http://www.mlive.com/eagles/index.ssf/20...s_mic.html

IF I read it right, EMU was not to get a nice guarantee for 2016 (en lieu of MSU visiting EMU in 2020) and EMU needed those big 2016 dollars in their budget. So EMU and MSU scrapped the 2016 game in E. Lansing and 2020 in Ypsilanti.

In term, big money games @ Missouri for 2016 and 2020.

(01-21-2015 06:19 PM)emu steve Wrote:  IF I read it right, EMU was not to get a nice guarantee for 2016 (en lieu of MSU visiting EMU in 2020) and EMU needed those big 2016 dollars in their budget. So EMU and MSU scrapped the 2016 game in E. Lansing and 2020 in Ypsilanti.

In term, big money games @ Missouri for 2016 and 2020.

That is how I interpreted it.

(01-21-2015 06:20 PM)EAGLE KING Wrote:  

(01-21-2015 06:19 PM)emu steve Wrote:  IF I read it right, EMU was not to get a nice guarantee for 2016 (en lieu of MSU visiting EMU in 2020) and EMU needed those big 2016 dollars in their budget. So EMU and MSU scrapped the 2016 game in E. Lansing and 2020 in Ypsilanti.

In term, big money games @ Missouri for 2016 and 2020.

That is how I interpreted it.

Let's assume we get $750K or more in 2016 and 2020 from Missouri (maybe 800K - 900K).

Let's assume we get 0 in 2016 and would have to do over 1.5 - 1.75M in tickets for 2020 to get like number of dollars to make it work. Could we guarantee that we could sell 25K tickets @ 50 - $60 / each????? (assume 5K student tickets).

Also, I'll need to check the 2016 schedule and see what we have on it that pays us $750k - 1M. Without a big $ game, the 2016 budget would have a big hole in it.

The following is 100% speculation on my part:

I know that in the past (about 10 years ago), EMU borrowed money for the Field Turf (which as a new install was > 1M bucks). The pledge (collateral) was road game guarantees.

IF EMU wants to spend some big money (like lights, scoreboard, etc.) will have to borrow the money and have revenue sources to back it up. Road game contracts can serve that purpose (and also, I'd guess pledges of money from ESPN and College Football Playoff through the MAC).

So if EMU wants to borrow say 4M bucks, they need good income streams for the next say 10 years and 2016 and 2020 would be problematic as 2016 had a hole in it and guaranteeing 1M - 1.5M for the 2020 home game is dicey at best.

Someone would say: Show us the contracts with say 1M+ in road game guarantees from 2015 - 2020 so that EMU could afford say 500K of that for debt service.

Dear Friends,
After reading comments from the Detroit Free Press and News articles about the schedule change, most people seemed to think it would benefit Michigan State to play a better opponent (Brigham Young) than Eastern because of the playoff system now in effect. However, Michigan State plays Furman University in their first game of the 2016 season. That's tougher competition? I don't know if Furman is even in the FCS? As far as I am concerned Michigan State welched, especially with no guarantee. They got exactly what they wanted, out of the agreement with us.

(01-21-2015 10:07 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Friends,
After reading comments from the Detroit Free Press and News articles about the schedule change, most people seemed to think it would benefit Michigan State to play a better opponent (Brigham Young) than Eastern because of the playoff system now in effect. However, Michigan State plays Furman University in their first game of the 2016 season. That's tougher competition? I don't know if Furman is even in the FCS? As far as I am concerned Michigan State welched, especially with no guarantee. They got exactly what they wanted, out of the agreement with us.

Ken, here is the Freep article, time stamped at 9:24 p.m. yesterday.

It seems 180 degrees from what you just posted.

EMU had a deal which wasn't lucrative and was a HUGE gamble in 2020. And left a HUGE HOLE in the 2016 budget. Zero dollars with the hope that 2020 would pay off, but with a losing team. "I don't think so..."

******** Freep quotes below************

"Eastern Michigan initiated getting out of two of the remaining four years of the contract," MSU athletic director Mark Hollis said today. "In the end, it created a great opportunity for MSU."

