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Dropping Football
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tanqtonic Offline
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Post: #41
RE: Dropping Football
(11-29-2016 03:10 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  who like having football as an anchor for Homecoming and other traditions, and would feel genuine loss if football were to go away - and would mobilize to keep it. Homecoming is a big hook for Rice to fundraise from alumni, so Rice itself has plenty of incentive to keep football going - but only just.

The sad thing is the "business sense" of even a "break even" football program in Division 1.

Was talking to a client who is *very* involved in the Vanderbilt athletic program. Since the turn of this century they have been to 4 bowl games and average only 4.5 wins a year. But the revenues from the football program and its association with arguably the best athletic conference in the nation for football provide enough hard cash to run the entire Vandy NCAA sports programs in their entirety (coaching, operations, scholarships) in a manner that makes them very healthily in the black.

Have another good friend that is involved in a similar manner with the Tulane football program but was not nearly as forthcoming as my client associated with Vanderbilt. He did indicate that the monies coming from their association with the AAC in football alone went a long way to funding a healthy chunk of their sports programs, and made it sound like the difference between the monetary benefit of CUSA vs AAC was like the difference between a used Prius and a upper tier new Mazda CX-9 (albeit a far cry from the Range Rover that Vandy seems to enjoy.)

Honestly, I think the ROI on having that cachet is well worth the price if a healthy Rice football could be a cornerstone in actually funding *even more* NCAA participation. This is the type of investment that, wold it be in the private world, would make just about any ROI investor salivate -- have a single business unit that generates enough for all of your operations costs for ALL of the business units you have running.

The problem is that Rice seems scared about taking that step. For some weird as hell reason. Kind of aggravating to see them miss this boat. And they are doing their damndest to miss it.

Weird to see them be happy to keep a potential moneypot for the other sports in perpetual vegetative state.......

I've had it with Rice athletics. I will still contribute time and money to other Rice endeavors, but am cutting the cord to Rice athletics. They need to either juice this thing up or just shut off the life support only system that they seem to have going now.
11-29-2016 03:58 PM
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75src Offline
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Post: #42
RE: Dropping Football
But the study was 12 years ago and many of the old fans have since departed. I started watching toward the end of the glory days but I am starting to think what we have now disgraces the memory of those days. It seems like we are just keeping football to keep our other sports in Division 1. We could drop football and keep the other sports D1 but it might be hard to find a nearby conference that would want a non-football school but maybe Missouri Valley would be a possibility. D3 is the other possibility that would let us keep football.

(11-29-2016 03:10 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  
(11-29-2016 02:49 PM)JSA Wrote:  "Rice is in a perpetual limbo where dropping football would alienate too many constituents..."

Who?
As I've said before, I honestly do not know anyone outside the Parliament who would blink if Rice dropped football tomorrow.

McKinsey said it, in so many words. There are myriads of people who essentially don't care about winning championships or what conference we play in but still want Rice to have football, who like the idiosyncrasy of having a gargantuan HRS on campus from the glory days, who like having football as an anchor for Homecoming and other traditions, and would feel genuine loss if football were to go away - and would mobilize to keep it. Homecoming is a big hook for Rice to fundraise from alumni, so Rice itself has plenty of incentive to keep football going - but only just.
11-29-2016 04:03 PM
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75src Offline
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Post: #43
RE: Dropping Football
But the study was 12 years ago and many of the old fans have since departed. I started watching toward the end of the glory days but I am starting to think what we have now disgraces the memory of those days. It seems like we are just keeping football to keep our other sports in Division 1. We could drop football and keep the other sports D1 but it might be hard to find a nearby conference that would want a non-football school but maybe Missouri Valley would be a possibility. D3 is the other possibility that would let us keep football.

(11-29-2016 03:10 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  
(11-29-2016 02:49 PM)JSA Wrote:  "Rice is in a perpetual limbo where dropping football would alienate too many constituents..."

Who?
As I've said before, I honestly do not know anyone outside the Parliament who would blink if Rice dropped football tomorrow.

McKinsey said it, in so many words. There are myriads of people who essentially don't care about winning championships or what conference we play in but still want Rice to have football, who like the idiosyncrasy of having a gargantuan HRS on campus from the glory days, who like having football as an anchor for Homecoming and other traditions, and would feel genuine loss if football were to go away - and would mobilize to keep it. Homecoming is a big hook for Rice to fundraise from alumni, so Rice itself has plenty of incentive to keep football going - but only just.
11-29-2016 04:03 PM
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texowl2 Offline
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Post: #44
RE: Dropping Football
(11-29-2016 01:46 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Rice is in a perpetual limbo where dropping football would alienate too many constituents and making it a greater priority would alienate too many different constituents. This is your Rice, ladies and gentlemen. Same as it ever was.

and so therefore, "they" are letting it die via neglect.

to put it simply and local, would UH put up with the state of affairs that the Rice football "program" exists today? The fact that such a question even comes to mind tells it all.
11-29-2016 07:11 PM
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75src Offline
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Post: #45
RE: Dropping Football
UH had neglected its football program for a few years in the 1990s and got left out of the Big 12 along with us.

