletics is a time for some big fucking celebration.
Frankly, I’m tired of the all the criticism towards the athletic department. I would go further into my opinions on the issue, but I need another beer so maybe some other time.
Vincent: I’m pretty sure that Bono did have his greedy little hands in the creation of Live Earth. I hate Bono.
The thing about a baseball stadium at the research park makes a lot of sense. That park is a bust as it is.
Bono Goredof might disapprove.
Couldn’t they just plow under the softball fields to make room for baseball? Take that, similar but different sports game!
No, that’s Bob Geldof.
Isn’t Bono that guy who organized Live Earth?
Wait, why aren’t we talking about Metalilca anymore?
Anyways, Niedermeyer is dead-on about Mac Court. It is a historic landmark, and beloved by Oregon fans. A new arena might be fancy, but I don’t think it’s going to be the same for people — call it the “Roboduck effect”. Refurbishing Mac Court makes all the sense in the world.
I’m not so sure he’s right about Civic Stadium, though. The University might not want Civic Stadium per se, but that land could be re-developed. On the other hand, I’ve been hearing talk of building the new baseball stadium down at the Riverfront Research Park area.
From what I heard, Kilkenny is not interested in building a new baseball park and most likely will have to negotiate something between the Ems and the school district for Civic.
And Bono sucks.
“it will need to be booked for a minimum amount of cultural events to pay its loans off (honk if you can relate to this)”
Is “booking cultural events” the newest and best euphemism for turning tricks?
Yes.
Not to detract from the Metallica deconstruction, but…
The problem isn’t that the new basketball arena will be used for cultural events, it’s that it will need to be booked for a minimum amount of cultural events to pay its loans off (honk if you can relate to this). For me it comes down to the fact that they could spend half or a quarter of the cost of the arena ($200 million) on Mac Court, and have a landmark, historic arena with modern locker rooms, restrooms, seating etc, which would also become an icon of adaptive reuse and a reminder that there is more to Duck athletic heritage than ridiculous uniforms and Onterrio’s whizinator.
Also, the UO won’t buy Civic because they don’t want it. It’s impossible to fill up and it’s very old and needs a lot of work. I’m not a fan of the switch to baseball, but now that the decision has been made, they should just build a damn field, and keep it nice and small. I remain convinced though, that the basketball arena should be sacrificed at the altar of imperial overstretch… along with Iraq and Rosie O’Donnell’s sweatpants.
They’re sellouts to the RIAA, and also the cause of global warming.
Now that’s just silly, Tim. Metallica has several extremely skilled and well-trained musicians. Instrumental ability is not their problem.
(Their problem would be that they are increasingly brain-dead egomaniacs and always were a bit too into HP Lovecraft in an embarrassingly pre-teen way.)
Metallica would be an all right band if they’d learn to play instruments.
Alright. I’ll lower the hate. Instead, I’m going to fucking shred out to some old-school Metallica.
METAL. UP. YOUR. ASS.
…
…
(and go Ducks.)
I started playing ball for UO my freshman year in 02 and even then we were working hard to bring baseball back to UO. I believe baseball was the first sport at UO, fact check me if I am wrong. So saying that we JUST now decided to bring baseball back to UO like it is some brand new thing is not accurate. Ever since we lost it in the 80’s people have been working to bring it back. Plus, since 04′ the club team has won regionals and gone to the World Series for the NCBA. That certainly has helped create a lot of support to bring it back. Plus it will def. bring it more money than wrestling ever did for the school and surrounding community. Finally we wont be the only pac-10 school without a team. I wish you guys could lower the hate a bit and show some support to baseball coming back. Go Ducks.
Are we talking about arenas?
Why must you always tear down? Why can you never build up?
Now you can begin to heal.
You’ve uncovered my deepest, darkest secret!
You’re way prettier, Dan.
Oh, but deep down you “don’t really root for any of the Ducks teams” because you love them. So you are secretly thrilled to have a new Duck team to not really root for.
Admit it!
I’m Laura Schlessinger, bitch!
That’s where you’re wrong, Danimal, because I don’t really root for any of the Ducks teams as it is. Why would I start now? So quit faking the tough-love-truth-telling.
Everyone here currently deriding Ducks baseball as a stupid joke will be rooting for them as soon as they take the field. So quit faking the critical thinking.
Let them play in the atrium at Willamette Hall, I don’t fucking care. I’m tired of this Beavers hegemony. Given OSU’s PAC-10 performance this year, we at least stand a chance of some meaningless victories during long, beer-addled double-headers. Which is 97% of what baseball is about.
If a team doesn’t exist, it can’t have the dumbest uniforms ever.
Um, dude… Duck’s baseball was a joke the moment they announced it.
