Category Archives: Temple Stadium

01.20.23
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Design and fashion: Temple’s New Stadium

Probably the worst design of any new college football stadium I’ve ever seen so maybe no stadium now is a good thing.

While working on painting a wall at a Senior Center for my in-service day on the MLK Holiday a few days ago, I thought about perhaps the most remarkable speech of my lifetime.

That wasn’t Martin Luther King’s more famous “I have a Dream Speech” at the Washington Monument but the speech he made before he died, the “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech in April of 1968.

In that one, MLK said, “I’ve been to the Mountaintop but I might not get there with you” almost foretelling his assassination only a few hours away.

While I haven’t been to the Temple Football Mountaintop, I can only guess what it could be. I did think of how this related to Temple while splashing some red paint on the SC center in Northeast Philadelphia on Monday. (Close enough to Cherry.)

I haven’t been to the Mountaintop but I know the new Temple Stadium probably won’t happen in my lifetime but I think it will well within the next 50 years and that’s close enough.

No doubt in my mind these guys will see a new stadium as alums.

The reason I had that vision is nowhere near as spiritual as MLK’s but based on a few facts.

As an incoming student in the 1970s, I was given a tour of Temple’s campus in an attempt to “recruit” me. (I had a full scholarship offer to Cabrini but chose Temple for sports and journalism.) The tour guide said where we were there was residential housing only “20 years ago.” Twenty years ago would have been in the 1950s then and we were what is now in the middle of Temple’s campus–on Liacouras Walk near the Bell Tower.

Wow.

In those 20 years, Temple facilitated the removal of neighborhood people to build the interior of the campus.

While sitting in Temple’s presentation to the “current” neighbors about five years ago in March, I came to the conclusion that removing those neighbors by the natural course of things will be the only way Temple will ever be able to build a stadium.

Like then, that takes time.

If Georgia Tech can have a stadium like this in Atlanta, Temple should be able to have the same in Philadelphia.

If those properties become so valuable that these once poor neighbors become rich once they move, capitalism will achieve the result no amount of begging and cajoling politicians has now.

Unlike my fellow Temple Stadium fans, that is a good thing, not a bad one.

Once I saw the original plan for a Temple Stadium, I thought this was no more than a glorified Northeast High School Field. I mean, you hired a great architect and that was the best plan you could come up with?

Why not make it look like Boston College’s Alumni Field or Georgia Tech’s field?

Putting it off will give Temple the time not only to consolidate 15th and Norris into the “Green Zone” but build a stadium that would give the Owls a real home-field advantage.

We can only hope.

The current administration has no stomach to challenge the neighbors on what I feel is justified grounds. I mean, if Georgia Tech is allowed to build a stadium in the center of Atlanta and UAB in the center of Birmingham why is it out of the question for Temple to do the same in Philadelphia?

No logical reason other than the corruption which is currently rampant in the nation’s fifth-largest city.

The last Temple administration at least tried. This one seems to have laid down and rolled over.

Maybe the next one will outlast them.

That’s the Temple football mountaintop. It’s not sustainable to try to sell a product that at most 35K is interested in in a 70K stadium. Thirty-five thousand in a 35,000-seat stadium makes a lot more sense.

That’s a dream, though.

I won’t see it and many of you won’t either.

Temple football will get to the Promised Land but a lot of us older guys may have to watch from above. Hopefully, the current Temple students will see it by their late 40s and it won’t be anything like the video at the top of this post.

It will be something glorious.

Monday: The New Guys

04.01.22
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Wingard speaks: Stadium is dead

Funny how a done deal goes from one perception of done to another.

Two of my very good friends, I will call them Mark and Dave (because those are their real first names) are about as anti-on-campus-stadium as anyone I’ve ever met.

Me?

Kinda riding the fence on this issue but would not have minded falling into the yard on the other side. My reasoning simply is this: Since the 1970s I haven’t seen a real home-field advantage for Temple football in my lifetime.

A great home-field advantage (once)

Yeah, the Penn State game in 2015 where 35K Temple fans went crazy while 35K Penn State fans sat on their hands was kinda it but not really. Probably the Tulane game a few weeks later game closest (Owls won, 48-14) before 35K fans, all but a couple of hundred rooting for Temple.

Give me the 1970s era West Virginia game where, in a 20K seat stadium, 14K fans were going crazy for the home team at Temple Stadium in a 39-36 win. Or maybe another game in the same decade where a sellout crowd of 20K in a 20K-seat stadium roared for Temple in a 34-7 win over Boston College.

