The new beach club at UCF’s Bright House Networks Stadium will provide a new viewing experience for fans. (UCF Athletics)
Life’s a beach, especially if you’re a UCF football fan.
The university is remodeling its Bright House Networks Stadium — which was completed in 2007 — to create the East Side Club, an area 25 rows from the field that will look remarkably like a beach-side bar, complete with high-top tables and frozen drinks, ESPN.com reported.
Membership to the club, which includes access to the 10,000-square-foot area that runs 25 rows off the field and between the 30-yard lines, costs $900 per person and includes a season ticket with a chair-back seat above the beach section.
The school is taking out 2,000 seats to make way for the new club area, but those seats are being replaced with about 950 to 1,000 chairback seats.
“The alumni base has an average age of 32,” Zack Lassiter, a senior associate athletic director, told ESPN.com. “So they’re extremely young and are more likely to embrace different things.”
Former Georgia Tech coach George O’Leary has built UCF into a success program. The Golden Knights are 21-4 the past two years, but only 30,920 fans attended the final home game in the 45,323-seat stadium.
ESPN.com sports business reporter Darren Rovell, said there won’t be any sand or water, but the area will be painted to reflect the beach theme.
“This is part of the new viewer of sporting events, especially the younger crowd,” he told the network. “Their whole life has been multi-tasking. It’s not just good enough to sit there and be on their phone. You want to stand, walk around, get something different, get something exclusive. I think the next couple of years, we’re going to see things like this, to battle getting cannibalized by television. Somehow make it worth it to make me show up at a stadium, and give me something different.”
Can you see something like this at Sanford Stadium, which is ripe for a renovation, the AJC's Bill King writes, or Bobby Dodd Stadium?
