https://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/t...65987.html
This article just came out from the Tulsa World.
The big headline is that our AD (Gragg), Head Men's Basktball Coach (Haith), and Head Football Coach (Montgomery) have all agreed to take salary cuts. They would not release the amount but the coaches were making around 1.3 mil to start with.
The athletic dept also took budget cuts. Apparently the whole university is having budget issues.
The upside:
Student services have NOT been cut.
Athletics donations are up the last 6 months.
Football ticket sales are up from 2018 after ticket sales restructuring.
Also banking on a better TV deal.
The school does not consider this a crisis.
Obviously this is not good to be cutting salaries, but at least there are good things happening that will help the issue despite having less money to work with presently.
Yeah, your part of a large group having to make cuts because of money issues. Nice to see the some of the larger salary people stepping up and taking salary cuts.
When the AAC was adding teams, it added the teams from CUSA that were making the biggest commitment (it tried taking some teams doing the same from the MWC, with little success).
Southern Miss was left out, even though it had the history of success while doing it with less. At the time Southern Miss was down, but they honestly would have been a solid add.
Tulane was added, honestly because of it's media market - but also because it was committing to athletics. They've actually shown improvement since committing even more with a solid football coach hire, and taking risks with a basketball hire.
Tulsa was crushing it for the size of the school that it is, and had recently finished a bunch of renovations showing commitment to winning. Hopefully this is short lived for Tulsa.
Sorry, but this is HORRIBLE news for Tulsa. Other than USF, Tulsa is the most likely school from the AAC to drop football. In the next 10 years I expect Tulsa, Temple and USF to all drop their fb programs. I feel bad for Tulsa as they have a neat stadium thst has hosted Big 10, Big 12 teams. But when you only have a few thousand students, it’s time to focus on their historic hoops and drop a school sport that the fine folks in the small, poor state of Oklahoma won’t ever get behind because of the Sooners and to a lesser extent the Cowboys.
Ticket sales are up because of the deeply discounted ticket sales this summer, trying to get fans in the stadium. i think it was the right thing to do, but it may not increase ticket revenue. In fact it could decrease it.
Tulsa is just in an impossible situation, with OU and OSU dominating the State. They have struggled with this for decades and have always managed to survive and put together some winning seasons.
They are masters at doing more with less, but this does not look good.
Billybobby you're a strange one.
Tulsa is as storied in football as it is in basketball.
Tulsa isn't dropping football......ever.
They have never had over 4-6000 students. They survived independence and an awful decade in the late 1990s.
Tulsa doesn't have a state government to back it up so they tend to error on the side of caution.
(08-07-2018 07:53 PM)SMUmustangs Wrote: [ -> ]Ticket sales are up because of the deeply discounted ticket sales this summer, trying to get fans in the stadium. i think it was the right thing to do, but it may not increase ticket revenue. In fact it could decrease it.
Tulsa is just in an impossible situation, with OU and OSU dominating the State. They have struggled with this for decades and have always managed to survive and put together some winning seasons.
They are masters at doing more with less, but this does not look good.
This is incorrect. The prices are not deeply discounted. Seating locations we're rearranged buy for the most part the pricing stayed the same for the various levels. They have offered deals the last few years for those purchasing tickets early.
The attendance has hovered around 20,000 forever.
(08-07-2018 07:53 PM)SMUmustangs Wrote: [ -> ]Ticket sales are up because of the deeply discounted ticket sales this summer, trying to get fans in the stadium. i think it was the right thing to do, but it may not increase ticket revenue. In fact it could decrease it.
Tulsa is just in an impossible situation, with OU and OSU dominating the State. They have struggled with this for decades and have always managed to survive and put together some winning seasons.
They are masters at doing more with less, but this does not look good.
You're right, it could decrease revenue, but not if the numbers are high enough. The section the cheap seats are in was fairly devoid of season ticket holders, or even casual fans to begin with.
