(10-31-2014 04:42 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  A P5 conference would likely still require us to commit to substantial facilities improvement. I can see pushback on Rice from that.

They certainly would...and shame on us if we were to balk at that. You've got to speculate to accumulate!

(10-31-2014 05:17 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 05:11 PM)Middle Ages Wrote:  I think any realistic plan to go indy in football would have to include having a conference home for the other sports as a top priority. I'm not sure what conference that is- but they wouldn't just be left in the wilderness.

McKinsey said no can do. Unless we wanted to do a non-football league like Missouri Valley. I'm not at all certain that Valley isn't where we ultimately end up.

I find it hard to believe we would literally be turned away for auxiliary (everything-but-football) membership in the Southland or Sun Belt, or heck, even CUSA. Army, Navy, BYU, and Notre Dame have managed to negotiate exactly these sorts of arrangements. (By the way, the Missouri Valley *is* a football conference nowadays - and a pretty stout one at the FCS level, seeing as how North Dakota State and Northern Iowa are in it.)

I've asked the same question, Illini, and though it seems highly difficult, I am not 100% convinced either... I'd give it a try before I quit, but I'll accept that it isn't our best plan (yet)

The examples of Army and Navy are good, because the only significant sport they really matter in to any conference is football... so of someone will accept them, we are a home run.

(10-31-2014 01:01 PM)WIowl Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 12:53 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 12:11 PM)Middle Ages Wrote:  Do we know the objective of the athletic administration/ university? If it is to move back up, what is the plan to achieve it? I only ask because it seems like all I hear publicly is that we want to compete for conference championships and go to bowls. We can theoretically to that in CUSA for years to come (until we/CUSA are no longer considered D1). So- what is the objective and plan?

Rice University Athletics Vision Wrote:Winning conference championships and top 25 national rankings or finishes in each of our 16 sports.

In the past 8 years, other than baseball and women's tennis, which Rice teams have met both criteria?

In 2007, women's cross country finished 16th in the NCAA. 2007 Team Results.

The Owls previously had crushed everyone at the C-USA meet in El Paso. Results.

(10-31-2014 02:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 02:22 PM)Pan95 Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 02:09 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It's not our decision. It's AAC's. And pissing off UH is probably a really, really bad way to change AAC's mind.

Nothing against UH, but I've always had the perception that UH wants nothing to do with Rice. So even if we did not "piss off" UH, some of the UH contingent still would have wanted to be in a separate conference from Rice. According to some of the older UH fans, Jess Nely blocked UH's inclusion in the SWC, so they hold that grudge. Some of the more recent fans point to Rice's dysfunctional athletic commitment as proof that we are dead weight and believe that we should not even be Div1A. And to be fair, there are a lot of other UH fans that would want to see Rice included in the AAC. But definitely good portion want nothing to do with Rice for various reasons unrelated to the "cancelled" 2014 Bayou Bucket.

My point is not to rehash what did or did not happen this year or 50 years ago. My point is that a good relationship with UH is a valuable thing to cultivate NOW. Today, in today's world, facing today's realities, the better the relationship with UH, the better off we are.

I've said before that our OOC schedule should be aTm, LSU, UH, and one "academic" school. Why? Because we want to cultivate the best possible relationship we can with schools that are in conferences where we would like to go. I would say UT instead of aTm to preserve the XII connection, but if UT says no LSU, then we say no UT.

When we play P5's we should play the top of the heap, not the bottom. The Purdues and Kansases of the world do us no good. It doesn't make a statement if we win, and it does make a statement if we lose.

I disagree with the last two statements actually.

1. Gotta crawl before you walk - -
2. Beating any P5 team gets your name in their conference recaps at the end of the day, not to mention guarantees people in the cities and towns throughout that conference definitely will hear your score. (We beat Vandy, and the 'Bama fans (all SEC fans) hear the score. We beat Middle Tennessee State, not so much.)
3. While beating A&M means much, much more than beating Kansas (and we should have those games on the schedule for that reason), it still is much, much better for us to beat Kansas than it is for us to lose to A&M. If for no other reason than a 10 win season is better than a 9 win season, etc. We 'looked good' against the Aggies last year and were all right this year, but outside of the Parliament, that will be forgotten in a month or two by almost everyone - - granted I'm sure Aggie fans were glad we made the Liberty Bowl last year, but South Carolina and Florida fans - - a Rice loss to A&M whether by 12 or 32 is of little consequence, particularly when there have been 8 intervening weekends.