I was at both games.

The first, as a kid, I walked out of Temple Stadium hearing the chants “We Want Nebraska!” on Bayard Strett walking back to the cars. (Nebraska was the No. 1 team in the country at the time; Temple just had beaten the No. 19 team.)

The second came as a sophomore at Temple when the Owls avenged their only loss of a 9-1 season with a 34-7 win over Boston College the next season, an 8-2 one for Wayne Hardin.

As an adult, I hoped to see a similar home-field advantage for my favorite sports team again. Nothing in the Temple fan department since (Franklin Field and LFF) ever compared to those days at Temple Stadium from the standpoint of the way TEMPLE FANS influenced the outcome of a football game.

After listening to Jason Wingard recently, I realized I probably won’t ever see anything like it again.

Sad, not for me necessarily but for the generations of Temple fans after me who never experienced anything like it.

Wingard has basically said (see the above video) that Temple has given up its previously stated dream of building an on-campus stadium and is satisfied with Lincoln Financial Field.

That’s OK to Mark and Dave who still blame Temple fans for not filling a 70K-seat stadium. To me, asking Temple to fill a 70K-seat stadium or even bring 40K consistently on a regular basis has never been a good business model considering that the concept of supply and demand rules the business world.

The Temple Board of Trustees, when it approved the plans for an OCS, cited that reality. Cutting the supply (of tickets) would increase the demand and Temple was much more likely to fill a 35K stadium than ever filling even half of a 70K-stadium.

At one time, the BOT was all-in on a stadium. When this story is written 100 years from now, they will say a great university of 40K students, 12K employees, and 250K alumni let 20 or so neighbors push them around.

Someone or some group got to Wingard and supplied the talking points.

That was probably the Board of Trustees.

Since the disastrous meeting with the “community” three years ago in March, obviously, the BOT has waived the white flag on the stadium. During Wingard’s interview before accepting the President’s job, that was probably communicated to him as well.

Wingard is simply toeing the company line. A lot of my fellow Temple fans are holding onto the “not at this time” statement as if there will be another time.

There won’t. Not under this President or the next or even the next one after that. You’ve got to bulldoze a lot of residences and create a lot of Temple “green space” before that happens.

Not good news for me but terrific news for fellow Temple fans who I respect like Mark and Dave. They like the creature comforts of the Linc and think an on-campus stadium would be a disaster.

They are as entitled to their opinions as I am to mine. To me, I’ve always felt that Temple deserves to have an on-campus stadium as much as the marquee schools in other cities (Boston College in Boston, Georgia Tech in Atlanta, USF in Tampa, UAB in Birmingham, etc.) deserve to have on-campus stadiums as well. Those schools never let neighborhood opposition stop them from building anything they want on their own property nor should Temple.

In the 2012 NCAA tournament basketball win over North Carolina State, a million-dollar Temple contributor told Mark that the on-campus stadium was a “done deal.”

Yeah it’s done, but not in the way that guy (RIP) described.

Maybe someday 100 years from now when I’m long gone and watching Temple play in the ACC from the clouds above, I will heard a loud “Let’s Go Temple!” chant from a packed on-campus stadium.

That will not happen in my lifetime or most of yours.

If Wingard’s statement reflected anything, it’s a done deal.

Done bad, not done good.

Monday: Who da man?

Friday: Pre-Cherry and White

Monday (4/11): Post Cherry and White

02.21.19
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King Solomon Solution to a King-Sized Dilemma

image_handler

Kicking the can down the road has been a hallmark of the stadium issue from a figurative standpoint for seven years. Kicking it down the road literally offers perhaps the best solution to a vexing problem.

If you haven’t heard anything on the stadium issue, there are at least a couple of reasons for it.

One, when Mitchell Morgan takes over for Patrick J. O’Connor as the Temple University Board of Trustees chairman on Aug. 1, that big folder marked “Temple Stadium” will be left on his desk along with another one “candidates to replace Dick Englert.” (Englert has held the job as President since Neil Theobald was let go three years ago.)

If there was every a can kicked down the road, it’s a stadium that was a supposed “done deal” as far back as March 2012 and talked about prior to the Liacouras Center even being built.

Screenshot 2019-02-20 at 6.51.39 PM

Unfortunately, these guys are still around and it looks like a few Temple fans have switched to their side as former Cherry Crusader Luke Butler is listed as “Interested in going” to this event.

