Arkansas Blog

Wow, what a colossal waste of money in a poor state where folks are losing their jobs and need health clinics that are open more then once a week (less in some areas). I'm pretty disgusted and you have got to love those priorities.

I agree with you Max, play the damn games where the students are.

If Harrelson wants to get on his high horse about War Memorial, then the Central Arkansas folks ought to wonder aloud why their constituents pay state sales tax to fund all the functions of state government, but Harrelson's neighbors in Texarkana get a free ride and pay none. Let's revisit that issue, Steve.

Razorback football is more than just the flagship sport of our flagship university, it's also (like it or not) the great unifier of the state. Whether you are a student/graduate of the U of A or never went to college at all, chances are you follow the Hogs. It's one of the only common threads between an 18 year old white U of A fraternity guy from the Heights, and a 70 year old black farm hand from the Delta. Put these two guys in a room together, and they could go on forever about their beloved Hogs.

Providing a few Little Rock games every year makes the experience accessible to a larger group than if games were strictly in Fayetteville. It's an expensive journey for a family to travel from Eastern and Southern Arkansas for a Fayetteville game, particularly since most NWA hotels require a 2-night minimum during game weekends. Little Rock, on the other hand, provides an affordable family retreat. One doesn't even need to actually attend the game to be a part of the experience, given the abundance of tailgating options available. Additionally, a Fayetteville game, being on a college campus in a college town, has the feeling that it is strictly for those who are affiliated with the University of Arkansas, whereas a Little Rock game has more of a feeling of belonging to everyone.

Apparently the good senator has forgotten that there are other teams that play in War Memorial Stadium. Or apparently, only the Hogs matter.

we should update the stadium. i don't live in central arkansas, but it represents where most of my tax dollars go. i think we should also look at building a nascar track. oh yeah......talk about tail gate parties......would a oblong track fit down there between the uams campus and the zoo?

How about removing the restriction that UALR can's have a football team? The stadium is there and it would allow UAF to play all their home games at Fayetteville and make Frank happy and the center of the state can get a new unifier who could play ASU and UCAS and UAPB. And we could always find some cream puff teams, like UAF does, to make themselves look like championship material for the first three games of the season before they meet a real football powerhouse. There are a lot of smaller schools that could come into LR and bring their team and their dollars.

Or maybe a few lions and theh AR legislature could give us a few good shows and really enforce that term limit thing!

I guess I don't get it.
Growing up in MO we rooted for the University of MO in games, but did not expect them to travel to St. Louis and KC to play games in front of us. if you wanted to go see a game, you went to Columbia.
It may "unify" the state, but it can do that just as well from Fayetteville as it can with 2 games played in LR.

Like I said, what a shameful waste of money in this economy...
Priorities folks.

Before I plow into this argument, it must be said that I attended a Little Rock Razorback game in 1988 and had a great time (the opponent was Ole Miss and UA won 21-13).

Playing "home" games in Little Rock makes no sense in 2009.

When WMS was built in 1948, there were 12 counties in Arkansas that were not connected to paved roads. Television was only to be introduced a few months later (Dec 1948 in Memphis by WMCT, April 1953 in LR by KRTV). Fayetteville had no regional airport until the last decade, and same for an interstate connecting LR and NWA. And lastly Razorback stadium has had lights since 1990.

The excuses are long over for the UA to play in Little Rock. If the school wants to connect with fans in outlying East Arkansas, then UA can gladly schedule a home and home series with Ark State. Heck, the Hogs might as well since they schedule at least one Sun Belt team each year in football, plus the Hog fans in Jonesboro will get a chance to see their team play without driving to Little Rock or (god forbid....Fayetteville).

Any*Mouse: "It may "unify" the state, but it can do that just as well from Fayetteville as it can with 2 games played in LR."

I agree that regardless of where the games are played it will continue to be a state unifier. My point was that because it is such a unifier, it better serves the state to make attending a live game more accessible to all citizens. By continuing the tradition of Little Rock games, this is accomplished to a certain extent.