Again, we need to schedule games against the upper echelon teams, but unless we get to the point where we're winning 50% of them, beating lower P5 schools is still better than losing to Top 20 teams.

(10-31-2014 04:18 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Which is a better look for Rice University:

Which schedule would help us draw more student/alumni/Houston interest, (a) or (b)? Which schedule would be more attractive to recruits?

Frankly, over the last 35 years or so, Rice draws students and alumni at roughly the same rate for every opponent. The main difference in attendance occurs when fans of other teams show up to the stadium.

A 20% increase in Rice students and alumni because they'd rather see Houston than FIU is nice, but that may amount to 2K to 4K, depending on the base or the opponent. The big gain is because Houston brings many more of their fans than FIU.

(10-31-2014 04:52 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 04:42 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 04:18 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  3. Literally slick-talk our way into a P5 conference immediately (e.g., convince the SEC West that they could use a "Vanderbilt" in that division to maintain competitive balance with the East).
Why it won't work:

• We bring no added value financially. (To which I have said that we should agree to take a vastly reduced share - or even no share - of revenue, but maybe they still wouldn't want us anyway. In any event, this would be such an elegant solution to such a complicated problem that one must conclude that it has been considered and rejected by either the Rice BOT or a P5 conference.)
  

I've wondered about this for some time. From Rice's standpoint, it's easy enough to offer. Even if we went with zero conference revenue, the reduction would likely be significantly (if not totally) offset by increased attendance and marketing opportunities. On the other hand, a P5 conference would likely still require us to commit to substantial facilities improvement. I can see pushback on Rice from that. Otherwise, the reason to turn us down is because we actually decrease the value of a P5 conference and I'd rather not think about that.

Quote:With independence, we could fashion a schedule that much better suits our needs for where we want to go and fits who we are as an institution.

Is this correct? We might be able to schedule a couple more P5 schools, but as we get 5 or 6 games into the schedule aren't we going to have problems finding schools with open weeks? Would we end up playing FCS schools?

No, it's not correct; rather, it's a pipe dream. Sure, we could add a couple more body bag games to our schedule, but how exactly is that going to help us? And going independent in football would have a VERY significant adverse effect on almost all our other sports. Makes absolutely no sense....and I personally feel the same way about joining the AAC, as I think it does absolutely nothing for us.

+1 ( Have to do this every once in a while to shock Walt).

I would like to have SMU, Houston and Tulane on the schedule every year, but I don't see the overall benefit, other than that (with the AAC).

Independence? We lose conference money (little as it is), and some guaranteed bowl and NCAA bid opportunities as well. Nothing but lots of body bag games and filling the rest of the schedule with the teams we would be trying to run from.

Damn it, Rice needs to cultivate fans who want to come to see RICE play. This has been our problem forever, we depend on the opponent to bring the people. No, no, no, a thousand times no. We need to develop RICE fans who want to come see RICE play, regardless of the opponent.

(10-31-2014 11:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Damn it, Rice needs to cultivate fans who want to come to see RICE play. This has been our problem forever, we depend on the opponent to bring the people. No, no, no, a thousand times no. We need to develop RICE fans who want to come see RICE play, regardless of the opponent.

I don't disagree with that. Hope you didn't misunderstand.

I think our fans are fairly loyal. I don't think we really have more than 10% or 20% difference in the Rice alumni/parent/student fan base between a good opponent and a bad one (albeit both Rice crowds drop in a year when we win less than 5 games).

Getting significant increases in our own fan base will depend on our winning games.

Getting increases in outside fans depends on who we play, at least at this time.

(10-31-2014 11:50 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 11:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Damn it, Rice needs to cultivate fans who want to come to see RICE play. This has been our problem forever, we depend on the opponent to bring the people. No, no, no, a thousand times no. We need to develop RICE fans who want to come see RICE play, regardless of the opponent.

