Construction crews are working feverishly this week at Autzen Stadium to finish temporary seating structures for the Ducks’ final two home games, against USC on Saturday at 5 p.m. and Oregon State a week later.
The structures, similar to the temporary seating installed at Hayward Field for major track and field meets the last few years, are being built on either end of the sky suites atop the north side of the stadium. Each will hold two 30-person “tower suites,” and because the footprint of each would displace 30 standing-room-only fans, they will be relocated atop the structures.
Craig Pintens, the senior associate athletic director for marketing and public relations with the UO athletic department, said demand for suites was such that the Ducks are moving forward with the project, which still must be approved by the city of Eugene and fire department officials. The cost to the athletic department is “a net zero” based on the price of the suites to ticket-holders, Pintens said.
They’re being constructed by T&B Equipment Company of Ashland, Va., which worked on the 2008 Olympic Trials at Hayward Field as well as several PGA tournaments.
Pintens said the athletic department plans to remove the structures following the Civil War. There’s a very good chance Oregon would host the Pac-12 Championship game Dec. 2, and the decision to leave the tower suites up for that game would be up to the conference, Pintens said.
Pintens said the structures will have a unique look and “very specific branding to the University of Oregon.”
“It’ll look very good,” Pintens said.
Loose lips equal 50 up-downs
The Ducks would earn the right to host the conference championship by beating either USC or Oregon State, or with a loss by Stanford to California on Saturday at 7:15 p.m.
Typically, UO coach Chip Kelly downplays the significance of such motivating factors publicly, and this week is no different.
“What our motivation is, is the game itself,” Kelly said. “Not ‘what are the rewards if we win the game?’ … I think our kids play because they love playing. And when you get an opportunity to play against USC, that in itself will get you fired up to play.”
Kelly said that “if it’s going to make them play harder, more power to them,” but also that a player who talks openly about such things might find himself doing 50 up-downs as a result.
“They’re young kids, they understand (what’s at stake),” Kelly said. “But our focus needs to be on things we can control, and what we can control is how hard we prepare, and not getting caught up in the rest of the stuff. When you do, I’ve seen too many teams go down.”
Pac-12 title tickets sell fast
Reserved seats in Oregon’s allotment for the conference title game were limited to singles and obstructed-view seating by Monday, a week after tickets became available to the general public.
About 85 percent of the Ducks’ season-ticket holders purchased title game tickets by a Nov. 4 deadline mandated by the Pac-12, said Garrett Klassy, the UO administrator overseeing ticket sales, and sales to the general public have been brisk.
“It was strong from the start, and we fully expected this game to sell out from the beginning,” Klassy said.
University students were expected to return about 1,000 unsold general-admission seats to the athletic department, which will go on sale to the general public today at 9 a.m. Those seats will be priced at $60, and when they’re gone the athletic department will release standing-room-only tickets priced at $45.
The potential host schools for the title game set aside 2,800 seats for the visiting teams and 2,500 to be used by the conference and its sponsors.
