Let's stop talking in fantasy about Blake Jones or anyone else building us our own yard or an on-campus stadium. Unfortunately, if you deal in reality, it ain't happening, unless we can drive the Marlins out of town (Bud Selig and MLB can't afford to let that happen). So good luck waiting for your 5, 6, 7 year plan. Here are the cold hard facts:
1. Lease . . . Believe we're about 5 or 6 years into a 25-year commitment at Sun Life Stadium.
2. Land . . . Nothing around campus obviously, but believe the university owns 130-plus acres near the Miami zoo. Long-term plan apparently is to sell off land/develop and put money towards the university endowment - which is the life blood and crucial to running a university. So unlikely the university will be eager to kiss off the potential financial windfalll and then also throw hundreds of millions at a football stadium. Plus, the site is 10 miles from campus.
3. Private university not State U . . . Pretty hard to find the last private university that built its own football stadium. This isn't a 10,000 seat hoops arena.
4. Cost . . . The price is through the roof. The new stadium at the University of Minnesota - like Miami, they played for years at a pro facility in town - seats 50,000 and cost $303 million. Washington is rebuilding 2/3rds of Husky Stadium at a cost of $250 million. These are major state universities with local and state govts. chipping in.