(11-29-2016 07:11 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  
(11-29-2016 01:46 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Rice is in a perpetual limbo where dropping football would alienate too many constituents and making it a greater priority would alienate too many different constituents. This is your Rice, ladies and gentlemen. Same as it ever was.

and so therefore, "they" are letting it die via neglect.

to put it simply and local, would UH put up with the state of affairs that the Rice football "program" exists today? The fact that such a question even comes to mind tells it all.
12-01-2016 02:22 PM
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Post: #46
RE: Dropping Football
More like a reality check. Houston could compete on the field of play but not everything about the program was what it needed to be. Because of the commuter school nature back then, there wasn't much of an established diehard fanbase. Plus the NFL basically killed support for Houston and Rice football.

You guys just need to figure out what you want to be. The potential is there to be another Duke, Vandy, Stanford or Northwestern. You could be an FCS or non-football school whose calling card is baseball. You can be a D-III school and I know most of you would rather drop sports than that. Or you can be like the schools mentioned above. Rotting away in a bottom tier conference like C-USA has become that is neither an academic power or an athletic power for even its level (G5) has got to suck.
12-05-2016 10:19 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Offline
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Post: #47
RE: Dropping Football
UH will be making a serious mistake if they hire Lane Kiffin IMO. Although I'm not sure if any of their rumored final 4 candidates seem all that great. Maybe Les Miles would be a better choice? Or Todd Orlando although the last time they promoted a coach from within, it turned out badly.
12-06-2016 07:23 AM
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C2__ Offline
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Post: #48
RE: Dropping Football
Definitely on Lane Kiffin, he is a great coordinator but mediocre as a HC and that's been proven.

BTW, Todd Orlando is not Tony Levine. Levine was a Special Teams Coordinator when he was promoted, Orlando was the architect of the defense, with some more talent, he'd be unstoppable. And just a little more talent because everyone can say that.
12-06-2016 10:19 AM
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illiniowl Offline
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Post: #49
RE: Dropping Football
You know, UAB "dropping football" actually turned out to be the catalyst for raising $40 million: "To live, the UAB football program first needed to die."

I am beginning to wonder if we do not need a similar near-death experience to spur us to change our ways (my fantasy is that we would decide to come back as an independent with a vastly upgraded schedule and a clear goal and plan of returning to P5 within 10 years). Some people think Rice would collectively respond with a big "bye Felicia" if we dropped football. I'm not so sure. We see apathy now but that is because nobody really believes in the current mission, the very first element of which is, expressly, "conference championships" that amount to tallest midget contests. JFK stood in our stadium and asked, "Why does Rice play Texas?" Never in a million years would he have come here and asked, "Why does Rice play Middle Tennessee State?" Our mission, our essence, is to be the small, elite school that goes toe to toe, in all endeavors, with anyone in the country. We are not doing that right now, haven't been for years, and have no real plan to fix that, so of course there is apathy.

But a place like Rice clearly has a wealth of potential (not to mention just plain wealth) and perhaps the key to unlocking that is giving people a do-or-die mission they can rally around. For darn sure I bet we could shake loose way more than the $40 million UAB managed to.
12-06-2016 11:35 AM
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Rick Gerlach Offline
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Post: #50
RE: Dropping Football
(12-06-2016 11:35 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  You know, UAB "dropping football" actually turned out to be the catalyst for raising $40 million: "To live, the UAB football program first needed to die."

I am beginning to wonder if we do not need a similar near-death experience to spur us to change our ways (my fantasy is that we would decide to come back as an independent with a vastly upgraded schedule and a clear goal and plan of returning to P5 within 10 years). Some people think Rice would collectively respond with a big "bye Felicia" if we dropped football. I'm not so sure. We see apathy now but that is because nobody really believes in the current mission, the very first element of which is, expressly, "conference championships" that amount to tallest midget contests. JFK stood in our stadium and asked, "Why does Rice play Texas?" Never in a million years would he have come here and asked, "Why does Rice play Middle Tennessee State?" Our mission, our essence, is to be the small, elite school that goes toe to toe, in all endeavors, with anyone in the country. We are not doing that right now, haven't been for years, and have no real plan to fix that, so of course there is apathy.