(08-07-2018 07:31 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry, but this is HORRIBLE news for Tulsa. Other than USF, Tulsa is the most likely school from the AAC to drop football. In the next 10 years I expect Tulsa, Temple and USF to all drop their fb programs. I feel bad for Tulsa as they have a neat stadium thst has hosted Big 10, Big 12 teams. But when you only have a few thousand students, it’s time to focus on their historic hoops and drop a school sport that the fine folks in the small, poor state of Oklahoma won’t ever get behind because of the Sooners and to a lesser extent the Cowboys.
It's not good news, but I have to disagree with the thought of any AAC teams dropping football. Especially with more tv money set to come in and investments being made by administrators and donors.
In fact, right now Tulsa is finishing football locker room renovations paid for by private donations. We've had a football team since the 1800's. Times may get tough but we're not going away.
Good grief. Terrible look for Tulsa.
(08-07-2018 07:31 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry, but this is HORRIBLE news for Tulsa. Other than USF, Tulsa is the most likely school from the AAC to drop football. In the next 10 years I expect Tulsa, Temple and USF to all drop their fb programs. I feel bad for Tulsa as they have a neat stadium thst has hosted Big 10, Big 12 teams. But when you only have a few thousand students, it’s time to focus on their historic hoops and drop a school sport that the fine folks in the small, poor state of Oklahoma won’t ever get behind because of the Sooners and to a lesser extent the Cowboys.
This is dumb. Tulsa is a long way away from dropping football. I have a sneaking feeling that there's an announcement of some kind coming. There's supposed to be some news coming out of our kickoff luncheon next week. With the talk of big donations coming in as well as the head staff taking paycuts... I could actually see it being an IPF.
(08-08-2018 09:16 AM)The Knight Time Wrote: [ -> ]Good grief. Terrible look for Tulsa.
Terrible look for the conference. Hurts us in TV negotations.
(08-08-2018 09:36 AM)CougarRed Wrote: [ -> ] (08-08-2018 09:16 AM)The Knight Time Wrote: [ -> ]Good grief. Terrible look for Tulsa.
Terrible look for the conference. Hurts us in TV negotations.
How? The fact that we're not getting paid enough for our TV presence is specifically referenced as a reason for the paycut.
Big picture this could be a problem for Tulsa in their next coaching searches once Gregg and Haith move on. The next up and coming coordinator might decide to take a job elsewhere for better pay, not to mention to be making salary commensurate with their peer head coaches in the conference.
(08-08-2018 09:56 AM)CliftonAve Wrote: [ -> ]Big picture this could be a problem for Tulsa in their next coaching searches once Gregg and Haith move on. The next up and coming coordinator might decide to take a job elsewhere for better pay, not to mention to be making salary commensurate with their peer head coaches in the conference.
Seems like both our coaches are locked in until the new TV deal. We'll be fine.
(08-08-2018 09:36 AM)CougarRed Wrote: [ -> ] (08-08-2018 09:16 AM)The Knight Time Wrote: [ -> ]Good grief. Terrible look for Tulsa.
Terrible look for the conference. Hurts us in TV negotations.
It's not a good look I agree.
Not sure it hurts our tv negotiation. Not to mention it's stated this is temporary.
(08-07-2018 08:09 PM)Foreverandever Wrote: [ -> ] (08-07-2018 07:53 PM)SMUmustangs Wrote: [ -> ]Ticket sales are up because of the deeply discounted ticket sales this summer, trying to get fans in the stadium. i think it was the right thing to do, but it may not increase ticket revenue. In fact it could decrease it.
Tulsa is just in an impossible situation, with OU and OSU dominating the State. They have struggled with this for decades and have always managed to survive and put together some winning seasons.
They are masters at doing more with less, but this does not look good.
This is incorrect. The prices are not deeply discounted. Seating locations we're rearranged buy for the most part the pricing stayed the same for the various levels. They have offered deals the last few years for those purchasing tickets early.
The attendance has hovered around 20,000 forever.
No, I am not incorrect. Last year on TV the East stands were horribly vacant.
So the University for the first time offered discounted ticket prices for the East side Sections 104, 105 and 106. Sections 104 and 105 are choice chair back seats on the 40-50 yard lines. They were on sale for $100 each for a season ticket. They are regularly priced for $210 each. Seats in Section 106 were offered for $75 each. They are regularly $150 each. They are also now offering General Admission tickets in Sections 102 and 103 for $60 per season ticket
The attendance figure you quote is not actual attendance. I regularly attend TU games and if you attend games you should also know that. TU attendance is not good and that hurts revenue.
