Athletic Budget

[72 Roo]

1 hour ago, MangoZip said:

Akron has zero NIL. Pretty much the entire MAC has no NIL

You are correct in Akron having little in football NIL. I was told by Guthrie that the MAC had decided not to play that game. All they would be doing was driving the price up for talent the bigger schools want. Well apparently that is not exactly the case. The Director of Operations at Toledo has stated they are in the game. To that point, this past Tuesday night Toledo held yoga on the 50 yard line led by Crandle's wife. All the money went to NIL. Toledo has a good, admirable program. Akron needs to model their future on them. In basketball we are well prepared. The best NIL in the MAC. All thanks to the leadership of Bud Wentz.

[Captain Kangaroo]

12 hours ago, Hilltopper said:

Everything you say is true except for one fact that you omitted. The $5 million a year in debt service for the stadium. That money is considered part of the Athletic Department budget. There is currently a $45 million balance still due on the original $60 million price rag for the stadium. It's going to take another 20 years to pay off that debt. No other MAC Athletic department has that kind of debt hanging over them. You can thank those previous AD's who got the thing built for this situation. They have all moved on to bigger and better paydays while the current administration has to deal with the consequences. 

Raise the rent for the lacrosse team.

 

Seriously…I don’t have much admiration for a guy that comes in and says “I wouldn’t have built that stadium” and gets off the hook for life. If we were in the Rubber Bowl the responsible parties would be bemoaning “If only we had a modern stadium, then I could really take the program to the next level…”.  You can't have it both ways.

 

It’s Guthrie’s job to fill Infocision seats and increase revenue. I don’t see the creativity or effort. Is it easy? No. But holding your hand out for the ESPN and Ohio State welfare checks…who needs an AD if that’s the best you’ve got?
 

$45 mill over 20 year is a chump change ante to be a division 1 football program. Build that stadium today and it’d cost at least $250 million. 

If Guthrie is any good, he should be on the short list for a P5 job by now. Wonder who’s sizing him up?

[GP1]

4 hours ago, 72 Roo said:

To that point, this past Tuesday night Toledo held yoga on the 50 yard line led by Crandle's wife. All the money went to NIL. Toledo has a good, admirable program.

This got me interested so I Googled it. Thanks for mentioning it. What Toledo did to start the year promoting athletics is more than impressive. It's almost as if they are using their athletic department to benefit the athletes students alumni fans and general community. With some effort.......

 

https://utrockets.com/news/2024/8/21/athletics-rocket-week-begins-aug-22-to-kick-off-2024-25-season.aspx

[Hilltopper]

5 hours ago, GP1 said:

This got me interested so I Googled it. Thanks for mentioning it. What Toledo did to start the year promoting athletics is more than impressive. It's almost as if they are using their athletic department to benefit the athletes students alumni fans and general community. With some effort.......

 

https://utrockets.com/news/2024/8/21/athletics-rocket-week-begins-aug-22-to-kick-off-2024-25-season.aspx

That's the kind of community support to expect when you have a winning program. Zips football has been such a loser that no one is interested in being part of it. 

[UA1996MAENG]

12 hours ago, Hilltopper said:

Everything you say is true except for one fact that you omitted. The $5 million a year in debt service for the stadium. That money is considered part of the Athletic Department budget. There is currently a $45 million balance still due on the original $60 million price rag for the stadium. It's going to take another 20 years to pay off that debt. No other MAC Athletic department has that kind of debt hanging over them. You can thank those previous AD's who got the thing built for this situation. They have all moved on to bigger and better paydays while the current administration has to deal with the consequences. 

A good point, but wasn't it pretty much unavoidable that UA had to build a new stadium?  Was the Rubber Bowl still viable? I had not been there since the 90s, but I heard it was a nightmare to operate.  I liked it as a fan though.  

[a-zip]

1 hour ago, Hilltopper said:

That's the kind of community support to expect when you have a winning program. Zips football has been such a loser that no one is interested in being part of it. 

We weren't always losing (not when I played).  When was the support ever good (besides an Acme/Zip game).  Basketball has been good year after year and support is meh.  I don't understand what goggles people are looking through.

