JR, those are the side effects of "needing" more and more money every year to finance the program. When you're the athletic director, and your head football coach makes $7 million/year and has a $4 million/year budget for assistant coaches, and insists on a new multimillion dollar training center that has a three-star chef and kitchen staff, and enough HDTVs in the lounge for each player to have one, etc., etc., then your entire operation is driven by squeezing money out of every rock you can find.

(03-11-2020 11:17 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 10:10 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(03-10-2020 09:06 PM)Wedge Wrote:  This is Chicken Little stuff. "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" Pfft. The sky is not falling, though maybe a columnist wouldn't get as many clicks if he said that.

Dud doesn't mention that most P5 teams are making far more money in ticket revenue today than in 1996, because the price increases outweigh any drop in attendance by quite a bit.

The average ticket is 2-3 times what the same seat cost in 1996. On top of that, all of the good seats, and often even not-so-good seats, carry a "mandatory donation" per season ticket to the athletic department. Even if a team's 2019 attendance was only 80% of 1996 -- and it's probably not that much of a drop for anyone -- I know math is hard for sportswriters, but even they can see the 2019 revenue would be far greater.

Example with a 20% drop in ticket sales with 2.5 times the average price per ticket in 2019 compared to 1996: A team sold 70,000 tickets per game in 1996, at an average of $30/ticket. That generates $2.1 million per game in ticket revenue.

In this example, a 20% drop in ticket sales would mean 56,000 tickets per game sold in 2019, at 2.5 times the price, for an average of $75/ticket. That is $4.2 million per game in ticket revenue, exactly twice the amount of the per-game revenue in the 1996 example, even if 20% of the seats were unsold.

The big key, I think, is finding a way to price every seat more accurately. Those upper deck nosebleed tickets should probably still be $30 with a tiny donation but you increase the cost of the "prime seats". Of course teams are still making a ton of money but you still want to get "butts in seats" to improve the experience.

I suspect the reason that teams don't drop the price on their "worst seats" is that they think it wouldn't be enough to fill every seat. In theory if you drop the $40-50 seats to $30 and sell them all, you would make just as much money and have a full house, but if you drop the price to $30 and still sell the same number of those seats, then you're just decreasing revenue.

Also, for CFB fans who live a few hours away from the stadium, dropping the ticket price by $20 doesn't reduce the cost of travel or of hotels that increase their prices on home game weekends.

That's definitely what's going on. In my opinion it should be more of a balancing act though to try and find that sweet spot. SC has don't a pretty good job by offering "young alumni" season tickets which are only about $250 per seat and also offering several "mobile pass" (can't remember how much that was) or subscription based options (there's one that I think is $25/mo for a ticket to every event). It's a good start, but they could do even more.

(03-11-2020 01:09 PM)Wedge Wrote:  JR, those are the side effects of "needing" more and more money every year to finance the program. When you're the athletic director, and your head football coach makes $7 million/year and has a $4 million/year budget for assistant coaches, and insists on a new multimillion dollar training center that has a three-star chef and kitchen staff, and enough HDTVs in the lounge for each player to have one, etc., etc., then your entire operation is driven by squeezing money out of every rock you can find.

Nah, I don't buy that even though it is a plausible argument. It happens because they have outside corporate entities running the ticket sales and controlling the signage and production of game day events. And once they put it the hands of those guys there is no familial relationship left.

Face it, the SEC gets so much money now that much of it is wasted on frivolities. Then literally don't make 2% or possibly even 1% off of concessions and cushion rentals. It's just plain bad business from a lazy athletic department who found a way to keep a fat salary and shove the dirty details off on an outside entity. And the justification for it is, "Well everybody else is doing it!"

One day in our Monkey see Monkey do world the first Monkey is going to get himself killed and then rest of our "brilliant" leadership will do the same!

(03-11-2020 12:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 11:51 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

Quote:Also, for CFB fans who live a few hours away from the stadium, dropping the ticket price by $20 doesn't reduce the cost of travel or of hotels that increase their prices on home game weekends.

Perhaps, but still, Wedge has a good point. The prices of tickets are a lot higher these days, and the past 15+ years there has been much more of an emphasis on milking more $$$ per seat then putting mass numbers of bodies in the stands.

