A better Box

The era of the new Alex Box Stadium has begun.

LSU’s baseball Tigers are officially out of their storied former home, and are now hosting home games in their sparkling, new $25 million stadium a few hundred yards down Nicholson Drive.

Home plate may be exactly the same distance to the outfield fence, but everything else about the facility is new and improved thanks to designs by Grace & Hebert Architects and DLR Group:

• Larger, comfier restrooms.

• More and wider covered seats.

• A state-of-the-art video scoreboard.

• Swanky new box suites.

Even the food promises to be better thanks to the upgraded concession area fitted with burners, fryers and warmers to prepare fresher foods. And juggling oozy nachos and a soda in will be easier thanks to cup holders in ever grandstand seat. Even seats along the baselines have seatbacks.

Seating capacity

Old Box: 7,760

New Box: 8,786

Seats under roof

Old Box: 3,100

New Box: 3,878

Restroom space

Old Box: 2,000

New Box: 9,000

Luxury suites

Old Box: 0

New Box: 19

Lifetime games played

Old Box: 928

New Box: 7 (scheduled as of March 1)

• Games arcade • Club Lounge • Hall of Fame

Purple section seats, formerly 20 inches wide, are now 22 inches and include padded backs. Gold seats, formerly 19 inches wide, are now 20 and padded.

So, how much do these cushy seats cost? Not too much more than before, at least for individual tickets.

Bleacher seats, formerly $8, are now $10. And kids still get in for $5 if they’re under 12. And any seat under the roof is $15.

Season tickets range in price from $210 to $350, depending on the added tradition fund contribution.

The real buzz is over the box suites perched on either side of the press box above the grandstand, a first for the LSU baseball experience. Each suite accommodates 16 people, each of whom shell out $350 for a season ticket. Oh yeah, you also have to donate $35,000 to Tiger Athletic Federation, and have more priority points than an overzealous LSU student vying for national championship tickets.

The new season was scheduled to kick off Feb. 20 against Villanova at home—a new, swanky home, that is.