I think what people fail to see is that San Diego is not a USC market - Big 12 and Notre Dame do just as well on tv as SC does, and SDSU is putting people in the seats and tv at a higher clip. The big cities in California are states unto themselves.

This thread has turned into another pissing contest.

(02-27-2012 10:54 AM)Wilkie01 Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 09:15 PM)SmallVoice Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 08:50 PM)attackfrog Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 06:49 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Universities aren't supported by "markets" but by alumni, students, and other past and present members of that university's community. Build that community and you will draw packed stadiums and big TV ratings even if you are located in a tiny backwoods town. Fail to do that and you will draw flies (and get paid by TV execs accordingly) even if 5 million people live within an hour's drive of your campus.

I'll use myself as an example. I watch Rice football games on TV when they are on. I ussually go to one or two games a year just for the heck of it. I have no connection whatsover to Rice other than it is located in Houston.

I dont know how this can even be a question. If Greenville had 4 million people, do you think ECU would still be in CUSA? Of course the location of the school is germain to "market".

I don't usually read qv's stuff, but this is ridiculous. How many Kentucky fans have even set foot on their campus? For that matter, how many UofL fans have degrees from the University of Louisville? It's all about market.

The alumni argument may work for certain private schools, but even then, I suspect they depend on their local market (as Attackfrog just helped prove with his Rice example).

I'll be buying season tickets to SDSU football now that they're in the Big East. I never took a single class there, and the only times I've been on their campus have been to see 1 basketball game and 3 or 4 concerts.

Market is everything.

You are very wrong because it takes both a large donating alumni group plus great marketing. Louisville does that as well any school in the nation does it.

Of course he is wrong. Why does Louisville make $40 million a year on basketball? It's because you have a large, dedicated base of people associated with UofL as students, staff, and alumni who bleed your school colors and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. They pay BIG BUCKS for season tickets, personal seat licenses, and the like, the bread and butter of athletic department revenue.

That's why UofL basketball makes 10x more money than a school like Houston, even though probably 5 city of Louisvilles could fit in the Houston
metro area.

(02-27-2012 05:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Of course he is wrong. Why does Louisville make $40 million a year on basketball? It's because you have a large, dedicated base of people associated with UofL as students, staff, and alumni who bleed your school colors and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. They pay BIG BUCKS for season tickets, personal seat licenses, and the like, the bread and butter of athletic department revenue.

That's why UofL basketball makes 10x more money than a school like Houston, even though probably 5 city of Louisvilles could fit in the Houston
metro area.

LOL! And I'm sure that prolonged success has nothing to do with it.

(02-27-2012 05:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-27-2012 10:54 AM)Wilkie01 Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 09:15 PM)SmallVoice Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 08:50 PM)attackfrog Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 06:49 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Universities aren't supported by "markets" but by alumni, students, and other past and present members of that university's community. Build that community and you will draw packed stadiums and big TV ratings even if you are located in a tiny backwoods town. Fail to do that and you will draw flies (and get paid by TV execs accordingly) even if 5 million people live within an hour's drive of your campus.

I'll use myself as an example. I watch Rice football games on TV when they are on. I ussually go to one or two games a year just for the heck of it. I have no connection whatsover to Rice other than it is located in Houston.

I dont know how this can even be a question. If Greenville had 4 million people, do you think ECU would still be in CUSA? Of course the location of the school is germain to "market".

I don't usually read qv's stuff, but this is ridiculous. How many Kentucky fans have even set foot on their campus? For that matter, how many UofL fans have degrees from the University of Louisville? It's all about market.

The alumni argument may work for certain private schools, but even then, I suspect they depend on their local market (as Attackfrog just helped prove with his Rice example).

I'll be buying season tickets to SDSU football now that they're in the Big East. I never took a single class there, and the only times I've been on their campus have been to see 1 basketball game and 3 or 4 concerts.

Market is everything.

You are very wrong because it takes both a large donating alumni group plus great marketing. Louisville does that as well any school in the nation does it.

Of course he is wrong. Why does Louisville make $40 million a year on basketball? It's because you have a large, dedicated base of people associated with UofL as students, staff, and alumni who bleed your school colors and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. They pay BIG BUCKS for season tickets, personal seat licenses, and the like, the bread and butter of athletic department revenue.

That's why UofL basketball makes 10x more money than a school like Houston, even though probably 5 city of Louisvilles could fit in the Houston
metro area.

UL basically plays at a NBA arena for their basketball so they can charge a lot more because of the facilities etc. Have you look at how much it cost them to rent that arena? The bottom line isn't that much greater than other big basketball schools. There is no denying they generate a ton of revenue off basketball. Their winning tradition certainly did not hurt.

Funny that we were already drawing crazy revenue numbers prior to last year in Freedom Hall, an arena built in the 1950's. The profit is also tops.

I wouldn't expect you to admit that though Husky. Don't worry, we all know UConn would draw more fans and generate more revenue than UofL and Syracuse if they felt like it, the school is just holding back so they don't make the rest of us feel bad!

(02-27-2012 06:12 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  

(02-27-2012 05:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-27-2012 10:54 AM)Wilkie01 Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 09:15 PM)SmallVoice Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 08:50 PM)attackfrog Wrote:  I'll use myself as an example. I watch Rice football games on TV when they are on. I ussually go to one or two games a year just for the heck of it. I have no connection whatsover to Rice other than it is located in Houston.

