New TCF Bank stadium: Back to the future

The start of every college football season is filled with excitement and optimism, but for the Gophers and their fans, the 2008 season has extra significance.

This one marks the team's final season in the Metrodome, the Gophers home since 1982. A little more than a year from now, the Gophers will move into their new $288.5 million stadium, their own home, no longer co-tenants under a Teflon sky.

Stadium proponents argue that an outdoor, on-campus stadium will greatly improve the gameday atmosphere, generate new revenue streams, become the focal point of campus for alumni and fans and help attract better recruits.

It won't guarantee victories or sold-out attendance once the shine wears off, but Gophers officials believe it is a large chip in the ever-expanding arm's race of college athletics. As construction inches closer to completion, those closest to the stadium efforts become hyperbolic over the possibilities.

"We are getting a heart transplant," said former player George Adzick, who now serves as the M Club director.

College atmosphere

The political potholes and financial roadblocks are in the past, although the school still must raise $9 million of the original goal of $86 million in private donations. But construction is on schedule and the heavy lifting is mostly done, enabling the Gophers to gaze into the future.

The move a few miles down the road thus begs the question: What will the new stadium mean to the school and to a program that has six national championships on its résumé but has not played in a New Year's Day bowl game since the 1961 season and is coming off a 1-11 campaign?

To hear those tethered to the stadium, it will mean everything.

"A lot of Minnesotans remember those great times and want those great times to return badly," Brewster said. "I think this stadium is going to allow Minnesotans to rally around football being back on campus and allow us to reconnect with that great tradition and history of Gophers football."

The mere mention of Memorial Stadium -- the birthplace of so many of those fond memories -- turns Gophers backers into mush. They remember the good times and the great players, about how they felt watching the band march down University Avenue on Saturday mornings, stories that Brewster said he's heard "a million times" in the past year.

"People with tears in their eyes tell you this," he said.

Count former player Judge Dickson among them. Dickson arrived on campus in 1958, shared a room in Territorial Hall with pioneering black quarterback Sandy Stephens and admits he still gets emotional when he reflects on the bus rides from the team hotel to Memorial Stadium on Saturday mornings.

"It was the thrill of our season," he said. "The flags would be flying. The fraternities would be out, people cheering. Saturday was a special day."

The gameday "experience" that is unique to college football has largely been dormant at the Metrodome. The atmosphere is tame, if not altogether stale. Out-of-town alumni returning for games often never step foot on campus. Weather never affects the outcome of a game, nor can it be enjoyed on a perfect fall Saturday. Gameday is simply not a spectacle, like it is at other places.

"I think something is missing, and I think it's missing more today than it was when they moved to the Dome," Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi said.

"All the things that now surround college football have made it far more of an event than a game. We have not had the event. We've still had the game, but we have not had the event."

Financial benefits

The move is about more than tailgating and making warm, fuzzy memories. College football is big business, and school officials expect TCF Bank Stadium to generate about $3.3 million more in annual revenue than the Metrodome.

The Gophers ranked ninth in the Big Ten in football revenue in 2006 (the most recent data available) at $17.3 million. Ohio State was No. 1 at more than $59 million, followed by Michigan at nearly $51 million. The Gophers were well behind border rivals Iowa ($45.3 million) and Wisconsin ($34 million).

"We were a whole lot closer to the bottom than we were to the top," Maturi said.

Maturi said he's hopeful the new stadium, if sold to capacity, will help the Gophers move to the middle of the Big Ten in football revenue, which is perhaps the most realistic goal given the stadium's capacity (50,300).

School officials say the new stadium could generate $8.1 million each season through premium seating (suites and luxury boxes) and preferred seating. The Gophers made only $307,000 in those two areas last season in the Dome.

The school also expects to generate additional revenue from advertising and sponsorships, merchandise sales and stadium rental. Gameday parking revenue will go to the school's Parking Services and be used to pay down debt. Concessions revenue is not expected to change.

Naturally, operating costs will increase considerably because the university will be responsible for the stadium for 365 days each year, rather than just seven dates. School officials estimate it will take roughly $1.66 million for year-round operating costs, which include repairs and maintenance and salaries. That figure does not include gameday operations or debt service.

Even so, the annual operating income from the new stadium is projected to be $12.69 million.

"[The additional revenue] means I think that we're going to keep viable -- at least in the immediate future -- a 25-sport athletic program," Maturi said.