"Growing up in MO we rooted for the University of MO in games, but did not expect them to travel to St. Louis and KC to play games in front of us. if you wanted to go see a game, you went to Columbia."

several things wrong with this comparison:
1. MO is not a state unified by a singular sports team. Like many non-SEC states, professional teams (Rams, Chiefs, Cardinals, Royals) not collegiate, reign supreme.
2. Even if that weren't the case and U of MO actually had a unifying program, Columbia is not located in a geographic extremity of the state the way Fayetteville is. If your MO attitude were echoed in AR, so that "If you wanted to see a game, you go to Fayetteville," we would have an exclusive policy that didn't take into account the fact that not every AR fan can afford the expenses associated with seeing a game in Fayetteville. It is better public policy to make it as accessible to as many fans as possible, and Fayetteville games have always seemed to be the antithesis of that, both in location and attitude. Where the Fayetteville game experience tends to have an air of social class elitism about it, the Little Rock experience seems just as much for the common citizen who didn't attend the U of A as it does for the students and alumni.

If the University of Arkansas had been somewhat centrally located lime most of the Land Grant institutions, then Arkansas wouldn't have the conundrum of where to play the games. You would play them all on campus, of course. But the support for the university (academic as well as athletic) has come from all reaches of Arkansas, not that tiny northwest quadrant of the state that is three hours from Little Rock and five hours from Lake Village, four or more from Texarkana and Hope, five-plus from El Dorado, four-plus from Pocahontas.
The support of the athletic program DOES NOT COME FROM THE STUDENTS. It doesn't all come from the alumni.
But this ain't McNeese State or W&L either.

The University of Missouri has played the University of Kansas in Kansas City two straight years.

Texas and Oklahoma do not play the Red River Shootout on campuses. In fact, the city of Dallas paid $52 million in taxpayer money to refurbish the run-down Cotton Bowl for that one game a year. That is all that is played there now with the exception of some high school games and a few small college games (UAPB-Texas Southern). The actual Cotton Bowl is moving to Jerry Jones' new stadium, the one that cost $1 BILLION.

Oklahoma and BYU will play in J erry's stadium. This is the same Oklahoma that also plays Texas in the dilapidated but expanded Cotton Bowl with 92,000 seats. So, that means OU now plays TWO games off campus. Boohoo for the OU students, I'll bet they're bitching up a storm to not have more home games and having to drive three hours to the BYU game in the space age stadium.

Or maybe Oklahoma realizes that Dallas and the Metroplex is a major feeder not only for their football program, which relies on Texas recruits more so than Oklahoma players, but for all their colleges on campus, because OU does not charge Texans out of state tuition and OU is determined to be as good a college in the region. So, playing a game where alumni live and where potential students live (and where players famlies live and former players live and possible players and their families live) is important to Oklahoma.

It is not all about "playing games on the campus" Max, especially when you're talking about seven or eight games in state anyway. Especially when, at arkansas, only about 1/5th of the student body bothers to go to the home games anyway.

Who says Arkansas has no professional football team? Big-time college football hasn't been a student sport in decades, Max, as well you know. So as long as we're competing with Tunica, Las Vegas and other entertainment venues, we might as well allow everybody to share. In an era of trillion-dollar welfare programs for Wall Street and the big banks (and a lot of little ones, too), what's a measly $5 million. Who among us would stop to pick up a mere million in the street?

Great. If I asked for 10 million bucks to build a much-needed new science building at the university where I work, which would be used all year long, I'd get laughed out of the capitol. But we've got five million for our crappy football games. Yay!

Bulldoze it, expand the zoo some, and turn the rest into greenspace? That might make up for the loss of Ray Winder to UAMS.
Blasphemy, I know, but I can dream right?

I'm still amazed that in this economy anyone in the Leg. would consider this a priority worth FIVE MILLION DOLLARS.
Five million dollars.
How many folks could have health care for five million dollars?

I think the issue is whether J.R. Rogers has ever voted since being elected.