Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

2. Last year the athletic department brought in only $669,000 in sponsorships. That's downright pathetic. The University simply MUST change it's policy in this regard and allow companies that currently give to the academic side to also be allowed to give to Rice athletics. It's not as if there is a cannabalization risk.

On the positive side...

- Sports interests groups (SIGs) pulled in $1MM.
- The university contributed $22.24MM, or two-thirds of total 'revenues".

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

2. Last year the athletic department brought in only $669,000 in sponsorships. That's downright pathetic. The University simply MUST change it's policy in this regard and allow companies that currently give to the academic side to also be allowed to give to Rice athletics. It's not as if there is a cannabalization risk.

On the positive side...

- Sports interests groups (SIGs) pulled in $1MM.
- The university contributed $22.24MM, or two-thirds of total 'revenues".

Can you elaborate on point #2? What exactly is the policy?

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

2. Last year the athletic department brought in only $669,000 in sponsorships. That's downright pathetic. The University simply MUST change it's policy in this regard and allow companies that currently give to the academic side to also be allowed to give to Rice athletics. It's not as if there is a cannabalization risk.

On the positive side...

- Sports interests groups (SIGs) pulled in $1MM.
- The university contributed $22.24MM, or two-thirds of total 'revenues".

Given that the university provides two thirds of all athletics revenues, I think on point #1 you can consider any donor to the university a donor to athletics.

(12-04-2015 11:52 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

2. Last year the athletic department brought in only $669,000 in sponsorships. That's downright pathetic. The University simply MUST change it's policy in this regard and allow companies that currently give to the academic side to also be allowed to give to Rice athletics. It's not as if there is a cannabalization risk.

On the positive side...

- Sports interests groups (SIGs) pulled in $1MM.
- The university contributed $22.24MM, or two-thirds of total 'revenues".

Can you elaborate on point #2? What exactly is the policy?

There has been a long-standing policy imposed by the University that forbids the athletic department from going after sponsorship money and donations from corporations that have previously sponsored the academic side through sponsorships, endowed chairs, buildings, etc. It was an issue raised to JK by myself and many others when he first took over the job. Clearly, little or nothing has changed in the past two years.

(12-04-2015 11:59 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

2. Last year the athletic department brought in only $669,000 in sponsorships. That's downright pathetic. The University simply MUST change it's policy in this regard and allow companies that currently give to the academic side to also be allowed to give to Rice athletics. It's not as if there is a cannabalization risk.

On the positive side...

- Sports interests groups (SIGs) pulled in $1MM.
- The university contributed $22.24MM, or two-thirds of total 'revenues".

Given that the university provides two thirds of all athletics revenues, I think on point #1 you can consider any donor to the university a donor to athletics.

??? Not true. Rice Annual Fund gifts are either designated to specific non-athletic departments, or go toward the operation of the residential colleges, grounds/facilities maintenance, intramurals and other non-Athletic Department budgets. And, obviously, incremental gifts to specific academic areas or toward endowments (either department-specific or the University endowment) do not go to athletics.

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

2. Last year the athletic department brought in only $669,000 in sponsorships. That's downright pathetic. The University simply MUST change it's policy in this regard and allow companies that currently give to the academic side to also be allowed to give to Rice athletics. It's not as if there is a cannabalization risk.

On the positive side...

- Sports interests groups (SIGs) pulled in $1MM.
- The university contributed $22.24MM, or two-thirds of total 'revenues".

I received my report a couple weeks ago and was actually impressed that over 1/3 of the entire Owl Club is former student-athletes. I'm not sure what you would consider a good participation rate but given there's gotta only be a few thousand of those alive I'm not sure how many more donors are in that pool. Certainly not nearly as many as there are elsewhere.

Also when comparing the last two Owl Club reports it appears the revenues from ticket sales actually decreased substantially despite the increase in adminstration expenses directed towards that stream. That seemed to be a bit alarming especially since the crowds at football this year have been reported to be much lower than last..

