kreed5120

I shared a more in detail article that I copied and pasted. It was behind a paywall, but I worked some magic to get around it. I shared it for those that might not know how. Something worth calling out apparently Akron staff plans to be on The Pat McAfee Show and ESPN Radio today. Also, Big Cat plans to attend an Akron game. Barstool will probably try to make a spectacle out of a random mid-week matchup if it happens.

https://frontofficesports.com/viral-akron-football-promo-attracts-celebrity-season-ticket-buyers/ At Akron’s football home opener against Robert Morris, one Zips season-ticker holder will get to draw up the team’s opening drive. That’s due to an unconventional promotion by the school: Purchase season tickets to enter a random drawing to script the first offensive play on Sept. 12. The stunt has gone viral, with the initial X/Twitter post of the Zips’ offer garnering more than 16 million views in the first 24 hours. But beyond its social media splash, the promotion has become a major ticket-sale success story for Akron football. Since the announcement on Aug 4, the school has sold out suite inventory for the first time in program history, and surged past annual ticket sales goals with weeks to go before kickoff, according to Akron’s senior deputy AD and COO Matt Pottorff. “We’ve had an awesome, awesome 24 hours, but we’re just getting started,” he told Front Office Sports. “It’s going to be like a tsunami.” The promotion was the brainchild of Pottorff and Akron AD Dr. Andrew T. Goodrich, who thought it up “at 10 p.m. and 30,000 feet in the air” while on a flight home from the school’s appearance in the 2026 men’s NCAA basketball tournament. (No. 12 Akron lost in the first round to 5-seed Texas Tech.) “We were just going through the craziest ideas we could think of to sell football tickets,” Pottorff said. “This was the one where we thought, ‘If we do this right, it could really move the needle and be a huge hit.’” The announcement, which also elicited nearly 2,000 quote-tweets, was the most-viewed X post by any college football team this summer, according to digital analytics firm Zoomph. It also immediately caught the attention of popular sports personalities. Barstool Sports’s Dan “Big Cat” Katz told FOS in an email that he purchased eight Zips season tickets for $600. Radio host Bobby Bones and basketball analyst Dan Dakich have bought in as well, according to the school. Katz said he hopes to actually attend at least one game if his schedule permits, adding that there is “nothing better than weekday MACtion at the end of the season.” (Asked whether he’d reveal his offensive strategy if chosen, Katz declined. “No chance I give you the secrets to my playbook,” he said. “Nice try.”) Akron has leaned into the high-roller attention, sharing notable season-ticket purchasers across its football social media channels to attract even more eyeballs—and potential buyers. Athletic department leaders are scheduled to appear on The Pat McAfee Show and ESPN Radio on Thursday as momentum builds. Pottorff emphasized to FOS that the winner will be selected at random despite the slew of well-known contestants, but entries are weighted by the number of season tickets purchased. This means, he said, “if somebody wants to buy 10,000 season tickets, they’ve got an incredibly good chance of winning.” Akron’s InfoCision Stadium seats 30,000. General admission packages start at $75, while premium inventory goes for as high as $15,000 for (the now sold-out) suites. Club and loge level seats are “almost gone” as of Wednesday night, too. A winner will be chosen on Aug. 19. Whoever it ends up being will enjoy lots of perks beyond playcalling. “First, we’re going to call that person NFL Draft–style and let them know that they got selected. Then we’ll find a time for them to come to campus, where they’ll meet with [head football] coach Joe Moorhead,” Pottorff said. “He’ll run them through what plays we would normally call in the opening drive, and then figure out what they want to do with it.” On game day, the winner will also take part in a press conference, get mic’d up with a headset, have play sheets, and land in the coaches box. After their moment on the call, Pottorff said they’ll be escorted up to a suite with their guests for the second half to “really soak in the experience.” The program knows some people will buy a season ticket only to enter and ultimately resell them, which they’re O.K. with. Pottorff says the Zips will “work through that process” and ensure all tickets “go to good use.” Katz, meanwhile, is genuinely looking forward—and hopes to win. “It’s great for College Football,” the host of Pardon My Take said, “and who knows, Akron might accidentally find the next great offensive mind (hopefully me).”

Good stuff, thanks for sharing. It's nice to see the premium tickets are moving as well and it's not just simply people buying 1 $75 lotto ticket. Those premium seats add up quickly financially and those are the people who will actually likely attend. Not to mention if you have money to buy a suite you're probably a business owner or someone high enough up in your company that you can have some influence to attract some sponsorships. Even if its just signage in the stadium.

Yeah, I gave it a peak yesterday and nothing really caught my eye. I'll probably just continue to support FTR by adding 2-3 pieces of Zips gear each year. I only have so much room in my closet anyway and I already own plenty of Zips stuff.

Even a mid-tier ACC program like Wake Forrest is spending ~$20 million on their football roster. If we sold out every ticket to every game maybe we could compete with a Toledo in roster spend. We're not touching the ACC.

This might not just be a 2-3 day viral thing. Someone at Barstool said Akron plans to hold a press conference to select the winner. Over the next few days would be the perfect time to line up a jersey sponsor that way we can point to all the notoriety we're receiving and allow their branding to be displayed. Having their logo in the back drop of a video that generates notoriety has to be worth something. Especially since Akron's marketing is capable of repeating it in the future.