 

[Hilltopper]

3 hours ago, UA1996MAENG said:

A good point, but wasn't it pretty much unavoidable that UA had to build a new stadium?  Was the Rubber Bowl still viable? I had not been there since the 90s, but I heard it was a nightmare to operate.  I liked it as a fan though.  

An 18k seat stadium would have been great. 

[GP1]

4 hours ago, Hilltopper said:

That's the kind of community support to expect when you have a winning program. Zips football has been such a loser that no one is interested in being part of it. 

Agreed, but they could be doing a better job using the football program to expose people to the benefits of the University. I don't think they can do everything Toledo is doing, but they can do more. Winning would help, but they should do better wine or lose. 

[Section210Zip]

The real issue may of been the 2 horrible coaching hires during the stadiums life. The first one not only being a bad coach but the guy came off as a jerk all time. This stunted the excitement from Joe Akron in only the 3rd season of the stadium. 

[GP1]

3 hours ago, a-zip said:

We weren't always losing (not when I played).  When was the support ever good (besides an Acme/Zip game).  Basketball has been good year after year and support is meh.  I don't understand what goggles people are looking through.

 

The Acme Zip game was a great community event, but the support came from the chain basically giving away tickets on shopping bags. Little effort was put into the game by the University, but that was a different era. The University didn't have much of a marketing department back then. 

 

I think the BB problem has solid support and is meeting expectations. Sold out crowds on a Monday in January isn't realistic. It's also hard to have outdoor events for fans to draw more people. 

 

I also don't see how the University maximizes community opportunity playing so few home games in fair weather months and weeknight games in poor weather months during the week at night. The head winds of the ESPN contract and us selling out the football program for money makes it hard to get traction. 

[johnnyzip84]

I'm truly not posting this to further depress our already deflated fan base, but here is a well written article on how the epic landscape changes are helping to resurrect one infamous program back from the dead. This is the flip side if you will - can you even imagine?

 

Pony Up

[Reslife4Life]

6 hours ago, a-zip said:

We weren't always losing (not when I played).  When was the support ever good (besides an Acme/Zip game).  Basketball has been good year after year and support is meh.  I don't understand what goggles people are looking through.

 

Soccer had great support 10 years ago, even in 2018 one season after advancing to the college cup. The team that year also finished as the national runner up, the support was subpar. UA hosted a MAC tournament game and a NCAA tournament game that year, the attendance for those games were: 360 and 421 respectively. Covid and teams not playing well may seem like it killed support, but I think it has generally declined as enrollment has. 

[kreed5120]

@Captain Kangaroo also didn't account for the revenue from the CFP. The MAC's share would be $1.8 million per school. That improves the situation some. If you exclude the football stadium, which is a sunk cost, the football program generates enough revenue that it about breaks even. It might slightly still be in the red.

 

The stadium is a huge burden on the athletic department financially. It would be great if they could utilize it more to host concerts or whatever else to help generate additional revenue. The same would be true for the JAR. There just must not be any demand for that for whatever reason.

[Reslife4Life]

The stadium does host lots of special events, although most are in the club level in the tower. The tower itself does get good use with the esports facility, academic facilities on floors 3&4, as well as the alumni office. I do wish we could host more concerts, but I can't imagine having blossom (a venue of similar capacity specifically made for concerts) less than 30 minutes away helps with that

[kreed5120]

1 hour ago, Reslife4Life said:

Covid and teams not playing well may seem like it killed support, but I think it has generally declined as enrollment has. 

I don't feel it has to be an either or. Likely all 3 things contributed to declined attendance.

Edited September 6 by kreed5120

[Captain Kangaroo]

22 minutes ago, Reslife4Life said:

The stadium does host lots of special events, although most are in the club level in the tower. The tower itself does get good use with the esports facility, academic facilities on floors 3&4, as well as the alumni office. I do wish we could host more concerts, but I can't imagine having blossom (a venue of similar capacity specifically made for concerts) less than 30 minutes away helps with that

I assume lots of intramural use too? People think it sits completely unused, sans 5 sparsely attended games per year. Not true. 

