(04-19-2017 09:17 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

Anyone can list what they want....

some of those are laughable when you look at pictures from game day. Actually most of those are 2 to 4k over and a couple (1 east & 1 west) about 13 to 17k.

I know a couple of those stadiums are large but when the lower bowls are 80% empty you know no one is sitting up top.

It seems like most of you in the West had a lot longer time in playing the numbers game...

some day us eastern schools will be able to count like that

I'm not going to insinuate other programs fudged their numbers. I believe USM, UTEP, LA Tech and probably UTSA pull numbers like that. As for North Texas, I have season tickets, so I see the crowds. We pulled around 20K a game over the entire season. We had some game with lower attendance, but we also had some games with higher attendance. I believe our average is accurate. If you watched the HOD last season, then you know we can put fans in the seats.

And, I'll stand by my statement. Most of the reports about ADs and programs wanting to examine a merger are coming from the east, and overall, those programs are having a harder time with attendance.

Good point SideShow, No doubt the West Schools have better attendance minus Rice which WKYG is talking about.

(04-19-2017 09:26 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:17 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

Anyone can list what they want....

some of those are laughable when you look at pictures from game day. Actually most of those are 2 to 4k over and a couple (1 east & 1 west) about 13 to 17k.

I know a couple of those stadiums are large but when the lower bowls are 80% empty you know no one is sitting up top.

It seems like most of you in the West had a lot longer time in playing the numbers game...

some day us eastern schools will be able to count like that

I'm not going to insinuate other programs fudged their numbers. I believe USM, UTEP, LA Tech and probably UTSA pull numbers like that. As for North Texas, I have season tickets, so I see the crowds. We pulled around 20K a game over the entire season. We had some game with lower attendance, but we also had some games with higher attendance. I believe our average is accurate. If you watched the HOD last season, then you know we can put fans in the seats.

And, I'll stand by my statement. Most of the reports about ADs and programs wanting to examine a merger are coming from the east, and overall, those programs are having a harder time with attendance.

Yeah. Or maybe it has to do with average relative humidity. I've noticed most of those western schools are located in more arid climates whereas the eastern schools are more humid. Sure you have the gulf state schools like USM who's students taking classes in the summer probably feel like they're swimming to class but we've seen two articles now advocating for realignment so maybe there is something to it.

Or maybe it has to do with population density. No. I'm sticking with the humidity thing.

(04-19-2017 09:41 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:26 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:17 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

Anyone can list what they want....

some of those are laughable when you look at pictures from game day. Actually most of those are 2 to 4k over and a couple (1 east & 1 west) about 13 to 17k.

I know a couple of those stadiums are large but when the lower bowls are 80% empty you know no one is sitting up top.

It seems like most of you in the West had a lot longer time in playing the numbers game...

some day us eastern schools will be able to count like that

I'm not going to insinuate other programs fudged their numbers. I believe USM, UTEP, LA Tech and probably UTSA pull numbers like that. As for North Texas, I have season tickets, so I see the crowds. We pulled around 20K a game over the entire season. We had some game with lower attendance, but we also had some games with higher attendance. I believe our average is accurate. If you watched the HOD last season, then you know we can put fans in the seats.

And, I'll stand by my statement. Most of the reports about ADs and programs wanting to examine a merger are coming from the east, and overall, those programs are having a harder time with attendance.

Yeah. Or maybe it has to do with average relative humidity. I've noticed most of those western schools are located in more arid climates whereas the eastern schools are more humid. Sure you have the gulf state schools like USM who's students taking classes in the summer probably feel like they're swimming to class but we've seen two articles now advocating for realignment so maybe there is something to it.

Or maybe it has to do with population density. No. I'm sticking with the humidity thing.

Come on man. I grew up in Houston. I know all about humidity. In fact, ever other season, I travel down and watch North Texas play Rice in the humidity. People that grow up in that stuff are used to it. It wasn't until I grew up and moved to the Denton that I realized how bad I had it in Houston. Using the humility factor as an excuse for the attendance issues is kind of weak.

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

When exactly did it become stupid for university leaders to push for things that were in the best interest of their employer?
That's basically a requirement of their employment isn't it?

And the eastern part of the US is quite different than "middle America"
Dallas is more similar to Houston than DC is to Philadelphia even though Dallas and Houston are more miles apart.

Your experiences probably don't translate for a Marshall or ODU fan because there is that difference.

The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

I love RICE and UTEP on the schedule.Teams with history.Teams that have or had national name value and respect.I am proud to be in the same conference.They should improve--not hurt attendance in Bowling Green.

But some of the "average" fans are not knowledgeable.Also the geography is an obvious challenge.

