Brenda Blagg: Prepping the state

Long easing into decision on Little Rock football games

Recent comments by Jeff Long, the Arkansas athletics director, portend continued conflict over where the Razorbacks play home football games.

The schedule is set through 2018, the last year the University of Arkansas football team is set to play a game in Little Rock.

All other home games are in Fayetteville and have been since the last time the controversy flared statewide.

Rigorous debate back then resulted in a contract for the Hogs to play just the one game per season in the state's storied War Memorial Stadium. This year's lone Little Rock game will be Oct. 1 against Alcorn State.

That contract so happens to run out the same year that a newly approved expansion of Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville is supposed to be complete.

University of Arkansas trustees agreed, albeit in a split vote, to add about 4,000 seats and a variety of other amenities to the Fayetteville stadium at a projected cost of $160 million.

General obligation bonds to pay for the project will be repaid largely from football revenue.

The new premium seating will include additional suites, "loge" boxes and club seats. The new seating will bring capacity in Fayetteville to 76,000 or so.

Therein lies the most powerful argument for moving that last ballgame from Little Rock to Fayetteville.

Even as it stands, with 72,000 seats, the Fayetteville stadium accommodates many thousands more than War Memorial can with its 55,000-seat capacity.

Years ago, Long was quoted as saying the UA leaves nearly a million dollars on the table every time it plays in Little Rock. That figure probably isn't the same today, but suffice it to say game revenue is less in a 55,000-seat stadium than a 72,000-seater, assuming both can be filled.

Attendance hasn't been a problem in Fayetteville recently. And, with a huge bond issue pending to repay for the planned Razorback stadium improvements, Long will have an even better reason to want to recoup all the revenue the football Razorbacks can.

He does, however have to find donors to help make up some of the difference above what the bonds will cover and surely needs to find a way to woo donors from all over Arkansas, regardless of what happens with the Little Rock game.

It's a delicate dance and he's starting early.

Speaking to the Little Rock Touchdown Club recently, Long reportedly said that deciding whether the Razorbacks will continue playing games in Little Rock will be "a difficult decision to make."

He also told the crowd he hoped the state doesn't turn the decision into a "great stadium debate."

No doubt.

It won't be Long's decision alone, but he seemed to be projecting the likely direction this is heading.

"To divide makes no sense to me," he told the Little Rock crowd, emphasizing the university's need for support from the entire state.

Ironically, the reason the state used to play many of its games in Little Rock was to foster that statewide network of support.

The practice began long before multi-lane highways connected the state's capital city to Northwest Arkansas. Little Rock was centrally located to the state and games there drew fans from all corners.

The tradition of Little Rock games began in the late 1940s and grew to the point Arkansas sometimes played four games in Little Rock and three in Fayetteville in a season.

Things really started to change after Razorback Stadium's capacity increased to the 72,000 seats it has now. The UA needed to put people in those seats and the number of games in Little Rock dropped to two a year. The once-a-year contract came in 2014.

There are other reasons beyond the money to be made for maintaining the Little Rock tradition and for playing all games on the student-athletes' actual campus.

All of them will surely be presented in the months ahead, but Long doesn't expect to have to make a final decision until it's time to renew or discard that contract with War Memorial.

In the meantime, expect him to keep broaching the subject and trying to soften what seems to be all but inevitable.

Commentary on 09/21/2016

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