My BIL shared that O'Malley tweeted that the baseball stadium will be completed by spring of 2024. I don't do twitter so I can't copy it here. Evidently the BOG meets today on that topic and others.
O'Malley Tweets On Baseball Stadium
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Just saw in the HD that the stadium could come out ahead of schedule.
The initial bid came around $31 million which was above the projected cost and of course COVID slowed down the process more.
They already have $10 million from the school itself and will need roughly $15 million to raise.
The initial bid came around $31 million which was above the projected cost and of course COVID slowed down the process more.
They already have $10 million from the school itself and will need roughly $15 million to raise.
Why on earth did we do a groundbreaking ceremony with less than 1/3 of the funding secured…? It was probably much less than that considering the $10 million is with two extra years of fundraising.
I was under the impression that we had raised way more than $10 million. Does the $10 million from the school also include the original pledges when this was rolled out precovid? It seems to me we were pretty close to the original estimates.
I think we were off about 8Mil between the estimates and actual bids. I could be wrong on that though
Not sure if this is correct or not but I thought "Herd Rises" (which was to fund baseball and basketball projects) was part of the overall "Marshall Rises" capital campaign, a $150m project, which I understand has pretty much been secured by pledges. Can somebody in the know confirm this?
Planned MU baseball stadium could open ahead of 2024 season
"This is something the Board wants, a plan that we can move forward with and a timeline. It gives us a goal in the end," Interim Athletic Director Jeff O'Malley
Believe the overall Capital campaign, Marshall Rises, includes privately raised funds for the new Smith Business Building to be built along 4th Avenue. Since the latest plans are to break ground on that project early in 2022, it is pretty clear that MU will be hard at raising monies over the next 2 to 3 years for BOTH projects, including the baseball facility. Absent a sudden and terrific uptick in the local and State economies, MU leadership, administration will be hard pressed to raise the necessary funds to complete both projects without having to cut back severely on both, leaving MU with less than state of the art, quality 21st Century facilities, IMO.
The chances of MU EVER having a baseball park are 90-10 against.
Whatever one wants to think, athletic donation is a QPQ. The guy doing the fund raising is NOT going to be here going forward. He can offer you nothing more than a name on a plaque. There is no reason to donate, other than a 100% altruistic love of MU sports, which has not worked for this idea for 100 years, so probably won't work this year either.
Time to think about what sport to replace baseball with. Wrestling?
Whatever one wants to think, athletic donation is a QPQ. The guy doing the fund raising is NOT going to be here going forward. He can offer you nothing more than a name on a plaque. There is no reason to donate, other than a 100% altruistic love of MU sports, which has not worked for this idea for 100 years, so probably won't work this year either.
Time to think about what sport to replace baseball with. Wrestling?
Replacing baseball with one of the fastest sports cut overall
A majority if not all of the Brad Smith donation is covering the Business School and Incubator...it's something like $40 million. They are fine.
While I don't miss your pessimistic views, there is somewhat of a challenge to see how quickly MU can "recover" from having a very limited amounts of students on campus to refilling the campus and area.
in the NCAA?!?!
Then you pick one. We are at the minimum for Division I membership in men's sports. Baseball is not viable under the current situation. We will have to add something that can use existing resources and venues, preferably something played by local high schools. Tennis or track also seem reasonable.
Sam: As we are all entitled to our opinion, I respect yours. Having said that, and given your knowledge of the history of Marshall sports, does it seem logical that:
A. The interim AD publicly states that the BoG wants the baseball stadium built, and is pointing towards a spring 2024 grand opening…
B. The estimate of the total cost has been reduced, meaning less $$ needs to be raised to begin construction….
C. That the aforementioned AD feels confident the $$ will be raised, only to…..
D. In the very near future, fall on his sword, officially kill the men’s baseball program and announce that a committee is being formed to study the feasibility of MU joining the Hogwarts league to form a backgammon team (I hear that the players from foreign countries could give us a major advantage!)
That is because you sell the sizzle not the steak.
What do expect any one in such a position to say? All ADs, college presidents, fund raisers of any type always tell you about the bright shining future. Nobody is going to give money to somebody who says "well, we will try to scrape by". It is always easier to fund raise on some new shinny building than for the basic $$ needed to keep things going.
Heck, the governor, is telling people about this grand future and how we are "going to run over" all the other states in our bright economic prosperity. Does anybody, regardless of politics, really believe that? Of course not, but nobody is ever going to win saying "well, this state is in real trouble, it needs to lose another 500K people to achieve sustainability, and my main job is to oversee the closure of lots of things.