Of course ideally everyone wants both, but the attendance situation, in terms of revenue, is way better for most big schools now than 25 years ago, making talk of "worst attendance since 1996" and the like pretty silly.

As someone who attended for almost 5 decades I can say this. The cost of a season ticket book when I first bought one was $42. That was $7 a ticket for 6 games and we only played 10. The last season books we bought were $550 bucks be season ticket for 7 tickets out of 12 game season and you have to donate another $800-$1200 for the right to buy that 1 pair of season ticket books so the total cost depending on whether you are in the end zone or upper Deck is $1900 to $2300. If you want lower level sideline tickets or under-hang scholarship tickets its much more.

When we bought the first tickets the games were about 45 minutes shorter, the only half time entertainment was provided by the 2 bands. Hot Dogs were 50 cents and a coke in a plastic stadium cup was $1 in a paper cup it was 50 cents and the program was $1 to 2 depending upon the venue. All of the signage at the games were University specific except maybe Coca-Cola helped with the scoreboard. You could talk with those seated around you anytime there wasn't action going on and it was a pleasant social outing on Saturday afternoon and maybe there was 40 to 50 thousand at the game.

By the time we quit buying season books the crowd inside the stadium was 80,000 plus, there was no silent time between plays or quarters due to piped in and obnoxiously loud bumper music. You couldn't talk to the people around you anymore because they couldn't hear you. There was another 20 to 30 thousand outside the stadium putting up tape to mark their tailgate areas and drinking (now they will sell it in the stadium), and there's literally no place to park so you have to park away from town and bus in to the game. You can't bring your own stadium cushion in so you have to rent one for $5, hot dogs are $3, drinks in a plastic cup are $5, a program is $5, and you are fleeced at every turn.

So now, even though I can walk to my seats from my home, my wife and I enjoy the HD TV, the clean bathroom, better food, and can have friends over if we want company and conversation and we don't have to put up with being fleeced, zig zagging to the stadium to avoid some a holes tailgate spot, frustrated by the ruder crowds than we experienced for most of our lives, and getting fleeced for a stadium cushion and a coke.

They will never get us back. My greatest sorrow was when they did the same to the baseball venue. I really miss those sunny afternoon games. But they ruined that experience the same way and I can't focus beyond the net that now extends from the Homeplate area all the way to the foul poles. Screw lawyers and their damned liability! May they rot in hell!

But the coup de gras to our ticket buying days happened when one of my wife's best friends lost her Mom who was a professor and had faculty seats to the games. The ticket office saw her death notice in the paper and called the family home the day of the funeral to speak to the daughter to tell her how much she would have to donate extra if she wanted her Mom's tickets. She told them where to stick the tickets and a few other choice words.

Which gets to the main point Quo. The relationships between alumni and their schools is almost a familial one. When you start treating your family like a carny barker treats the crowd you are fouling up the one the asset the school has always been able to depend upon, your love and loyalty. But when they treat you like dirt and fleece you for an extra $5 bucks so you have a stadium cushion, when for decades you could bring your own, that's what we call a big Go to Hell moment and it ruptures your relationship to the school, it replaces love with disgust, and kills any sense of loyalty you had. And all of these schools that have turned over their ticket sales to these corporations like IMG and others have hurt themselves far more than they will realize until the football lovers are gone and the TV money recedes, and they go hat in hand to alumni which will either have been recent graduates who felt raped by the cost of the education relative to what they can earn in the workforce, or to the older ones whose last memory was one of how their beloved school fleeced them and callously called on the day of their Mom's funeral to squeeze another nickel out of tickets.

You don't recover from that!

To an extent a lot of this is sort of natural - as people age they're going to be less and less likely to want to do all the "work" that goes into going to games. At some point you are going to lose everyone after 5 decades.

The key is being able to reach out to 20 and 30 year old fans. Auburn has a whole lot more grads in that age range than they do in any other demographic, so the key is to form great relationships there. I think that's where a lot of schools are struggling (though most SEC and Big Ten schools are still doing a fair job because the pool is just so large.

(03-11-2020 01:42 PM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 12:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 11:51 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

Quote:Also, for CFB fans who live a few hours away from the stadium, dropping the ticket price by $20 doesn't reduce the cost of travel or of hotels that increase their prices on home game weekends.