(08-08-2018 09:56 AM)CliftonAve Wrote: [ -> ]Big picture this could be a problem for Tulsa in their next coaching searches once Gregg and Haith move on. The next up and coming coordinator might decide to take a job elsewhere for better pay, not to mention to be making salary commensurate with their peer head coaches in the conference.
Perhaps, but let's break that down.
Current coaches are there for two years longer right now. So if this is corrected after the new tv deal this will be only a hiccup.
Salaries for coaches, Tulsa is private and the pay amount is a vague guess by the local paper.
Still 1.3 million would make brand new first time head coach Philip Montgomery the 6/7th highest paid AAC football coach, ahead of Scottie Montgomery, Charlie Strong, Randy Edsall and only 3-5 hundred thousand behind the top pay last year. Even dropping down to a million wouldn't change their order.
There is no comprehensive list I could find for basketball, but Marshall and Cronin are probably the highest paid and they get just over 3 million and 2 million, meaning Haith is probably pretty close to 5-6 in the AAC rank.
(08-08-2018 10:01 AM)SMUmustangs Wrote: [ -> ] (08-07-2018 08:09 PM)Foreverandever Wrote: [ -> ] (08-07-2018 07:53 PM)SMUmustangs Wrote: [ -> ]Ticket sales are up because of the deeply discounted ticket sales this summer, trying to get fans in the stadium. i think it was the right thing to do, but it may not increase ticket revenue. In fact it could decrease it.
Tulsa is just in an impossible situation, with OU and OSU dominating the State. They have struggled with this for decades and have always managed to survive and put together some winning seasons.
They are masters at doing more with less, but this does not look good.
This is incorrect. The prices are not deeply discounted. Seating locations we're rearranged buy for the most part the pricing stayed the same for the various levels. They have offered deals the last few years for those purchasing tickets early.
The attendance has hovered around 20,000 forever.
No, I am not incorrect. Last year on TV the East stands were horribly vacant.
So the University for the first time offered discounted ticket prices for the East side Sections 104, 105 and 106. Sections 104 and 105 are choice chair back seats on the 40-50 yard lines. They were on sale for $100 each for a season ticket. They are regularly priced for $210 each. Seats in Section 106 were offered for $75 each. They are regularly $150 each. They are also now offering General Admission tickets in Sections 102 and 103 for $60 per season ticket
The attendance figure you quote is not actual attendance. I regularly attend TU games and if you attend games you should also know that. TU attendance is not good and that hurts revenue.
Obviously you don't pay attention.
They have for the last 3 years offered 40-60% off early season ticket purchases, spring and up to June or so.
The entire seating plan was changed, the family zone, students, and band are moving from their previous locations. This means the pricing on some areas have changed. In particular on the east side where we have problems because the sun kills that side. Overall though there hasn't been a change in cost of tickets total, just a rearranging of what you pay for.
I've gone to TU games since the 1990s. Tulsa dropped into the mid teens for average attendance in that period. Since Kragthorpe, in 2003, they have been right around 18-22 thousand. Sometimes they got there from one sell out game and one big game. Sometimes every game that season was about that many people.
(08-07-2018 07:53 PM)SMUmustangs Wrote: [ -> ]Ticket sales are up because of the deeply discounted ticket sales this summer, trying to get fans in the stadium. i think it was the right thing to do, but it may not increase ticket revenue. In fact it could decrease it.
Tulsa is just in an impossible situation, with OU and OSU dominating the State. They have struggled with this for decades and have always managed to survive and put together some winning seasons.
They are masters at doing more with less, but this does not look good.
I think thats the right move. Price them where they have to be priced to fill the stadium. Create an optimum "in stadium" experience for local Tulsa fans. Then, as demand grows slowly increase the prices to improve revenue. When you only have 4K students--mostly from out of state---you need to build a fan base from the local population by offering a easy to access fun product at an attractive price. Draw them in with value and get them hooked with an exciting experience.
