MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia University could soon be exploring options to add seating or other amenities to Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown.
The West Virginia University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, led by Athletic Director Wren Baker, will begin the process of updating the 44-year-old Milan Puskar Stadium by sending a survey out to donors, ticket holders, and other stakeholders to see what the interests are. Specifically, a sample of single-game and season ticket holders, past ticket buyers, regional alumni, and Mountaineer Athletic Club members will all be invited to participate in the survey.
Baker joined Hoppy Kercheval on “Metro News Talkine” Wednesday morning and said the survey would be in depth and beneficial to the process of understanding where people stand.
“It’s a wide-ranging survey, a very thorough survey,” Baker said. “It’s a survey that’s tailored for the individual, so if you answer that you’re interested in a club membership, it’s going to ask you a bunch of questions on amenities.”
Along with sending out a survey to alumni and fans, WVU is taking a step in the direction of change by partnering with CSL, a planning and advisory firm with a strong suit in giving consulting services to sports, entertainment, and leisure industries. CSL is also a property of Legends Hospitality, a corporation that is a joint venture of the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys.
Milan Puskar Stadium, which opened on WVU’s Evansdale Campus before the Mountaineers’ 1980 campaign, has undergone plenty of changes to its original form, but has not seen any premium seating updates since the “Diversified Energy Terrace” was added to the north endzone 20 years ago.
When it comes to the progression of on-campus venues, Baker says staying stagnant in the process could hurt the university in the future.
“When you look at the future, you cut yourself off from some significant prospecting when you can’t provide those amenities and things that people want and that people get at other professional venues they go to,” Baker said.
The West Virginia Athletic Department has taken inspiration from some of the professional venues that have welcomed the Mountaineers over the past year, specifically Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC, where the football team won the 2023 Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
Baker says he and the athletic department were doing what they could to take inspiration from the NFL stadium.
“When we were at Charlotte last year for the bowl game, we were taking pictures and videos,” Baker said. “We went in every seating area that they have.”
Along with the home of the Carolina Panthers, Baker made a trip out to Phoenix, Arizona to take in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ facility at Chase Field with WVU alumnus and team owner Ken Kendrick in the spring.
While Baker acknowledged that the West Virginia fanbase is deemed more “blue collar,” he’s still confident there will be a market for more premium seating and club options going forward.
“There will be demand, and we hear it a lot,” Baker said. “We could sell another dozen or so suites today if we had them because I’ve had that many people ask to buy them since I’ve been here.
Baker also mentioned that other schools in the Big 12 Conference with similar fanbases and alumni bases as West Virginia have made substantial progress in their respective venues, citing that Oklahoma State’s Boone Pickens Stadium has more suites than any college football stadium in the nation.
Baker and his staff will now look to gather data from the survey and see what is on the horizon for the state’s largest stadium.