I don't disagree with that. Hope you didn't misunderstand.
I think our fans are fairly loyal. I don't think we really have more than 10% or 20% difference in the Rice alumni/parent/student fan base between a good opponent and a bad one (albeit both Rice crowds drop in a year when we win less than 5 games).
Getting significant increases in our own fan base will depend on our winning games.
Getting increases in outside fans depends on who we play, at least at this time.

We don't have enough, regardless of the opponent. Agree that winning is a key to getting a larger fan base. But not the only key, it's necessary but not sufficient. We simply haven't done a good job of cultivating or retaining our fan base.

There are seven distinct segments of people coming to Rice games (some may have more)... Approach has to be maximize all of them with individual approaches as they are all sub-optimal in some way. They are also different so one-size-fits all does not work... Looking at TCU and Baylor are great examples. Baylor, TCU, and Rice were equals in the 80's and 90's on-the-field and with attendance figures. I remember playing in front of many empty stadiums in Waco and Ft. Worth. Now the gap is enormous due to their ability to not only win on the field but also hit the same groups below in their locations/stadiums.

1) The Loyalists. You have probably ~2K season ticket holders that are price inelastic and loyalists (people on this board at top of list). Many of them have been season ticket holders for decades and are with the program through thick and thin. SOLUTION: Better marketing/outreach to people with emotional connection to University. The average age in the chairbacks is over 60. Same loyal group that was there in the 80's is there today. Have graduated tens of thousands of people since that time but retention or attracting them to this group is very low.

2) Opponent Fans. You have a group that comes b/c of the opponent. We have traditionally relied upon this group to get reported attendance from low 10's to above 20. Opponent travels well (A&M, UTSA, etc.) and we put a big attendance number up. Opponent does not travel well (FAU) and we put up a smaller one. SOLUTION: Get to P5. Single biggest thing to increase attendance at HRS. Immediately have an extra 10-30K at every HRS game. It is worth an extra $5M to the program in increased ticket sales each year vs. current approach.

3) Students. Student turn-out has languished for years. Partly due to increase in Intl students, partly due to scheduling/timing (games during exams, breaks, other campus events, etc.), partly due to product on the field. SOLUTION: I think Bailiff and company have done as much as they can with delivering pizzas, engaging students, Intl. day to teach FB, etc. Only way to improve here is part via scheduling opponents that students care about and winning on field. Not going to change admissions or some other way to enroll more FB fans into Rice.

4) Parents/Friends of Players/Coaches. Same section for decades is full of proud people watching their kid, relative, friend, etc.. After that person stops playing you stop seeing those people. SOLUTION: Need better outreach to those people. They likely have an emotional connection to Rice b/c of who they know that played there. I don't know what type of data capture we get from these folks to market to them to return, buy season tickets, etc. My guess is that we don't do any of this b/c the players just print their name on a form and form gets thrown-away when done. I think there are a few thousand incremental season ticket holders in this group if we could find them. Given how much recruiting is done in H-Town/TX, likely these people are not far from HRS today.

5) Alumni not in group 1. If you graduate ~1000 people each year, you should have tens of thousands over time. The joke of can't fill-up Rice stadium with all its alumni is not true in a ~50K stadium with the tarps. Average age of Rice alum at games is still too high. SOLUTION: After conference affiliation discussion, this is area where there should be much more attention in marketing to alums. I don't see enough done here to get this group back to games.

6) Football Fans in H-Town area. Plenty of them, plenty affiliated with Medical Center, etc. I know a big focus area for JK. Understand why given the large market to attract. Question is really how. Of course winning helps. SOLUTION: Engage Medical Center, West U, etc. with incentives, programs, affiliation to the 'community' around them, etc.

7) "Promotions" like bands, kids groups, cheerleading groups, etc. Always been the Rice Marketing gimmick to inflate attendance #'s against schools that don't travel well. SOLUTION: Despite being an attendance gimmick, getting kids to the game, on-the-field, etc. does help your attendance #'s and potential to engage them later in life from those memories. Also does provide a service to the community which matters. Focus on gameday experience for this crowd is critical (more minor league baseball than tradition filled college football) to build those memories.

