(07-16-2013 04:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  We need to spend $2+ million per year more on operations in order to be able to tread water in the world of intercollegiate athletics, maybe more to move up.
And we need to reduce the subsidy/deficit by $2-3 million per year to satisfy the BOT.

So, how and where do we get the money?

I'm starting this thread to avoid hacking other threads. Here's hoping I get some participation this time.

(07-16-2013 04:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  We need to spend $2+ million per year more on operations in order to be able to tread water in the world of intercollegiate athletics, maybe more to move up.
And we need to reduce the subsidy/deficit by $2-3 million per year to satisfy the BOT.

So, how and where do we get the money?

I'm starting this thread to avoid hacking other threads. Here's hoping I get some participation this time.

(07-16-2013 05:15 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Because of where we are, our conference opponents aren't going to draw the city of Houston much. Sure, UTSA fans might keep showing up, but who knows if that continues. So, obviously, the only way to attack the problem right now is money games, which you've touched on repeatedly. The other major way to drive up revenues is to get the city's attention and thus drive attendance up in football. The only way to do that with the schedule we have is to win consistently. Of course, the problem is, to gain that consistency, you need to try to keep some continuity on the coaching staff, which requires money that we don't have. You are going to lose someone every now and again, but you have to win a few of those battles and I don't think we win even a few right now.
I remember reading around here that the revenue gained by corporate sponsorship is severely lacking. The new AD maybe needs to find a way to lift whatever restrictions are keeping us from gaining needed revenue there.
I would think the best way to attack the deficit is through the scholarship endowment. I would think we stand to gain much more by focusing our scholarship fundraising efforts on it then how we have been doing it. Of course, this would have been more easily accomplished if the Centennial Campaign had been able to focus on it, but alas, it didn't.
Now, while it won't help the financial fight, I do see the value in improving the facilities and hopefully getting that plan kick started. The athletes need this and it will help in recruiting.

(07-16-2013 05:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-16-2013 05:15 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Because of where we are, our conference opponents aren't going to draw the city of Houston much. Sure, UTSA fans might keep showing up, but who knows if that continues. So, obviously, the only way to attack the problem right now is money games, which you've touched on repeatedly. The other major way to drive up revenues is to get the city's attention and thus drive attendance up in football. The only way to do that with the schedule we have is to win consistently. Of course, the problem is, to gain that consistency, you need to try to keep some continuity on the coaching staff, which requires money that we don't have. You are going to lose someone every now and again, but you have to win a few of those battles and I don't think we win even a few right now.
I remember reading around here that the revenue gained by corporate sponsorship is severely lacking. The new AD maybe needs to find a way to lift whatever restrictions are keeping us from gaining needed revenue there.
I would think the best way to attack the deficit is through the scholarship endowment. I would think we stand to gain much more by focusing our scholarship fundraising efforts on it then how we have been doing it. Of course, this would have been more easily accomplished if the Centennial Campaign had been able to focus on it, but alas, it didn't.
Now, while it won't help the financial fight, I do see the value in improving the facilities and hopefully getting that plan kick started. The athletes need this and it will help in recruiting.

Thanks for a thoughtful response.

Scholarships are a huge consideration long-term. But the problem right now is very much short term, and remember that $100,000 in scholarship endowment only produces about $5,000 in annual revenues. To get the whole $5 million that way would require $250 million in donations. That's probably about where we need to get, but that's going to take time, and we don't have the time.

The corporate area is a huge one. I remember when the McKinsey study was going on I got in touch with a H&PE professor at Illinois-Chicago whose research specialty was athletic department finance. I sent him a copy of the McKinsey report and his first reaction was that the corporate sponsorship numbers had to be wrong, there was simply no way that and D-1 program could have such low numbers. I forget by exactly how much, but ILLINIOS-CHICAGO had substantially greater corporate revenues than Rice. As I understnad it, the problem is the Rice policy prohibition against soliciting athletic contributions from anyone except people who have previously contributed to athletics. That is something that needs badly to change. Todd got Leebron to override that policy to get the football scoreboard and other HRS upgrades (sandblasting, rest room upgrades, aluminum seating benches). I'm not quite sure how he did that. I think this needs to be an issue for the new AD to address. Then again, wanting to address this issue, among others, is what got a highly qualified candidate eliminated from consideration last time.

There is a real chicken and egg situation in football. We are at about the top of what we can be with the current spending limits in place, and those are almost certainly going to be cut next year because of the deficit. Getting to where Houston will support us requires spending more, but we don't have the more. We're going to have to get it somehow.

(07-16-2013 05:46 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Ok, so do you continue to push the short term solution for scholarships (i.e Owl Club donations) as a way to reduce spending?

(07-16-2013 06:21 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Please explain how playing games with money impaired us from getting to Omaha. That money doesn't buy hits when they are needed or keep fielding errors from happening at the worst times.

