I think what happened in Seattle is dead wrong, and I do not think the amount of money the school was looking for was out of line. There is little doubt the fact that the Washington Huskies were the WORST team in college football last year, and that played a role in this. Their future is not good. Teams like Washington (UW), Washington State (WSU), Oregon State, Arizona, and maybe even Arizona State (If their Master plan is not enacted), will be so far behind USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford and Oregon it is not funny.
If I am a top basketball recruit from the Pacific Northwest, why should I go play for the Huskies when I can play at the best on-campus facility in America in Eugene, Oregon? (Matthew Knight Center) Comparing Husky football to USC, is an even more one sided example.
Perhaps the people who understand this issue best, are the leadership at Cal, who took on the City of Berkeley, and big time protesters, are willing to face decades of negative feelings, and are willing to have the Bears football team play at STANFORD for three years, in order to get the program to where it needs to be. ps: Credit Stanford for letting them play there.
This kind of leadership, is NOT found at EITHER UW or WSU, so both schools, will find themselves right on the bottom of the Pac-10 Conference in all sports for many years to come.

Januz-
Cal is NOT playing any games at Stanfurd. Just a minor correction to your comment. The story I am sure you read this in was in the bootleg which is a stanfurd publication. The article was a 1st of April joke...(lol those furds are sooooooooooooo funny...actually not really). Cal will play at either Candlestick, Pac Bell, or the Oakland Coliseum.
Regardless, you make good points.
Look no further than your ad for a solution.
Udubb has a fairly decent recruiting base in Seattle however you still need to recruit out of state to succeed as you do not produce nearly the quantity of quality players that the Bay Area and L.A. do.
And losing local talent (Taylor Mays, DeAndre Coleman, etc.) to out of state in conference competition is a pretty good indicator that a change needs to be made as you said.

Januz-
Cal is NOT playing any games at Stanfurd. Just a minor correction to your comment. The story I am sure you read this in was in the bootleg which is a stanfurd publication. The article was a 1st of April joke...(lol those furds are sooooooooooooo funny...actually not really). Cal will play at either Candlestick, Pac Bell, or the Oakland Coliseum.
Regardless, you make good points.
Look no further than your ad for a solution.
Udubb has a fairly decent recruiting base in Seattle however you still need to recruit out of state to succeed as you do not produce nearly the quantity of quality players that the Bay Area and L.A. do.
And losing local talent (Taylor Mays, DeAndre Coleman, etc.) to out of state in conference competition is a pretty good indicator that a change needs to be made as you said.

Januz-
Cal is NOT playing any games at Stanfurd. Just a minor correction to your comment. The story I am sure you read this in was in the bootleg which is a stanfurd publication. The article was a 1st of April joke...(lol those furds are sooooooooooooo funny...actually not really). Cal will play at either Candlestick, Pac Bell, or the Oakland Coliseum.
Regardless, you make good points.
Look no further than your ad for a solution.
Udubb has a fairly decent recruiting base in Seattle however you still need to recruit out of state to succeed as you do not produce nearly the quantity of quality players that the Bay Area and L.A. do.
And losing local talent (Taylor Mays, DeAndre Coleman, etc.) to out of state in conference competition is a pretty good indicator that a change needs to be made as you said.

Hey guys...just a note to upgrade the thinking here.....Oakland Raider boss, Al Davis has gone on record by saying that the Cal Bears will not/never play at the Oakland Coliseum because the Raiders are above the college team playing in their arena. He phrased it a little differently....but, the hopes and aspirations of the Bear hopefuls are dashed. Actually, Coach Tedford is pushing for the old 49er site, Kezar Stadium, in San Francisco to be the temporary home of the Cal football team. That is the latest and greatest of the rumors I have heard.......So, how does Cal successfully recruit when it has no stadium to play in, as we speak.......???

Hey guys...just a note to upgrade the thinking here.....Oakland Raider boss, Al Davis has gone on record by saying that the Cal Bears will not/never play at the Oakland Coliseum because the Raiders are above the college team playing in their arena. He phrased it a little differently....but, the hopes and aspirations of the Bear hopefuls are dashed. Actually, Coach Tedford is pushing for the old 49er site, Kezar Stadium, in San Francisco to be the temporary home of the Cal football team. That is the latest and greatest of the rumors I have heard.......So, how does Cal successfully recruit when it has no stadium to play in, as we speak.......???

Hey guys...just a note to upgrade the thinking here.....Oakland Raider boss, Al Davis has gone on record by saying that the Cal Bears will not/never play at the Oakland Coliseum because the Raiders are above the college team playing in their arena. He phrased it a little differently....but, the hopes and aspirations of the Bear hopefuls are dashed. Actually, Coach Tedford is pushing for the old 49er site, Kezar Stadium, in San Francisco to be the temporary home of the Cal football team. That is the latest and greatest of the rumors I have heard.......So, how does Cal successfully recruit when it has no stadium to play in, as we speak.......???

This is good news. Knowing Washington politics, UW getting stadium money would probably simply set the stage for WSU getting taxpayer money for their stadium (not unlike the Mariners and Seahawks managed to accomplish back in the 90s).

$300M ($150M from the state) for a college football stadium? It's unbelievable. The return on that has got to be miniscule, since this is for a sport whose players aren't even paid. Even with such a stadium, I'm not confident UW would be able to out-recruit the other Pac-10 schools. Of course it doesn't help that they hire coaches like Ty Willingham who destroy the football program with their incompetence.

Governments (including Washington) will be facing tougher times for a while and stadiums are about the last thing governments should be focusing on. Athletic programs (pro and college) will need to wise up and realize that the ability to get taxpayer financed cathedrals with a 20 year lifetime is disappearing. "Do more with less", the new reality in stadium financing.

In the case of UW and Husky Stadium, "Do More With Less" does not apply. This Stadium was built in 1920, and overhauled in 1987 (This is NOT the Key Arena situation). I do not think that playing their games in the Quest Center is the answer either (Look at the Minnesota Golden Gophers record playing in the Metrodome.... ZERO trips to the Rose Bowl, and ZERO wins over Michigan at "Home". Prime reasons why they can't wait to open their new ON-CAMPUS facility).
I have seen an argument about Willingham being the reason why UW stinks. No one disputes this guy was a disaster. But the last time UW went to the Rose Bowl was 2001, even WSU went more reciently (2003), so he is not totally to blame.
Finally, there should be more cooperation between UW and WSU. These schools despise each other, but guess what? They need each other. UW needs a rival (Despite the size difference) just like Arizona State needs Arizona and Oregon needs Oregon State (OSU), to help generate fan interest, and media coverage. As for WSU, they need UW even more. Their athletic budget is $16m behind the LOWEST budgeted school (OSU), so they are not exactly USC when it comes to generating conference revenues. So I have little doubt that the Pac-10 could survive by replacing WSU with a Colorado, Boise State, BYU or Utah.

Your points are all valid. USF (who plays games at Raymond James Stadium) is about the only FBS team I can think of which has had success playing at a pro stadium.

However I still think it's preposterous that a college football stadium needs to cost $300M. UCF (you can tell I follow Florida sports :-) recently built a 45000 seat stadium for $65M. With costs in that range, it sounds like UW could raise all of the money itself.

In summary, it seems to me that UW is fishing for taxpayer money rather than putting together a cost-controlled stadium proposal. Government needs to be tight with money and organizations (both pro and college) need to learn that the era of easy public stadium money is over.