Oct 12, 2013; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; A general view of Rice-Eccles Stadium during the second half of a game between the Utah Utes and the Stanford Cardinal. Utah defeated Stanford 27-21. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
UTAH UTES (Rice-Eccles Stadium)
Rice-Eccles is one of the more advantageous home fields in all of the Pac-12 Conference, but it is lacking in one thing; pretty. Not that it’s particularly ugly or anything, just that it doesn’t have a ‘wow’ factor. But that all could change, and with it, something else could change too.
With the new renderings of an upgrade/expansion for the open end zone, the Utes could actually accomplish three things; increase the already raucous noise level, add about 10,000 new seats and add some ‘pop’ to the stadium.
The only problem is Utah isn’t sure if they wanna move forward with the project just yet, so it is on standby. In his address to the Ute fans (seen below), Dr. Chris Hill expresses his concern in 10 of the 12 Pac-12 schools actually reducing their stadium size with renovations, while Utah, obviously would be expanding. I’m sure it’s something that he’s thought about, but those other schools are looking at reducing simply based on adding new facilities into the stadium.
At any rate I think this gets done and it should be approved and move forward in the next year. Utah sells out every single game and would continue to do so with an additional 5-10K seats because demand is so high. In the long run it can only help the Utes become even more competitive and earn more money as well.