Wi-Fi or Bathrooms: Which Carrier Dome Update is More Important to You?

The last time I was in the Carrier Dome for a Syracuse Orange football game, I marveled at how following each play, every person around me seemed to grab for their phone. They wanted to text something, tweet something, take a picture, check a score, etc. And then the next play would happen, rinse, repeat. It seemed like the obvious conclusion was that a strong Internet connection and wifi experience was exactly what the Dome needed to provide to make the next generation of Orange fans happy.

Turns out, they'd just really like to have a more comfortable place to urinate.

That's the general findings of most universities as well as the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators when they poll students and young fans on what they want out of their gameday experience.

It asked almost 24,000 students across the country to rank the factors that influenced their decision to attend games. By far the most important was a student’s interest in that sport. By far the least important was a stadium’s cellular reception or wireless capability.

One of the shocking things that schools have learned is that football fans, including students, currently care more about clean restrooms than fast Internet. In the recently released Oregon study, which surveyed students across all five power conferences, fans ranked cellular connectivity last on their wish list.

While it's counterintuitive to what I saw during the game, that jives 100% with most complaints I see in the comments or on Twitter. People HATE the Carrier Dome bathrooms and probably complain about the troughs more than anything else this side of losing by 40 to Clemson.

At the end of the day, whether you're 18 or 80, you want the same things. You want to be able to park easily. You want to be able to tailgate. You want a good view from your seat. You want to be able to use the bathroom without feeling like you're in a prison. You want to be able to get the food you want. And you want to watch your team win.

After typing all of that out, I'd say the Carrier Dome experience has a lot of catching up to do. The renovations can't start soon enough.

Maybe start with the troughs.