Could add plenty of additional tactics to get more of these segments to game but bigger point is that you need a surgical and holistic approach vs. debating on this board which is segment is most important. Answer is they all are important to solve the attendance problem.

(11-01-2014 04:31 AM)owl40 Wrote:  There are seven distinct segments of people coming to Rice games (some may have more)... Approach has to be maximize all of them with individual approaches as they are all sub-optimal in some way. They are also different so one-size-fits all does not work... Looking at TCU and Baylor are great examples. Baylor, TCU, and Rice were equals in the 80's and 90's on-the-field and with attendance figures. I remember playing in front of many empty stadiums in Waco and Ft. Worth. Now the gap is enormous due to their ability to not only win on the field but also hit the same groups below in their locations/stadiums.

1) The Loyalists. You have probably ~2K season ticket holders that are price inelastic and loyalists (people on this board at top of list). Many of them have been season ticket holders for decades and are with the program through thick and thin. SOLUTION: Better marketing/outreach to people with emotional connection to University. The average age in the chairbacks is over 60. Same loyal group that was there in the 80's is there today. Have graduated tens of thousands of people since that time but retention or attracting them to this group is very low.

2) Opponent Fans. You have a group that comes b/c of the opponent. We have traditionally relied upon this group to get reported attendance from low 10's to above 20. Opponent travels well (A&M, UTSA, etc.) and we put a big attendance number up. Opponent does not travel well (FAU) and we put up a smaller one. SOLUTION: Get to P5. Single biggest thing to increase attendance at HRS. Immediately have an extra 10-30K at every HRS game. It is worth an extra $5M to the program in increased ticket sales each year vs. current approach.

3) Students. Student turn-out has languished for years. Partly due to increase in Intl students, partly due to scheduling/timing (games during exams, breaks, other campus events, etc.), partly due to product on the field. SOLUTION: I think Bailiff and company have done as much as they can with delivering pizzas, engaging students, Intl. day to teach FB, etc. Only way to improve here is part via scheduling opponents that students care about and winning on field. Not going to change admissions or some other way to enroll more FB fans into Rice.

4) Parents/Friends of Players/Coaches. Same section for decades is full of proud people watching their kid, relative, friend, etc.. After that person stops playing you stop seeing those people. SOLUTION: Need better outreach to those people. They likely have an emotional connection to Rice b/c of who they know that played there. I don't know what type of data capture we get from these folks to market to them to return, buy season tickets, etc. My guess is that we don't do any of this b/c the players just print their name on a form and form gets thrown-away when done. I think there are a few thousand incremental season ticket holders in this group if we could find them. Given how much recruiting is done in H-Town/TX, likely these people are not far from HRS today.

5) Alumni not in group 1. If you graduate ~1000 people each year, you should have tens of thousands over time. The joke of can't fill-up Rice stadium with all its alumni is not true in a ~50K stadium with the tarps. Average age of Rice alum at games is still too high. SOLUTION: After conference affiliation discussion, this is area where there should be much more attention in marketing to alums. I don't see enough done here to get this group back to games.

6) Football Fans in H-Town area. Plenty of them, plenty affiliated with Medical Center, etc. I know a big focus area for JK. Understand why given the large market to attract. Question is really how. Of course winning helps. SOLUTION: Engage Medical Center, West U, etc. with incentives, programs, affiliation to the 'community' around them, etc.

7) "Promotions" like bands, kids groups, cheerleading groups, etc. Always been the Rice Marketing gimmick to inflate attendance #'s against schools that don't travel well. SOLUTION: Despite being an attendance gimmick, getting kids to the game, on-the-field, etc. does help your attendance #'s and potential to engage them later in life from those memories. Also does provide a service to the community which matters. Focus on gameday experience for this crowd is critical (more minor league baseball than tradition filled college football) to build those memories.

Could add plenty of additional tactics to get more of these segments to game but bigger point is that you need a surgical and holistic approach vs. debating on this board which is segment is most important. Answer is they all are important to solve the attendance problem.

