RE: Ranking criteria for potential AAC candidates
- Football stadium size <- meaningless especially if they do not fill it
- Football attendance <- only meaningful if it is sustained and brings in good revneues
- Bowl appearances <- meaningless especially these days when anyone with a pulse makes a bowl and many lose money doing so
- Athletic Budget <- needs to be budget less subsidies for a meaningful comparison
- Market size <- meaningless if no one cares
- Student population <-meaningless if no one cares
- School prestige <- matters, but the AAC can't be too picky
- Geographic Location <- only matters in terms of not having an outlier island
- School academics <- they can't be too picky
- Brand/name recognition <- it is the AAC their choices are mostly the same
- Athletics History <- about where it belongs
- Basketball Attendance <- matters in terms of revenues it provides not warm bodies there for free
- Basketball arena size <-meaningless especially in the AAC
- NCAA Tournament appearances <- meaningful should be higher
- Potential Rivalries/travel partners <-meaningless especially in the cobbled together AAC
- Competition and Practice Facilities <- low priority
- Olympic sports success <- meaningful, but probably in the right spot
- Recent TV Appearances <- not that meaningful
- Located in good recruiting area <- meaningless
- Other
it should be:
Athletics Budget comparison without academic subsidies and student fees included
Sustained Ticket Sales Dollars....who cares if you have 35,000 fans there (for a dollar each) vs 25,000 there for $12 dollars each.....I would go with the one that actually delivers more dollars total in terms of ticket sales vs the one that delivers more fans for less revenue.....all the more so if the one delivering fewer fans with more revenue has sustained that for a number of years even in down years....it is never a selling point to say "let us in and our fans will show up or we can start to charge more because our fans will finally care enough to pay".....your fans don't care if they did they would be paying now
Sustained Donations....like above who cares if you had one big donation one time and many years of bad donations and likewise who cares if you have a bunch of cheap fans in the seats and low donations year in and year out vs donors that put their money up consistently.....it is NEVER a selling point to say "let is in and our donors will show up".....your donors do not care if they did they would be donating now
Debt Load.....if you have a massive amount of debt that needs to be compared among candidates it is not impressive to have a higher budget when a large portion of it goes to service debt and not to actual program support.....even less impressive if combined with high academic subsidies and high student fees
Main Facilities.....stajium size relative to the max projected fan support.....if say you can build to 50,000 seats who cares if you will only consistently fill 34,000 of them and on the flip side if you have 30,000 seats and consistently fill the place with low paying ticket buyers and you will need to take on more debt to expand (to get more low paying ticket buyers) that is not impressive......if you have 35,000 seats, your stajium is in good condition, it is modern enough, you get 32,000 consistent good price paying ticket buyers and you have some suites you consistently sell that is much more impressive than "we can load up the debt to build more cheap seats!"......all the more so with basketball
Secondary Facilities....if you have modern facilities that you have consistently upgraded, manageable debt, plans and a budget and donor support that consistently allows you to stay competitive in practice space and lover rooms ect that is much more impressive than "well we just went in debt up to our butt to build this and it is really nice, but now we have to pay for it"...no one hit wonders or those swinging for the fences or those looking to put on a lot of make up and turd polish to "just get the call" then "well after that the fans and donors will really show up!".....no they won't especially if you start to suck and all the more so if you generally suck and you are just having a good 4 or 5 year run in the middle of decades of mostly sucking
On The Field/Court Long Term Performance....much better to have a team that has a history of winning even through conference and coaching changes even if they are not at their best right now.....all the more so with the combined above factors of PAYING fan support and donors
Post Season Performance....that should come with the above, but there needs to be some ability to do something in the post season....a recent run of 5 bowl games where you are 1-4 and you have 8 bowl games in your history where you are 2-6 is not really that impressive and shows that you do well in a most likely really bad conference and then something happens like a coach leaves and it all falls apart......same with other sports besides football
Location relative to the foot print of the conference.....anyone on a island will not work for the AAC or for that team
Athletics Budget with a small sustainable student fee in place that is locked in and still without any academic side subsidies included.....academic side subsidies are wavering and probably long term unsustainable for many programs including ones in the AAC......approved small student fees that are clear to all and right on the fee bill are going to be much less likely to be cut at the behest of a new administration or state politics looking to control higher ed cost or get control of college athletics....of course in conjunction with debt load/debt service, fan and donor support and facilities condition/needs/maintenance/upgrade plans
other stuff like coaches salaries, recruiting grounds, media market size, enrollment, alumni size is meaningless because the AAC is not pulling recruits from any place because "come to the AAC" and who cares if a program with a good budget, good ticket sales and donor support manages to pay a coach a lot less especially if they keep him, replace him and continue with success or have the budget to pay him if needed
who cares if there are a billion people in your market and 10 million alumni if you have $1,000,000 in ticket sales and $1,000,000 in donations for a decade or more relative to other places with 4X that consistently for a decade.....your media market has spoken they do not care and your alumni have spoken they do not care and students only pay student fees generally they do not often pay for the actual tickets they get those for paying the fee
Academics the candidates are generally equal with the exception of Rice, The Academies, BYU, CSU and maybe a couple of others.....that should not matter as much as most of the factors above and should not come close to deciding one candidate over another unless all other factors are nearly equal
(This post was last modified: 06-29-2019 12:52 AM by TodgeRodge.)
|