Zipmeister

8*12,500*6= $600,000. I have an MBA in Finance and can't figure out your math. Help me out. My example is 8.00 (Cost of ticket) /3 (Mininimum required by NCAA) * 6 (# of home games in season ticket) * 6,250 = $100,000 Or am I fabricating too?? 100,000 / 8 =12,500 you assumed the most expensive ticket was $8, I assumed the most expensive ticket was $24. you showed tickets per game, I showed tickets for the season.

Back to square one. Tax exempt organizations do not report paid attendance on a tax return. I quit.

Let me understand this. A University can go to someone who wants to donate $100,000 (or have part of some marketing campaign recorded as such) and have it recorded as a sale of 6,250 $8.00 season tickets and everything will be completely legal and OK with the NCAA. But you think they would rather lie about student attendance for which there would be no supporting documents. So instead of assuming college administrations are conniving, you prefer to assume they are corrupt and stupid. I probably have as little respect for government and the public sector as anyone and even I would not assume that. It seems that you are more concerned about proving someone wrong than providing a convincing argument. Like you, I don't think the IRS issue is that important for non-profit organization right now. But if you have ever dealt with the IRS or SEC you will know for sure that you want to avoid them. As you were referring too...IRS and SEC are public sector bureaucrats and like to use/abuse their authority. The IRS just cleared and issue with my company where they tried to collect 120K in civil penalties and interest. No apology...just a letter saying that we did not owe the money. That was a 2006 issue. So...they may not be important now....they ARE people to avoid. Ask any CFO. I never said schools prefer to lie about student attendance at sporting events. It is simply one tool in their numbers fudging arsenal, and it happens with great regularity at schools struggling to stay qualified at the DI level (or by some hoping to appear to be a "bigger time" program than they actually are). It is particularly easy to make up supporting documents, if required, for this particular trick. Schools would prefer that someone give them cash that they can use to count as sold tickets. Using your example, kind of. Given a $100,000 donation, a school whose most expensive season tickets cost $24 (now that's a bargain) could pretend that they sold 12,500 season tickets at $8 per.

And the IRS would win in tax court because the school violated the provision in the tax code that specifies that paid attendance numbers must be reported according to NCAA specifications which, I forget, is in what section of the tax code? It hasn't occurred to you yet that perhaps the IRS isn't the correct institution to address this issue, has it?

So if 1,2 or 3 applies, and a university has 25,000 students, paid attendance could be fudged up if someone accidentally counted the let's say 4,000 students who attended the game as 6,000 or 14,000 or 24,000. That probably never happens, especially by a school in danger of missing the minimum attendance figure.

Zips by 14.

Sorry if I sounded a little harsh in my previous emails. You realize some of the folks on here who haven't been around all that long might have thought your argument actually made sense, and that would not be a good thing. OK, let's ignore the current reality, jump into our time machines and visit your future; a point in time where Congress has decided that all public universities are no longer tax exempt (which will not happen in your lifetime). Then, as now, the IRS could care less how many tickets were sold to a sporting (or entertainment) event. What they will want are truthful statements of revenues and expenses. The NCAA, on the other hand, doesn't require minimum revenue or income figures to maintain DI status, they specify minimum attendance figures. TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. Therefore, a university could (continue to) lie their ass off regarding attendance and be in no difficulty at all with the IRS as long as the $ they include on their return are accurate. Hope this helps.

It takes a big man to admit he was wrong. Thank you for finally admitting that your reason why Universities couldn't possibly fudge their football attendance numbers up was a fabrication. If I was the executive in charge of responding to this type of request I would give it to my administrative assistant to complete. Of course (primarily to please you) I would attach a hand written note to the completed form asking why there wasn't a single question on the 33 page document asking how many football tickets we sold.

Don't kid myself! I'm not the one that thinks the IRS audits tax exempt entities.

Hey Dorfman, I thought it was fat and stupid? LOL! I think the line from Animal house was fat, dumb, and stupid. Can't Dorfman - Hey, are you guys playing cards? That movie was a classic! So close................. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

Yes, the IRS spends massive amounts of time auditing these kinds of numbers for tax-exempt organizations.

I agree. I just want him to kill himself I guess. I think you need to see JT

I hope you are not suggesting that we start throwing the balls back to the other team when they are warming up. Not throwing them back is the most fun some of the AK-Rowdies have at the game.

Yes, a session with Justin Timberlake will usually do the trick.

Lazy and stupid is a tough combination to overcome.

This should pretty much lock up a scholarship offer from K.e.n.t State.

Great points. Did not think about the time frame aspect. Speaking of timing.... We could have the moment of silence start about a minute after one of our "fans" refuses to return a ball kicked into the stands by OSU during warm-ups. This would confuse them. First they would think, here these assholes go again, and then they would think, that was a nice thing of those assholes to do.