EMU second-year athletic director Heather Lyke told the Free Press that talks with MSU were "very amicable" and financially motivated. Under the contract, EMU visited MSU in 2012 and 2014, with MSU paying $650,000 this year, Lyke said, and slightly less than that for the previous game.

EMU was scheduled to receive no pay for 2016 – averaging out to about $400,000 per game for the three, far less than the $1 million or so that mid-major schools can charge power-conference schools for guarantee games. The tradeoff in the deal was the 2020 home game, but Lyke said that would not make up the financial difference for her department.

****************

The $ of this seem very clear to me:

2016 - ZERO dollars. 2020 huge gamble - EMU gets home gate. Maybe only 500, 750K if the team is coming off a bad season.

So add 0 + say 750K / 2 = 375K.

Compare with say 800K (2016) and 850K (2020) - two guesses and one sees 1M MORE in the bank GUARANTEED by playing Mo twice rather than MSU 'home and home'.

With successful football teams, CMU has and WMU will (this September) have their home and homes with MSU.

I remember the CMU game a couple years ago. It was huge in mid-Michigan. Much anticipated for months.

Toledo apparently had a home and home with OSU (a few years ago) with the 'home' game in Cleveland. I believe Toledo picked up more than 3M from that game in gate receipts... Sweet.

BTW, look at these future schedules, esp. 2016.

http://www.fbschedules.com/ncaa/mid-amer...eagles.php

IF we had kept the ZERO dollars game at MSU, and not had Missouri, show me the money for road game guarantees? I can't see any. Charlotte and Wyoming are home and home.

Big, big hole in the budget.

Now we can opt for a FCS game Sept 3, or go for another big money game, if necessary.

BTW, the future schedules (after we play LSU) get much easier. No more two money games in one season.

Dear steve,
What the athletic director at Michigan State said, to me, does not quite square itself with what was said by Athletic Director Lyke in the Mlive story. In any case, I can't believe that we entered into this contract with no guarantee for 2016. After Lyke found out that there would not be a guarantee, she decided to cancel the last two scheduled games.
I'll bet Furman University isn't playing for nothing.

Sounds like Lyke wants to get top dollar when she sends out the young men to get their a**es kicked. Just once, I wish the AD's would suit up and get to experience what a good old-fashioned, humiliating butt whooping feels like. I don't see the point of EMU football anymore. We should have a "20" decal on our helmets this season to commemorate the 20th straight season without a winning record.

Dear Bob,
I know you do not agree with what I'm about to say, but Coach Creighton needs to be given another year or two, to turn things around. I've said before in one of our other dark moments of Eastern football, look what happened when we hired Harkema. First year, one win. Second year, three wins. Third year, five wins. Fourth year we were on our way to competitive football. We know that all of that lead to our winning the MAC championship and California Bowl victory. You have to give this some time.

Let me reply to both Ken and Bob (two for the price of one):

1). The reason we were to get ZERO dollars in 2016 is because we were to keep the gate receipts in 2020. As I've tried to post, CMU and Toledo did VERY well with this type of arrangement. BUT could anyone guarantee 25K people would pay $50 per ticket if the team has a few more years of losing? Huge risk + 2016 would have been a financial disaster for EMU athletics. (2020 would have interesting. At Rynearson? At Ford Field? If the game would have been at Ford Field, it would have been really a MSU home game for MSU fans in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Maybe 40K MSU fans and 5K EMU fans.

2). The AD basically exchanged MSU for Missouri and a guarantee of say 800K per game.

3). I do know (from personal conversation with the schedule maker - personal conversation) that EMU athletics wants to get an EASIER schedule going forward and less of these two money games which kill the season in September. And we are seeing more home and home with one money game per year.

I really think folks should give Heather, Chris, etc. (they are leading this effort) CREDIT for trying to get an easier schedule (like games we should be able to win, if the team is reasonably proficient on the field) and do the infrastructure stuff like lights, scoreboard, etc.