(04-19-2017 09:26 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:17 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

Anyone can list what they want....

some of those are laughable when you look at pictures from game day. Actually most of those are 2 to 4k over and a couple (1 east & 1 west) about 13 to 17k.

I know a couple of those stadiums are large but when the lower bowls are 80% empty you know no one is sitting up top.

It seems like most of you in the West had a lot longer time in playing the numbers game...

some day us eastern schools will be able to count like that

I'm not going to insinuate other programs fudged their numbers. I believe USM, UTEP, LA Tech and probably UTSA pull numbers like that. As for North Texas, I have season tickets, so I see the crowds. We pulled around 20K a game over the entire season. We had some game with lower attendance, but we also had some games with higher attendance. I believe our average is accurate. If you watched the HOD last season, then you know we can put fans in the seats.

And, I'll stand by my statement. Most of the reports about ADs and programs wanting to examine a merger are coming from the east, and overall, those programs are having a harder time with attendance.

Joe, you are completely forgetting that most other schools don't lie in a state with 11 FBS Football programs.

North Texas can reasonably get 4 home games against instate teams in a year if they play their cards right. No East school can make that claim. The travel burden on ODU is going to be significantly more than it is for North Texas simply because of location.

The idea that they might be interested in joining forces with a few of the Eastern Sun Belt schools isn't completely outrageous. Simply put, they are going to have a far easier time advertising a game against App State to their own fans than they would a game against North Texas.

Most CUSA and SBC schools have at least 2-3 home games a year that they have a horrible time advertising to fans for because the opponents name either carries no weight, or it's located so far away that no one has heard of them.

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

(04-20-2017 12:58 AM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote:  I love RICE and UTEP on the schedule.Teams with history.Teams that have or had national name value and respect.I am proud to be in the same conference.They should improve--not hurt attendance in Bowling Green.

But some of the "average" fans are not knowledgeable.Also the geography is an obvious challenge.

And average fans make up a large portion of our fan bases. Everyone has a core group of fans that will attend every game regardless the sack of potatoes that sits in front of them. But there are about 5-6K more fans that basically everyone can bring in (or more) that are only going to come to games if the date, time, and matchup look appealing to them.

(04-20-2017 01:11 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:58 AM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote:  I love RICE and UTEP on the schedule.Teams with history.Teams that have or had national name value and respect.I am proud to be in the same conference.They should improve--not hurt attendance in Bowling Green.

But some of the "average" fans are not knowledgeable.Also the geography is an obvious challenge.

And average fans make up a large portion of our fan bases. Everyone has a core group of fans that will attend every game regardless the sack of potatoes that sits in front of them. But there are about 5-6K more fans that basically everyone can bring in (or more) that are only going to come to games if the date, time, and matchup look appealing to them.

Most of our programs...probably all, can't compete with our big brother. UK vs UCLA in basketball played at the same time as the CUSA championship. That cost Western 2 to 3k in fans and another 1000 to 1500 in students. Same thing will happen on Friday night games. High school football will eat into attendance. None of use have large enough fanbases to over come....

weather
big brother
week night games played on the same night as high school football

The last one will not affect us as much as the other two. But it will lower attendance by 1,000 or more.

Western hardly ever discounts a football ticket so it can get expensive for a family to attend games. Unless they buy the season tickets in the corners up top. Those are cheap.

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

The donation dollars weren't that low. But we've had the argument before.

AState's booster club donations as reported on the 1099 to the IRS were significantly higher. Under Dr. Lee (our previous AD) he never included any money that went to the booster club in the data given to USA Today unless the booster club deposited the money into the general (FOI subject) athletic budget.

I don't know WKU's practice but I do know that AState's practice when a sponsorship includes X number of tickets that AState does not allocate any of the sponsorship on the ticket account as a purchase of tickets because 1) we don't need it for our audited attendance submitted to the NCAA in February 2) if we allocate it to the ticket account that money becomes bound to the budget adopted by the state legislature and cannot be allocated freely, putting it all in the booster club means it can be used for more noble purposes like paying head coaches and assistant coaches more than the maximum salary set by the legislature. I know UALR's practice has been to declare that a couple bucks of every ticket sale is actually a donation to the booster club so they can free up part of that ticket revenue under state law. On the other side of the ledger I know that a former Sun Belt member used a very contrived set of transactions. If Bob made a donation of $100 that donation was treated as the purchase of $100 worth of football tickets. The tickets were then donated to the booster club in Bob's name, Bob got a donation receipt for $100 and the booster club then sold the tickets back to the ticket office for $100. One year someone in the chain screwed up and failed to credit donations as ticket purchases and the school received a warning letter from the NCAA for failing to meet the required attendance.