 

That’s a little ironic because the final piece in this puzzle could literally be kicking the can down the road.

Splitting the baby was King Solomon’s solution and the Board of Trustees needs to split this baby as painful as it may be but killing off a perfectly good and nearly brand new $22 million Olympic stadium and putting a $130 million football stadium in its place.

Kick the football stadium can down the road to Broad and Master and return the Olympic sports teams back to their original home, Geasey Field, at 15th and Norris. The neighbors who object so strongly to football lived with the Olympic sports for 50 years at Norris Street without any histrionics so it would be disingenuous to object to those sports returning now.

There are really only two solutions now and the preferable one is admitting that the first mistake was trying to build at 15th and Norris. The university did not expect the kind of opposition it got from neighbors at that location, the same neighbors who never objected to the lacrosse and field hockey teams playing there for almost a half-century prior to this latest fiasco.

The second is dropping the whole stadium issue entirely but, before that happens, all other avenues should be exhausted.

There will still be opposition to the Broad and Master site, but the fact that the university had rather large and working stadiums at that site for the last five years should mollify the opposition somewhat. There’s plenty of room for a football stadium at Broad and Master and the fact that by converting it to a football stadium m48akes it less intrusive, not more, on the community that the three sports currently there. Those fields now were used 48 days for home games in the Olympic sports, while football will only be used for six days or nights.

Plus, Morgan Hall, which is used over 300 days a year, is just next to it and the new BOT chair should know something about that high-rise. It was named after him.

Saturday: The Jimmies and the Joes

04.20.18
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Pumping The Brakes Means A Left Turn

A week ago, the guy who holds the hammer in this whole Temple Stadium controversy wrote an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer to express his feelings on the project.

If you read the entire thing, he’s against it, essentially saying Temple should “pump the brakes” on a new campus stadium.

The guy is Darrell Clarke. The way politics works in Philadelphia is that the councilman in any district has veto power over a project in his district.

Clarke is not only the Philadelphia City Council President, he is the councilman in that very district. He can afford to tell Temple University to pump the brakes on the project. Temple University cannot afford to wait due to the timeline of its lease with Lincoln Financial Field running out in 2020.

The “community” is vigorously against this project. It’s not 50-50. It’s not even 80-20. It’s more like 90-10. This is not a similar case to what is now the Liacouras Center when palms needed to be greased in order to move the project forward. There simply is not enough oil here to move the gears.

darrellsupport

Darrell Clarke would rather Geasey Field remain an empty lot than a beautiful new stadium

If Clarke says “pumps the brakes” Temple should then recognize what intersection it is approaching and make a left turn.

It appears as though the City of Philadelphia, which really holds the hammer here, will never give Temple the permissions to close 15th Street forever (between Norris and Montgomery) to appease the residents who vote for Clarke in every election. Without 15th closed, there is only one other open space on the Main Campus large enough to build what Temple needs.

The left turn Temple needs to make is at 15th and Montgomery, make a right at Broad Street and travel a couple of blocks south to Masters to build the stadium. The city has no grounds to oppose a football stadium at The Temple Sports Complex since two stadiums have been existing there without opposition for two years and no closure of any street would be necessary. Even if the City would try to block a stadium at that site, Temple–with the most graduates of any school in Pennsylvania appeals courts–probably would prevail on the argument that it was allowed to build dorms and classrooms on its property and should be able to build a needed “multi-purpose” facility there as well.

If not, you can forget about a new stadium at best and Temple football at worst. If Temple football is forced to return to that dump called Franklin Field, the program is doomed. Chester’s 18,500-soccer stadium is a far worse option. If the Phillies ever exit Citizens Bank Park, that would be ideal but that appears to be at least 20 years down the road that is called Broad Street.

The uni would have to do something it said it cannot do—pay the Philadelphia Eagles a $3 million a year lease to rent Lincoln Financial Field on top of a one-time “stadium improvement fee” of $12 million.

Of course, this can all be avoided if the BOT would change plans and build the stadium at The Temple Sports Complex.

On first glance, building a football stadium over a brand new $22 million Olympic Sports Complex would be an admission by Temple that it made a mistake building that facility there and they would not do that.

There is a precedence, though. A few  years earlier, the same board of trustees spent $12 million less to build an Olympic sports complex in Ambler that included also baseball and softball and abandoned it for the Broad and Masters facility.

