It bothers me both ways :

This was sold in the past as an expansion, not a contraction. Spending over 100 million and eliminating seats is killing future fans by not encouraging kids to attend live games. In 10 - 30 years when they grow up they will not go and seats will be a hard sell to all but the folks with corporate type money.

If you say you are going to 72K (a very modest expansion) then by god go to 72K and not 61K. If I go to watch a game I want to watch a game, if I want to hang with the wine and cheese crowd then I could go to some fru fru cocktail party operating under the guise of charitable giving.

When Little Ricky was at UK and wanted the on campus "Pitiner Arener" they were selling it like they were going to build 32K - 48K seating. However, when I saw the actual plans it only had a designed capacity of 18,000. Imagine telling 6,000 folks currently in Rupp they would no longer have a seat. They were also listing a Blue White donation in the 250.00 range in the Herald Leader when even back then they had dropped a 0 off the end. They were making more folks think they were going to have a chance when the reality was for less all along.

Considering it is state money involved in these deals and a few contractors on the BoT make out like bandits I say it is a load of crap. It is not just at UK where this is happening either. I have seen it at other schools in the conference and one highly placed person even told me the new TV deal was a deal with the devil that could undermine the power of the SEC and what built it to greatness. If schools in the SEC start downsizing then the loud and threatening crowds will go silent and the next thing you know we are just as quiet as the other schools stadiums in other conferences.

If ESPN wants to maximize eyeballs (and their own wallets) then downsizing drives fans from the turnstiles to couches at home. The only folks this really benefits is the networks as it cannibalizes the ticket turnstile revenue. It is similar to outsourcing jobs to China so a few get richer and then wondering 10 years later why your economy is tanking and nobody has jobs. Just like local banks keeping money in an area have been replaced by global ones to suck dollars out, so has the money tree moved from the schools to the bottom lines of 21st Century Fox (owner of FOX) and Disney (owner of ESPN) and neither of these folks give a rats arse about the long term future of the SEC. They will suck out the dollars where they can, then move on to the next money tree when this one has been worn down.

Fook the Mouse, and fook Eisner for starting the money grab back in the 80's.