But a place like Rice clearly has a wealth of potential (not to mention just plain wealth) and perhaps the key to unlocking that is giving people a do-or-die mission they can rally around. For darn sure I bet we could shake loose way more than the $40 million UAB managed to.

It would be great if we could get back into a P5 conference.

I believe the problem cannot simply be solved by our own 'will' to do so though. This dates back to the breakup of the SWC. As far as the networks are concerned, we bring no additional value to the table. The networks told the Big 8 (plus Texas and A&M) that the TV contracts would be the same whether the whole SWC came, or whether the Big 8 only added Texas and A&M.

I go to the games because Rice is my college team. I don't look at who we are playing. It doesn't matter to me. My attendance is impacted only by my kid's athletic endeavors. I will watch them first.
But I won't stay home to watch anyone else on TV. I know there are other Rice fans that are in the same boat with me. But it's becoming clear to me that I'm in the minority on (what's left of) the Parliament.

This thread itself is evidence of that.

Our alumni base is small. In order for us to have a large enough, dedicated following to move the needle for the networks, Rice would have to have a much higher percentage of alumni who care more about Rice than watching other games than our competition (Texas, A&M, Houston) for the Houston market. They have so many alumni that tune it, even when the team stinks, that the networks know they have an audience.

In fact, I'm not sure that the percentage of Rice alumni who care at the requisite level is not LOWER than most P5 schools. Judging by the attendance even during our 10-win seasons, I don't know whether we could generate our own alumni's interest sufficiently unless we were good enough to be one of the 4 playoff teams (a huge hurdle for a G5 program). I think even Wayne Graham could comment some on this fact.

I'm not blaming people who will not come out to watch a product they don't want to watch. That's market-based economics. But why would you expect the networks to care about us, when we have alumni, who say they can't stand to watch our product (and from what I can tell that even impacted attendance for some during 2013) and even when we're good, complain about the conference and our opponents? When I was a student, I wanted to see my fellow students line up and compete. Why is that not important now? (When I was a freshman there were still 3 all-male colleges, SRC, Lovett and Wiess, and I think that motivation was higher for us than for co-ed colleges, but that's my opinion - - no frame of reference to compare now, obviously)

I mean from a P5 conference's perspective, why should they want to add a school whose fan's main reasons for wanting to be P5 are (1) we want more money to cover our program's losses (what G5 wouldn't), and (2) we want to play the name schools because our alumni don't care as much about their own team as who we play.

I mean, the networks look at #2 and laugh and say "Great, we know half of them are already staying home to watch Alabama every weekend anyway."

It's a Catch-22, but until we learn to care about our team and our conference, I'm not sure anything can ever change. We need to be Rice-centric, and not P5-centric. That's the only possible route to the P5 anyway. That's JMHO. And again, I'm not blaming anyone here for how they choose to support or not-support Rice football. The Parliament is clearly a group of extremely loyal Rice fans. But it's clear that a number of us care more about our opponents than our team, or at least that's what I get out of the constant talk about directional public schools and the dregs of the G5.

I think JK is doing everything he can, and perhaps at some point we might move up to AAC or MWC. But we need to think about why every move in the conference alignment has been down (even in 1997 when we clearly were in a pretty good position athletically. SWC, WAC16, WACleftovers, WAC-minus TCU, CUSA, CUSA post AAC.
12-06-2016 12:36 PM
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westsidewolf1989 Offline
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Post: #51
RE: Dropping Football
I do think the UAB story got a lot of traction because it is the "hometown" university in the city that outpaces all others in terms of college football ratings. Not having a college football team in the most rabid college football town in America doesn't sit well at a surface level. Rice is second fiddle with regard to Houston-based schools, so not sure how much the general public would care about Rice football going away. I'm not sure how much money we could raise, frankly, given the apathetic nature of our alumni towards athletics, especially the athletic programs that do not succeed. I'm sure there are big-time boosters that will be persuaded to give, if only to keep their best buddy employed as a head coach.
(This post was last modified: 12-06-2016 02:45 PM by westsidewolf1989.)
12-06-2016 02:44 PM
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critten Offline
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Post: #52
RE: Dropping Football
is it true that when we did have bowl games, they were unprofitable for us since we never show up like other big football teams?

I'm not a fan of getting rid of football. I actually enjoy the time I have at the game and pre-game. We just need everyone to be onboard and grow...rather than just get kids to show up for free food/closed servery. A good team would solve this at other schools(pointing at bandwagon uh fans! haha jk), but it seems rice people have too much going on in their lives to show up. All my roommates in college moved far out of houston for jobs, so that might be a reason - though it isn't necessarily bad. Just too small of a school? Unfortunately, that is what makes Rice awesome.