The numbers from the booster club tax returns since 2002 AState's lowest number was $1.3 million and high of $7.5 million.

But the point is generally correct even if your numbers aren't accurate thanks to Dr. Dean Lee.

AState's emphasis has been in getting people to games and filling as many seats as possible in the belief that people who attend are more likely to buy merchandise and become people who buy season tickets and people who buy season tickets are more likely to become donors and if the number in the stands is good it becomes easier to sell a sponsorship to someone wanting the captive audience and to be part of an event. If there are fewer empty seats then it is easier to create a sense of urgency to buy a season ticket.

Our decision making is also influenced by the fact we moved to FBS under a different set of rules than WKU. We had to have 30,000 seats or else we would have had to average 17,000 per game over a combined four year period with no grace year. WKU moved when stadium size was irrelevant and you needed 15,000 per game per year with one grace period every 10 years.

If you had moved under the rules we moved under you would have 8000 more seats in your stadium and those extra seats would impair your ability to charge premium prices, likewise if we had moved under the set of rules you moved under we would have 5,000 to 8,000 fewer seats and the constrained supply would allow for selling tickets at premium prices.

It has worked well. Went from 3210 season tickets in 2005 to 6180 in Steve Roberts final season in 2010 to 10,233 last year.
Which means we are both selling roughly the same percentage of our stadium out before the season starts and you have a bit over 13k in seats to sell or get students to fill and we have around 20k more to sell.

Dollars will win out.
USA Today says WKU spent $30 million on athletics with $19 million coming from the school, AState spent a million less but received $5 million less from the school.

(04-20-2017 01:36 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

You really don't have a clue, do you? But Rice could be playing Texas St and ULL ...join the SBC. But as I said you don't know your team or fans.

So does UNT resonate with Houston sports fans? 2014 Attendance: 18,430 vs UNT

VS ODU Attendance: 17,558
VS UTEP Attendance: 18,164
VS UTSA Attendance: 19,464

2015 VS Western Attendance: 20,124
vs S. miss Attendance: 18,656
vs Tech Attendance: 18,010
vs Army Attendance: 24,409
vs UNCC Attendance: 16,539

2016 VS UNT Attendance: 20,792
VS UTSA Attendance: 20,134
VS UTEP Attendance: 19,148
VS FAU Attendance: 19,892
VS Baylor Attendance: 27,047

You and I both know 85% of the 27k were Baylor fans

(04-20-2017 02:01 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

The donation dollars weren't that low. But we've had the argument before.

AState's booster club donations as reported on the 1099 to the IRS were significantly higher. Under Dr. Lee (our previous AD) he never included any money that went to the booster club in the data given to USA Today unless the booster club deposited the money into the general (FOI subject) athletic budget.

I don't know WKU's practice but I do know that AState's practice when a sponsorship includes X number of tickets that AState does not allocate any of the sponsorship on the ticket account as a purchase of tickets because 1) we don't need it for our audited attendance submitted to the NCAA in February 2) if we allocate it to the ticket account that money becomes bound to the budget adopted by the state legislature and cannot be allocated freely, putting it all in the booster club means it can be used for more noble purposes like paying head coaches and assistant coaches more than the maximum salary set by the legislature. I know UALR's practice has been to declare that a couple bucks of every ticket sale is actually a donation to the booster club so they can free up part of that ticket revenue under state law. On the other side of the ledger I know that a former Sun Belt member used a very contrived set of transactions. If Bob made a donation of $100 that donation was treated as the purchase of $100 worth of football tickets. The tickets were then donated to the booster club in Bob's name, Bob got a donation receipt for $100 and the booster club then sold the tickets back to the ticket office for $100. One year someone in the chain screwed up and failed to credit donations as ticket purchases and the school received a warning letter from the NCAA for failing to meet the required attendance.

The numbers from the booster club tax returns since 2002 AState's lowest number was $1.3 million and high of $7.5 million.

But the point is generally correct even if your numbers aren't accurate thanks to Dr. Dean Lee.

AState's emphasis has been in getting people to games and filling as many seats as possible in the belief that people who attend are more likely to buy merchandise and become people who buy season tickets and people who buy season tickets are more likely to become donors and if the number in the stands is good it becomes easier to sell a sponsorship to someone wanting the captive audience and to be part of an event. If there are fewer empty seats then it is easier to create a sense of urgency to buy a season ticket.

Our decision making is also influenced by the fact we moved to FBS under a different set of rules than WKU. We had to have 30,000 seats or else we would have had to average 17,000 per game over a combined four year period with no grace year. WKU moved when stadium size was irrelevant and you needed 15,000 per game per year with one grace period every 10 years.

