http://www.reflector.com/sports/ecu/comp...es-3140447

By Tony Castleberry
The Daily Reflector
Thursday, February 18, 2016

East Carolina Director of Athletics Jeff Compher did not have any photo evidence of the plan to expand Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium at Thursday’s Board of Trustees meeting.

That did not dampen his enthusiasm for what has been labeled the Southside Project, a multi-million dollar undertaking highlighted by premium seating additions — suites, loge boxes and club seats — on the football stadium’s south side.

“We are beginning to get an idea of what that project will begin to look like,” Compher said. “I’m excited about it. We have this philosophy that we don’t want to add more seats, we want to add better seats. We feel like there’s a demand for premium seats in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.”

ECU partnered with Conventions, Sports and Leisure International to come up with a plan to offer not only high-level seating options but also an on-field hospitality tent suite or club in the west end zone area, and tailgate and parking upgrades.

Pirate Club members were asked to weigh in on the possible improvements as well, and Compher said the all-important fundraising portion of the plan should begin soon.

“We have a time frame that we’re working under,” he said. “I’d say the biggest thing that we’re doing now is we’re beginning to work with our top-level donors to start the fundraising project to be able to secure enough interest, and enough commitments, from donors to be able to say, ‘Let this project move forward’ so that we can actually do it. ... We have met with the Pirate Club executive board through our foundation, and they have all endorsed it.”

Compher said he hopes to have a detailed proposal ready for the ECU board in the fall but he did say on Thursday that around 1,000 seats will be added if the project is approved with a private elevator and a lounge area planned.

“It will be the largest fundraising project we’ve ever undertaken in athletics,” Compher said.

Other notes from the meeting:

J Batt, executive director of the Pirate Club, shared some encouraging, perhaps surprising, numbers with the board. The Pirate Club raised a record $7,768,000 in 2015, an 11 percent increase from 2014 and 26 percent hike over the last two years. Batt added that the 10,325 Student Pirate Club members represent an all-time high and noted the opening of Raleigh and Charlotte Pirate Club offices last year helped as well.

Students make up a large percentage of the 16,828 Pirate Club members but Batt said East Carolina has the largest fundraising booster club in the American Athletic Conference “by several thousand” and that they have not been stingy with their donations to the Pirates’ sporting interests.

“We’ve raised significantly more, to the tune of about $3 million, than our closest competitor,” Batt said.

Compher added, “In our conference, SMU, (Central Florida), others, they may have an annual fund but it doesn’t all go to pay student-athlete scholarships. It may go to debt reduction. It may go to upgrading. It may go to a number of different things. Because we don’t get any state assistance, all of ours goes to the scholarship fund.”

ECU will soon be using a new ticket vendor to handle its athletics ticket sales operations. According to senior associate athletics director Nick Floyd, beginning next month, three people will be responsible for outbound ticket sales to Pirate sporting events.

“I think it’s a growing trend in our industry,” Compher said of outsourcing ticket sales. “It’s a really good way for us to actively engage people and it’s another way for them to be exposed to the Pirate Club and the benefits of supporting our athletic department philanthropically.”

Floyd said the trio of ticket-sellers will work on commission, meaning the more tickets they sell, the more money they will make.

“We look at it as a win-win,” Compher said.

The original $2 million obligation East Carolina had after firing football coach Ruffin McNeill will wind up being “well under a million dollars,” Floyd said.
McNeill getting a two-year contract to be the inside linebackers coach at Virginia, and other members of McNeill’s staff getting jobs elsewhere, helped greatly ease the financial burden for the Pirates.

“It takes care of all but possibly the last three months of our obligation (to McNeill and staff),” Floyd said.

Nice proactivity! More importantly, I'm impressed (& somewhat surprised) that donors are stepping up like never before. Increasing nominally would be one thing but this is a trend towards exponential growth.

(02-19-2016 01:06 AM)Indiana Bones Wrote:  Nice proactivity! More importantly, I'm impressed (& somewhat surprised) that donors are stepping up like never before. Increasing nominally would be one thing but this is a trend towards exponential growth.

They can smell a P6.

Is the timing of this supposed to distract us so we don't notice that basketball is in the pooper with a coach signed through 2021?

(02-19-2016 10:52 AM)Chappy Wrote:  Is the timing of this supposed to distract us so we don't notice that basketball is in the pooper with a coach signed through 2021?