WRAL Sports Fan

WRALSportsFan

Luxury suites in Cameron Indoor Stadium? It could happen in the future

By Dane Huffman

May 13, 2008

Duke released its strategic plan for athletics on Saturday, defining how the struggling football program is a problem for the school.

“Our [athletics] department has become overly reliant on our basketball program for fundraising and revenue generation,” the report says.

Deeper in is an interesting line. Duke, the report states, should study “the feasibility of the construction of suites” in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

This is a sensitive topic at Duke, where any changes to Cameron are carefully considered. The facility's capacity is only 9,314 and seats are jammed into the quaint arena.

Adding suites isn’t imminent, but it is something Duke is going to continue to consider.

“It’s not pending,” associate athletics director Mike Cragg said. “What we’re trying to illustrate in that document is that we’re not averse to looking at every possible revenue stream.”

Duke doesn’t want to “commercialize” its programs, Cragg said. But it does want to maximize its revenue base.

Adding suites to Cameron would do that. Six years ago, Cragg said, Duke had an architect draw up a variety of ways to add suites.

“We had them draw up boxes in both end zones, running the length of the court, just different ways of looking at it,” he said.

Duke didn’t have a consensus that it needed suites at that time. And it may not now. But the possibility for suites remains.

“Where we stand right now is we’re looking at it,” Cragg said. “The reason it was put in [the plan] was obviously one of our goals in fundraising in basketball is to enhance and preserve Cameron. And we’re going to look at a lot of different ways that can happen.”

Duke did a major upgrade of Cameron in 1988, adding the current scoreboard, brass rails and touching up the lobby.

This year, Duke will add a new scoreboard with video screens.

And suites?

Maybe some day. But Cragg insisted Duke would never add suites that would change the where the students sit.

“It would never be at the cost of the integrity of students on the court,” he said.

Most likely, the suites would be added at the top of the building, perhaps adding to current capacity.

It won’t happen this year or next.

But given the demand for dollars in college athletics, it could happen down the line.