Temple Football Signs Up For Five More Years of Irrelevance
Over the weekend, I had a brilliant idea that would benefit many sports fans in the city but primarily, Temple Football and the University as a whole. Finally build the on-campus stadium they clearly desire and rent it out to an XFL expansion team in Philadelphia. A new, state of the art 30,000 seat stadium would be the perfect capacity for both the Temple football program and an XFL team. Well, it took Temple less than 48 hours to ruin that plan.
.@Temple_FB still hopes to build its own stadium, but has agreed to keep playing on the #Eagles field for 5 more years. https://t.co/k7Ga6qJ5pd
— The Philadelphia Inquirer (@PhillyInquirer) February 10, 2020
The article still seems a bit vague on the options available for Temple to flex themselves out of that deal and into an on-campus stadium once they secure proper permission to start construction. But it sure does seem like they will he stuck in The Linc for the next half-decade.
The article estimates that due to the fact Temple receives none of the parking fees and only 10% of concession fees, it will cost Temple an estimated $3 million per year to rent The Linc from the Eagles. Many people have questioned how the Eagles, who had taxpayer money build their stadium, can charge rent like this. I am sure they have some loophole and good for them for finding it. This is more on Temple for continually getting hosed while being unable to secure an on-campus stadium.
I’ve written many times about how you are a stupid person if you support Temple but don’t want them to build an on-campus football stadium. Read about the plethora of reasons they should build one anytime. Give more years at The Linc would be a mistake.
At first glance, you’d think Temple has an issue with crowd-sizes lacking. In reality, they are on par with most AAC programs. They just happen to play in a 65,000 seat NFL stadium that is entirely too big for their program. The home game attendance averages for the past five years aside from 2015 (Penn State & Notre Dame games) have been slightly below 30,000.
The proposed 30,000 seat stadium should still remain the goal for the Temple Athletic Department. Let’s get crazy and rent it out to a Philadelphia XFL team. Become the lessor instead of the lessee.
I guess all those crazy dreams which could very easily be reality will have to wait.