A bigger scoreboard in the South end zone. Move the existing scoreboard to the north end zone. You could have dueling scoreboards with the ILL….. INI chant going on. Get a turf that doesn’t have black pellets, the Titans turf has brown pellets and looks more like natural grass on TV. And lastly, aren’t we suppose to be getting new LED lights?
What would you do to improve Memorial Stadium?
While I agree the north endzone needs a scoreboard, I HATE the north/south ILL-INI chant. It needs to go back to east/west.
Also, visitors need to go somewhere else. Hidden. And far away.
Also, visitors need to go somewhere else. Hidden. And far away.
It's striking how well we treat our visiting team fans with premium seat sections.
Same with basketball. Put 'em in the nosebleeds like everyone else does.
Bring the horseshoe closer to the field.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
My favorite topic! Lol, obviously, I think the Horseshoe is the biggest issue ... and I will try to explain why using something I just realized the other day. I think a lot of fans subconsciously expect any "cool" stadium to either (A) extend its architectural theme all around the stadium or (B) have a very clear setup where one end zone is purposely meant to look different. Examples:
(A) Tennessee: A perfect bowl shape.
(B) Ohio State: One end zone fills in the (actual) "horseshoe" look, while the rest of the stadium looks like a bowl.
The jarring thing about Memorial Stadium is that we have totally inconsistent looks on all four sides. We used to at least have very beautiful symmetry with the West and East sides, but we renovated the West side only to not look the same. Here is an interesting exercise to kind of show this. Assume that in a perfect bowl, there are twice as many seats between the end zones as in the end zone seats, based on field proportions. Thus, if you extended the "general look" of each side of Memorial Stadium around all four sides, you'd get these capacities:
East: 28,000 ---> 84,000 (28,000 on East/West sides, 14,000 in each end zone)
Horseshoe: 9,800 ---> 58,800 (19,600 on East/West sides, 9,800 in each end zone)
West: 18,000 --> 54,000 (18,000 on East/West sides, 9,000 in each end zone)
North End Zone: 5,000 ---> 30,000 (10,000 on East/West sides, 5,000 in each end zone)
The East side of our stadium looks grand, tall, intimidating, architecturally impressive and like something you would expect for a "big time" football program:
... the Horseshoe, when you imagine it without the scoreboard, has the height of something that belongs at Sam Houston State:
The Horseshoe is so short and unimpressive from an architectural standpoint that it looks jarring and strange in between our much prettier East and West sides. Even the North End Zone, while having HALF the seats the Horseshoe does, at least looks tall. The fact that the East and West stands are too far from the field of play also stretches out the Horseshoe horizontally, which emphasizes how short it looks even further.
My dream renovation would be to do the following:
1. Wall off the East Main seats underneath the overhang, and put a brick wall in its place to match the one in West Main. Not only does this return a look of symmetry to Memorial Stadium, but (IIRC) it also frees up about 7,000 seats to distribute elsewhere without raising our capacity too much.
2. Demolish the Horseshoe. This frees up a further 9,800 seats to use. So, with East Main updated to match West Main and the Horseshoe gone, our capacity is at 43,870. That gives us 16,800 seats to use on either an improved structure in the South End Zone or fixing up the North End Zone somehow.
3. Build a structure in the South End Zone that matches East Main and the East balcony exactly, with a "South Main" and a "South Balcony." This would give us a bit of that OSU look where we have an ACTUAL "horse shoe" stadium, but this new structure in the SEZ would actually only use about 10,500 seats, making our new capacity 54,370. I think at least 60,000 is appropriate for us NOW and I have faith this program will continue to grow, so...
4. Demolish the NEZ, too, and build a mirror image structure of 10,500 seats in that area that matches both the East and South sides. This brings capacity to 64,870 - something we can absolutely fill up if we get this thing rolling.
TL;DR
The East side of our stadium is currently the only "traditional" looking one, and we should emulate that look all around the stadium. Effectively, we make Memorial Stadium into a "square bowl" so that we can still see the beautiful towers on all four corners. In effect, we create something similar to Borussia Dortmund's legendary Signal Iduna Park but with our beautiful column towers in each corner:
(A) Tennessee: A perfect bowl shape.
(B) Ohio State: One end zone fills in the (actual) "horseshoe" look, while the rest of the stadium looks like a bowl.
