ODU picked a fine time to build a program

NORFOLK

Go get a big check, Sonny Stallings was told, and then we'll talk about starting football at Old Dominion University.

Stallings did, securing a seven-figure pledge from a local developer. Then the real estate market crashed.

"Everything tanked," said Stallings, a member of ODU's Board of Visitors and longtime advocate of football at his alma mater. "The money didn't come and neither did football."

That was in the 1980s. More than 20 years later, a far worse economy could not sack football at ODU. Ticket demand is exceeding supply, and there's talk of adding temporary bleachers to accommodate the expected overflow. Loge seats and luxury suites are sold out, with waiting lists growing. Foreman Field, which is undergoing a $24.8 million renovation, is a hive of construction activity. Its exterior may be Depression-era, but its innards will be state-of-the-art.

How did ODU pull it off? Starting a football program is challenging enough in normal times. But doing it during the worst economy in decades is something else entirely.

"I talk to my counterparts all over the country and they are just amazed we are adding football in these economic times," said Mark Brown, associate athletic director for finance.

Indeed, UNC Charlotte, which announced in November that it will start football in 2013, has already scaled back its stadium plans, blaming the economy for slow sales of seat licenses. The school will decide in the fall whether to delay adding football by a year or more.

ODU hit no such snags. Credit careful planning, fortuitous timing and a pent-up demand that built over decades for keeping things on track.

Timing might have been the biggest factor. When ODU announced in May 2006 its intentions to start football, the economic meltdown was still two years away. It's hard to envision such an announcement coming in May 2009, with unemployment at 9 percent and the Dow Jones average still down 38 percent from its October 2007 all-time high.

"We would have a lot more naysayers," Stallings said. "And we probably would have to listen to them, quite frankly."

"Our timing could not have been more perfect," school president John Broderick said. "Most of our larger gifts and suite sales were committed prior to the economic decline, and very few commitments have fallen off."

Back in 2006, support for football had been lined up by the time the announcement was made. After a unanimous vote of the board of visitors in 2005, alumni were surveyed, and a consultant's study was commissioned. Land for practice fields was acquired and nearly $6 million in pledges was received.

For some, the announcement was almost 40 years in the making. Barry Kornblau, a member of the board of visitors, said there was discussion of adding football at ODU during his undergraduate days in the 1960s. A formal drive was launched in the mid-1980s, but it ended when fundraising stalled.

More than two decades later, ODU's alumni base has grown and matured. Its pockets are deeper, its numbers greater.

Still, Kornblau says if ODU decided to start football today, it would likely take longer than three years to get off the ground because fundraising would be more challenging. The CEO of a Richmond real estate company, Kornblau gave $500,000 himself at the start of the campaign.

"Today, that would be a little more difficult," he said.

Big donors such as Kornblau and local businessman Jeff Ainslie, who donated $1 million toward the renovation of Foreman Field, are obviously important to an effort like this. But Mark Benson, assistant vice president of athletic development, said a consultant's study told them the school could not rely on "mega" donors alone. Rather, it needed broad-based support.

Season ticket sales have reflected that. ODU has orders for about 15,000. That's more than Foreman Field can accommodate for Monarch fans. The stadium has a capacity of 19,782, and 6,000 other tickets are to be set aside for students, opposing fans and internal school use.

"I always knew football would be big here," Benson said. "What shocked me was how quickly our fans responded."

Broderick said the groundwork for football success might actually have been rooted in what the basketball program has developed since the new arena was built.

"While demand for football was certainly a major factor in the success of funding this program," he said, "I also think the... fan experience people have had at the Ted Constant Center set a positive tone for establishing football at ODU and what people could expect."

The response to football has helped fundraising. About 1,700 fans who annually donated to the Big Blue Club, the school's booster club, have bought about 7,800 tickets. Pledge amounts to the club determine the order of seat selection, so fans who give more get better seats.

But you don't have to be a high roller to get a good seat, Benson said. Big Blue memberships start at $100.

Still, premium seats and luxury suites will go a long way toward meeting ODU's annual $2.5 million football budget. Luxury suites should bring in about $600,000. Tickets sales - including loge seats, which go for $3,500 for a group of four - will add another $1.4 million. The remainder of the budget will be met by Big Blue donations and students fees. The portion of those fees that goes to athletics was raised from $27.81 per credit hour to $43.79 per credit hour - an increase of 57 percent - mostly to cover football.

Suites have been sold out for more than a year. Twelve patio suites on the third level go for $25,000. Another 12 on the fourth level go for $20,000, although Stallings joked that all the suites were basically "auctioned off" because in order to get in line to buy one, purchasers had to make donations to the Big Blue Club.

Considering the times, that kind of response has been overwhelming. Kornblau said if ODU can sell out in a tough economy, it should be able to hold onto its season ticket base when times improve.

Touring Foreman Field with Benson, it's hard to see any evidence of a recession. The south end zone is a luxury area, with 26 suites under construction, as well as the loge seats and lounge areas for loge and premium seat holders.

The crown jewel is a loft-style suite in the southeast corner. It was to have been a recruiting lounge, but Benson, ever alert for more sources of revenue, convinced officials to turn it into a suite.

The two-story space will have a spiral staircase linking one level to the next, fine wood finishes, granite countertops, flat-screen TVs and plush lounge chairs that will make it look more like an upscale apartment than a place to watch a college football game.

"I can't imagine there's anything like it anywhere," Benson said.

It's not sold yet, but Benson expects it will be soon. The one directly below it, an open-air suite that was carved out next to the second-level loge seats, was claimed in no time.

"The first person I showed it to bought it," he said.

Ed Miller, 757-446-2372, ed.miller@pilotonline.com