All in all though a good report. It'd be nice to see more winning in the highlights section but I don't want to go down that road again. My two cents.

(12-05-2015 12:19 AM)BufflOwl Wrote:  

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

2. Last year the athletic department brought in only $669,000 in sponsorships. That's downright pathetic. The University simply MUST change it's policy in this regard and allow companies that currently give to the academic side to also be allowed to give to Rice athletics. It's not as if there is a cannabalization risk.

On the positive side...

- Sports interests groups (SIGs) pulled in $1MM.
- The university contributed $22.24MM, or two-thirds of total 'revenues".

I received my report a couple weeks ago and was actually impressed that over 1/3 of the entire Owl Club is former student-athletes. I'm not sure what you would consider a good participation rate but given there's gotta only be a few thousand of those alive I'm not sure how many more donors are in that pool. Certainly not nearly as many as there are elsewhere.

Also when comparing the last two Owl Club reports it appears the revenues from ticket sales actually decreased substantially despite the increase in adminstration expenses directed towards that stream. That seemed to be a bit alarming especially since the crowds at football this year have been reported to be much lower than last..

All in all though a good report. It'd be nice to see more winning in the highlights section but I don't want to go down that road again. My two cents.

Also, isn't the $669K your referencing simply the payout from IMG? I'm not sure about your other issue with policy but I'm pretty sure that what that represents and that sounds about right.

I remember when the McKinsey report was being prepared, I did some hunting online for information and ended up getting in touch with a professor at Illinois-Chicago whose research interest was economics and finance for collegiate athletic programs. I sent him a copy of the McKinsey report when it came out. His first reaction was that there had to be a mistake, there was no way that the corporate support number reported for Rice could possibly be that small. He said that Illinois-Chicago had more corporate support for a Horizon League (or whatever league they were in then) program. This really is a huge problem that needs badly to be changed. It might be the single most important change that could be made to Rice athletics.

(12-05-2015 11:35 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I remember when the McKinsey report was being prepared, I did some hunting online for information and ended up getting in touch with a professor at Illinois-Chicago whose research interest was economics and finance for collegiate athletic programs. I sent him a copy of the McKinsey report when it came out. His first reaction was that there had to be a mistake, there was no way that the corporate support number reported for Rice could possibly be that small. He said that Illinois-Chicago had more corporate support for a Horizon League (or whatever league they were in then) program. This really is a huge problem that needs badly to be changed. It might be the single most important change that could be made to Rice athletics.

+1

And with all the current positive PR surrounding the Bob story, it would be a good time to seek such sponsorships.

(12-05-2015 11:35 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I remember when the McKinsey report was being prepared, I did some hunting online for information and ended up getting in touch with a professor at Illinois-Chicago whose research interest was economics and finance for collegiate athletic programs. I sent him a copy of the McKinsey report when it came out. His first reaction was that there had to be a mistake, there was no way that the corporate support number reported for Rice could possibly be that small. He said that Illinois-Chicago had more corporate support for a Horizon League (or whatever league they were in then) program. This really is a huge problem that needs badly to be changed. It might be the single most important change that could be made to Rice athletics.

I totally agree.
Out of curiosity, does anybody have a historical perspective on why we have not gone after corporate donations to athletics? And the rationale?

(12-05-2015 11:42 AM)greyowl72 Wrote:  

(12-05-2015 11:35 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I remember when the McKinsey report was being prepared, I did some hunting online for information and ended up getting in touch with a professor at Illinois-Chicago whose research interest was economics and finance for collegiate athletic programs. I sent him a copy of the McKinsey report when it came out. His first reaction was that there had to be a mistake, there was no way that the corporate support number reported for Rice could possibly be that small. He said that Illinois-Chicago had more corporate support for a Horizon League (or whatever league they were in then) program. This really is a huge problem that needs badly to be changed. It might be the single most important change that could be made to Rice athletics.