Perhaps, but still, Wedge has a good point. The prices of tickets are a lot higher these days, and the past 15+ years there has been much more of an emphasis on milking more $$$ per seat then putting mass numbers of bodies in the stands.

Of course ideally everyone wants both, but the attendance situation, in terms of revenue, is way better for most big schools now than 25 years ago, making talk of "worst attendance since 1996" and the like pretty silly.

As someone who attended for almost 5 decades I can say this. The cost of a season ticket book when I first bought one was $42. That was $7 a ticket for 6 games and we only played 10. The last season books we bought were $550 bucks be season ticket for 7 tickets out of 12 game season and you have to donate another $800-$1200 for the right to buy that 1 pair of season ticket books so the total cost depending on whether you are in the end zone or upper Deck is $1900 to $2300. If you want lower level sideline tickets or under-hang scholarship tickets its much more.

When we bought the first tickets the games were about 45 minutes shorter, the only half time entertainment was provided by the 2 bands. Hot Dogs were 50 cents and a coke in a plastic stadium cup was $1 in a paper cup it was 50 cents and the program was $1 to 2 depending upon the venue. All of the signage at the games were University specific except maybe Coca-Cola helped with the scoreboard. You could talk with those seated around you anytime there wasn't action going on and it was a pleasant social outing on Saturday afternoon and maybe there was 40 to 50 thousand at the game.

By the time we quit buying season books the crowd inside the stadium was 80,000 plus, there was no silent time between plays or quarters due to piped in and obnoxiously loud bumper music. You couldn't talk to the people around you anymore because they couldn't hear you. There was another 20 to 30 thousand outside the stadium putting up tape to mark their tailgate areas and drinking (now they will sell it in the stadium), and there's literally no place to park so you have to park away from town and bus in to the game. You can't bring your own stadium cushion in so you have to rent one for $5, hot dogs are $3, drinks in a plastic cup are $5, a program is $5, and you are fleeced at every turn.

So now, even though I can walk to my seats from my home, my wife and I enjoy the HD TV, the clean bathroom, better food, and can have friends over if we want company and conversation and we don't have to put up with being fleeced, zig zagging to the stadium to avoid some a holes tailgate spot, frustrated by the ruder crowds than we experienced for most of our lives, and getting fleeced for a stadium cushion and a coke.

They will never get us back. My greatest sorrow was when they did the same to the baseball venue. I really miss those sunny afternoon games. But they ruined that experience the same way and I can't focus beyond the net that now extends from the Homeplate area all the way to the foul poles. Screw lawyers and their damned liability! May they rot in hell!

But the coup de gras to our ticket buying days happened when one of my wife's best friends lost her Mom who was a professor and had faculty seats to the games. The ticket office saw her death notice in the paper and called the family home the day of the funeral to speak to the daughter to tell her how much she would have to donate extra if she wanted her Mom's tickets. She told them where to stick the tickets and a few other choice words.

Which gets to the main point Quo. The relationships between alumni and their schools is almost a familial one. When you start treating your family like a carny barker treats the crowd you are fouling up the one the asset the school has always been able to depend upon, your love and loyalty. But when they treat you like dirt and fleece you for an extra $5 bucks so you have a stadium cushion, when for decades you could bring your own, that's what we call a big Go to Hell moment and it ruptures your relationship to the school, it replaces love with disgust, and kills any sense of loyalty you had. And all of these schools that have turned over their ticket sales to these corporations like IMG and others have hurt themselves far more than they will realize until the football lovers are gone and the TV money recedes, and they go hat in hand to alumni which will either have been recent graduates who felt raped by the cost of the education relative to what they can earn in the workforce, or to the older ones whose last memory was one of how their beloved school fleeced them and callously called on the day of their Mom's funeral to squeeze another nickel out of tickets.

You don't recover from that!

To an extent a lot of this is sort of natural - as people age they're going to be less and less likely to want to do all the "work" that goes into going to games. At some point you are going to lose everyone after 5 decades.

The key is being able to reach out to 20 and 30 year old fans. Auburn has a whole lot more grads in that age range than they do in any other demographic, so the key is to form great relationships there. I think that's where a lot of schools are struggling (though most SEC and Big Ten schools are still doing a fair job because the pool is just so large.