What do expect any one in such a position to say? All ADs, college presidents, fund raisers of any type always tell you about the bright shining future. Nobody is going to give money to somebody who says "well, we will try to scrape by". It is always easier to fund raise on some new shinny building than for the basic $$ needed to keep things going.
Heck, the governor, is telling people about this grand future and how we are "going to run over" all the other states in our bright economic prosperity. Does anybody, regardless of politics, really believe that? Of course not, but nobody is ever going to win saying "well, this state is in real trouble, it needs to lose another 500K people to achieve sustainability, and my main job is to oversee the closure of lots of things.
Fencing, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle skiing, swimming, tennis, track, volleyball, water polo, or wrestling.
Men's volleyball? REALLY? That and most of the sports you mentioned are probably not played by the majority of CUSA schools. Track would probably require an outdoor track. Tennis would probably be competitive but both men's and women's tennis would be best served, and given the best opportunity to be successful, if a new indoor tennis facility is built, again the need for $$$$. Not all CUSA schools field teams in the same sports, but believe that perhaps we have to have X number of teams who compete in League sports.
I was merely mentioning the NCAA sponsored sports.
We have a women's track team and do not have a track.
I just want to point out that when the baseball stadium was first being discussed, the numbers people were throwing out were in the range of $12-$15 million for a serviceable stadium. Now we are finding out that would cost $32 million, and we're trimming it down to bare bones so we can get something made for $26 million. And I think everybody knows within a year its construction, it'll host crowds no bigger than what Dot Hicks sees on a given Tuesday morning in March.
If I wanted to start an advanced robotics department at Marshall, you think $12 million would get me started?
If I wanted to start an advanced robotics department at Marshall, you think $12 million would get me started?
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This is because, for decades, there have been multiple groups that have wanted MU and/or the city to build a palatial baseball park "for" MU, and then rent it to them for the summer for $1 so they can be play pretend baseball owners in some minor league.
All of the bells and whistles have always been about these people, not MU baseball. As you correctly state:
100% correct. College baseball regular season is Feb-May. We are looking at 1000 or so hearty people sitting in the cold of winter or the dank of early spring watching a summer game. Parents, girlfriends, baseball lifers. No need for, nor use for, the crowd attractors and fan amenities used in the summer. Just a solid field, good locker rooms and like that, and 1000 or 1500 bleachers. All we need.
WVU, which has a beautiful (100% taxpayer paid) stadium and which has more students and more staff (who get in free), which charges less than $10 to anybody else and is in a hole of a town with nothing else to do, and which plays at a pretty high level, averaged 1300/game in the last non-C**** year.
Fact is MU could have, and could have had at any time in the last 50 years, a serviceable field for its own needs. It is the local gentry that have prevented this with their pipedreams.
Of course, MLB has reorganized the real minors and these joke "independent" leagues are filling those gaps, like in Charleston and Lexington, which may have calmed down some of that crowd, which is why I put the possibility at 90-10 against, rather than a 100% certainty of not happening.
And a baseball field/stadium couldn't fulfill that? I disagree that you think cutting baseball and adding something else, when there has been this much effort put into baseball already.
Without some type of super promotion, 1,000 would be a HUGE crowd. On non promotion nights at Power Park you can set anywhere you want, and Social Distancing is definitely not a problem. My guess is attendance will bee in the 200-500 range depending on the day of the week. A WVU game would be the exception.
Let them build a stadium and see what happens. Obviously, they think it can fly. If it doesn't and they only get 100 or so to attend a game, then everyone can pile on, proclaim their brilliance, and say I told you so.
MU NEVER has played a lot of HOME baseball games in February and obviously never will. More likely is that, like a lot of "northern" schools, it has and will play some/most early season games on the road down "south", in Florida, GA, even perhaps the Carolinas.
You misunderstand.
Yes, the 100% best result is MU playing baseball in Huntington in a proper stadium. 100%.
But that is almost certainly not going to happen. The money just is not there. Thus we have two choices. Continue baseball as is, which is a dead end. Or the fall-back position which is to look at the other men's sports (posted above) and find one we have the facilities for already, preferably something that WV high schools play and which locals have some understanding of.
I believe we should look into starting the first college jousting team. It would draw big crowds, our team could wear colorful costumes, and since the jousting track is relatively narrow, we could squeeze it in almost anywhere on campus. 😁
I can’t help but think of two guys in a horse costume! The ? Which is the head, & which is the tail?
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