I totally agree.
Out of curiosity, does anybody have a historical perspective on why we have not gone after corporate donations to athletics? And the rationale?

Again, as I stated in my original post above, and subsequent response, it's a Uniiversity policy that has long tied the hands of the athletic department. I and others communicated this to JK as one of the biggest issues to solve when he first took over the job.

(12-05-2015 12:34 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-05-2015 11:42 AM)greyowl72 Wrote:  

(12-05-2015 11:35 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I remember when the McKinsey report was being prepared, I did some hunting online for information and ended up getting in touch with a professor at Illinois-Chicago whose research interest was economics and finance for collegiate athletic programs. I sent him a copy of the McKinsey report when it came out. His first reaction was that there had to be a mistake, there was no way that the corporate support number reported for Rice could possibly be that small. He said that Illinois-Chicago had more corporate support for a Horizon League (or whatever league they were in then) program. This really is a huge problem that needs badly to be changed. It might be the single most important change that could be made to Rice athletics.

I totally agree.
Out of curiosity, does anybody have a historical perspective on why we have not gone after corporate donations to athletics? And the rationale?

Again, as I stated in my original post above, and subsequent response, it's a Uniiversity policy that has long tied the hands of the athletic department. I and others communicated this to JK as one of the biggest issues to solve when he first took over the job.

But isn't the issue that the university rule is you can't support both athletics and academics? I'd have to imagine there are plenty of potential corporate sponsors who do not give to academics that could be solicited to support Rice athletics. Or is that not the case?

(12-05-2015 12:34 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-05-2015 11:42 AM)greyowl72 Wrote:  

(12-05-2015 11:35 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I remember when the McKinsey report was being prepared, I did some hunting online for information and ended up getting in touch with a professor at Illinois-Chicago whose research interest was economics and finance for collegiate athletic programs. I sent him a copy of the McKinsey report when it came out. His first reaction was that there had to be a mistake, there was no way that the corporate support number reported for Rice could possibly be that small. He said that Illinois-Chicago had more corporate support for a Horizon League (or whatever league they were in then) program. This really is a huge problem that needs badly to be changed. It might be the single most important change that could be made to Rice athletics.

I totally agree.
Out of curiosity, does anybody have a historical perspective on why we have not gone after corporate donations to athletics? And the rationale?

Again, as I stated in my original post above, and subsequent response, it's a Uniiversity policy that has long tied the hands of the athletic department. I and others communicated this to JK as one of the biggest issues to solve when he first took over the job.

Thanks, Walt. I appreciate that. But I'm still unclear on the University's rationale for the policy. How long, exactly, has that policy been in effect?

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

I saw this same number Walt (563 non-athlete alumni donors), and did a very rough estimation from it.....approx. 2% of living non-athlete graduates.....meaning I'm the perhaps the only one of my class, from my college, to be a donor. And every indication suggests that this percentage will fall substantially, with declining student body interest.

(12-05-2015 10:15 PM)Barney Wrote:  

(12-04-2015 11:49 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Just arrived in the mail today. Lot's of interesting tid bits (including a nice pictorial of what your donation money provides), but several VERY disturbing items jumped out....

1. Despite achieving all-time highs in participation rate (1,258 individual donors) and total contributions ($2.3MM as previously reported), non-athletic alumni donors totaled only 563. That's downright embarrassing. And looking through the donor honor roll, there are many, many alums, who were and continue to be avid sports fans who are not giving to the Owl Club. There are also 488 former letterwinner donors, but given who and what the Owl Club supports, one would expect a considerably higher participation rate from amongst former student-athletes.

I saw this same number Walt (563 non-athlete alumni donors), and did a very rough estimation from it.....approx. 2% of living non-athlete graduates.....meaning I'm the perhaps the only one of my class, from my college, to be a donor. And every indication suggests that this percentage will fall substantially, with declining student body interest.

This sums up exactly why I have been beating the we-are-irrelevant-and-need-to-act-now drum over and over again