If you had moved under the rules we moved under you would have 8000 more seats in your stadium and those extra seats would impair your ability to charge premium prices, likewise if we had moved under the set of rules you moved under we would have 5,000 to 8,000 fewer seats and the constrained supply would allow for selling tickets at premium prices.

It has worked well. Went from 3210 season tickets in 2005 to 6180 in Steve Roberts final season in 2010 to 10,233 last year.
Which means we are both selling roughly the same percentage of our stadium out before the season starts and you have a bit over 13k in seats to sell or get students to fill and we have around 20k more to sell.

Dollars will win out.
USA Today says WKU spent $30 million on athletics with $19 million coming from the school, AState spent a million less but received $5 million less from the school.

You and I both know that 2015 was a anomaly for Ark St. So one or two things took place.

1. Ark St changed the way they kept records
2. Took in a few one time donations

I know Western does not count donations unless it's tied to HAF. Other words if the Medical Center was putting up 20 million to build a indoor practice field. Western does not count that. From the looks of it ARK ST counted everything for 2015. Something changed and you don't get that huge of a jump without counting donations for building funds or something like that.

edit: I see you explained a lot in your post. For some reason I did not see most of that. SO I will read it but not till in the morning....just took a quick glance before editing this. But it is something I do want to read..closely

(04-20-2017 02:08 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:36 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

You really don't have a clue, do you? But Rice could be playing Texas St and ULL ...join the SBC. But as I said you don't know your team or fans.

So does UNT resonate with Houston sports fans? 2014 Attendance: 18,430 vs UNT

VS ODU Attendance: 17,558
VS UTEP Attendance: 18,164
VS UTSA Attendance: 19,464

2015 VS Western Attendance: 20,124
vs S. miss Attendance: 18,656
vs Tech Attendance: 18,010
vs Army Attendance: 24,409
vs UNCC Attendance: 16,539

2016 VS UNT Attendance: 20,792
VS UTSA Attendance: 20,134
VS UTEP Attendance: 19,148
VS FAU Attendance: 19,892
VS Baylor Attendance: 27,047

You and I both know 85% of the 27k were Baylor fans

Are you okay?

(04-19-2017 09:41 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:26 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:17 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

Anyone can list what they want....

some of those are laughable when you look at pictures from game day. Actually most of those are 2 to 4k over and a couple (1 east & 1 west) about 13 to 17k.

I know a couple of those stadiums are large but when the lower bowls are 80% empty you know no one is sitting up top.

It seems like most of you in the West had a lot longer time in playing the numbers game...

some day us eastern schools will be able to count like that

I'm not going to insinuate other programs fudged their numbers. I believe USM, UTEP, LA Tech and probably UTSA pull numbers like that. As for North Texas, I have season tickets, so I see the crowds. We pulled around 20K a game over the entire season. We had some game with lower attendance, but we also had some games with higher attendance. I believe our average is accurate. If you watched the HOD last season, then you know we can put fans in the seats.

And, I'll stand by my statement. Most of the reports about ADs and programs wanting to examine a merger are coming from the east, and overall, those programs are having a harder time with attendance.

Yeah. Or maybe it has to do with average relative humidity. I've noticed most of those western schools are located in more arid climates whereas the eastern schools are more humid. Sure you have the gulf state schools like USM who's students taking classes in the summer probably feel like they're swimming to class but we've seen two articles now advocating for realignment so maybe there is something to it.

Or maybe it has to do with population density. No. I'm sticking with the humidity thing.

Don't be absurd, mturn, humidity has nothing to do with it. I'm near certain it is explained by their choice of undergarments.

It is a well known fact that those residing in the western regions prefer tighter, testicle-grabbing underpants, as compared to the looser boxers preferred by eastern fans (or the full commando style by those in Florida). This naturally leaves those poor, uncomfortable souls in the west less freedom of thought when it comes to notions of realignment.

Humidity, bah! I'm certain it is their tighty-whities that fully explains their disdain for realignment.

(It may also explain those attendance figures. After all, a confining stadium seat is nothing to worry about for someone whose balls haven't moved even a centimeter in the last 40-plus years.)

(04-19-2017 09:35 PM)Dawgxas Wrote:  Good point SideShow, No doubt the West Schools have better attendance minus Rice which WKYG is talking about.

Woah, banned? He/she was just starting to grow on me.

With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

(04-20-2017 07:26 AM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

Count me among the minority (I think, but it's close) of ODU posters who agree. JMU would be a terrific addition to CUSA.