Leaderboard

I hope the NCAA comes down on us. It will bring even more attention.

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.

I think they're two totally different tournaments

At least we know it will be on an ESPN Network and not FloSports or something like other invitationals we've been in.

I mentioned this in the other thread. There should be 2 winners and at the very least they should co-develop the game plan (would make it even cooler for the fan to be able to meet the celebrity). Could even make it 2 drives in the game (1st drive of each half?) and have it be a competition between the 2 winners for the most successful drive. Someone mentioned in the other thread that there will be a press conference for the selection.

4) I hope they rig it and make sure a celebrity wins it. That would ultimately be the best for the program attention wise. I’ve thought about this as well. Could you imagine the attention if McAfee won? What they should do is livestream the actual selection to make it authentic and then also somehow turn that into a money maker.

1) If the NCAA comes down on this promo after so much success, the backlash will be against them, not Akron. 2) No idea but this would be a nice touch. 3) Too late for most schools to copy this. Probably will see some copycats next year, maybe to a lesser extent late this season, but Akron being the first will always be referenced as the first. 4) I hope they rig it and make sure a celebrity wins it. That would ultimately be the best for the progrum attention wise.

MAC QB ranking based on the Athletic:

Yeah, it's kinda just putting each sport's wordmark on the same Nike items. But it's better than nothing and hopefully it expands or at least the items change each time they open the stores. With that said, I didn't have any Nike gear specific to football so I bought a long sleeve shirt yesterday and hope it arrives before the home opener. It says the items ship 4 weeks after the store closes. Also, unfortunately you can't combine shipping across stores, so if you buy from multiple sports, it's $10 shipping each time. I contacted BSN and they confirmed you can't combine shipping.

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).”

One of the sources ChatGPT used for this was ZipsNation. No joke, serious.

I see that even ChatGPT doesn't anticipate a first down for the Zips. LOL

Now honestly when, in any of your lifetimes, has Akron Zips been referred to as "America's Team' ??????

It's refreshing to see some renewed energy back around UA football!! The guys are working hard and they certainly deserve it. Looking forward to my first trip to Winston-Salem on 8/3

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.

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.