That is one pathetic OOC schedule. They should have a heck of a record to start the conference season.

Sagarin says take EMU and give the points. Zipmeister says take the points: Zips by 14

As I've said before, if this so-called "phantom attendance" was an acceptable practice, EMU wouldn't be reporting 5,000 average attendance for football. The NCAA allows each school to determine its own method of calculating attendance. EMU may be reporting only fans in the seats, which is really the only honest way to do it. As long as it consistent...I could care less. I really don't think attendance figures should be a criteria for D1. Miami Florida draws poorly...but they had great teams. Small school in a upscale enclave surrounded by poor depressed areas predominantly Hispanic (not the right style of futbol) keeps their attendance figures low. Who cares...if the school wants to compete at that level and they can compete...why should there be attendance requirements?? We should have their attendance problems. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/foo...ttendance_N.htm P.S. between 2005 and 2009, at least, I wouldn't classify their team as "great."

In addition to what I've posted on here before, about student attendance being couinted as "paid" because it's part of their fees, I have also since found out that there are many other requirements to qualifying your attendance, including audits. They aren't "made up" numbers. Bobby, I know you were hoping that soccer would reach an average near 5,000 this year. I was pulling for you. But as I said, the problem in reaching that average was going to be that there would be low games. With 4,300 and 2,300 at the last two home games, you will likely fall way short of that mark. I think your estimates showed that you would predict 5,100 and 4,500 at those two games just to give us a chance at a 4,500 average. Falling 3,000 short of your estimates in those two games combined is just an incredible shortfall to make up in soccer. Maybe a number in the 3.500 to 4,000 range might still be attainable? I don't know. Remember, season ticket holders in soccer that do not show up are also counted. And there are companies that buy tickets that don't get used, same as football. Skippy, I have some swamp land in Florida I think you might be interested in buying.

Like several of you I also have valuable real world experience. I have worked for several fairly reputable machine shops in my time and from my vast experience at these firms I can tell you that it would help our "company" become more successful if all the other companies would be good enough to abandon the process they already have in place. In addition, it would be beneficial if we could start getting line workers who have both thumbs. It is discouraging to go up against other companies whose line workers have both thumbs.

I don't have the stats, but can anyone tell me if this is actually that abnormal? If you include redshirt freshmen, freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, that's five classes. If you average it out, you would expect one-fifth, or 20%, of your roster to be from each class. That would mean 60% would be made up of RF, F and S. 46 of 76 is 60.5%--sounds pretty close to expected. If the percentage was weighted to the juniors and seniors, then it would be weighted to the lower side in the following years. This stat is meaningless to me.Your basic conclusion is correct, but I believe is based upon faulty reasoning. Because redshirt FR and FR come from the same recruiting class, (there are really only four classes and) they would make up approximately 40% of a roster for a team that retained all members of each recruiting class. Some attrition occurs over the four or five year college experience because of health, academic, personal and other reasons, and the attrition rate is a positive function of tenure, so if redshirt FR and FR account for over 40% of a roster this would not be unusual. For (a roughly accurate) example assume a team signs 25 scholarships per year and loses about 10% of the players from each class each year (let's say 3 players per year). Once the roster hits a steady state, the team would be comprised of 82 members, 47 of whom would be SO, FR or redshirt FR. That's 57.3%.Freshman and rs freshman do not come from the same recruiting class. RS freshman are last years recruiting class.Technically you sould say true sophomores and rs freshman are the same class.You are correct sir.

I don't have the stats, but can anyone tell me if this is actually that abnormal? If you include redshirt freshmen, freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, that's five classes. If you average it out, you would expect one-fifth, or 20%, of your roster to be from each class. That would mean 60% would be made up of RF, F and S. 46 of 76 is 60.5%--sounds pretty close to expected. If the percentage was weighted to the juniors and seniors, then it would be weighted to the lower side in the following years. This stat is meaningless to me.Your basic conclusion is correct, but I believe is based upon faulty reasoning. Because redshirt FR and FR come from the same recruiting class, (there are really only four classes and) they would make up approximately 40% of a roster for a team that retained all members of each recruiting class. Some attrition occurs over the four or five year college experience because of health, academic, personal and other reasons, and the attrition rate is a positive function of tenure, so if redshirt FR and FR account for over 40% of a roster this would not be unusual. For (a roughly accurate) example assume a team signs 25 scholarships per year and loses about 10% of the players from each class each year (let's say 3 players per year). Once the roster hits a steady state, the team would be comprised of 82 members, 47 of whom would be SO, FR or redshirt FR. That's 57.3%.

Well you do have the spread correct.