Nov. 11, 2009

Seats on the Fifty. The ultimate football ticket has always been square in the middle of the field. Last week, a seat on the fifty for LSU at Alabama fetched just under $600. That happens to be about the market price for a similar seat for Ohio State at Michigan later this month. The Indianapolis Colts have two big home games over the next six weeks, with midfield tickets ranging upwards of a cool grand when New England and Denver visit during the NFL homestretch.

Turn ninety degrees from midfield, however, and you're in the end zone, the new frontier of football stadiums nationwide. Once eschewed as the backwater of viewing options, end zone seats have been widened and padded and elevated and packaged with creature comforts at stadium expansions everywhere. Just a few steps away, you're likely to find rare roast beef, your favorite import and wireless internet. Fans who swore they'd never move from midfield have moved lock, stock and barrel to the end of the field.

There they have discovered what football coaches studying film and video game programmers have always known: You can actually see more from the end zone. The traditional sideline angle skews depth and distorts distance, and there's no sense of spacing or watching the running and passing lanes evolve. Can you imagine playing NCAA Football or Madden from the sideline angle?

Fans have caught on at the University of Alabama, which has recently sold approximately 2,200 premium end zone seats in The Zone on the north side of Bryant-Denny Stadium and has plans for more in the south end zone.

"When people say they like watching games on the fifty or the sideline or wherever, I tell them that when pro scouts come to evaluate players, the only camera they look at is the end zone camera," says Robby Robertson, the director of development for athletics at Alabama. "There is no question: Our end zone seats are the hottest seats in our stadium."

They have seen the end zone light at Clemson University, which has 1,004 seats in its WestZone Club that opened for the 2006 season.

"Almost everyone that purchased seats in our WestZone maintained their outside seats for the first year in case they didn't like the angle," says Tim Match, associate athletic director for marketing at Clemson. "After the first season in the WestZone, no one went back to their outside seats."

Virginia Tech had few worries during the early part of the decade in selling 11,000 seats in bleacher, bench-back and private suite configurations at Lane Stadium when it enclosed its south end zone. Tech fans can enjoy a pre-game buffet and then watch from the same view an opposing punter has with all the firepower and furor of a Beamer Ball punt rush descending upon him.

"Our fans enjoy the perspective in the end zone," says Lu Merritt, director of development for intercollegiate athletics at Virginia Tech. "Personally, I enjoy watching from there and seeing the plays develop. At times it appears the touchdown is coming right into the suite."

And the end zone has been embraced at the University of Texas, which two years ago razed its old north side horseshoe and replaced it with more than 4,000 premium seats and 44 luxury suites.

"Our premium end zone seats are probably the best deal in the stadium for what you get," says Jim Baker, the director of athletic facilities at Texas. "Particularly with the 30- and 40-year-old group, they are very popular. Last year with the economy, we weren't sure what to expect, but we had about 60 of those seats come up for '09 and we sold them very quickly."

Carolina officials are embarking on a similar initiative for Kenan Memorial Stadium, which hasn't had a seating expansion since the west end zone was bowled in and the Pope Box constructed atop the north stands between the 1996 and '97 seasons. The Blue Zone will be located at the east end and will feature four new seating opportunities with price levels based on the amenity package. The common thread will be to offer an experience founded on proximity to the playing field and a variety of "creature comforts"--including buffet dining, beverages, private restrooms and plenty of televisions.

"The Blue Zone offers our fans an option we have not seen in our stadium in 12 years," says Karlton Creech, the Rams Club's director of tickets and parking. "The Pope Box was wildly successful, and the demand has existed since then. We have had a pent-up demand for premium seats. That has been the driving force for the east end zone."

The master plan for the expansion and renovation of Kenan Stadium, originally opened in 1927, comprises multiple phases. The first phase was completed this August and included adding a fifth floor to the Kenan Football Center on the west end and reconfiguring the existing office and meeting space on the second and fourth floors.

