fauowls44 said

mdawson said

In regards to MLL: we are trying to attract a variety of events to the stadium in order to showcase the university and facility as well as pay the debt service on the facility.  MLL had several "conditions" under which they would bring their event to FAU Stadium.

First, this will be a nationally televised event on ESPN 2 and cameras will shoot from west to east.  Because of this, they wanted all seating to be in the east side stands. This accomplished two things for them: it provides a better television image since they only estimate an attendance of 5,000 and, second, it contains cost by saving on ushers, security, cleaning, etc thus making the rental cost fall within their budget.

Second, in order to help fund the event they required a space with a view of the playing field to host a private party for their sponsors. They identified the priority deck for this purpose.

For stadium rentals that utilize seating in the priority/premier level, seat holders in those areas will get first right of refusal for their exact seats. Due to the requirement of the private party area for sponsors we could not do that for this event.  However we wanted to offer these individuals the first choice of seats for the event. In addition, priority/premier seat holders usually only have first rights to the exact number of seats they purchased. We lifted that limit for this event as a perk. We are also working on some additional perks for the priority/premier seat holders that choose to attend this event.

Our goal was to keep our facility name out there as a player by booking this next event. In addition the bonus of having our stadium and university showcased on national television was a huge plus to booking this event.

Great explaination.  Thanks!  It's exciting that FAU Stadium will get more national exposure.  Hopefully this event will lead to many others.

smittysahoot said

Maybe it's because I work in collegiate athletics that has me agreeing with mdawson and FAU a lot… but come on…. that explanation was spot-on and awesome. On a separate note: I dread the day when we get "too big" and our top administrators can't come on and explain things to the fans. That's one of the great things about FAU - we are still at a size where we have personal interaction with staff.