Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yep! Some places like A&M, Baylor and others straight-up put the students front and center ... and I think that's great. However, having students in the end zone actually isn't a huge problem in and of itself, but they should be as close as humanly possible to the field; the student section is NOT the area to build some really tall wall to prevent obstructed views and then ALSO put several rows of the band plus a tall staircase in between the first row of students and that wall! Two other examples from places that are generally thought to be intimidating and whose setups are similar enough that we should probably imitate them somewhat include Iowa and Oregon below. Neither puts their students in these extremely coveted, big donor seats ... but they both have way better setups than Illinois.To add to this, Texas A&M dedicates the entire three levels of the East side of Kyle Field to students.
That's 38,000 sideline seats worth of lost revenue at SEC prices. Yet we hand wring about two sections.
Iowa: Students in the purple sections - part of the end zone but also in two corner sections. This would be a similar setup to my Horseshoe/visitors section idea posted earlier. Additionally, as someone who has been to Kinnick a lot, those first rows are RIGHT on top of the field, and they are elevated as little as possible, as seen in the second photo.
Oregon: Students in the gray sections 4-8. Like Iowa, you put some in the end zone but keep some in sideline sections. And, needless to say, they are right on top of the field.
Illinois: We all know where the students are, but look how comparatively (A) higher up off the ground they are and (B) more "up in the air" and away from the core of the stadium they are.
Hell, that first pic even looks really cool from field level! If you had that exact same setup but with the students beginning where the Marching Illini first row is (that actually is a VERY significant difference in distance from the field!) and ideally closed in the corners, far fewer people would complain. However, the second pic really illustrates why so many feel the students are just too "set apart" from the rest of the stadium. We could have easily chosen to have the NEZ structure wrap around to be closer to the towers and feel more cohesive, but we chose to have it go straight back in a rectangular shape ... that decision just makes the whole area seem so separate from the "noise effort" that the rest of the stadium is creating.