The jarring thing about Memorial Stadium is that we have totally inconsistent looks on all four sides. We used to at least have very beautiful symmetry with the West and East sides, but we renovated the West side only to not look the same. Here is an interesting exercise to kind of show this. Assume that in a perfect bowl, there are twice as many seats between the end zones as in the end zone seats, based on field proportions. Thus, if you extended the "general look" of each side of Memorial Stadium around all four sides, you'd get these capacities:
East: 28,000 ---> 84,000 (28,000 on East/West sides, 14,000 in each end zone)
Horseshoe: 9,800 ---> 58,800 (19,600 on East/West sides, 9,800 in each end zone)
West: 18,000 --> 54,000 (18,000 on East/West sides, 9,000 in each end zone)
North End Zone: 5,000 ---> 30,000 (10,000 on East/West sides, 5,000 in each end zone)
The East side of our stadium looks grand, tall, intimidating, architecturally impressive and like something you would expect for a "big time" football program:
... the Horseshoe, when you imagine it without the scoreboard, has the height of something that belongs at Sam Houston State:
The Horseshoe is so short and unimpressive from an architectural standpoint that it looks jarring and strange in between our much prettier East and West sides. Even the North End Zone, while having HALF the seats the Horseshoe does, at least looks tall. The fact that the East and West stands are too far from the field of play also stretches out the Horseshoe horizontally, which emphasizes how short it looks even further.
My dream renovation would be to do the following:
1. Wall off the East Main seats underneath the overhang, and put a brick wall in its place to match the one in West Main. Not only does this return a look of symmetry to Memorial Stadium, but (IIRC) it also frees up about 7,000 seats to distribute elsewhere without raising our capacity too much.
2. Demolish the Horseshoe. This frees up a further 9,800 seats to use. So, with East Main updated to match West Main and the Horseshoe gone, our capacity is at 43,870. That gives us 16,800 seats to use on either an improved structure in the South End Zone or fixing up the North End Zone somehow.
3. Build a structure in the South End Zone that matches East Main and the East balcony exactly, with a "South Main" and a "South Balcony." This would give us a bit of that OSU look where we have an ACTUAL "horse shoe" stadium, but this new structure in the SEZ would actually only use about 10,500 seats, making our new capacity 54,370. I think at least 60,000 is appropriate for us NOW and I have faith this program will continue to grow, so...
4. Demolish the NEZ, too, and build a mirror image structure of 10,500 seats in that area that matches both the East and South sides. This brings capacity to 64,870 - something we can absolutely fill up if we get this thing rolling.
TL;DR
The East side of our stadium is currently the only "traditional" looking one, and we should emulate that look all around the stadium. Effectively, we make Memorial Stadium into a "square bowl" so that we can still see the beautiful towers on all four corners. In effect, we create something similar to Borussia Dortmund's legendary Signal Iduna Park but with our beautiful column towers in each corner:
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I guess I should also give my realistic or short term goal ... and I cannot agree with this more. It simply CANNOT be that hard to do a mini construction project where we bring the current Horsehose seats down to field level as a temporary fix. It might not sound like that big of a change, but I actually think the second (mocked up) image below adds just enough to make it look a lot better:
IlliniwekKDR
- Colorado Springs, CO
Homecoming this year was my first game since 2017, and I was surprised how little has changed over the years with cell service in the area
When I went to the opener against Toledo last year, even the cell service while tailgating was awful. Big improvements needed there.
Isn't it normally the players' families and big $$$ boosters that sit behind the opposing team's bench? I think that's pretty common for most college hoops arenas. I don't think it's really that big of an issue having them sit there.
Haven't been to a home game in Many years. Does our band still play every stanza of the opposing team's school fight song, leaving our visiting fans dumbfounded as they never knew it was so long?
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
100%, and the same thing could be done at the North End Zone as well on either side of the Zuppke Field sign (or just move the Zuppke Field sign forward)
Move the students and the band to the sideline and make the NEZ the cheapskate section.
There has been no sense in adding any seats in recent years, and those two tweaks wouldn't add very many, but if we have the ticket demand to fill them it will make the crowd seem MUCH closer to the action, and would cost next to nothing.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
It’s not for basketball, but letting an entire visiting section and a visiting band sit literally closer to the game than our own students and band at Memorial Stadium is mind bogglingly problematic. I truly am not lying when I say that from my seat in West Main, the Purdue fan section and marching band in East Main was way louder than our student section and band … all because of where we choose to sit both.
Being the STEM school Illinois is, how poor cell service and wifi service is during games is honestly crazy. Grianger can't have some students fix it as a project??
The weight room is under the NEZ. So there are windows that provide natural light from the stadium to the weight room on the sides of the Zupke Field sign. So seats would block those unless they were put up and taken down for each game.
Small improvements: I think the ones that Whitman said would come in the next few years at the 2023 media round table are all the ones I'd say we really need. Those being improved wifi and cell service, new scoreboard, upgrading to LED lights, and a new sound system, and IIRC, the sound system is meant to be stadium-wide as opposed to the two big speakers on the scoreboard. The current sound setup I have to imagine sucks for the people in the horseshoe with how loud the speakers need to be so it can be heard in the north end of the stadium. The only issue I can see with any of these is insiders have talked about the DIA locking down funds until they know how to move forward with revenue sharing, and if that freezes money for assistant coach extensions, I imagine it also freezes money meant to go to small improvements like these that aren't absolutely necessary (like the refurbishment of the East balcony supports). Iirc the work on the east balcony that occurred this summer was the first part of the improvements announced at the 2023 round table, and the next part was probably the wifi upgrades. So while all of these are supposed to be coming, who knows if they're going to be here any time soon.
