RE: LR to Conduct Feasibilty Study for Football & Marching Band
I think it is a really big challenge.
Just working through a few categories of spending reported to the state, I think LR could do it for about $3.5 million on a ULM style budget. Understand that is budget that has produced one three-way shared title in football, one tennis title and one baseball title and tends to lead the Sun Belt in last and next to last place finishes.
ULM's Sun Belt conference all-time records:
Football 52-63 .441
Baseball 118-180 .396
Men's basketball 70-112 .385
Women's hoops 72-128 .360
Softball 84-162 .341
Soccer 17-92-5 .171
Volleyball 18-172 (four winless seasons) .095
I see no point in adding football if there is no interest in competing for titles in any sport.
Realistically, the annual operating budget has to increase by at least $7 million as an ongoing outlay.
The land currently tabbed for a new baseball stadium has to be used for football practice facilities, offices, training facilities, meeting rooms, and weight rooms. You could maybe put a football building in and use the soccer field but then you have scheduling issues and women's soccer can't get stuffed into the "worst" spots all the time and still build a baseball stadium.
If you intend to compete, figure $15 million as the absolute bare bones building. If you want indoor practice facility (most people you will recruit against have one) figure another $5 million. In short really requires $20 million to $30 million upfront to be competitive just in capital costs and you probably stay at Hogan Field.
As to the market.
LR is squirrel ass crazy. If it is hip, cool, trendy, popular, Little Rock will support it.
When Trojan hoops were cool trendy and popular the Trojans drew large crowds. Become nationally irrelevant people disappeared.
I mean look at the holy of holies, the irreplaceable Arkansas tradition, Hog football in Little Rock. They've struggled to sell tickets in Little Rock and I don't mean just FCS opponents or low tier FBS. Mark "I've Always Supported UALR Football" Stodala less than three years ago was begging people to buy tickets for Arkansas - Georgia because there were a few thousand unsold tickets on the Thursday before the game.
As I recall it ended up officially being a sellout but there were people who bought up tickets to give away to youth clubs.
Despite the years of moaning about how games at WMS were the most fun and loudest, mediocre to bad Hog football wouldn't keep them coming out despite the purported great atmosphere.
Cracking through the local media is a challenge. You have to deal with KARK generally won't report a sports story that doesn't have a School Out West component, KATV generally owns the Hog fans, KTHV has a dedicated Hog segment, I have no clue what KLRT does. Dem-Gaz has been using one person to cover every college other than SOW.
I don't buy into the "football is big" thing. I think it's BS.
Television viewership in Birmingham for college football is roughly equal to college football viewership in New York City. With a 6-6 squad, UAB drew 21,000 with the help of home games against Troy and Alabama A&M, the year before 10,500, usually hanging around 15k most seasons after two decades of play. Birmingham isn't college football crazy, it is Bama and Auburn crazy.
Obviously Ohio loves college football, the Buckeyes average 107k per game, but Akron 10,300, BGSU 15k. Kent St 10,900, Miami 17,000, Toledo 20,600. Ohio is crazy about Ohio State and the others have their niche or don't. Michigan can draw 110,000 while 8 miles down the road Eastern Michigan has generally averaged under 15k. If people love college football EMU is cheaper and easier to go to, they love Wolverine football.
The idea that there is this mass that is just dying to see "college football" is bull. UAPB is just down the road and averages 4,000 to 6,000, UCA is even closer and didn't do 8,000 last year, yet when AState was a I-AA playoff team we were averaging 12,000 to 15,000 even with having to play first round games on campus during Thanksgiving break.
For football to be successful, you have to have people who feel invested in the program and want to by tickets.
Here is a breakdown of collegiate plates for the 15 schools with most plates issued. All it tells us is how many people are willing to plunk down an extra $35 to have their favorite school's logo on their license plate. It ought to give us some sense of fan interest, because these generally aren't the more casual folks.
UArk 36,062
AState 4552
UAPB 2465
UCA 1328
Tech 844
Ouachita 614
Henderson 607
UAM 587
Hendrix 554
SAU 530
LR 508
Harding 392
School for the Deaf 375
UAMS 329
Lyon 184
That would concern me if I'm getting ready to commit to $20 million in capital projects, a year of non-revenue football playing as a club team, two years of FCS, and then two years of transition to FBS (though you can start getting the fat guarantee checks in year two of transition).
UAPB
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