Compare this to a LSU home game I went to where there were a ton of RVs, parties all over campus, ect.

Rice needs to figure out the market...if it even exists.

BTW, lower ticket prices. Not a fan of 25+ dollars to see an empty stadium with a bad team.
(This post was last modified: 12-06-2016 03:13 PM by critten.)
12-06-2016 03:11 PM
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Rick Gerlach Offline
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Post: #53
RE: Dropping Football
(12-06-2016 03:11 PM)critten Wrote:  is it true that when we did have bowl games, they were unprofitable for us since we never show up like other big football teams?

I'm not a fan of getting rid of football. I actually enjoy the time I have at the game and pre-game. We just need everyone to be onboard and grow...rather than just get kids to show up for free food/closed servery. A good team would solve this at other schools(pointing at bandwagon uh fans! haha jk), but it seems rice people have too much going on in their lives to show up. All my roommates in college moved far out of houston for jobs, so that might be a reason - though it isn't necessarily bad. Just too small of a school? Unfortunately, that is what makes Rice awesome.

Compare this to a LSU home game I went to where there were a ton of RVs, parties all over campus, ect.

Rice needs to figure out the market...if it even exists.

BTW, lower ticket prices. Not a fan of 25+ dollars to see an empty stadium with a bad team.

1. I thought we sold a ton of tickets and were well-represented in the Texas Bowl. Took the family.
2. Went to the Fort Worth Armed Forces Bowl (and New Orleans RL Carrier Bowl as well), and thought we had a pretty good crowd in Fort Worth as well. Took the family to both.
3. Bought 5 tickets to the Liberty Bowl, but then my dad went into ICU, so they were just souvenirs. Could not gauge the Rice crowd as a result.
4. Hawaii Bowl, yeah right.
In summary I felt like we were fairly well represented in the 3 bowls I attended, although I don't know whether we lost money on any or all of them.

With regard to ticket prices, General Admission is less than $25 and the seats in the upper deck are the best in the house, seriously.
12-06-2016 05:21 PM
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I45owl Offline
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Post: #54
RE: Dropping Football
(12-06-2016 03:11 PM)critten Wrote:  is it true that when we did have bowl games, they were unprofitable for us since we never show up like other big football teams?

Virtually no team in the country makes money when attending bowl games that payout less than $2 million. The way that bowl games work is that the payout is divided up by the conference, and even the team going to the game gets an equal share with other conference-mates. I think most conferences changed the rules to allow some amount of expenses to be deducted from the payout up front, but still, it is expensive to send a team to a bowl and the payouts don't usually offset it.
12-06-2016 05:47 PM
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critten Offline
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Post: #55
RE: Dropping Football
Thanks! Interesting stuff. I went to DFW and Memphis only. Miss State dominated attendance, no surprise. I don't know... maybe I have higher standards but I feel like we can only fill out one or two sections max (one of those sections belonging to parents)...Still irritated by cowbells. Is it bad to dream that one day we can fill our half of the stadium...like in a UH Rice game. meh

(12-06-2016 05:47 PM)I45owl Wrote:  
(12-06-2016 03:11 PM)critten Wrote:  is it true that when we did have bowl games, they were unprofitable for us since we never show up like other big football teams?

Virtually no team in the country makes money when attending bowl games that payout less than $2 million. The way that bowl games work is that the payout is divided up by the conference, and even the team going to the game gets an equal share with other conference-mates. I think most conferences changed the rules to allow some amount of expenses to be deducted from the payout up front, but still, it is expensive to send a team to a bowl and the payouts don't usually offset it.
12-06-2016 06:36 PM
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Post: #56
RE: Dropping Football
(11-29-2016 03:58 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  Was talking to a client who is *very* involved in the Vanderbilt athletic program. Since the turn of this century they have been to 4 bowl games and average only 4.5 wins a year. But the revenues from the football program and its association with arguably the best athletic conference in the nation for football provide enough hard cash to run the entire Vandy NCAA sports programs in their entirety (coaching, operations, scholarships) in a manner that makes them very healthily in the black.

I don't think this is correct. When I looked about a year ago, I found an article indicating the the Vandy subsidy is similar to Rice (about $20 million per year). Just from a quick Google search, this 2008 article says that 1/3rd of the athletic budget comes from the university general fund.


http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal...-Now.aspx?
12-06-2016 07:29 PM
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owl at the moon Offline
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Post: #57
Dropping Football
(12-06-2016 11:35 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  JFK stood in our stadium and asked, "Why does Rice play Texas?" Never in a million years would he have come here and asked, "Why does Rice play Middle Tennessee State?"
To be fair, though, (and also to your point) isn't the latter a more pertinent and more curious question to ask?
12-07-2016 08:19 AM
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