kreed5120

The only conference worth leaving for would be the AAC. We probably are somewhere on the AAC long list of potential expansion candidates, but I feel the number of teams ahead of us is too great. We have a quality basketball program, but it has 0 tourney wins. We have a nice football stadium, but it is bankrupting the University and the football team has 1 bowl win in program history. We play in a decent size market, but share it with another school that has a significantly larger enrollment. Perhaps with time Akron can solve its shrinking enrollment problem, it can build itself into being regarded as one of the top dogs in MAC football, and it can start somewhat filling the stadium. Until that point I don't see us getting an AAC invite.

1st time I've heard one of his weekly radio appearances. Love how honest he is. He doesn't try to sugarcoat anything.

Akron has to bribe students to show up, meanwhile, Nebraska has a problem of students breaking in during the summer. http://www.12up.com/posts/3457568-nebraska-opens-memorial-stadium-to-pokemon-gamers

I've noticed all kinds of free giveaways, raffles, and some price cuts like you mentioned. At this point prices kind of are as cheap as they can get. I can get season GA tickets cheaper than what it would cost me to attend 1 Browns game. Hell students can get in for free and they still can't fill that section. Cutting prices further really isn't going to encourage more people to attend as price really isn't the deterrent. They need to work on improving the atmosphere to get people to feel attending a game is a quality use of their time.

I've certainly noticed an uptick in marketing over years past. I still don't expect attendance numbers to be great, but it won't be because of a lack of effort. I've tried talking some college friends into buying season tickets, but by their reaction one would think I was asking them to attend a ballet recital. It will take a few years of consistent winning for people to forget about the 4 year span that Akron combined to win 6 games.

Opening the article I expected to Wisconsin. To my surprise they were referencing App State.

I'm going under. This years schedule is much more challenging when you consider we pretty much replaced UMass and EMU with WMU and Toledo. There just isn't enough easy wins on the schedule for me to give them 9 wins. I say they finish with 6-7 wins.

I'd market it as a LBJ Foundation event. Auction/raffle off signed memorabilia with the proceeds going towards supporting the scholarships for the kids in LeBron's program.

So someone mentioned that the Zips should recognize the Cavs and in particular LeBron at one of the home football games. I thought it was a pretty great idea.

Matthew Falcon, their top rated recruit, is a 3* recruit who is ranked as the 442nd best player and 21st RB. It is a nice haul for a MAC team, but if WMU was trying to buy players, they could do much better than this.

Akron is also returning 4 starters and finished 3 games better than Buffalo in MAC play, including beating Buffalo twice. Upsets happen in a single elimination tournament. Does anyone really believe Middle Tennessee State was better than Michigan State? Akron showed over the course of 18 regular season MAC games who the better team was.

The entire B1G comes into NEO to raid talent mostly leaving MAC teams to sort through the scraps to find the diamonds in the rough. What I feel is key if Akron ever hopes to get to the level that you are proposing is that we need to convince 18 year old kids that Akron provides them a better opportunity than a 2nd or 3rd tier B1G school (Indiana, Illinois, Purdue, etc.) I know many on here don't like OSU, but I feel that is a relationship that we should keep strong. Frankly whoever is the 2nd or 3rd string player at OSU, they are most likely better than anyone Akron has starting at said position. Whenever Urban Meyer comes a crossed a player that is frustrated that he can't break thru to being an every down player and wants to transfer, it is best he refers them to Akron.

September 3- Vs. VMI - 6:30 ESPN3 September 10- at Wisconsin - TBD September 17- at Marshall - Noon CBSSN September 24- Vs. App State - TBD October 1- at K.e.n.t - 3:30 October 8- Vs. Miami - 3:00 October 15- Vs. Western Michigan - TBD October 22- at Ball State - 3:00 Thursday October 27- at Buffalo - 7:30 CBSSN/ESPN3 Wednesday November 2- Vs. Toledo - 7:30 ESPN2 Wednesday November 9- Vs. Bowling Green - 8 ESPN2/ESPNU Tuesday November 22- at Ohio - 7:00 ESPNU/ESPN3

Akron has had success with transfer players. I'd expect and am glad to see they plan to continue to use that as a resource.

In the MAC you are competing against 11 other teams in the ~10th best conference. In the NBA you are competing against 29 other teams that are comprised of the best players in the world. If anything the MAC tournament would be the equivalent to the Eastern Conference of which Lebron is 6-0 in during last 6 years.

