Stadium Central

Lew Wolff, owner of the Oakland A's, wants to build a new stadium adjacent to Spartan Stadium in San Jose that would house a Major League Soccer team and the San Jose State football team. In keeping with a desire to build smaller stadiums where supply won't far exceed demand (see Cisco Field, future home of the A's), Wolff intends to build a stadium with a capacity of approximately 22,000. This number would drop the capacity from the current Spartan Stadium, which seats 30,000. This number may cause problems with NCAA regulations for Division I-A stadiums. First, the NCAA requires that the principal stadium that is used by a Division I-A football stadium have a capacity of at least 30,000. This point may be addressed by the fact that the stadium will be expandible to 30,000 (not stated whether it could be done so on a temporary basis). Second, NCAA regulations require Division I-A football teams to average attendances of at least 15,000 over a 2 year period. Needless to say, San Jose State boosters are a bit concerned, as indicated in a recent article in the San Jose Mercury News. It is my understanding that San Jose State has been helped in recent years by crowds from Stanford and Fresno State filling the stadium and helping them achieve the minimum requirement. Granted, the team is coming off a bowl victory, but when a maximum of 20,000 fans can only be fit into the stadium, it is hard to believe that they will be able to achieve the NCAA mandated minimum attendance figure.