Now Phase II commences with two goals in mind: Meet the demand for premium seating and replace the antiquated original field house on the east side. The Carolina Student-Athlete Center for Excellence will house academic support, an Olympic sport weight room, lacrosse and visiting football team locker rooms and additional athletic department office space. This phase, in effect, is not so much about football as it is providing some 800 Tar Heel athletes with quality space to train and study. The existing building has been cobbled together dozens of times over eight decades and is moldy, dusty, creaky and far too cramped.

University officials considered a variety of plans and ideas for the east end zone. One concept included a grassy hill with the new building set behind it. Another idea was to construct a mirror-image of the west end zone enclosure. But after studying what football hotbeds such as Texas, Clemson, Alabama and Virginia Tech had done with successful end zone expansions in recent years, the Tar Heel hierarchy arrived at the current Blue Zone plan.

"We knew there might be some initial perception issues about end zone seats, so we said, `Let's make these the best end zone seats we can create,'" Creech says. "I think we've done that. The seats are right on top of the field and they have great angles. Fans there will have a comfortable chair, a convenient place to go for food, beverages and restrooms all housed within a climate-controlled club area."

Today Kenan Stadium has one video board, and the board's positioning between the playing field and the original Kenan Field House prohibits a good view to nearly 20 percent of the stadium's occupancy. Phase II includes the installation of two new video boards, one in each end zone. That will provide fans in each end zone the luxury of seeing plays at the far end of the field on the video boards facing them. The grade of the seating incline in the Blue Zone will be conducive to good views as well.

"The angles and slopes are more modern, more in tune to the way new stadiums are built," Creech notes. "The bowl of existing seats in Kenan Stadium was built in 1927 and the slope is very gradual--you're moving further away faster than you are moving up. The Blue Zone will have a steeper angle of seats, giving each row better sight lines than exist in the current bowl."

Officials at Texas, Clemson and other universities have addressed the same issue--that of bringing venues with many decades of tradition into a modern environment of market tastes and demands.

Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin opened in 1924 with permanent stands on the west and east sides of the playing venue, which included a football field and a 440-yard track, and within a quarter of a century the north side had been enclosed with a horseshoe configuration to raise capacity to 60,130. The field was lowered and the track removed in 1999, but the end zone seats suffered from a set-back of some 40 yards from the playing field. Given the poor location along with antiquated concession and restroom facilities in the horseshoe, Texas officials in 2007 demolished the entire north end zone structure and replaced it with a new facility that includes an upper deck, more than 4,000 premium seats and 44 suites.

One of the new seating options for Longhorn games in the north end zone is an outdoor club with 2,100 seats that sold for $750 per seat. Fans there have chair-backs and access to upscale concessions and beer and wine sales, though they cannot take those beverages to their seats. Texas also has a higher-end club, with 2,100 seats going originally for $2,000 per seat, and turn-over seats new to the market this year went for 50 percent more. Those spectators watch from an air-conditioned area with food and a private bar part of the package.

"Our fans like being able to eat more than the traditional stadium hotdog," says Baker. "They enjoy being able to have an adult beverage. Parking is really difficult as we have an on-campus stadium, so they're able to purchase parking. And it gets hot in Texas in September, so they like having some shade and access to air-conditioning. "

Clemson Memorial Stadium opened in 1942 with 20,000 seats nestled in a valley west of campus and grew over the years, the last major expansion projects being upper-deck additions in 1978 and '83 that boosted capacity to more than 80,000. Clemson officials began plans to expand the west end zone seating area in 2005 and build around it a new facility including a thousand premium seats as well as club areas and a multi-purpose athletics administration building.

Buyers into the WestZone were required to maintain a $1,400 annual IPTAY donor level, pay a construction fee for $1,000 per seat (good for five years) and pay $1,250 per seat, a price that is locked for five years. The second year of use, six seats became available and Clemson used six-figure gifts to the athletic department for the opportunity to purchase two seats each.

"Once someone has had the opportunity to sit in the WestZone Club, they tell us that they made a huge mistake on not taking advantage of the opportunity to purchase seats when they had a chance," Match says.

Lee Pace writes "Extra Points" for Tarheelblue.com and watches from the sidelines for the Tar Heel Sports Network. Send your questions for the network's pre-game show to asktheheels@gmail.com.