NU to city: You have 18 months
At least that’s the vibe I got from this article published in the LJS about NU’s initial plans for a practice gyms. NU has outlined a fall ‘10 start date and a fall ‘11 finish date. When the downtown arena stalled a couple of months ago there were rumblings that NU might go ahead with their own plan and stick with the Devaney. A 16 million dollar price tag has been put on the project (which seems like a drop in the bucket compared to some of the football projects we’ve done) and also put that on top of the 10 to 20 million that would be needed to renovate Devaney.
I think this puts the ball squarely in the city’s court (if you will). In our talks about the arena yesterday, Mr. Wilson and I agreed that Lincoln can not build an arena without NU as the major tenant. Or at least it would be a VERY bad idea. Who knows, maybe the city could make it work but I highly doubt it.
I wonder how close NU could back out of their own project if the city finally gets the arena project rolling? NU’s marketing company, IMG says they’re really interested in the arena and only mildly interested in NU’s project. After yesterday’s story about how well they work together and the financial stability that it provides NU, maybe NU should hold out and wait for the arena. Maybe financially in the long run it would make more sense to play in a new arena.
I think we’re in for an interesting summer when it comes to arena talks.
The Comments
jake rhymes with cake says men's gymnastics February 10, 2009 at 1:54pm
the husker’s men gymnastics team really needs an upgrade. they are always the last team to get any support. the women’s team have a full gymn to practice in, the men’s team is still using the same equipment from c.1992 and 1/4 of the gymn space as the women’s team. maybe our men’s team would be better if they had a better place to practice? is the proposed plan for an upgrade/addition to the devaney, or a whole new arena altogether? i haven’t heard anything about this except on here on Lincolnite.
Mr. Wilson says RE: men's gymnastics February 11, 2009 at 9:27am
Or we could cut the team altogether. I don’t mean any disrespect to the athletes. Gymnasts are incredible athletes. But as a sport gymnastics is dying. If I had a vote, I would vote to replace men’s gymnastics with men’s soccer.
Then again, that just raises a new problem: where would they play? The current soccer field is already a terrible place for the women to play. Its dangerous features would be even worse in the men’s game.
jake rhymes with cake says i think you may think February 11, 2009 at 10:54am
i think you may think that gymnastics is dying because we live in a state where gymnastics programs are being destroyed by Title IX (which doesn’t support soccer either; and we’re not the only state) ... and we have a major football fanaticism/delusion problem.
IF the sport is dying, it’s not because kids aren’t interested, it’s because Title IX won’t support funding to those programs, which is a genocide to the sport.
Gene says RE: i think you may think February 11, 2009 at 12:19pm
Is soccer a higher revenue generator than men’s gymnastics?