If they can do that then, they can do this now. The Olympic sports teams can be moved back to Geasey Field.

Running out of time and options,  it is the logical thing to do and, in this political climate, the sooner the better.

Monday: Above The Line

01.19.18
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Stadium: End Of The Beginning

 

badurban

Seats here are too far away from stadium and not on top of the field like this other example of a great urban stadium within essentially the same square acreage footprint.

urban

Roughly six years ago, a Temple University Board of Trustees member told a friend of mine at the NCAA Tournament that a football stadium on campus was a “done deal.”

My friend has a lot deeper pockets than me and often traveled to see the football team in remote Middle Atlantic Conference places like Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and Oxford, Ohio, with reports about the Temple fan presence there.

Often, he was it–the guy who was invited to home tailgates by the Central Michigan and Fake Miami fans like an alien who landed in a flying saucer.

This December, his move to Coral Gables, Florida made him a more likely prospect than I to make the Gasparilla Bowl and he bellied up to President Dick Englert at a pre-game function and dropped the question about whether or not Temple will build a new football stadium.

“We’ll see,” the coy Englert said.

goodurban

Temple fans should accept no less than this kind of stadium

Well, we saw a little bit on Thursday when the university announced to the world that the stadium is presenting plans to the city for the building of a “multi-purpose facility.” Notice the word “multi-purpose.” If it had been “a stadium” the already negative view of many of the city pols would have been further polarized.

Make no mistake about what happened Thursday.

This is not the end of the stadium process but the end of the beginning. The end is a long, long way away.

It was nice to finally see an artist’s conception of the stadium. To me, that was disappointing. The seats are too slopped back and not on top of the field. Some tinkering needs to be done on the architects’ end. Make the stadium like Boston College here and we’re in; otherwise, where is the Temple home field advantage?

The timeline that many stadium proponents state continues to be: Shovel in the ground by August, stadium done by 2019.

For someone who has lived in Philadelphia all of my life and knows the ins and outs of the corrupt political system here, that’s a pipe dream.

Figure on two years of hassle with the city and a shovel in the ground by 2019 at best. At worst, figure a thumbs’ down from the city and an extended Linc lease. I’m a lean toward a stadium at Temple because I think the ceiling for interest in Temple football is 35K at best. That still looks horrible in a 70K stadium and perception to many is reality.  Still, to think that today’s announcement puts this on a fast track to completion is pure fallacy.

Plan on going to that stadium for the opener maybe 2021 but more likely 2022.

I will have to eat a lot more salads, drink a lot fewer beers and work out about two extra hours a day to definitively  say I will see The Promised Land with you but I promise to try.

From what I’ve been told by my Philadelphia City Council peeps, there are 10 elected members and seven at-large members. For this to pass in the county, there will have to be nine votes. Right now, Temple can count on four. Getting to nine will not be impossible, but it will be close to impossible.

This is not the end but the end of the beginning. The end of the end could be longer than anyone knows. In short, not a done deal by a longshot.

Monday: Five Unanswered Questions

02.12.16
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Another Stadium Misconception

tailgates

The four lots that will no doubt be open for tailgating on game days.

 

talegate

On the list of important issues surrounding the proposed on-campus Temple Stadium, tailgating is about ninth down the list.

Above it are other gauntlet runs like Philadelphia City Council, The Mayor, “The Community” (who knows who represents them, really), the media (an anti-stadium column by Stu Bykofsky appeared recently and Temple haters like David Murphy, Mike Sielski and  Angelo Cataldi, among others, have yet to recently check in) and the unions.

Other than that, it’s smooth sailing to a 2019 opener.



My guess if this
thing is ever built,
it will open closer
to 2021 than 2019,
but the administrators
from Indiana who now
run Temple and never
faced any Philly-like
blowback in Bloomington
will be shocked
soon enough

My guess if this thing is ever built, it will open closer to 2021 than 2019, but the administrators from Indiana who now run Temple and never faced any Philly-like blowback in Bloomington will be shocked soon enough. It will then be up to them to throw in the towel or grind away.

Meanwhile, onto the ninth more pressing issue but one that can be debunked here and now:

“There won’t be any place to tailgate.”

