(Written by kencraw)

My previous post about the donor program going well has had me re-hashing thoughts about how the seating will work out after the stadium renovation and I thought I’d share some of those thoughts. But first a disclaimer:

I have ZERO insider information to justify my thoughts. It’s just based on my deductive reasoning and my general sense of fairness.

Let’s start out with an problem statement:

Currently there are about 72,000 seats in Memorial stadium. When the renovation is finished there will be about 63,000 seats (current estimates). There are only about 45,000 season ticket holders, but those season ticket holders generally hold the best seats in the stadium. Those best seats on the west side will now be spread out. As such, fewer people will be able to sit close to the 50 yard line on the west side. Thus the fundamental question is: who will be displaced and to where?

Here’s the base analysis of how many people will be displaced:

(By the way, I might be helpful to open up a seating chart for Memorial stadium at this point.)

There’s 48 sections in Memorial stadium and for the most part they are similar in size. 72k/48 = 1500 seats per section. Currently the donor seating on the west side compromises 8 sections (EE to I) for a total of 12,000 seats. Based on news reports, it appears that capacity will be reduced to 8,000 seats. There will be 3000 premier seats and then 5000 “regular” donor seats. My assumption is that the “regular” donor seats will extend as far as they have in the past, EE to I.

Of course, that’s only a 4k reduction, so we need to come up with 5k additional seats that are converted from bleachers to seats. Assuming the same ratio of 2 seats take the space of 3 bleacher seats that the donor section has, that means 10 additional sections must be converted. I’m going to make a stab and say the following sections will be converted: T, TT, CC through E and II through K. There’s other options here, mostly putting either more or less seating (could there be none?) on the east side, however I’m going to stick with my setup because it’s exclusively on the west side minus where there is donor seating on the east side.

So where are season ticket holders currently sitting?

Basically, current ticket holders take up all but 18 sections. To simplify matters, I’m going to assume all sections are filled before they move to the next, which is obviously not true. Nevertheless I think it is a simplification that doesn’t leave too much unaccounted for. Those single-game seated sections would be C through D (3 sections), JJ thorugh KK (3 sections), MM through PP (includes visitor section for 7 total) and UU through WW).

So, somewhere between 6 and 9 of those sections, depending on whether the new sections have seats or benches are going to be filled by people displaced from the west side (and the two donor sections on the east side). CC, D, JJ and K, all of the remaining non-donor seats get 4,000 displaced season ticket holders. V, UU, and PP, being bleachers would basically round it out with 4500 additional displaced season ticket holders (we’re 500 short, but my math is rough enough here to make that count).

So that’s the practical matters of how much we’re going to get spread out, or at least my best guess at it anyway. The big question remains: who gets moved where?

Here’s my best guess:

If you’re sitting in a donor section and are willing to either keep or start ponying up the donor fees for your seat then I think you’ll be able to sit close to where you always have (see gotcha #1 below for the limitations of that). I suspect 1/3rd of those sitting there are former-donors or long time season ticket holders who aren’t going to be willing to pony up in the future, so those of you who do will be in good shape overall and won’t get signficantly displaced. The big question mark is sections DD, E, II, J and U, the non-donor sections.

There are two big “gotchas” for those sections:

1. Because they’re going to be seats in these sections, the seat numbers and rows are going to be different. You physically CAN’T sit in the same seats as before. Row 33 won’t be where row 33 is today, nor will seats 4-8 in row 33. So the likely demand of “I want the same seats I had before!” just doesn’t make logical sense.
2. If you’re thinking “well it might not be the exact same rows and seats, but I can ask for the same area” gotcha #2 is for you: We’ll have been sitting somewhere else for a season or two. We’ll have been at the Oakland Coliseum or Candlestick or something. It’s a lot harder in 2013 to want your old seats back when the last time you sat there was 2010.

So the result on the west side (I’m going to ignore the displaced east side people at this point) is that 4,000 former donors and 6,000 non-donors get to divy up 8,000 seats on the west side and 2,000 of the get displaced to the east side. Perhaps there will be less displaced from the west side against their will if the Blue and Gold zone’s are expanded up to KK and C so that they included all the bleachers and that entices some people to take the cheap seats now that they’ve been displaced from their formerly choice seats.

And what about priority? It’s significant difference sitting in CC from E (or the similar story on the southwest side). It’s anybody’s guess but my gut feeling tells me that length of holding season tickets as well as squeeky wheels will be all that matters. I can’t imagine any other way of doing it. Why would former donors who are new get priority over long-time ticket holders? Why would people who’ve been sitting in E for years get priority over people who’ve had tickets for 30 years but are getting displaced particularly when the specific seats don’t exist anymore? What else is there to go by? I just can’t see any other “fair” metric between non-donors besides how long one has been a season ticket holder.

Other thoughts?