 

Selling 10k more tickets per game would bring in another $1 million in revenue ($20 per fan x 5 games x 10,000).

 

If you want to do something, you find a way. If you don't, you find an excuse.

[Reslife4Life]

Just now, Captain Kangaroo said:

I assume lots of intramural use too? People think it sits completely unused, sans 5 sparsely attended games per year. Not true. 

 

Selling 10k more tickets per game would bring in another $1 million in revenue ($20 per fan x 5 games x 10,000).

 

If you want to do something, you find a way. If you don't, you find an excuse.

Yes all of my intramural flag football games were “under the lights of beautiful infocision stadium”. That is a good 3 nights a week of use for 10 weeks or so

[kreed5120]

Intramural football or Esports, while nice to offer students to enhance the college experience, isn't paying the bills. That's why I specifically made mention that it would be nice if it could be used more for concerts or other major events as those actually bring money to the school. You were probably right that Blossom makes it challenging to do. 

[zippy5]

6 hours ago, Hilltopper said:

An 18k seat stadium would have been great. 

iirc, that wasn't an option for a team wanting to play FBS in 2009

[Zippy87]

21 hours ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

It’s Guthrie’s job to fill Infocision seats and increase revenue. I don’t see the creativity or effort.

 

Here's the football Promotional Schedule:

 

• Sept. 14 vs. Colgate – Home Opener, Band Day, High School Day, Extra Yard for Teachers and Faculty & Staff Appreciation.

• Oct. 5 vs. Bowling Green – Homecoming, Family Weekend & Varsity "A" Athletics Hall of Fame.

• Oct. 26 vs. Eastern Michigan – Youth Sports Day & Health Care Workers Appreciation

• Nov. 2 vs. Buffalo – Senior Day & Salute to Service

• Nov. 26 vs. Toledo – Group Bounce Back Day

 

No effort. No creativity. Just mailing it in.

[LZIp]

7 minutes ago, Zippy87 said:

 

Here's the football Promotional Schedule:

 

• Sept. 14 vs. Colgate – Home Opener, Band Day, High School Day, Extra Yard for Teachers and Faculty & Staff Appreciation.

• Oct. 5 vs. Bowling Green – Homecoming, Family Weekend & Varsity "A" Athletics Hall of Fame.

• Oct. 26 vs. Eastern Michigan – Youth Sports Day & Health Care Workers Appreciation

• Nov. 2 vs. Buffalo – Senior Day & Salute to Service

• Nov. 26 vs. Toledo – Group Bounce Back Day

 

No effort. No creativity. Just mailing it in.

What are some creative things other schools are doing?

[Hilltopper]

5 hours ago, johnnyzip84 said:

I'm truly not posting this to further depress our already deflated fan base, but here is a well written article on how the epic landscape changes are helping to resurrect one infamous program back from the dead. This is the flip side if you will - can you even imagine?

 

Pony Up

Nice story, but Akron isn’t  brimming with alumni who are oil field billionaires.

[Hilltopper]

4 hours ago, Reslife4Life said:

The stadium does host lots of special events, although most are in the club level in the tower. The tower itself does get good use with the esports facility, academic facilities on floors 3&4, as well as the alumni office. I do wish we could host more concerts, but I can't imagine having blossom (a venue of similar capacity specifically made for concerts) less than 30 minutes away helps with that

The administration tried to put together a concert featuring a major country music star. They were shot down by Live Nation. The concert business is controlled by just a few companies. They decide who is playing where and when. Think TicketMaster  lawsuit.

[Reslife4Life]

3 minutes ago, Hilltopper said:

The administration tried to put together a concert featuring a major country music star. They were shot down by Live Nation. The concert business is controlled by just a few companies. They decide who is playing where and when. Think TicketMaster  lawsuit.

What a racket. Might as well just host a second porchrokr 

[LZIp]

9 minutes ago, Hilltopper said:

The administration tried to put together a concert featuring a major country music star. They were shot down by Live Nation. The concert business is controlled by just a few companies. They decide who is playing where and when. Think TicketMaster  lawsuit.

That sucks. Good to hear they're trying though.