To an extent you are correct about the bother aspect of aging. But we wrestled with giving up our tickets even when they were pissing us off! And how does a entity gain the trust of the young while losing the trust of the old. People are still people and the old can afford the high dollar tickets when many of the young can't. Raising a family is an arduous task and a costly one and priorities come into play.

The reality Gamecock is they've priced out the young families and pissed off the older ones. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater and then tossing the tub on top of the baby to boot! What they should be doing is making it more pleasurable for the old and charging them for it, and making it much more affordable for the young. But instead what they do is cater to the corporate sky boxes, and that is what they are, and fleece everyone else. And that recipe is driving them headlong towards a cliff that will be upon them by 2035.

Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

(03-11-2020 02:53 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

Pure comedic gold!

(03-11-2020 02:53 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

Not to mention Boise St has a nationwide following that spans the mainland 48 plus Alaska. Passing on them could be the move that costs Larry Scott his career.

(03-11-2020 01:42 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 01:09 PM)Wedge Wrote:  JR, those are the side effects of "needing" more and more money every year to finance the program. When you're the athletic director, and your head football coach makes $7 million/year and has a $4 million/year budget for assistant coaches, and insists on a new multimillion dollar training center that has a three-star chef and kitchen staff, and enough HDTVs in the lounge for each player to have one, etc., etc., then your entire operation is driven by squeezing money out of every rock you can find.

Nah, I don't buy that even though it is a plausible argument. It happens because they have outside corporate entities running the ticket sales and controlling the signage and production of game day events. And once they put it the hands of those guys there is no familial relationship left.

Athletic directors do that for the CYA benefit.

Don't like paying $5 to rent a seat cushion for 4 hours? Don't like paying $50 to park your car? Stadium hot dogs don't taste as good as they used to? Well, don't bother the athletic department! Contact the stadium event operator, XYZ Stadium Management, Inc., and let them know how you feel!

(03-11-2020 03:00 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:53 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

Pure comedic gold!

Never mind.

(03-11-2020 03:57 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 03:00 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:53 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

Pure comedic gold!

Washburn was a former MVC member. They would be rejoining the ranks and they are in a heavy populated area of Kansas. Fort Hays State is one of the other Kansas school that have more than 10,000 students.

The WAC wants Metro State badly, but Colorado Mesa put out a hint in a news article when the WAC was courting Metro State about exploring the idea and all that. WAC could gain the two large public Colorado schools from D2 would be a coup against RMAC. If I were the WAC or Summit? I would look at schools who are willing to move up, and not wait too late. WAC and Summit should not be too picky on who they invite. Both of them almost went out of business.

Just stop. No one cares if a school was in a conference 80 years ago.

You aren't teh WAC or the Summit.

(03-11-2020 03:57 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 03:00 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:53 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

Pure comedic gold!

Washburn was a former MVC member. They would be rejoining the ranks and they are in a heavy populated area of Kansas. Fort Hays State is one of the other Kansas school that have more than 10,000 students.

The WAC wants Metro State badly, but Colorado Mesa put out a hint in a news article when the WAC was courting Metro State about exploring the idea and all that. WAC could gain the two large public Colorado schools from D2 would be a coup against RMAC. If I were the WAC or Summit? I would look at schools who are willing to move up, and not wait too late. WAC and Summit should not be too picky on who they invite. Both of them almost went out of business.

I know I shouldn't be but I am absolutely stunned by the complete idiocy of these two posts.

Wanna fix the attendance? Drop ticket prices. Otherwise it is too many cheaper entertainment alternatives available for the general fan.

(03-11-2020 10:36 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 10:20 AM)esayem Wrote:  There are more teams—which are essentially FCS level—and they drag the attendance average down.

Which Power 5 teams would you say are essentially FCS level?

Whoops

(03-11-2020 03:08 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:53 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

Not to mention Boise St has a nationwide following that spans the mainland 48 plus Alaska. Passing on them could be the move that costs Larry Scott his career.

I can assure you that on the issue of Boise, the PAC was and remains foursquare behind Scott. No PAC school has ever wanted to add Boise.

(03-11-2020 05:37 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  Wanna fix the attendance? Drop ticket prices. Otherwise it is too many cheaper entertainment alternatives available for the general fan.

