FSU spent millions to complete the beautiful Champions Club inside Doak Campbell Stadium – a section that always appears empty since no one’s in the seats.
Six times last season, the FSU football team took the field inside of Doak Campbell Stadium to take on either an ACC foe or one of the two non-confernce games on the home schedule in 2016. Inside of Doak last season was the brand new Champions Club – a project that cost millions upon millions in an effort to provide a “better” experience for fan when they came to the stadium.
Don’t know which sections those were? Well, if you were inside Doak or watching at home, it was the thousands of empty seats – some almost full sections completely empty – that was pretty embarrassing and made it look like Florida State couldn’t get people to come out for games…especially when the Seminoles were playing nationally televised games against Clemson and Florida.
The biggest problem is that the seats weren’t “technically” empty. You see, many of them had been purchased and the owners were in the house – they were busy inside the club section eating and drinking and watching the game on televisions inside or checking their smart phones. You know, things people at home were doing.
The classic excuse for the first half of the season – a noon game vs. Charleston Southern and 3:30 p.m. games vs. UNC and Wake – was that fans were staying inside because of how hot it can get in Tallahassee. But what about the final three games…all of which had kickoffs of 7:30 p.m. or later against the afore mentioned Tigers, Gators and Boston College Eagles?
In an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat two weeks ago, athletics director Stan Wilcox acknowledged that the empty seats on national TV – and against your biggest foes on the home schedule – was not a good look and something that needs to be fixed:
"“The issue is shade. And at the same time you could easily fix it if you were to just say, ok, at a certain time — kickoff — that you’re going to roll the shades down and you’ve got to be out of the club and in your seats.But you kind of don’t want to do that because you’re just going to lose that many people that are buying into the club seat area.”"
Florida State Seminoles Football
Wilcox went on to say that some of the other ideas, in addition to a shade that could help block the sun for some of the earlier kickoffs in the season, would include in seat concessions to allow people to get their better food and drinks while actually being at the football game they paid top dollar for.
Look, I’m not going to judge those who did buy tickets for the Champions Club and say those in the “normal” seats are better fans because they are actually in those seats – we’re all FSU fans and support the Seminoles. The issue was that, while it seemed like a good money maker for the program and might end up being that, the Champions Club was not thought out.
The concept lowered the seating capacity from fans who would have been able to pay the $30 to $50 a seat that those areas used to cost and, in return, got plenty of seats that sit empty while national television makes it looks like our fans don’t care to come to the stadium – when they are there, but just inside the air conditioning enjoying crab cakes or whatever is being served.
For those who do have tickets in the Champions Club, I would offer this one piece of advice: before the game, at halftime and after the game, eat as much as you want and drink as much as you want of the good stuff (safely, of course) because for the money you are paying, you should do so. But when the game is going on, come join us ticket holders in the rest of Doak Campbell Stadium…we need you.