I think 1, 3-5 and 7 create the base which ranges from 10K to 15K or so every game (just a guess based on reported numbers, may be less).

Attracting 6 is going to be tough in today's culture with so many other games on TV.

I will watch a Rice game on TV over going to any other game. LSU, Texas, Aggie, TCU and "every other university" fans are pretty much the same. If their team is on TV, they generally are going to be on their couch or in their favorite chair or at a watch party.

Absent an invite from a Rice friend or a promotion (#7) . . . fans of other schools will come if their team is playing us, or maybe if there is a game of real significance (CUSA championship).

We need to maximize 3 and 5. Absent those of us in #1, these two groups are victory-dependent to a significant degree.

CUSA may be the best option in this case, at least for the short term. I don't know that there's really any other option in any case at this juncture. And wins over Kansas, Army and the like do NOT hurt.

Playing more familiar foes appeals to us in group #1 - - but I'm not sure matter quite so much to alumni who graduated over the last 15 years (post-SWC).

Now if they and their friends met at Rice Stadium 5 times a year to have a good time and watch a good game . . . . . .

At any rate, if it were an easy problem to solve, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

And attendance and fan interest is at the core of our move from SWC to CUSA.

P.S. - Unless you're counting grad students, we still don't graduate 1,000 a year. And by and large, undergrads are more likely to develop the ties we're looking for (acknowledging we have some great grad school fans as well), for somewhat obvious reasons.

Owl40 and Rick Gerlach comments, I think, are spot on.
Like a lot on this board, I'm a season ticket holder with plenty of gray hair.. what's left of it..
I show up at most of the games, but I grew up in small town Texas watching good high school football and having friends and relatives at the SWC schools. It was a natural for me to be interested in football because of that. But Rice students have changed drastically in that regard. More international students, more non-Texans. Even the Texas students tend to ignore a lot of the football activities because of other interests and commitments. And not being in the same club with UT, A&M, etc doesn't help. And this is what worries me the most. I'm afraid that when the gray hairs get too old to come to the games Rice football will become irrelevant. We need younger people in the stands. And buying season tickets. And writing checks.
Owl40 seems to have a pretty good handle on the groups to focus on. I think the neighborhood folks should be a real focus. If you could get the West U and medical Center people to identify with Rice more, you might be able to put 5K more per game into the stands...
And somehow we've got to engage the students. Challenging.
Of course, winning 9-10 games a year, going to a bowl game every year, and being a perennial conference champion or challenger will go a long way.

Since this thread has kind of evolved from Bailiff to conference talk, what would be better for the Rice football brand - being undefeated with a schedule like Marshall's or having 2 losses with a schedule like Rice's? In the past, I favored Rice's tougher schedule, but now I'm not so sure.

Regarding becoming an independent, what about forming an "Independence Conference" with the other independents. Each team would have its own media rights (so Notre Dame doesn't have to split the pie with Rice) but they would have some scheduling agreements (but no conference champion) and conference-based bowl tie-ins.

(10-31-2014 05:16 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 04:20 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 02:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-31-2014 02:38 PM)Ranger Wrote:  I was at Rice from 68 to 72. Don't know if it was Neeley, but I did hear that Rice had consistently thwarted UH from joining the SWC. Yes, UH really wanted in, so I could believe some older UH fans would not be too receptive to helping us.

68 to 72 would have been Hagan, not Neely. And yes, Hagan did hate UH and would probably have gone to great lengths to thwart them. I won't say that race had anything to do with it. I'll leave you to make up your own mind about that.

Frankly letting UH into the SWC once of the dominoes that led to its fall.........

That's a common sound byte. But I was involved in both the Rice and UH programs during most of the time UH was in the SWC, and also doing stuff for the SWC office for most of those years, and I never saw anything that made that connection.

The strongest connection I actually saw was that Frank Broyles, for some reason, absolutely hated Houston (the city), which was kind of strange because at least one of his kids lived there.

What really broke up the SWC is that Broyles figured out that Arkansas could make a lot more money in the SEC. Plus he and Darrell always handled things on a personal basis, but he couldn't get along with DeLoss at all. Once Arkansas left, a lot of dominos started to fall. It put it down to UT arrogance as much as anything, which is now having a negative effect on the XII.