Banning the corona virus by fall would help!

I think attendance may be zero for 2020

This virus is not going away soon, and attempts to suppress it will last at least the year probably two or three.

(03-11-2020 07:16 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  I think attendance may be zero for 2020

This virus is not going away soon, and attempts to suppress it will last at least the year probably two or three.

Ever hear of vaccination?

(03-11-2020 04:36 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 03:57 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 03:00 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:53 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Adding schools who do not fit your culture was not a smart move with the P5 conferences. Colorado's culture is not the west coast culture. Boise State is a west coast culture. Yeah, fans would like to see their teams like say PAC 12, schools like Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc, but not every year. It hurts the fanbase because there are no true rivalries. Boise State on the other hand, could bring out the rivalries with the PAC 12. The fans at Boise State is familiar with the fans of PAC 12 schools because they either are friends or high school rivals.

Pure comedic gold!

Washburn was a former MVC member. They would be rejoining the ranks and they are in a heavy populated area of Kansas. Fort Hays State is one of the other Kansas school that have more than 10,000 students.

The WAC wants Metro State badly, but Colorado Mesa put out a hint in a news article when the WAC was courting Metro State about exploring the idea and all that. WAC could gain the two large public Colorado schools from D2 would be a coup against RMAC. If I were the WAC or Summit? I would look at schools who are willing to move up, and not wait too late. WAC and Summit should not be too picky on who they invite. Both of them almost went out of business.

Just stop. No one cares if a school was in a conference 80 years ago.

You aren't teh WAC or the Summit.

I posted this in the wrong thread.

What I meant is that fans would rather have closer rivals than going to Boulder, Norman or Austin.

(03-12-2020 12:18 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 07:16 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  I think attendance may be zero for 2020

This virus is not going away soon, and attempts to suppress it will last at least the year probably two or three.

Ever hear of vaccination?

The most optimistic estimate is 12-18 months, but even the expert who says that, agrees it's ambitious and history tells us several years to a decade is more likely.

I am amazed by the ignorance of people on this matter. Maybe not, the President has publicly made it sound like a vaccine is just around the corner. Certainly some people will believe him.

It is a pneumonia more than a flu. We have no idea how long it persists, nor if immunity persists - this may act like hepatitis or herpes, be with you for life (the young may find it comes back a 2nd time later in life with more lethal consequences). The best we can do is flatten the curve to slow it's spread and allow us to contain and then stamp out spot outbreaks. But right now we have no cure and are only now trying to experiment with treatment.

It is optimistic to hope we have it contained by the end of summer. It is not contained now, it is still spreading rapidly. The number of cases is certainly 10x higher than reported, as testing kits are rationed, and people who had a mild case or were asymptomatic have not been tested at all. We are so far behind the curve in containment that it could be months.

Put another way, in California we speak of wild fires being a certain percentage contained, were 10% means only one small area, 90% means it's not likely to spread into threatening areas. This virus is somewhere less than 10% contained. We have multiple cases of it popping up unexpected with no known source. For each one you find, there are probably a dozen more. We are a at least a few months away from even having adequate numbers of test kits, so unprepared we are (NY State is contracting to get it's own after many CDC kits proved defective.)

And then you have the Fred Hoiberg syndrome. Idiots who are ill who nevertheless think whatever job they are doing is more important than containing pathogens. Thankfully he had a simple influenza A, but others with that mentality will have COVID-19. It only takes a few idiots to make it show up in another town or city.

Mass transit and large public gatherings are excellent places for one person to spread it to many. A lot of GOP officials learned that at CPAC, and are now under quarantine. To think Sports events like Football games will go on before this thing is 90% contained is ludicrous.

Look around, the NBA shutdown, the NCAA is about to cancel all Spring sports, campuses are closed and more will follow. Baseball may not even have a season. Schools are cancelling spring Football. If campuses are not ready to open in the fall, why would they have any Sports?

Right now the Administration is hoping that the summer breaks this, and that it's not like the Spanish Flu (an H1N1) which peaked in the hottest months. They are also hoping it does not mutate, as happened with that virus, setting back containment and striking again those thought recovered. But it's a hope, and nothing more. Maybe they luck out, maybe they don't. It'll be clear by July which way this is going.