(08-05-2013 08:42 AM)Chappy Wrote: I cannot imagine the level of excitement there must be, watching the program be being built from scratch and waiting for that first game.
You probably also cannot imagine how tortuous the wait has been. We've known for FIVE years we were starting football. FIVE. We have crawled along at a snails pace.
While most Niner fans were not happy with the long time line when football was first announced, I think looking back, we should all be very happy. Pretty much everything has gone as perfectly as it could have for us.
Many of us expected to play off campus in an old and crumbling Memorial Stadium. Instead we got a beautiful on-campus stadium in the heart of campus that will likely be expanded in the near future.
We got an invite to the perfect FBS conference for us (although it sucks that ECU is leaving from our perspective).
We've sold out our stadium.
We got twice what we were looking for for naming rights for the stadium and have the backing of the local NFL owner. He not only donated $10MM for naming rights, he donated ~$1MM to have his name on the field with BoA's founder. He donated equipment and cleats to the program and endowed a scholarship.
We got naming rights for the field house.
All in all, we've gotten nearly $15 million in donations in the past 12-15 months and sold $5 million worth of seat licenses. Throw in the newly required donations for season ticket holders and the season tickets themselves and the program is seeing more money flow in than it ever has.
We signed an agreement with IMG Sports that was worth basically the same as ECU's and more than pp State's, before ever playing a down.
We got an independent TV deal that will televise all of our home games.
I'm see and hear excitement around town for the program.
I'm not sure things could have gone better for any start up. Now we just need to win to prove to all the people that are supporting the program that it was worth it.
