The Villanova Football Problem...

[NovaBall]

No goalposts have been moved. The concerns remain the same. Nova is taking 40% of its basketball revenue and using it to fund football operating expenses. Meanwhile when xavier, butler and creighton travel to the 19085 for a weeknight on campus game they are greeted by an outdated and inadequate pavilion to play in. Shame for any of their fans who make the trip too.

But hey, at least those 1,865 fans who took the time to show up and watch Nova lose to Yosemite Sam Houston State got what they wanted, and to some members of the Villanova community that is all that matters. (not to mention that most of those 1,865 fans who actually care about villanova football hate the big east, spend most of their time bashing the big east, as that is their propaganda schtick to justify the spending on football as it is "the only way to save basketball" by upgrading football and joining the ACC)

[chopper]

Ball can you please take the football shit back to benchwarmers and stick to basketball here? Hoops is in the site name for Christ's sake... I'd rather hear about how Fran builds champions at Temple or how FS1 has crystal clear HD. Can we get a mod to shut this thread down? Otherwise this will be a common occurrence here as he just does this to screw with people that will argue with him.

I pray that this does not turn into a Big East version of benchwarmers!

[ChestRockwell85]

For those wondering what "benchwarmers" is, here is some background....VUSPORTS.COM is Villanova's Rivals messageboard, if you join the premium board which is called Nova Nation, you will find very well informed basketball posters talking hoops with Villanova obviously being the focus. It is a great board and you really do get an inside scoop on recruiting and things of that nature.

Then there is a free messageboard called benchwarmers that back in the day used to have some informed posting going on but now it has turned into a complete sh!tshow. The sh!tshow got so bad they even made a messageboard called benchwarmers 4.6. The 4.6 comes from when TheBall or NCAABall used his new name NCAABALL4.6, he turned the original benchwarmers into such a sh!tshow that they created benchwarmers 4.6 in hopes that all the ridiculous postings would be kept there.

Long story short, Villanova's premium rivals board is legit, the free board is a complete disaster and our boy ball is the ring leader. Ball is a very intelligent poster, but he can beat things into the ground and if you don't agree with him on things he can become your worst nightmare.

[NovaBall]

And none of this has to do with the fact that villanova is taking 40% of the revenue it earns from big east basketball and dumping it into their football program, a tactic many football fans consider to be the villanova "escape plan" from the big east (and something I totally disagree with).

And benchwarmers is a great place for hoops discussion. Xudash was a regular over there. The ringleader, Tjc, provides many informative news articles and the general hoops discussion is quality. Others prefer the pay board, but that is a bit over the top in my opinion. Regardless, none of these "shoot the messenger" tactics are on point with the discussion at hand: VILLANOVA'S FOOTBALL PROBLEM.

[cm5yz6]

And none of this has to do with the fact that villanova is taking 40% of the revenue it earns from big east basketball and dumping it into their football program, a tactic many football fans consider to be the villanova "escape plan" from the big east (and something I totally disagree with).

And benchwarmers is a great place for hoops discussion. Xudash was a regular over there. The ringleader, Tjc, provides many informative news articles and the general hoops discussion is quality. Others prefer the pay board, but that is a bit over the top in my opinion. Regardless, none of these "shoot the messenger" tactics are on point with the discussion at hand: VILLANOVA'S FOOTBALL PROBLEM.

Anyone see the Super Bowl this year? Now, Pete Carroll has a football problem... tisk tisk.

[marquette]

Sorry to interrupt the football discussion, but this is the first I'm hearing about upgrades to the Pavilion. Are you guys increasing/decreasing capacity? Getting new seats? Adding boxes? Sounds like an exciting project. Love to see our schools reinvesting in themselves.

EDIT: I suddenly realize I probably should have just started a new thread for this question. My bad.

[NovaBall]

A faction of the Villanova athletic supporters are pushing hard for a pavilion renovation, including Jay Wright. A much smaller, but very vocal faction, is saying that basketball must "wait it's turn" for a renovation of the pavilion because basketball just got a new practice facility and now it is football's turn (to quote uncleed from nova nation).

So the debate is raging about whether we should invest huge money in a football practice facility, or if that money should go back to basketball since basketball is essentially funding football right now. There was a major donation to cover a fraction of the football facility, so that has really turned momentum in favor of continuing to neglect basketball in favor of football fcs glory (and as many say, building for an "escape plan" from the Big east so we can become a power in hoops like boston college and clemson).

The pavilion renovation is more about putting in more comfortable seats (right now half the crowd sits on bleacher benches) with more room per seat, moving the students to one side of the court like at Cameron, and some luxury boxes. If you do a Google image search for villanova pavilion renovation you will see some artists renderings. The basic structure is going to stay the same, but it is a much needed facelift on a 30 year old building that hosts the majority of nova basketball games (as well as women's games and other events)

Some people are critical as they think it needs to increase seating to closer to 9,000 from its current 6,700 capacity, but due to town/gown relations we are sort of stuck at the 6,700 capacity number. I'm fine with that number as I don't think we would put 9k in the seats for many of the on campus games (they tend to be weeknight games, and many are the lower level out of conference games or Big 5 philly games. The conference games on the weekends where we draw 15-20k are played at the nba arena, as well as any significant out of conference games.

Jay Wright has been pushing for this since the Davis center was built almost a decade ago. Jay is also taking a home town discount for his salary (although the football tough guys will say that jay hasn't made the sweet 16 in a few years so he should shut up and be happy about his salary and if a football conference school comes and offers him a raise then we should let jay walk, because we need to use the basketball revenue for football purposes).

It's a real problem right now at Villanova. Camps are divided.

[Letsgonova]

Yawn, no camps are divided. I quite literally LOLd at Jay taking a hometown discount at $2.8M per year. You're the best, ball. Never change.

For our Marquette friend above, the Pavilion project is one of four capital projects for athletics as a part of the current $600M capital campaign underway at Villanova. We are about $425M in, and it's going quite well. The Pavilion is probably the single biggest ticket item on the menu, and it was announced later in the campaign than some of the other projects, so projects like the West End Zone Project are getting off the ground first. Personally, I also feel like we are waiting to clear the final permitting hurdles with our local government (Radnor Township) on a $100M mixed use development that will bring all undergraduate housing on-campus before we start another fight over the arena.

FTL for a complete overview of the proposed projects: http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/advancement/development/athletic/support/capital_facilities.html

Again, since ball is hard of hearing, these projects are funded solely by donors. Operating income and expenses have zero bearing.

[Bostonspider]

Looks like it would be a LOT nicer, but not much larger. Am I reading this preliminary image correctly?

Existing Pavilion


Renovated Pavilion

[Letsgonova]

You're got it right. Capacity won't change, may actually go down some as seat widths are brought up to code, but the game day experience will be 100x better. Chairbacks for all, real concessions, luxury boxes, an actual team store, students surrounding the court, etc. It's not an ideal solution, but it's what is possible within the existing footprint of the building, which is the key from a permitting perspective.