I dont know how this can even be a question. If Greenville had 4 million people, do you think ECU would still be in CUSA? Of course the location of the school is germain to "market".

I don't usually read qv's stuff, but this is ridiculous. How many Kentucky fans have even set foot on their campus? For that matter, how many UofL fans have degrees from the University of Louisville? It's all about market.

The alumni argument may work for certain private schools, but even then, I suspect they depend on their local market (as Attackfrog just helped prove with his Rice example).

I'll be buying season tickets to SDSU football now that they're in the Big East. I never took a single class there, and the only times I've been on their campus have been to see 1 basketball game and 3 or 4 concerts.

Market is everything.

You are very wrong because it takes both a large donating alumni group plus great marketing. Louisville does that as well any school in the nation does it.

Of course he is wrong. Why does Louisville make $40 million a year on basketball? It's because you have a large, dedicated base of people associated with UofL as students, staff, and alumni who bleed your school colors and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. They pay BIG BUCKS for season tickets, personal seat licenses, and the like, the bread and butter of athletic department revenue.

That's why UofL basketball makes 10x more money than a school like Houston, even though probably 5 city of Louisvilles could fit in the Houston
metro area.

UL basically plays at a NBA arena for their basketball so they can charge a lot more because of the facilities etc.

They can charge whatever they want, but people will only pay that charge if they are passionate about UofL basketball, and the UofL community is passionate about UofL basketball. If they weren't, UofL could charge $5 a ticket and nobody would show up.

I see that locally at LSU all the time - student tickets for basketball are free and yet lots of student seats are empty, and this is despite the fact that LSU has a good basketball tradition of its own. The "fans" simply do not care very much. In contrast, LSU fans are passionate about football, which is why they sell 93,000 seats even though many of those seats cost thousands to reserve via seat licenses, and the student section is always packed, even though they have to pay $40 for their tickets.

Louisville's lease deal is a sweetheart one beyond belief. They're getting revenue from the new arena that's more in line with owning it (even though they don't actually own it) as opposed to renting out an NBA facility. Suffice to say, Louisville is making a killing on basketball with the new stadium (both on revenue and take-away profit).

I want to respond to both of these statements because both are incorrect

(02-27-2012 06:12 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  UL basically plays at a NBA arena for their basketball so they can charge a lot more because of the facilities etc. Have you look at how much it cost them to rent that arena? The bottom line isn't that much greater than other big basketball schools.

This is not remotely true. Louisville's Profit alone would rank number 2 in total revenue of all college basketball teams. That is just their profit versus other teams pre-expense revenue. How you get that their bottom line isn't greater than other schools, well I don't know what to tell you.

(02-28-2012 11:31 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Louisville's lease deal is a sweetheart one beyond belief. They're getting revenue from the new arena that's more in line with owning it (even though they don't actually own it) as opposed to renting out an NBA facility. Suffice to say, Louisville is making a killing on basketball with the new stadium (both on revenue and take-away profit).

It actually is not a sweatheart lease at all: not when compared to say an NBA team or another college team. They actually pay more in rent for use of the YUM Center than most NBA teams, despite the fact of utilizing half as many dates. For example, UofL's Men's team pays 4 times the amount to rent the YUM center as the OKlahoma City Thunder due to rent the Cheseapeake Energy Center, despite UofL only using 23 game dates, versus 50 for the Thunder (plus the playoffs). Not to mention that the Thunder keep more or less all revenue from game day activities, all parking revenue, and portions of revenue from non-NBA activities, and prevent the arena from scehduling major events in May or June as they have to reserve dates for a possible playoff (but don't pay to block out those dates). For that matter, UofL's women's team pay almost as much in rent as the Thunder pay, despite them only hosting about 18 games per year versus what the Thunder host, and being a much lower revenue activity.

The only NBA teams that pay more than UofL are the ones who play in big market, privately owned arenas. In no way would it be considered a "sweetheart deal" when compared to NBA leases, much less other colleges. There is absolutely no college team that even remotely pays what Louisville does, not even in the same stratosphere. And to go futher, there are no NBA teams in small and midsized markets that pay close to what Louisville pays in rent (reminder that Louisville would be the smallest or second smallest NBA market if it had a team). And in the cases of the few large market teams who do pay more, in those cases, the teams don't really have the leverage to force sweetheart deals (it's not like the Clippers are really going to leave LA, or the 76ers really leave Philly to go to market 1/4 the size). It is also why in only its second season, the YUM Center is profitable, and nearly every other publicly financed arena is not. The City gets just about all of the advantages of an NBA team in terms of Arena traffic (the men's team averages more people per game than any NBA team, and the women's team avergas about 10,500 per game, which gives the city 41 downtown events that average of 16,850 visitors, which would be 16th in the NBA this year just behind the Nuggets, only getting a combine rent that would equate in the top 10 in the NBA, and withotu havign to block out two months for the NBA playoffs, and not giving up non basketball revenue to the NBA team. Thus it is a win/win for both parties.

(02-27-2012 12:45 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  This thread has turned into another pissing contest.

Yeah, pretty much any thread beyond 3 pages on a sports board turns into that.

What I lack in distance, I can make up for in sheer volume. Like a racehorse, I swear.