GP1

Thanks for posting this. I have no problem with what he is doing and found myself shrugging my shoulders when I saw it. Heck, a part of me hopes he gets a raise. Look, college athletics are now minor league professional sports. This happens in professional sports and the vast majority of the time nobody really cares after the compensation is renegotiated. Oh well.....

Not anymore. The portal to Hell was the single doorless stall in the men's room on the home side of the Rubber Bowl.

There are consulting companies a university can hire to positively impact their score by gaming the system.

I love the perspective. They always say the hardest thing about Harvard is getting in. Harvard is always #1 on the survey. 97% of the students who get into Harvard graduate. They have massive grade inflation. To me, that isn't a good look. If a school is truly challenging it's students and not producing just another generation of donors to the foundation, the failure rate should be higher. I don't blame the kids for this. They are probably very smart. It's not their fault the university isn't challenging them in a meaningful way. While living in the Carolinas, I once had a choice to make between an Elon grad and a YSU grad. The Elon grad was smart enough, but struck me as someone who could be lazy and entitled. The YSU grad worked his way through school at an auto plant working the night shift. I hired him because of that. He was a great, hard working employee who made me good money for two years. He has his own business now and is what I would consider to be successful. Regional schools like Akron, which really defines most universities, have plenty of kids like this attending and provide a great learning experience for someone who doesn't have the same advantages as others. The key for Akron is developing ways to admit those kids who are capable of graduating. The key for us as alumni is to provide support for these kids so they can share the same success we have. Things like direct financial support or a paid co-op, to name a couple of opportunities, are very important to these kids. It isn't easy, but duty isn't easy.

https://blog.prepscholar.com/why-you-shouldnt-trust-us-news-college-rankings#:~:text=US News is probably the,might end up being miserable. I think the people who rank the study put as much effort into it as sports writers put into the preseason MAC football rankings. What I see when I look at the University is an institution that produces excellent business and community leaders than KSU across colleges across NE Ohio and Ohio in general. Maybe their Fashion Merchandising program has us beat, but I'd hire an engineer, business, teacher, nurse, etc over a KSU grad any day of the week.

On the other hand, dumb kids need a place to go to college too.

Is the winning trophy a paper crown from Burger King?

It's almost as if you could run a test to see if giving away Item X for nothing would draw a bigger crowd than giving away Item Y for nothing. Instead of giving away food in order to sell tickets, couldn't you give away tickets to sell food? Is the goal of the promotion to move food or move people to the game? If the goal is to move people from their living rooms to the game, incentivise the ticket and not the food. Once get someone into the stadium, you have them captive. Heck, college football games last forever now. It isn't unreasonable to assume that at some point during the marathon game experience someone is going to get hungry or thirsty. I don't know if this could be a lost leader strategy or not, because the lost leader strategy assumes a profit will be made. It's sort of like one though.

I was listening to ESPNU in XM this morning. The two dimwits that come on before full ride were talking about spring practice and how the NCAA made a mistake by not allowing colleges to practice and play against one another. It was like listening to the morons 25 years ago who convinced universities to bankrupt themselves for athletics. They pulled out the same old arguments about the money spent would be an investment because the "exposure" would pay for it. They even pulled out one of the newest arguments that is complete crap but is a buzzword these days..... the scrimmages would reduce injury. I'd say more of the arguments, but we've heard them a thousand times. The bottom line is this. If colleges eliminated spring practice, they would be doing everyone a favor, including fans. It's horrible entertainment and any decent player isn't really put through the paces because they a fearful of injury.

There's always the law of unintended consequences. It could be a lot of vomit to clean up in the car after the ride home.

I don't think free concessions would cause me to go to a game. It's an interesting try though.

They need a better SEO consultant.

They should pay CK for advertising on his board. College athletics are now minor league sports. If they want something, they should pay for it.

If it's so easy, how come when I Google "Akron Zips NIL" I can't find it.

We aren't the target audience anymore.

In addition, soon we will be at a point where the best of the best of the best end up annually at 5-6 schools. Those schools will win the championship every year. Same in football. There is nothing interesting about it. I can't even dislike a lot of teams I used to because I don't care enough to dislike them. I find myself increasingly uninterested in college athletics and it's more than the NIL. I enjoy going to Wake Forest games, even though that's getting increasingly difficult, and watching the Zips from afar. Other than that, I really don't care much for it and I used to love college athletics. Maybe it's because it's now minor league sports and I don't like minor league sports.

Don't we already have a Nike symbol on the jersey?

If you watch a NASCAR race, each car has their main sponsors on the roof and hood. On the side of the car are lots of smaller stickers, at least there used to be before I stopped watching. Those small stickers were called Provisional Sponsorships or something like that. The cost for those sponsorships vary by race by finishing position. The higher the car places in the race, the more money the sponsors pay. Maybe they could sell these types of sponsorships to people or local businesses. The higher the Zips finish in the regular season, the more the players make. Maybe figure out a bonus for winning the MAC Championship. I have no idea where they would be placed. My experience in life is if you reward behavior, you get that behavior. Reward winning. It's minor league sports now.

What if they had a donation option like a tip at the concession stand?

You need to deepen your knowledge of Akron history.

UMass has two winning seasons in the past 10. They are not a good A10 program but they are proven average at best. Frank Martin works wonders for very short periods with bad programs. Last year may have been that short period. The question is this. Can the MAC make an extremely average at best A10 program good immediately? You may be right that they are a top 4 MAC program next year. If they are, the MAC is in much worse shape than I believed.

Im going to make a recommendation, but I'm a little worried 75% of all athletic directors will take it seriously. Akron should play an exhibition game against the Harlem Globetrotters and serve as the Washington Generals. We could split the profits with all going to the NIL collective. Imagine Hilltopper or the President of the school getting doused with a bucket full of confetti. Problem solved.

When I go to Jersey Mike's among other restaurants, I'm always asked if I want to leave a tip and suggestions are made. Maybe they could raise some NIL money at season ticket purchase time doing something like this. Depending on the past giving of season ticket holders, different giving levels could be recommended.

Abandon all of the cupcake games in the ooc and schedule high paying opponents on the road. It works great for the football program. Seriously, shooting better Friday night wouldn't have cost a penny more. I don't know what Jeff Gillooly would cost these days, but diverting some NIL money to hire him to kneecap some of the Wildcats would have helped.

No it wasn't. Nine percent of two hundred thousand is eighteen thousand.