Beaver Stadium’s future is to be improved – but not new.
That was the message of Phil Esten, Penn State’s No. 2 person in athletics, when he spoke on Thursday to State College business leaders.
“Our desire, our inclination, quite frankly our expectation, is to renovate Beaver Stadium,” Esten said.
“There’s a lot of history there. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. There are some things we need to address. Right now, we need to address our rest rooms and our concession stands and probably our circulation ingress and egress and a whole bunch of stuff like that.
“Our desire is to renovate,” he added. “I don’t think we’re going to need to build a new stadium.”
However, the decision to renovate the current stadium — built in 1960 in part from decades-old parts from Beaver Field — is not a done deal.
“I’ll tell you what: I don’t think we’re doing ourselves a great service if we don’t at least look at (a new stadium),” said Esten, while speaking at a local chamber of commerce event.
“If there are seven things we feel we need to accomplish in Beaver Stadium and we can only get to three of them with a renovation, but we can get to seven with something new and the cost difference isn’t too drastic, why not take a look at building something new?”
PRESCRIPTION FOR SUCCESS
Esten has, in fact, built something new before, which was TCF Bank Stadium while he at the University of Minnesota. He’s also dealt with the aftermath of a massive stadium renovation project at Cal Berkeley, where current Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour was the AD for 11 years.
So, Dr. Phil knows what he is talking about. And that’s because when it comes to stadiums, the doctor – Esten has a Ph.D. in sport management – is in.
Esten was a lynchpin in the fundraising for and the construction of Minnesota’s 50,805-seat, $288.5 million TCF Bank Stadium. When it opened in 2009, TCF Bank was the first new football stadium in the Big Ten since 1960.
From Minnesota, he joined Barbour for two years at Cal, arriving one month after the reopening of California Memorial Stadium in 2012. The project drew a firestorm of criticism after resulting in a debt of $445 million following the stadium’s $321 million expansion – much of it to meet mandated earthquake safety regulations since the stadium is on a fault line – and a $153 million student athletic center.
Esten also knows the Big Ten Conference. He spent three seasons selling out The Horseshoe at Ohio State, where he was assistant director of events and ticketing for the Buckeyes. And although a graduate of the University of St. Thomas (Minn.), where he played varsity baseball, he’s a native of LaCrosse, Wis. As such, Esten cut his Big Ten football stadium teeth by going the 143 miles down Route 90 and past The Dells to attend the Wisconsin Badgers’ home games at Camp Randall.
HIS PHIL AT PENN STATE
Esten has been on the job for 15 months at Penn State, having been hired by Barbour just three months into her tenure, which began in August 2014. His official title is deputy athletic director and chief operating officer, but he is also the sport administrator for football, so he has hands-on responsibilities working with head football coach James Franklin.
As Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics nears its final laps of finalizing its strategic master plan, slated for July, Esten is running point on the massive project.
How big? Try these numbers on for size: 31 varsity teams, 300 acres, 20 facilities, 800 athletes, 360 “full equivalent” scholarship athletes, 290 or so PSU ICA employees and an annual budget nearing $120 million.
Working with Barbour and sports architecture giant Populous, he is pulling together information and polling stake-holders for their input on everything from the viability of premium tailgating suites to erecting locker rooms at Jeffrey Field.
That’s a lot of moving parts. But the (aging) crown jewel of that empire is still Beaver Stadium, which is in many ways the athletic department’s ATM. But one that is also in need of some big repairs. An average of #99.799k saw a Penn State home football game in 2015 and the associated revenues from that (tickets, seat licenses, concessions, etc.), along with $25 million-plus annually from the Big Ten Conference, go a long way in funding athletics present, as well necessary upkeep and future growth.
’MO MONEY
A significant part of what Esten and Penn State are looking at is maximizing revenue from football and Beaver Stadium. That includes increasing revenues from game day – everything from suites with grills, open-ended “social setting areas” and possibly premium alcohol sales. All of it is designed to offer even more stadium-area amenities, at a price, somewhat ironically shared on Thursday with a group of local business people who would be affected when fans spend even more of their money at or by the stadium instead of in downtown State College and at surrounding area hospitality venues.
In addition, Esten reiterated what has been mentioned in the past about holding other revenue-generating events in Beaver Stadium. The University of Michigan, for instance, netted more than $3 million in 2014 when Real Madrid CF and Manchester United faced off in a friendly at The Big House. Talk of holding an NHL game in Beaver Stadium is nothing new, although Esten noted that the stadium is currently not equipped for hosting winter events.
“I can say we are interested and open to doing other things in Beaver Stadium – not only football games,” he said. “Whether it’s concerts or other athletic events, etc. I will say this: The infrastructure of Beaver Stadium is going to preclude us from doing some things that we may or may not want to do. So the investments in the facility are going to be necessary so we can look at some of these things long-term.
“The facility is not winterized, as an example. So that poses some challenges. It doesn’t mean that opportunities are insurmountable, but it does pose a couple of challenges.”
MAKING A CONNECTION
Better concession options and enhanced Internet access are the top two items on any Beaver Stadium wish list, Esten said.
“How do we continue to offer an invaluable, incomparable and unique experience that you can’t get at home?” Esten asked. “It’s going to have to do with engaging with you on your smartphones and Wifi is important for that. And what we can do from an experiential and concessions standpoint is just as important.”
For now, Esten is sure about one thing:
No matter what happens with Beaver Stadium, the student section won’t be getting chairback seats – even if the rest of the stadium does.
“Our students like the bench seats – they stand the whole game,” he said. “So there’s 20,000 right there we don’t have to touch.”