University President Robert Bruininks, who spearheaded stadium efforts, almost always talks about the stadium within the context of the school's overall academic mission. The two are intertwined, he said, noting the school has raised about $45 million in donations that will be earmarked for academics as a direct result of fundraising for the stadium.

"It's a critical link between the stadium and the academic interests," Bruininks said.

David Crum, an associate athletic director who oversees fundraising, also sees a critical link between giving and football's return to campus.

"A lot of the giving is an emotional tie," he said. "It's a heartstring appeal sometimes. People come back and it's about the memories and the great times they had at the U."

Winning still the key

Nobody, however, is naive enough to think that nostalgia, an on-campus address and some fancy bells and whistles will automatically guarantee better on-field results. If the Gophers don't win, the novelty of a new stadium will fade quickly.

Coming off a 1-11 debut, Brewster said it's imperative that his team "build momentum" this season before moving into TCF Bank Stadium.

"We've got to put a football team on the field that can win," he said. "Heck, you put a team out there that's not going to win, it doesn't matter what stadium you're in, right?"

It didn't in the final years of Memorial Stadium. The Gophers posted a 65-74-3 record and averaged 39,895 fans in their final 13 seasons in Memorial Stadium. They did not average 50,000 fans in any season during that span.

"I was all in favor of going into the Dome," said former coach Joe Salem, whose tenure bridged both stadiums. "How it turned out, winning is, of course, everything to it."

The stadium will be a draw in itself initially. After that though, it's all about the product.

"I don't believe anybody is going to buy tickets for very long to see the facility," said former All-America Bob Stein, a stadium proponent. "You can walk through the facility and see it for nothing."

Said Adzick, "Stadiums don't make first downs."

Athletes do, and the stadium should help attract better recruits. Brewster's first full recruiting class was nationally ranked despite the obvious drawbacks of the Metrodome, but he said TCF Bank Stadium should eliminate those negatives.

"When recruits come to games now at the Metrodome we are at a competitive disadvantage," he said. "Right now, kids can go to other places in the Big Ten and across the country and have a better gameday experience than they're going to have at Minnesota."

Brewster's predecessor, Glen Mason, sang that song repeatedly throughout his 10-year tenure, which he said was more fact than excuse.

"We never had a chance to show recruits where they are going to play," Mason said. "It was always set up for something else. Like a snowmobile race or Monster Truck show. It looked nothing like football."

Former coach Lou Holtz made the Gophers a hot ticket in two seasons in the mid-1980s and once thought the Metrodome was a suitable home. But Holtz agrees that recruiting should be easier now that the Gophers no longer have to share their stadium.

"The most important thing is that it's yours," Holtz said. "This is our locker room. We decorate it. Nobody else is in here. This is our house, our home. You can't do that when you're sharing with so many other people."

It's cold out there

Some obstacles won't go away. Such as the weather. The move outdoors will only encourage rival schools to remind recruits -- especially ones from southern states -- that it gets cold in Minnesota.

Salem fought it, even pointing to a TV commercial that showed a car battery cranking up in arctic Minnesota temperatures.

"That ad just killed me," Salem said, laughing. "It went all over the country."

The Big Ten season traditionally has ended before Thanksgiving, thus reducing the chance for inclement weather. But perception is often reality, which is why Brewster has moved to spread a different message to recruits.

Brewster calls the weather factor "an absolute fallacy" and said his staff conducted a study that found the average gameday temperature for Gophers home games the past 20 years was 64 degrees.

"I think the weather issue is way overblown," Brewster said.

Some fans accustomed to the controlled Metrodome climate probably are not too excited about the prospect of getting rained on, or worse. But that's part of the deal, part of the experience.

Longtime season ticket-holder Neal Johnson still remembers vividly the sight of a Boy Scout saluting the flag during the national anthem while getting drenched before a game at Memorial Stadium in the late 1970s.

"It was just awesome," Johnson said. "It was obviously a special thing because it happened 30 years ago, and I'm still telling the story."

Gophers officials hope a new stadium will lead to new memories being retold 30 years from now. Maturi often thinks about his own experiences at Memorial Stadium as he passes the new stadium during his 6 a.m. jog every day.

As a symbolic gesture, Maturi began gamedays the past two years by running from his Minneapolis home to the Metrodome and finally down to the site of TCF Bank Stadium.

"I have one more year to do that," Maturi said.

And then?

"I'll run around the stadium," he said.

He leaned back in his chair and smiled at the thought.