by Colin Rajala
Q: Those were my main questions on the basketball program, now I would like to shift gears and focus my questions on the school’s facilities and partnerships.
I think it would be good to start with the conference reaching an extension with Madison Square Garden. Attendance has been great and obviously other conferences want into MSG for their conference tournaments but having Wednesday through Saturday of conference championship week is important for the Big East brand. From your perspective, how important was that extension?
A: It’s the greatest compliment in the world when someone wants to take over what you are doing, right? The fact that other leagues want to come in and emulate the Big East says a lot about what the Big East has built at MSG. It is by far and away the best college basketball tournament in the country, hands down. Attendance figures show that. It is the number one attended tournament.
The fact we take over New York for a week, its electric, there’s nothing better than it, there just isn’t.
Individually we’ve been fortunate because we have had some good success in the tournament lately and been involved in some exciting games including the great battle with Villanova in the finals this past year.
The extension is massive for so many reasons. Obviously for the fans to be able to experience it, for the student athletes to experience it and even for recruits to experience it. I can promise you for the head basketball coaches in the league, one of their top selling points to recruits is the fact that they’ll be playing in the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden. You can’t say enough about it.
It is another great partnership the league has and we are thankful that we were able to lock in for a long term extension. Executive Vice President of Marquee Events and Operations Joel Fisher has been a tremendous help to get the extension done. He has been at MSG forever and I think he’s been at every Big East men’s basketball tournament, possibly every Big East men’s basketball tournament game. He’s a great person and he has been a phenomenal partner. It goes back to us being so lucky regarding how this ‘new Big East’ has come together.
Q: Speaking of partnerships, it would be great to have you touch on the school’s relationship with Under Armour. At this point Seton Hall is the only Under Armour school in the Big East with St. John’s moving back to Nike after its contract with Under Armour expires.
A: We thoroughly enjoy our Under Armour relationship. I think it is a great brand and a great product. We’ve had a great relationship with the folks at Under Armour. It is not a transactional relationship; it is much more in-depth than that.
As far as us being the last Under Armour school in the Big East, I think they are still undergoing sort of a new vision of what they want to be moving forward, which is why you’ve seen them be more selective with the schools they are associated with. It’s been a great experience with them and I look forward to continuing that relationship.
Q: Under Armour has some historically big name schools under their brand now with UCLA and Notre Dame. It can’t hurt to be mentioned alongside those schools. I know you are on big on facilities and I was on campus recently and saw the work being done on the soccer and baseball fields. What is the status update there and what are the timelines looking like?
A: We are undergoing a massive construction project with the baseball and soccer fields. If you go and look at it now, it is unbelievable what has been done and what it is going to become when completed. All of the stands have been taken away and we had to replace pretty much all of the piping and drainage that goes under the field. You don’t really have an appreciation for how things are built or for engineers until you’ve seen a large construction project like this.
I’ve taken some pictures from the top of the parking deck looking down at the field and the undertaking that is going on is incredible. It is a major project, probably one of the more expensive projects that we’ve done, but it was of absolute need.
The finished product will be a much better venue for our baseball and soccer programs. It will have all updated technology. We do a ton of stuff on the internet now with the Pirate Sports Network airing every home game. We have an incredibly talented group of students working with our Associate Director for Digital Media and Communications Tom Chen, who is one of the best in the business and the technology upgrades are going to make a big difference.
If you watch or listen to one our broadcasts now, I’m not saying it is Fox or ESPN, but they are really good and they are only going to be closer to that value.
This new facility will allow us to have much better streaming. We will have press boxes enclosed for the first time and we will have stands and not just a bleacher system, stands with actual chair backs.
We will also have a new thing (said with a chuckle), it’s a revolutionary idea out there that's called bathrooms. In the past our athletes didn’t have bathrooms on the field area so it’s much needed.
We are excited for the finished product. I am excited about the way that we designed it with the architects. I think it is really going to complement the campus. It is going to be in the same type of brick facade that the other new buildings on campus have been.
We purposely didn’t enclose the whole structure because I love green space and even though it’s turf, when you pull onto that side of campus, I wanted to make sure that you saw a field and it felt like you had this open space.
I think people will be really excited for the finished product. Now we are just trying to figure out when that finish will be. We were hoping it would be for early August, but we are now hoping it could be late August depending on if we can speed up some things.
