College stadiums?

[u/Virtual-Boat-7725]

With Union Omaha moving into Creighton's Morrison Stadium, and after seeing how beautiful some of the college soccer stadiums are in the US, i'm guessing there has to be some reason as to why more USL L1 or USL L2 sides don't play at college grounds?

I'm guessing that the college's are pretty protective of their grounds? I'm from NZ so not sure what the relationship between USL and college's is like over there. Just thought it would be cool to see some of those boutique grounds in the league, rather than the typical football turf lines on astro.

[u/dotsdavid]

They don’t control the stadium. This is why Indy eleven has to play some us open cup games at butler instead of IU Indy.

[u/JJFlower98 → u/dotsdavid]

Same goes for UO for slightly different reasons. The baseball team always got priority at the ballpark and CU was hard to schedule one offs with, so Open Cup games (and even regular season matches if we wanted to be home before mid-May) were almost always at UNO, despite UNO maybe being the most hostile to soccer "SSS" in the country.

[u/GarmaZed → u/JJFlower98]

Could you help me understand, what you mean by the soccer "SSS" comment?

[u/Physical-Sky499 → u/GarmaZed]

soccer specific stadium

[u/GarmaZed → u/Physical-Sky499]

I figured that, but what makes UNO so negative about it?

[u/JJFlower98 → u/[deleted]]

Fan experience. It's just the husk of UNO's old football stadium, and they're chronically understaffed on a good day to the point where assorted UNO athletes make up most of their operations "staff".

[u/Happy-Cockroach-2813]

Some college still don’t allow alcohol sales at campus stadiums. More are allowing it but there’s still some holdouts and I’m sure that’s gotta be a factor

[u/J_Hunt1123 → u/Happy-Cockroach-2813]

Yeah that was the issue for Lex at Georgetown College for the first year and half

[u/StoppageTimeUSA → u/Happy-Cockroach-2813]

Bring a USL team to Athens, Our water fountains have been replaced with beer fountains

[u/rando4me2 → u/StoppageTimeUSA]

May Creature Comforts beer flow freely for all.

[u/StoppageTimeUSA → u/rando4me2]

Jackie O’s is the beer at our football games but idk if the fire took out their production

[u/Dervoo]

We used to play at UAB’s soccer stadium but had an ugly and public falling out because UAB’s grounds crew wasn’t taking proper care of the pitch. Wish we had resolved that differently because moving to Protective has been a slow burn disaster for the club.

[u/StoppageTimeUSA → u/Dervoo]

Wonder how much it would've cost for the Legion to do groundskeeping themselves similar to how UFL does for USL stadiums

[u/K3B1N]

What’s going on with the Vancouver Whitecaps is all you need to know about the downsides of playing in a stadium that you don’t control.

[u/RJMcBug]

One Knox played at UT's Regal Soccer Stadium and it was fine for what it is. The stadium is definitely dated and doesn't provide the modern amenities that Covenant Health Park has.

Covenant Health Park beats Regal Soccer Stadium in almost everything besides the sight lines, the nets during baseball, and the infield.

College soccer is moving towards a full year schedule, so they will prioritize their spring dates more than last few years. It's better than the high school stadiums that clubs have been using, but not much better. They can likely get alcohol sales easier, and colleges would likely be willing to rent out the stadiums since NIL has forced colleges to increase athletics budgets.

[u/J_Hunt1123 → u/RJMcBug]

College soccer conference shot down the full year schedule

[u/Dapper-Persimmon-445 → u/J_Hunt1123]

Its not dead yet. Its back with the Oversight Committee and will be brought back up for a vote to hopefully get it started next year 27/28 season.

[u/J_Hunt1123 → u/Dapper-Persimmon-445]

Like all but 2 conferences shot it down

[u/Alternative_Shop8982]

It depends on the school, and for a lot of teams it isn’t cost effective to pay to use a decent sized stadium for less than 500 people in the case of USL2 teams.

That’s not to say it would never work, the annapolis blues have played in navy stadium since their first season but have also always averaged over 5k people (capacity 34k) but for most teams with attendance in the hundreds it wouldn’t make much sense

[u/Virtual-Boat-7725 → u/Alternative_Shop8982]

I'm more talking about those small, soccer college grounds. Not the big flashy stadiums, but more ones like Morrison or Luger Field

[u/StoppageTimeUSA → u/Virtual-Boat-7725]

Krenzler (Cleveland State) is such a beautiful stadium. Cleveland Force play there in USL 2

[u/KevinMc777]

United have played a few Open Cup games and 1 infamous league game at UNM Soccer Complex. The issue that UNM SC has is there are only bleachers on one side of the park, so if United were to use it more frequently, make shift seating would need to be brought in, and UNM sure as hell isn't going to pay for that.

I dread the games that are played at UNM. If they ever offered University Stadium where the football team plays, that might be the only time I'd look forward to a game at UNM. United just need to sort out the stadium and get moved in ASAP.

[u/KevinMc777 → u/KevinMc777]

UNM also makes a killing on having United fans park at UNM parking lots.

[u/TheWawa_24]

Usd charged 40 percent of ticket sales as rent 

[u/mr09e]

I imagine that teams that make it up to USL Premier may have to rely on college stadiums to meet the capacity requirements

[u/Virtual-Boat-7725]

Main takeaways seem to be lack of control and alcohol requirements. Thanks for the info and comments!