Thanks for posting. Can you confirm if Creighton is still on the schedule? Also, are you at liberty to tell us which mid-major is coming to Akron?

Marketing dollars are marketing dollars. There are countless ways that businesses could spend $20-$30 million (or more) in advertising that would provide them much more value in getting their brand out there. I just provided Progressive Field as a single example. The numbers that I provided on Gonzaga are already adjusted for inflation. Gonzaga might be in a smaller conference, but they are a much bigger brand and are the #1 basketball team at any level in their state. They are also able to attract quality teams to play there. Bowling Green arena is extremely poor. I've seen many other arenas that were much nicer and that were at or around that price range. Along with Gonzaga, the Jack Stephens Center comes to mind. Akron can't afford payments on its football stadium. What makes you think that they could afford $60-80+ million basketball arena? The athletic department is already heavily subsidized thru student fees so asking the students to continue to assume more of the athletic departments budget shortfall would be extremely unjust.

He's already getting free education for thousands of kids by just letting the University use him for ads and for him to make a few appearances. The University doesn't really have anything left to offer him. I can see him make a donation at some point just because him and the University had a good relationship and he cares for the community. At the end of the day any gift he gives is because he is looking to be charitable. At least any gift of a sizable amount to get the project rolling. Honestly, having a new arena would benefit Lebron's camp, but it wouldn't benefit it to the tune of $20 million or so. Where he could be incredible useful is by helping to pitch a new arena to corporate sponsors and alumni. When Lebron speaks, people listen. He could get businesses to front money for premium seating. He could help land some smaller sponsors by his name being connected to the basketball team. He could agree to let Goodyear or Huntington use his brand to market their companies as part of the package of them acquiring the naming rights.

I don't think it is impossible for Lebron to donate a large sum of money towards a new arena. He seems just so much more focused on wealth accumulation at this stage of his life. I can see him making a sizable contribution sometime down the road.

I'm not against a new arena as I agree it would help improve the atmosphere and help with recruiting. I just think building an $80 million, 10k+ seat arena is a bit overkill. We've seen what it has done to CSU. I'd much rather have something in the neighborhood of 7k seats that way the Zips have a chance of consistently filling it. I'd want it to have premium seats that appeal to businesses and professionals. I get Coppin State isn't a draw, but a new arena isn't going to suddenly make Pitt, Minnesota, or or a Wisconsin come to play in Akron (it certainly wouldn't hurt). Akron needs to have some postseason success to make that happen.

I feel the only way Akron gets corporate sponsors to build a new arena is if Akron actually experiences some March Madness success. Right now it would just be a poor use of marketing dollars for any company. Progressive Insurance paid $58 million dollars for 16 years of naming rights to Progressive Field. The Indians play 162 games with each game being watched on TV by hundreds of thousands of people and well over 1 million people attend a Tribe game each year. Not to mention the field is in the heart of downtown so I can't even guess how many cars drive past it each day. There are people in Seattle, Chicago, New York, Tampa that know Progressive Field. You would be hard pressed to find out of market people who know what the JAR is and know what team plays in it. Edit: An $80 million arena sounds overly ambitious for a team that doesn't even average 4k fans per game. The 1st step towards getting a new arena is setting realistic expectations. If you make 40k per year, going out and buying a 100k porsche makes little sense. Gonzaga paid ~$30 million (in today's dollars) for their arena. If that's good enough for them, why is a similar priced arena beneath us?

Exactly! The only cost of the Wolstein Center is operating costs. A new arena would have both an operating and financing cost component. They say they are losing ~$1 million per year thru operations on the Wolstein Center. The Zips currently pay ~$4 million per year for their $60 million stadium. Lets say CSU new arena cost 2/3 of that. Their financing cost per year on a new arena would be $2.66 million. Sure the operations cost will be cheaper having a new arena, but I don't see it being $2.66 million per year cheaper. In the end CSU would come away with a nice new arena, but would end up spending more per year until the new arena gets paid off. Edit: Of course if they got a wealthy alum or company to flip a large chunk of the cost, it would be a different story.

That is a fair point. Perhaps had CSU been able the sustain the success it wouldn't look so bad.

It wouldn't be the operating cost of a new arena that I'd be comcerned about. It would be the financing cost.

I can see how them building it that large in the 1st place was a mistake, but it's not like building a new arena is cheap. The $1 million per year deficit seems pretty small compared to what the Zips are losing on their football stadium. Unless they are able to find someone willing to pay for this new arena, I don't see how they come out ahead.