With construction, your best efforts at a timeline never seem to work out.
We’ve had great work done by Senior Associate Athletics Director for Facilities and Operations Kevin Sponzo on our staff and by Mike Marconi, who is the project manager for the school. They have done all of the projects for our athletic facilities to date and they’ve been fantastic. I am sure this will be no different.
This project will really continue to complement what we are doing for our student athletes. We’ve been getting a ton of complements from visitors and recruits and parents when they are on campus. The campus is beautiful and then they come to the Rec Center and see all of these new facilities.
I’ve said it from day one here, facilities are so important. As soon as someone walks into your facility, they are instantly going to know how important athletics are and how much pride you take in your programs, which is why it has always been a focus of mine.
Q: Outside of the current renovation, where are your sights set for the next project?
A: Our hope is for next summer to renovate Walsh Gymnasium, which we have been talking about for a couple of years now. We want to keep the historic feel but modernize the facility. We have to modernize it....the scoreboard there is completely outdated, the seats have seen better days.
I joke now, but when we pull the bleachers out for volleyball or women’s basketball games, we are hoping that they go back in, it’s one of those deals.
We will start construction next summer hopefully and it will entail all new seating, new chair backs, a new scoreboard with the latest technology and an all new floor. We are going to redo the floor, take the old one out and put in a new one because it’s over 30 years old and really should be replaced. Our goal is for someone to walk into Walsh and really feel like they are in a new updated small arena.
Unfortunately, we will never have the capabilities to play a whole men’s basketball schedule there because of the limited seating, but for our women’s basketball and volleyball programs it will be a much needed upgrade.
Q. it is great to hear that those conversations are evolving into concrete plans. With new flooring and seats planned to be installed, are there any further plans or interest in selling those pieces as fundraising for future projects?
A: It is something that we will definitely look into. We’ve talked about possibly selling floor and old Walsh seats, but we’ve been focused on getting the designs for the new facilities and the vision in order. Once we have that done and a timeline for the project, that will be a part of the next step to see if it makes sense for us to do and what kind of return we can get on it.
I feel there will be a market for that, I would buy a seat from Walsh and a piece of that floor just because of what it has meant over the years.
Q: Those were my main questions on the basketball program, now I would like to shift gears and focus my questions on the school’s facilities and partnerships.
I think it would be good to start with the conference reaching an extension with Madison Square Garden. Attendance has been great and obviously other conferences want into MSG for their conference tournaments but having Wednesday through Saturday of conference championship week is important for the Big East brand. From your perspective, how important was that extension?
A: It’s the greatest compliment in the world when someone wants to take over what you are doing, right? The fact that other leagues want to come in and emulate the Big East says a lot about what the Big East has built at MSG. It is by far and away the best college basketball tournament in the country, hands down. Attendance figures show that. It is the number one attended tournament.
The fact we take over New York for a week, its electric, there’s nothing better than it, there just isn’t.
Individually we’ve been fortunate because we have had some good success in the tournament lately and been involved in some exciting games including the great battle with Villanova in the finals this past year.
The extension is massive for so many reasons. Obviously for the fans to be able to experience it, for the student athletes to experience it and even for recruits to experience it. I can promise you for the head basketball coaches in the league, one of their top selling points to recruits is the fact that they’ll be playing in the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden. You can’t say enough about it.
It is another great partnership the league has and we are thankful that we were able to lock in for a long term extension. Executive Vice President of Marquee Events and Operations Joel Fisher has been a tremendous help to get the extension done. He has been at MSG forever and I think he’s been at every Big East men’s basketball tournament, possibly every Big East men’s basketball tournament game. He’s a great person and he has been a phenomenal partner. It goes back to us being so lucky regarding how this ‘new Big East’ has come together.
Q: Speaking of partnerships, it would be great to have you touch on the school’s relationship with Under Armour. At this point Seton Hall is the only Under Armour school in the Big East with St. John’s moving back to Nike after its contract with Under Armour expires.
A: We thoroughly enjoy our Under Armour relationship. I think it is a great brand and a great product. We’ve had a great relationship with the folks at Under Armour. It is not a transactional relationship; it is much more in-depth than that.
As far as us being the last Under Armour school in the Big East, I think they are still undergoing sort of a new vision of what they want to be moving forward, which is why you’ve seen them be more selective with the schools they are associated with. It’s been a great experience with them and I look forward to continuing that relationship.
