Duke football announces new 'Devils Deck' renovation to Wallace Wade Stadium
DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Duke fans are already well-aware of the change on the sidelines, as Manny Diaz enters his first season as the Blue Devils new football coach. Monday, they learned about new changes to the stands.
"There are a lot of universities around us, and what can we do that's different and differentiate ourselves from those," said Chris Alston, Executive Director of Marketing for Duke Athletics for Football.
With that in mind, Duke unveiled its new 'Devils Deck,' a new area which will span seven sections and include all you-can-eat food, non-alcoholic beverages, yard games and an in-game DJ.
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"(We're) really hoping that it's an opportunity for the Durham community and the Triangle to come watch a game, maybe a little bit more of a casual fan and come out, socialize with their friends, bring the tailgate from outside the stadium into this," explained Alston.
While the plan has been in discussion for years, it took off over the past six months.
"At the direction of our athletic director, Nina King, she said, 'Let's be innovative. Let's be bold, and let's go for it.' So here we are, breaking ground and getting ready to build this thing out for this coming season," said Alston.
The renovations are part of a long-term strategy aimed at enticing different groups of fans and capitalizing off momentum surrounding the program.
"I've been around for the for the dark ages, as we like to say, of Duke football from the early 90s to the mid 2000s to where you would have a lot of fans leaving at halftime whether Duke was up or down. I think this is going to be a way to keep fans engaged, interested, have a tailgating aspect inside of the stadium to where fans can just mingle," added Duke fan Brian Kennedy.
Kennedy is a co-host of the Section 17 Podcast, dedicated to Duke football, and is excited at the prospect of new fans supporting the team.
"Nothing's better than sitting in a stadium with 34,000 of your closest friends and just experiencing that. You're not going to have the sounds, you're not going to have the feeling, you're not going to have the excitement sitting on a coach," said Kennedy.
The changes, which Duke expects will be finished by the season opener against Elon on Friday, August 30, will see the capacity of Wallace Wade drop from about 40,000 to just over 35,000. Last season, Duke football attendance topped 31,000 three separate times, though only once did it exceed the new capacity figure (40,768 against Notre Dame). In their four other home games, attendance didn't reach 20,000.
"It attracts that that Gen Z or Millennial fan who wants to come, wants to socialize, wants to engage, wants to watch the football game, but also has talked to their friends, wants to kind of move around," said Dr. Michael Edwards, an Associate Professor of Sport Management at NC State.
"Tailgating is so fundamental to the football fan experience. And I think any way to continue that just beyond the pregame, continuing that into the game, it can really entice people to come. And I think the Duke football community, from what I've seen, has really grown over the past couple of years," added Ranjan Jindal, a rising junior who serves as Sports Editor of The Duke Chronicle.
As college athletics undergoes major changes -- from NIL to conference realignment -- there is naturally an emphasis on finding ways to bring in new money.
"Certainly there's a revenue component of this and we want to try and find new revenue streams for the university and for Duke Athletics," said Alston.
"It's just kind of creating new sort of spaces for different types of fans and growing the market, which I think is always a good thing when you're talking about a very competitive financial industry, which we're seeing in college sports right now," added Edwards.
This season, passes to Devils Deck will be sold as an add-on to tickets, and will cost $35 for students, $45 for all other fans when purchased in advance, and $55 when purchased on game day.
"We are going to surround the D.J. with student organizations, (and) already got a commitment from them for the entire season," said Alston, who noted strong call volume to the ticket office following the announcement.
"I think this is just showing that Duke's not satisfied with status quo. They're looking to continue to improve game day, to have as many fans in the stadium as possible, especially when we played those rival opponents," added Kennedy.
Jindal believes these types of financial investments can also pay off on-the-field, for a program which has experienced back-to-back seasons with bowl wins.
"You have this along with locker room renovations that recently was announced (recently) and that's really big. I think that's an important pitch to a lot of incoming recruits. Coach Diaz has talked about how Duke has a unique pitch. You can say, look, this is a great education and you have the opportunity to graduate here. You have also an opportunity to play in front of some of the most passionate fans in sports. If you have these renovations in the stadiums and the facilities, and I know there's a lot of great work that Duke is doing to connect experiences to students, you're seeing a lot of recruits who typically in the past decade wouldn't have considered Duke, consider Duke, and same thing in the transfer portal as well, which has become such an important part of college football" said Jindal.