My thinking on that is when UH won 3 of the first 4 SWC titles that the rest decided to cheat and/or admit athletes along the same lines as UH. This led to all the scandals in the 80's and the decline of the league competitively.

You attract 7 by turning Rice into a virtual sports bar. Contract with someone like ESPN or Comcast to stream something like sportscenter where updates and plays and even perhaps full streams of other games are going on... so people can multi-task just like they would at home or in a sportsbar... Put charging stations, a bar rail and even a bit of a lounge on the concourses... put in some better food and even bar service... rope some of it off and reserve it for those who will pay up... Maybe even some of our own screens.

This allows you to get the guy who can't or won't travel to Austin or College Station or Baton ROuge or Michigan and pay $400 or more to be in that environment with his family to spend perhaps $150 to be in live atmosphere and still watch his favorite team, while being present for his second favorite team

I spoke with Tanner Gardner at the UNT game and one thing I mentioned was a lot of us would like to see OwlZonie come back. I mentioned the West U neighborhood being a perfect target of OZ tickets. He said one of the things he was pointing to was to get more attendance from the West U area. Tanner is over marketing, tickets, and the strategy to drive attendance.

(11-01-2014 10:53 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  You attract 7 by turning Rice into a virtual sports bar. Contract with someone like ESPN or Comcast to stream something like sportscenter where updates and plays and even perhaps full streams of other games are going on... so people can multi-task just like they would at home or in a sportsbar... Put charging stations, a bar rail and even a bit of a lounge on the concourses... put in some better food and even bar service... rope some of it off and reserve it for those who will pay up... Maybe even some of our own screens.

This allows you to get the guy who can't or won't travel to Austin or College Station or Baton ROuge or Michigan and pay $400 or more to be in that environment with his family to spend perhaps $150 to be in live atmosphere and still watch his favorite team, while being present for his second favorite team

(11-01-2014 10:53 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  You attract 7 by turning Rice into a virtual sports bar. Contract with someone like ESPN or Comcast to stream something like sportscenter where updates and plays and even perhaps full streams of other games are going on... so people can multi-task just like they would at home or in a sportsbar... Put charging stations, a bar rail and even a bit of a lounge on the concourses... put in some better food and even bar service... rope some of it off and reserve it for those who will pay up... Maybe even some of our own screens.

This allows you to get the guy who can't or won't travel to Austin or College Station or Baton ROuge or Michigan and pay $400 or more to be in that environment with his family to spend perhaps $150 to be in live atmosphere and still watch his favorite team, while being present for his second favorite team

I think this sounds great

(11-01-2014 10:38 AM)texowl2 Wrote:  My thinking on that is when UH won 3 of the first 4 SWC titles that the rest decided to cheat and/or admit athletes along the same lines as UH. This led to all the scandals in the 80's and the decline of the league competitively.

They were all already doing that BEFORE the entry of UH. One problem that the old SWC had compared with other conferences is that everybody was recruiting out of the same pot. Most other leagues, there are geographic boundaries that about 90% of the kids adhere to. And the coaches horse trade, "I'll let you take that kid if you let me have this kid," that sort of stuff actually goes on. I know people who were recruited that way. Here, everybody was in Dallas, everybody was in Houston, everybody was in San Antonio, and so forth. When they knock heads on virtually every recruit, you get a lot more hard feelings when somebody bends a rule. There was a lot of information known on the inside that never got to the general public.

UH couldn't break into that game when Yeoman got there, so he recruited 1) small schools and 2) African-American schools. One of the early UH conference champions started more players from AAA and smaller schools than the rest of the SWC combined. He proved that you didn't have to stay with 5-A/4-A to find people who could play. So now the competition that had been going on in the big cities extended down to the smaller schools as well.

UH didn't start the cheating. It was already going on before UH ever arrived in the SWC. I think a much bigger factor was Darrell Royal's retirement. He had been kind of the unofficial, behind the scenes arbiter of how far people could bend the rules without being whacked, and once he stepped down, nobody stepped up to fill that role.