They are trying to make it easier for CC to be successful.

For too long, EMU FB has faced uphill climbs. We need to level the playing field some...

Dear steve,
While I do not necessarily disagree with some of what you have said, Eastern would have five more years to develop our football program by 2020. Also, you are putting this implication of not being ready, on Athletic Director Lyke, and that is laying, to me, a vote of no confidence on Coach Creighton.
Why not, at least wait on more year to see how the football team may be progressing? Then, if things do not look like we are moving in the right direction changes can be made in future schedules. Like you have said, Eastern is moving to schedule teams that may not pay as much, but are teams we may have a better chance of beating.

Leaving the dollar issues aside for a moment. When this scheduling agreement with MSU was announced I said then that we will never see MSU play here, that it would be 86'ed before it ever had a chance to happen.

That said, selfishly, I was hopeful it would happen as it probably could have been a sellout and the sea of green and white would have looked great.

Oh well, back to getting an ass-kicking for the sake of dollars.

I think this was a huge mistake. Hosting MSU would have given us something we can't buy. You cannot buy that kind of attention and prestige.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story.../22110915/

Free Press article mentions 2.5 million for the 2 Missouri games which would work out to $1,250,000 per game. I believe the Detroit News also uses this number.

(01-22-2015 01:56 PM)emu79 Wrote:  http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story.../22110915/

Free Press article mentions 2.5 million for the 2 Missouri games which would work out to $1,250,000 per game. I believe the Detroit News also uses this number.

Good catch.

I read that Freep article when posting and did not see the 2.5M figure. [I think I played with numbers before that article was updated last night.]

2.5M for two games is incredible (Like I thought we'd be lucky to get 1M per game).

(side note: Think I read that each G5 team will get 1M from CFP + 300K if they meet APR standards = total 1.3M / year).

So ESPN = 750K, CFP = 1.3M, Missouri 1.25M. All of a sudden that over 3M for say 2016.

(01-22-2015 12:52 PM)ljmhurons Wrote:  I think this was a huge mistake. Hosting MSU would have given us something we can't buy. You cannot buy that kind of attention and prestige.

Totally agree. It was our one chance for a LEGITIMATE sellout, instead we get 6 home games which no one really cares about with a total attendance for those 6 games of about, oh...30, 35K and it's business as usual. Big mistake, thanks Ms. Buckeye.

I guess I'm the only one who believes that getting ZERO dollars in guaranteed road games for 2016 would have been financially irresponsible and downright risky. Heather has a 2016/17 budget to balance.

The contract as reported, providing us with decent ($650K) guarantees for past years, including 2014, but ZERO dollars for 2016. The AD who negotiated the contract got bucks during his tenure (e.g., 2012, 2014) but left his successor, Heather, with a gaping hole in the 2016/17 budget.

A better contract would have provided for say 500K in 2016 (and say 500K in both 2014 and the other time, 2012?) and we pay MSU say 300K in 2020 to make the numbers balance out for years 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2020. (MSU would pay us 1.5M over 3 games and we return 250K in 2020).

No one here have a degree in business or ever have read a corporate annual report? No one concerned that the total cost of attendance might cost EMU say 1M per year, a new major expense? And, of course, new lighting and a new scoreboard. I believe it has been said that some of the road game guarantee monies goes to the athletic department, as a whole, to help support non-revenue sports and some set aside for facility improvements.

Just sport fans????

BTW, do we have a press box capable of handling a MSU game? Just asking?

College sports is about a lot more than recruiting and simply playing the games themselves. College sports is like a subsidiary of a large company. It has the same issues as any subsidiary in another corporation, e.g., personnel (staff/players), facilities, marketing, legal, financial (kind of like a CFO), etc.

I agree with you Steve its interesting how the cost of attendance and the MSU buyout are so close together. Hard to turn down $1,250,000 for a single game guaranteed. I think she did a good job. I'm guessing she is hoping CC moves this team up and home attendance will follow.

Yes its probably a sign of the end times that Steve and I actually agree on this.