I did the same thing for basketball, which is even more of a challenge to attend all the games given the volume of games. Instead of buying 2 season tickets (one for me and 1 for my fiancé), I swap them out 2 tickets to 7 games we can both attend. I think a single game ticket to the Kent game last season was around $25 as Akron charges a premium for it so getting 2 of those as part of my 7 games already reflects like half the cost of the entire package.

The comments replying to him seemed a lot more serious and less jokes about funny play calls. So many of the people were amazed by the $75 for a season ticket when it costs that just for 1 P5 ticket at many schools. A lot of them said if they lived nearby they would attend. Hopefully all this talk builds on itself and people become aware about how cheap tickets really are and the talk surrounding the program gets more students and fans to at least attend the home opening for nothing more than the spectacle. Then just a matter of building off that. A big hurdle for Akron football is just getting people to remember it even exists as it's overshadowed by so much else.

I would become the most insufferable member on this board if I led an opening touchdown and then they proceeded to get shut out afterwards. The captain would have to hit me with a 30 day ban 😂

I saw several randoms that have no affiliation with the program post ticket receipts on X. I wouldn't be surprised if a few hundred season tickets got purchased between people wanting to share it on social media or in group chat with friends for the memes. The best part though is the free publicity. Edit: Maybe Akron's most successful promotion since the legendary Acme Zips games.

I shared this earlier for our other commits so I figured I'd share Evan's as well. He's in the 64th percentile of wings in scoring efficiency, but is pretty elite at everything else, which seems to check out based off what we all saw last season.

Thanks for sharing. I like to hear they're consolidating and right sizing the campus. Also, the designs for Spanton/Bulger seem like a huge positive to make them more attractive to potential incoming freshman. It's hard to find much fault with the current administration. It seems the have a very deliberate plan and are executing on the objectives.

Thanks for sharing. It's nice to hear all the positive outlook surrounding the University as a whole given how negative the outlook has looked the past 7-8 years.

I imagine they use the term help very loosely. I imagine it would mostly be sitting in a room with a few coaches and listen while the discuss. Perhaps pick their brain for knowledge. I'm not as opposed to this as I probably would have been 5, 10 years ago. It's a unique experience and as someone who really isn't all that invested in Zips football I would attend something like this just for the experience on learning the finer details of the game. Anything we can do to engage fans is a positive.

We don't really have a position or money for him either. It's not really a winning formula if our 2 highest paid players are 2 6' guards who both demand the basketball offensively and are both defensive liabilities. IMO if we were able to pull magic to create an open roster spot plus find the money I would rather bring Lyles back. He would be a much bigger upgrade at C compared to what we currently have on the roster than what Tavari would be over Tahj IMO.

@Zippy87 shared a tweet from Jeff Goodman. Jeff is one of the most credible sources in all of college basketball. If he says Tavari is in the portal I'm inclined to believe him. The method of how we was able to enter I don't know.

I believe the court ruling that granted the extra year of eligibility also opened the portal for those specific players. That way they could have an opportunity to find a roster.

I saw on social media that Tavari visited Groce down in Charleston a few weeks ago. Not that I've followed CoC offseason closely, but I don't recall them having the kind of signing that would make it seem they're dropping the kind of cash that they advertised they had. Perhaps they have money left over to make a run at Tavari.

Another thing to take into account is a lot of the earnings endowments make are intended to be spent to fund scholarships, research, or whatever its designated purpose. Money will really only double every 7 years if you keep it invested. Money compounding in perpetuity without ever being spent while looking nice on a balance sheet would kind of be pointless. The goal is probably to spend 3-5% of the endowment per year, but have the investments grow at 6-7%. That way the endowment still steadily grows in size, but is making the differences the donors intended. It growing as much as it did in the last 10 years probably has more to do with stronger than expected market returns combined with an increase in gifts.

The University of Akron's endowment has grown from $204.2 million in 2016 to $376.5 million in 2026 per the audited financials. That would indicate to me that they aren't depleting the principle on restricted endowments to cover operational costs. Personally, I feel it's a positive these small private schools are going out of business. There is clearly a student debt crisis ongoing and frankly a Notre Dame College wasn't worth the ~$50K tuition+room and board it was charging. Both Akron and Kent were ranked ahead of them academically in just about everything and you could attend either school for ~$20K less each year. If they were a Case Western caliber school academically this would be different, but they offered a lowered quality product at an inflated price. Schools like them going out of business should help strengthen the ones that remain.

Thanks, maybe it didn't display for me since I'm not subscribed. I'm interested to hear what changes they have in store for EJ in particular. I usually try to hit up a play there each year as my fiancé enjoys them. It's closer and a fraction of the cost compared to playhouse square.

I see pictures and captions, but no mention of specific work is being done. Did I miss it somewhere?

Exactly, if I wanted to watch professional football or basketball, I'd watch the NFL (which I do) or the NBA (which I rarely do). College sports is now trying to mirror professional sports, but frankly the product they offer is inferior. Its lost what made it unique.

I think UMass and Buffalo both have potential that they could be attractive to a conference like the AAC given their media markets. Their athletic performance, particularly in football, is what has held them back.

This is pretty spot on. I don't see what Miami would bring the AAC. Cincinnati and Xavier already own the Cincinnati market. OSU has a monopoly over Columbus. In-between even Dayton is a much bigger basketball brand. Their ceiling is SunBelt as they're already in a saturated market.