(06-08-2022 12:00 PM)tigerfan39 Wrote: (06-08-2022 11:09 AM)Marc Mensa Wrote: What I know is…
the disconnect between alumni & the school will continue…
…the alumni giving percentage will remain among the lowest in the country
…developers vested in Liberty Park will be enriched by the university’s investment
…the school will dump hundreds of millions of dollars into a facility it does not own or control.
…we will never know the plans used to ruled out an OCS.
What I know is I saw this same type of public/private boondoggle extract millions from the university some 30+ years ago into what is now a Bass Pro Shop. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a 15k seat on campus basketball facility right now? Broke folks make rich folks… rich.
College football attendance is dropping at most college schools. The disconnect you reference has been building for several years. The solution is NOT a $400M stadium that is squeezed into an empty lot on campus. It's much deeper than that.
Do you give annually to the school?
I think you dismiss the impact of on-campus facilities way too easily.
If we had a venue on campus, state-level politicians would see our campus when they came to events. If it was new, they would all be there. You know they would.
If we were hosting concerts and other events in it, a large cross-section of the surrounding area would see our campus.
If we had our own graduations on campus, the families of our graduates would see our campus. This one is just shameful. We can't even host our own graduations.
Our football fans would see our campus. The cameras covering the games would too.
The high school students attending The Bandmasters Championship would see our campus.
What happens when you pump four hundred thousand or so more people through your campus every year? They'll spend money. They'll talk about their experience. They'll bring more people next year.
You want to land a few more big-time donors? Bring a half million people a year to campus. You will dramatically increase your odds of getting more big-time donors.
It's a numbers game. It really is. At 40,000 a pop, the numbers pile up quickly.