I can personally debunk that because I’ve taken the SEPTA regional rail from Fox Chase to games over the last few years. Since the regional rail doesn’t go from Fox Chase (or anywhere else, really) to Lincoln Financial Field, I’ve made it a point to get off at the Temple University stop and cut through several parking lots and the Bell Tower before making it to the Broad and Columbia (OK, community, Cecil B. Moore) subway station and the 15-minute ride to LFF.

SEPTA_Regional_Rail_map

SEPTA Regional Rail funnels over 100,000 people into Center City every day and has a stop right on the Temple campus.

I can report that all four of those lots (above graphic) were empty or near empty on every single gameday Saturday. That’s where the tailgates will be held.

Lot 1, the McGonigle Hall lot, probably will go to Owl Club members or highest bidders. The other four will probably be first-come, first-serve lots.

The students, who take a large part of Lot K now, will move their tailgates to the Bell Tower and the two walks, named after two guys best known for where the basketball arena is, Peter Liacouras and Dan Polett. Liacouras, because it is named after him, and Polett, whose Wilke-Buick dealership was where the LC stands today.

So the tailgating situation comes under the category of no worries.

The other stuff, I have my doubts.

07.15.15
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What Matt Rhule’s Jetpack Has to Do With Stadium Failure

Matt Rhule's Jetpack has been on Go Fund Me for half a month now without a single penny raised.

Matt Rhule’s Jetpack has been on Go Fund Me for half a month now without a single penny raised.

Nothing major gets done at Temple University without it being approved at a Board of Trustees Meeting.

That was true for the Apollo of Temple, now known as the Liacouras Center, and also true for the $50 million basketball practice facility and the $17 million football training facility. To assume that a $300 million stadium is going to get done behind the scenes with all that as a backdrop is a fallacy.

With this Jetpack, Matt will no longer have to take the SEPTA 24 bus to practice.

With this Jetpack, Matt will no longer have to take the SEPTA 24 bus to practice.

Temple people are notoriously protective of what is inside their wallets–perhaps as a Pavlovian Response from spending four years near the edges of the Green Zone (17th Street on the West and 10th Street on the East)–and the strong rumor is that the BOT will not allow discussion of a stadium until $25 million is raised by stadium backers

So another meeting of the BOT having come and gone without a stadium announcement—or even a discussion of a stadium—speaks volumes. Meetings were held in December, March, May and now July without mention of a stadium.

The next question has to be why. For that, all you have to do is look at the funding for Matt Rhule’s Jetpack. As a joke, a poster named “Victory Engineer”  set up a “Go Fund Me” for a Matt Rhule Jetpack on July 3 and posted it on Owlsdaily.com. It has been seen by nearly 2,000 viewers and raised a grand total of zero dollars.

You would think someone, even as a joke, would have given five bucks in two weeks but, so far, nothing.

What does this have to do with a stadium?

Temple people are notoriously protective of what is inside their wallets–perhaps as a Pavlovian Response from spending four years near the edges of the Green Zone (17th Street on the West and 10th Street on the East)–and the strong rumor is that the BOT will not allow discussion of a stadium until $25 million is raised by stadium backers. So far, that figure has fallen far short—about $24 million short—and, at this rate, a stadium will not be discussed until the October meeting.

October, 2068.

It’s time to extend the Lincoln Financial Field lease now and worry about a stadium later.

As far as Matt Rhule’s Jetpack, that has a much better chance of happening on Sept. 6 should the result of the Penn State game turn out to be in the Owls’ favor.

Related:

Get coach Rhule His Jetpack

07.12.15
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Why July 14 is the Most Important Date in Temple Sports History

If recent Temple hires in key positions are any clue, the stadium going up at 15th and Norris should look something like this.

If recent Temple hires in key positions are any clue, the stadium going up at 15th and Norris should look something like this.

Usually the middle of July is a dead period in sports as baseball is in the middle of an all-star break, NFL training camp has not started and the NBA, NHL and college football are a couple months away.

For Temple University, though, July 14th might be the most important day in its sports history. That’s because the school’s Board of Trustees will hold a rare meeting amid rumors that there could be talk of an on-campus stadium on the agenda.

meetingminutes

Even if a stadium is not on the docket that could be more telling than if it is because the school’s BOT let a May meeting, a March meeting and a December meeting come and go with no discussion of a stadium. If it is not on this agenda, there likely will be no stadium because the next meeting after this one is in October and the school’s 15-year lease with the Philadelphia Eagles to rent Lincoln Financial Field expires at the end of the 2017 season.