Q: Under Armour has some historically big name schools under their brand now with UCLA and Notre Dame. It can’t hurt to be mentioned alongside those schools. I know you are on big on facilities and I was on campus recently and saw the work being done on the soccer and baseball fields. What is the status update there and what are the timelines looking like?
A: We are undergoing a massive construction project with the baseball and soccer fields. If you go and look at it now, it is unbelievable what has been done and what it is going to become when completed. All of the stands have been taken away and we had to replace pretty much all of the piping and drainage that goes under the field. You don’t really have an appreciation for how things are built or for engineers until you’ve seen a large construction project like this.
I’ve taken some pictures from the top of the parking deck looking down at the field and the undertaking that is going on is incredible. It is a major project, probably one of the more expensive projects that we’ve done, but it was of absolute need.
The finished product will be a much better venue for our baseball and soccer programs. It will have all updated technology. We do a ton of stuff on the internet now with the Pirate Sports Network airing every home game. We have an incredibly talented group of students working with our Associate Director for Digital Media and Communications Tom Chen, who is one of the best in the business and the technology upgrades are going to make a big difference.
If you watch or listen to one our broadcasts now, I’m not saying it is Fox or ESPN, but they are really good and they are only going to be closer to that value.
This new facility will allow us to have much better streaming. We will have press boxes enclosed for the first time and we will have stands and not just a bleacher system, stands with actual chair backs.
We will also have a new thing (said with a chuckle), it’s a revolutionary idea out there that's called bathrooms. In the past our athletes didn’t have bathrooms on the field area so it’s much needed.
We are excited for the finished product. I am excited about the way that we designed it with the architects. I think it is really going to complement the campus. It is going to be in the same type of brick facade that the other new buildings on campus have been.
We purposely didn’t enclose the whole structure because I love green space and even though it’s turf, when you pull onto that side of campus, I wanted to make sure that you saw a field and it felt like you had this open space.
I think people will be really excited for the finished product. Now we are just trying to figure out when that finish will be. We were hoping it would be for early August, but we are now hoping it could be late August depending on if we can speed up some things.
With construction, your best efforts at a timeline never seem to work out.
We’ve had great work done by Senior Associate Athletics Director for Facilities and Operations Kevin Sponzo on our staff and by Mike Marconi, who is the project manager for the school. They have done all of the projects for our athletic facilities to date and they’ve been fantastic. I am sure this will be no different.
This project will really continue to complement what we are doing for our student athletes. We’ve been getting a ton of complements from visitors and recruits and parents when they are on campus. The campus is beautiful and then they come to the Rec Center and see all of these new facilities.
I’ve said it from day one here, facilities are so important. As soon as someone walks into your facility, they are instantly going to know how important athletics are and how much pride you take in your programs, which is why it has always been a focus of mine.
Q: Outside of the current renovation, where are your sights set for the next project?
A: Our hope is for next summer to renovate Walsh Gymnasium, which we have been talking about for a couple of years now. We want to keep the historic feel but modernize the facility. We have to modernize it....the scoreboard there is completely outdated, the seats have seen better days.
I joke now, but when we pull the bleachers out for volleyball or women’s basketball games, we are hoping that they go back in, it’s one of those deals.
We will start construction next summer hopefully and it will entail all new seating, new chair backs, a new scoreboard with the latest technology and an all new floor. We are going to redo the floor, take the old one out and put in a new one because it’s over 30 years old and really should be replaced. Our goal is for someone to walk into Walsh and really feel like they are in a new updated small arena.
Unfortunately, we will never have the capabilities to play a whole men’s basketball schedule there because of the limited seating, but for our women’s basketball and volleyball programs it will be a much needed upgrade.
Q. it is great to hear that those conversations are evolving into concrete plans. With new flooring and seats planned to be installed, are there any further plans or interest in selling those pieces as fundraising for future projects?
A: It is something that we will definitely look into. We’ve talked about possibly selling floor and old Walsh seats, but we’ve been focused on getting the designs for the new facilities and the vision in order. Once we have that done and a timeline for the project, that will be a part of the next step to see if it makes sense for us to do and what kind of return we can get on it.
I feel there will be a market for that, I would buy a seat from Walsh and a piece of that floor just because of what it has meant over the years.