Big upgrades: The big one we essentially need and has been talked to death on here whenever the topic comes up is fixing the SEZ. In a perfect world, I think we should build what we initially announced around 2017. That rendering would fix every issue we currently have with the horseshoe. It was tall, encompassing, closed in the SEZ vertically as well as in the corners, and most importantly IMO, would bring the wall as close or closer to the field than the NEZ is (one of the best aspects of NEZ actually). We don't live in a perfect world tho so I'll happily take a scaled-down version (which is probably what we would have gotten 5 years ago anyway). Something like what Iowa did with Kinnick recently is probably more realistic and achievable. We would just need to make a bigger version imo. Iowa's is pretty small because they had such little space to work with. We could probably fit two of what Iowa built in the space between the back of the endzone and Kirby and still have space left over. While we're at, make the south tunnel a bit of a cooler entrance for the band, both for their "new" pregame entrance and for when they enter and exit the stadium. There's a lot of schools that have really cool tunnel areas that create a really cool entrance for the band, and if we're renovating the horseshoe, might as well give the Marching Illini the coolest tunnel in at least the Big 10.
Another small, but worthwhile renovation to have would be to have the east and west mains mirror each other. Like Flighter mentioned, that gives us more wiggle room to add more seats in a SEZ renovation, but we could also add a big premium section on that side of the field for the same reason they would be in a SEZ renovation. It could be essentially a second Collenades Club or it it could just be more private suites, but we should make use of that space if we remove the seats rather than just leaving it empty. Removing the seats under the overhang also removes the need for the massive ramps in the East Hall opening up that space to give it similar upgrades to what have been made in the West Hall over the years.
The NEZ structure itself isn't as big of an issue as people like to make it out to be imo, but I do think it can be utilized far better than as the student section. I've liked a "family area" concept that I believe Flighter has mentioned, but I think if you really wanted to go all out, I think turning it into a standing-room-only food and drink area, similar to the setups become super popular in MLB stadiums might be a really good use. I'm thinking something similar to what Indiana has on one end. That being said, this should be the very last thing on any list of renovations. It isn't perfect how it is right now, but it's far from hurting the stadium and our gameday experience in any way.
Big upgrades: The big one we essentially need and has been talked to death on here whenever the topic comes up is fixing the SEZ. In a perfect world, I think we should build what we initially announced around 2017. That rendering would fix every issue we currently have with the horseshoe. It was tall, encompassing, closed in the SEZ vertically as well as in the corners, and most importantly IMO, would bring the wall as close or closer to the field than the NEZ is (one of the best aspects of NEZ actually). We don't live in a perfect world tho so I'll happily take a scaled-down version (which is probably what we would have gotten 5 years ago anyway). Something like what Iowa did with Kinnick recently is probably more realistic and achievable. We would just need to make a bigger version imo. Iowa's is pretty small because they had such little space to work with. We could probably fit two of what Iowa built in the space between the back of the endzone and Kirby and still have space left over. While we're at, make the south tunnel a bit of a cooler entrance for the band, both for their "new" pregame entrance and for when they enter and exit the stadium. There's a lot of schools that have really cool tunnel areas that create a really cool entrance for the band, and if we're renovating the horseshoe, might as well give the Marching Illini the coolest tunnel in at least the Big 10.
Another small, but worthwhile renovation to have would be to have the east and west mains mirror each other. Like Flighter mentioned, that gives us more wiggle room to add more seats in a SEZ renovation, but we could also add a big premium section on that side of the field for the same reason they would be in a SEZ renovation. It could be essentially a second Collenades Club or it it could just be more private suites, but we should make use of that space if we remove the seats rather than just leaving it empty. Removing the seats under the overhang also removes the need for the massive ramps in the East Hall opening up that space to give it similar upgrades to what have been made in the West Hall over the years.
The NEZ structure itself isn't as big of an issue as people like to make it out to be imo, but I do think it can be utilized far better than as the student section. I've liked a "family area" concept that I believe Flighter has mentioned, but I think if you really wanted to go all out, I think turning it into a standing-room-only food and drink area, similar to the setups become super popular in MLB stadiums might be a really good use. I'm thinking something similar to what Indiana has on one end. That being said, this should be the very last thing on any list of renovations. It isn't perfect how it is right now, but it's far from hurting the stadium and our gameday experience in any way.
Foliage on top of those squat buildings in the two NEZ corners. Something to fill in those voids.