Temple fans on sports message boards seem obsessed with the topic as seemingly innocuous discussion threads get turned into stadium ones at the drop of a hat. When it comes to the people who really matter, the BOT, the topic hasn’t even moved the needle. There were meetings on December 9th, March 11th and May 12th and not a word on the stadium at any of them. That could all change on Tuesday. Or not.

Since the last meeting on May 12, former Indiana University chief bean counter (CFO), Neil Theobald, the current Temple president, kicked a former Indiana U. aide, Kevin Clark, upstairs from AD to No. 2 in command (COO). Then he hired a former Indiana football player, Dr. Pat Kraft, as AD. Yet another former Indiana guy was brought in to raise money for athletics.

If that means a stadium that looks like Indiana’s is about to go up at Broad and Norris, we should know soon.

Or not.

The next meeting after this one does not come until Oct. 13th. By then, any reasonable person could see that there will not be enough time to get shovels into the ground and a stadium completed by the opening day of the 2018 season. Even if it is discussed on Tuesday and approved (highly doubtful), there will be a mad dash to get the stadium done. So if a stadium at Temple is just an unfounded rumor, fans should know by Wednesday. No discussion probably means no stadium, at least not for a decade down the road.

The question of where Temple will play in 2018 is an urgent one.  The logical answer is to extend the Lincoln Financial Field lease. That could be costly because the Eagles are asking for a 300 percent increase in Temple’s $1 million-per-year rent, but it is a price Temple must pay to remain a viable program and about 10 times less costly than building its own stadium.

The AAC, like the Big East before it, will demand that Temple have exclusive rights on Saturdays to a stadium and the only other stadium with a size that fits its needs would be 57,000-seat Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn has those rights so Franklin Field is not an option nor is the 18,000-seat PPL Park.

Temple’s only means toward keeping those rights is to stay where it is right now and build its own stadium and, if the Board is silent again like it has been in the past that means a stadium is a long, long ways away if ever.

Then the next most-important date becomes Sept. 5 and that will not have anything to do with a new stadium.

06.10.13
by

Temple Stadium upgrades

A very minor adjustment adds just 2,000 or so seats to Temple Stadium.

The big news this week for Temple football was that Temple Stadium was getting an upgrade.
OK, technically they call it Lincoln Financial Field but, if I had an extra $200 million or so laying around, instead of investing it in an on-campus stadium, I’d purchase the naming rights from the Lincoln Financial Group (they only paid $139.6 million for it for 20 years) and rename the place Temple Stadium.

If, by some miracle, Temple could attract just 1/3d
of its 130K living alumni and on-campus students to
home football games,
the AAC might put the Temple ‘][‘ in its logo.
Photo by John Van Wert

Not Temple Football Forever Stadium, not the Owls Nest, not even The Apollo of Temple, just Temple Stadium.
Could you imagine Brent Musburger or Al Michaels doing a Monday Night Football game there with this opening:
“YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE AT TEMPLE STADIUM, WHERE THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES ARE HOSTING THE NEW YORK GIANTS.”
The school could spend $100 million in advertising and not get quite the bang for the buck as a few of those openings would deliver.
I’ve soured on the idea of an on-campus stadium after attending the Temple basketball game against UNC Charlotte.
I turned to three friends from my high school days and asked: “Where is everybody? This place is empty.”
The university has a nationally known basketball program but not a nationally known following.
Those who demand an on-campus stadium say that attendance would go up if the uni built one, say, at 15th and Norris between 16th on the West and Montgomery Avenue on the South.
I did not get that feeling in a half-empty state-of-art Liacouras Center back in February nor do I feel the fans who attended the home games against Canisius, St. Bonaventure or Duquesne got that feeling as well.
To me, the best upgrade for “Temple Stadium” would be fans putting down their remotes and getting off their couches and going to home games. TV ratings for Temple home games in the nation’s fourth-largest market are off the charts high, so you know there are enough Temple fans interested in watching. The challenge is getting them into cars and onto the subway.
It’s not like the place is in the middle of nowhere, ala UConn.
It’s a 10-minute subway ride for 12,500 students living on campus and a one-hour ride for 130,000 living alumni.
Winning will bring the fans, for sure.
Got to hope that winning, combined with an exciting brand of football the Owls will be playing for the next few years, will bring enough “Temple people” so that the nation is impressed.
The fans will get a chance to vote with their two feet.
THEN maybe we can talk about an on-campus stadium.
Not before.

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