Well, but demolishing the thing would probably provoke major outcry and bad PR for the Frohn, it’d be like a Westmoreland that somebody other than students cared about (and therefore worthy of noting the outrage). Plus its not nearly as opulent as just building a huge, pointless stadium someplace else. I wonder how long it will be before Duck’s baseball is the same kind of joke Duck’s football has become? I’m putting the over/under at 2009.
I dunno, man. The University is ever-acquisitive. Borg-like, even. Buying the land and demolishing a historical landmark like Civic Stadium might “make sense”, but it’d also be a huge waste of money and serve no real purpose given all of the good reasons outlined above why having another college baseball team in Oregon is pointless.
In other words, it’s going to happen: it’s just a matter of when.
But, Vince, that move might make some fucking sense. The Frohn and the AD will never have it.
First: Aren’t arenas commonly rented out when there aren’t sporting events taking place? I seem to remember Sting, Bob Dylan, and Norm Macdonald (among others) performing at Mac Court.
Second: Just have the baseball team play at the basketball arena…it could be like arena football. It could be 120 feet to dead center, 95 down the lines…sure, the purists would hate it, but chicks dig the long ball.
Anyways, on the topic of Civic Stadium, I don’t see it as being too far beyond the realm of possibility for the UO to buy out the land from 4J so they can build a new state-of-the-art baseball stadium with the promise that 4J teams and the Ems will still get to use the field.
U2? Isn’t that the money-making organization fronted by some egomaniacal scold whose head is too far up his own ass to recognize his own nauseatingly blatant hypocrisy?
No, no. Al Gore can’t sing. The other one.
I think that is literally the last concert that happened at Autzen, though. Neighbors raised a ruckus about the noise and now only football gets to echo across the city.
Autzen got used for that U2 POP-MART tour. You remember U2, right?
I think it’s 40 days, not 40 hours. I’m not taking sides here, but it seems like the argument could be made that it’s a good thing to use the arena for more than just sports. I’ve always found it funny that a facility as nice as Autzen is fully utilized only a handful of days a year. I know UO guys have said the arena will be used for other events, but I think they tend to refer to them as “cultural events” rather than “circuses, pop concerts, motorcycle racing and other traveling shows.” Heh.
One thing I’m thinking about is the fact that university officials have said that, even if an arena is built, Mac Court will stay because they need it for other sports like wrestling. With wrestling getting the ax and the university being as landlocked as it is, I wonder if this isn’t a sign that Mac Court could go in favor of a baseball facility?
Who knows. I’m probably way off the mark, but that’s what blogs are for. Unsubstantiated rumor mongering.
They might have a conflict with the high school teams, I guess…or they don’t want to be embarrassed when South Eugene kicks UO’s ass.
Civic Stadium is owned by the Eugene School District 4J. Maybe that complicates things?
Why not just lease the Ems stadium? That’d probably be easier.
Well, they could build a dome for the boys if they wanted to be upstaged by the softball team, who plays outdoors at Howe Field. Domes are way to expensive for collegiate baseball, and anyone who grows up playing ball in the northwest knows how to sop up water off of the field to make it playable.
I just think the whole baseball thing is a bad idea … they are only getting into it because of the success of the OSU team, but if anything, all of the good local recruits will still go to OSU anyway because they are two-time defending national champions.
Jealousy is never a good reason to start a team, although it does give the U of O a reason to cut wrestling, which has never been able to compete with the midwest leagues.
40 hours a year is a single work week, doesn’t seem like that much. But they’re building a dome, I presume? I guess you’d have to in Eugene, with so much of the baseball season during the rainy spring. ‘Course the Ems play outside, but they’re short seasons 1A so it’s not like they’re actually playing baseball.
I met Joe Beerbong at Taylor’s last night, and he’s still pissed about paying for Mac Court.
Just kidding … I never go to Taylor’s.
From the Tublitz commentary:
“More worrisome is that in order to make the loan payments, the arena will have to be rented out about 40 days each year for circuses, pop concerts, motorcycle racing and other traveling shows. That’s like buying too big a house and having to rent out rooms to pay the mortgage.”
I haven’t done the research, but I believe everything I read in the RG. Then again, I also don’t know the local entertainment biz well enough to know if 40 hrs a year is a realistic goal for “making” loan payments. On the whole, I guess we’re lucky though… Mac Court was built entirely with student (ASUO) dollars, so at least this time Joe Beerbong isn’t being asked to foot the bill.
Unlikely, as the AD is independently funded. It’s the only one in the PAC-10 that’s set up to be self-sufficient. There’s a lot of worthy scorn to be heaped on building a baseball stadium, sure, but that bit isn’t really accurate as far as I know. Then again, I’m sick of having to root for OSU in the College World Series every year….
Maybe they’ll open up the baseball stadium 24 hours during dead and finals week so students can go and study.