New digs: Temple should start planning now

An artist rendering of what the new domed Eagles’ Stadium will look like.

For anyone who was around when Jeffrey Lurie tried to stiff Temple out of playing at Lincoln Financial Field way back when it opened in 2003, his latest plans should be viewed as a Five Alarm Fire.

Temple BOT chair Mitchell Morgan could be the key for getting November and December games at the Bank for the Owls.

Lurie only relented and allowed Temple in when the state of Pennsylvania reminded him that as part of the city and state’s funding of the Linc was the stipulation that Temple, one of three state schools (along with Pitt and Penn State) be allowed to play there. Lurie paid a third of the $521 million tab, while the City and State paid two thirds.

The state and the city threatened to take Lurie to court to allow Temple to play there and Lurie didn’t have the stomach to fight on two fronts.

That won’t be the case with Lurie’s current plans.

What are they?

Lurie floated the idea last month of building a new “Eagles Stadium” at a place yet-to-be-determined. Unless it is in Center City or North Philly, the Owls have virtually no chance of playing there.

Since Governor Josh Shapiro has ruled out state funding and the city has empty pockets, this new project will be funded entirely by the Eagles.

For anyone who remotely entertains the idea that Lurie would welcome Temple as a tenant, we have some condo space to sell in a Florida flood zone.

In other words, it ain’t happening.

Temple has to find another place to play or at least start the planning process now.

My preference has always been an on-campus stadium. A student body that has 12,500 students living on campus should have a football stadium on campus. LFF, which is a fantastic stadium, is way too big for Temple’s purposes. Creating a demand for tickets should be a priority and it’s just logical that the demand for tickets in a 35K stadium would be double the demand for tickets in a 70K stadium.

That ship, though, has sailed in a corrupt city that will always allow a Councilman to veto a project in his district. (My feeling is Temple has just as much right to build anything it wants on its own property as a school in any other city. Look at Georgia Tech’s stadium below. It also is in the middle of a residential neighborhood but was welcomed by the neighbors when it was built a century ago.)

If Georgia Tech can have this in Atlanta, Temple should have the same in Philadelphia.

So Temple has to explore other options.

With Temple Board of Trustees chair Mitchell Morgan as a part owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, some combination of Citizens Bank Park and another stadium should be explored. Temple should explore scheduling September games at the Bank but not October ones as those are baseball playoff dates.

Failing that play, say, two games at Franklin Field in September and October and two games at the soccer stadium in Chester in those same months and play the final two home games at Citizens Bank Park.

Slot CBP for any possible AAC title game in December.

Temple should start planning now because once Lurie comes out with the announcement it will almost definitely not include the Owls.

Monday: Depth Chart Clues

Friday (8/15): Behind The Lines

7 thoughts on “New digs: Temple should start planning now

  1. It’s going to take some successful seasons under KCK to garner enough support to build a stadium in North Philly, considering they curbed the idea even after we won the conference.

    • True, but they should look at a Plan B that involves as few games in Chester as possible. I agree that a stadium on campus is a long time away, maybe 10-20 years if ever. I don’t think the Eagles will even entertain the possibility of renting to Temple if Lurie foots the entire bill of a new stadium. Interesting that all of these “retractable” domes tend to leave the dome on even in nice weather to avoid things like shadows.

  2. If this comes about, what happens to the Linc? Does Lurie walk away from his investment empty-handed, or does he force a sale to city or state for capital to build new? If Shapiro is not up for public funding of new stadia, he won’t be able to get $ to (partially) reimburse a billionaire for leaving. Why can’t the Owls still play there? There’s no money (or reason) to knock it down, at least for about ten years before it starts to deteriorate from lack of maintenance (no city or TU $ to maintain).

    Then there’s Army-Navy. They remember the mess at the Vet from lack of maintenance.

    Will the Union enlarge their facility, even if just 5000 seats, so that it becomes more feasible to host games until CBP is available in November?

    Might be time for the alums in the state government to put forth a measure that allows state educational institutions located in large cities to have the freedom to erect structures suitable to their missions without the interference of local governments. Too bad city council people.

    • This stuff usually takes far longer than the initial planning. Lurie indicates he can build a stadium in 7 years. More likely, that’s 10-15. The official “owner” of LFF is the City of Philadelphia and it gave operating rights to the Eagles, who lease to Temple. Lurie would need to have a completed stadium, say, optimistically 10 years from now, to give up operational control. After that, I suppose the city could theoretically lease to Temple but I doubt it.

  3. Same soup boiled over. Temple Football needs a permanent home. Every game is an away game until the program builds its own home.

    Right now the team is a renter. And, the landlord is a loan shark. The situation will become untenable if Lurie builds a new stadium.

    • I love the fact that you gave $1 million of your hard-earned money to build us a stadium. Wish we had 249 other fans like you. So glad I had a chance to introduce you to my friend John Belli before he passed.

  4. When I was a student, we had 1K kids on campus. If that remained the same, I could see the logic in playing elsewhere. Since then, that figured exploded past 12K and it may be going up. No–zero, none, nada–reason to have those kids NOT get the complete college experience by rolling out of beds at 10 a.m. and walking 1 block to the stadium every Saturday in the fall.

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