(07-16-2013 07:12 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-16-2013 06:21 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Please explain how playing games with money impaired us from getting to Omaha. That money doesn't buy hits when they are needed or keep fielding errors from happening at the worst times.

Those things are distractions. And when the line is as fine as it is for us to Omaha, one more distraction could always be one too many.

I can't draw a straight line from one to the other--but Wayne probably could except that he's not the kind to gripe. I'm guessing that some of the more hard-core baseball supporters could at least suggest where some of those lines might be. Those who want their money to go to Wayne for baseball know the hoops that have to be jumped through. Does anyone seriously believe that having to do that isn't a distraction? The AD's job is to take care of the back office stuff so the coach can focus on winning. When that doesn't happen, something suffers somewhere. If I were AD, then I'd tell Wayne, "Your job is to get us to Omaha. My job is to make sure you don't have to worry about anything BUT getting us to Omaha."

(07-16-2013 08:35 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  First, we need a consistent core vision that all of the different constituencies within Rice support, regardless of the specifics and regardless of the personell. I'm not talking about some vague "we're committed to athletics" sort of statement, but more of a true vision of athletics at Rice. I'm talking about the sort of plan that says something like... Rice is committed to the well rounded and complete college experience, and athletics in every facet is part of that experience. Rice is and always has been a place where badminton, beer bike and smash mouth football have coexisted. We will do things right and being successful while doing so. In that vein, we intend to increase funding for intramural, club and NCAA sports. You don't need to be an ncaa athlete to be at Rice, but athletics is part of wellness.. and wellness is part of success in this world. And Rice graduates succeed.

Integral to that effort is an increase in revenues. Whether one specifically supports football or not, it is clearly the driver in conference realingnemtn and major revenue pushes, as such, we must increase spending there as well. We cannot fund Olympic sports at the expense of football and we cannot continue to short change football and expect it to lead us to greater revenue. It must be an and, not an or...

as suce, we are embarking on a $100mm campaign to endow scholarships that we hope to expand to 250mm over time. Scholarships are not about sports, but about academics... and nothing is more important to Rice than Academics. This effort will allow us to spend more of our athletic revenues on all sports. Our intention is not to replace the financial committment by the University to our primary source of media exposure and outreach, but to augment it and to increase the return on our investment. As such, we intend to do more marketing of the university through athletics, and more marketing of athletics through the university. It must be an integrated, rather than segregated effort.

We will also embark on a $50mm capital campaign to refurbish and upgrade HRS because we cannot continue to have our biggest "impression" to the outside world be something we have to make excuses for. We don't need the Taj Mahal, but it is unfathomable that our facilities would be dirty, unhealthy or inadequate in any way.

To that end, we are also starting a $20mm capital campaign to endow maintenance of our athletic facilities. This is not about improvements or salaries, but about ensuring that what we have, works... always. about NEVER having to choose between fixing a leaky roof or cutting an off-campus stipend.

So there it is. $170mm in committments. about 15% of what we just raised for the endowment and we will spend it (in a variety of ways) on things that impact much more than 15% of the campus. Further, we will get more out of it for while we will not short change football, we will spend more on Olympic sports where most of our peers are cutting in order to succeed in football... because they lack the academic "carrot" that we can offer a recruit.

Of course, we will aggressively seek sponsorship from the community and corporations in a variety of ways including scheduling that will help us reach our short and long term goals more quickly... but we need to create/solidify and promote the idea that athletics is part of what Rice does, and not merely some necessary evil that we put up with. These are the sorts of things that can change as times and opportunities and personell change... but the vision must remain the same. That athletics and wellness in some form or fashion is part of Rice.

(07-16-2013 06:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Absolutely push scholarships, because that's the answer to a lot of problems in the long run. But there was this attitude for a while that it was the solution to everything, and we didn't do the other things we need to.

I'd say the things we really need to do are, not necessarily in order:
5. Get some sort of change to the corporate sponsorship restriction, and go after them hot and heavy.
9. Go back to the combined approach to athletic donations under Chris. I think some proper promotions in this area can maximize donations.

(07-16-2013 09:14 PM)CrabCake Wrote:  Interesting topic of conversation. If I may ask Owl 69/70/75 and Hambone 10, from where are your dollar figures derived? Thanks!

(07-16-2013 10:29 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(07-16-2013 09:14 PM)CrabCake Wrote:  Interesting topic of conversation. If I may ask Owl 69/70/75 and Hambone 10, from where are your dollar figures derived? Thanks!

first of all, some of it comes from people within the ADs office who have intimated that these are things we'd like to accomplish, though imo, it isn't very well articulated publicly and needs to be...
As to the specific numbers,
100mm at 5% generates $5mm in perpetuity
It is fairly well accepted that we have run a budget 2-3mm per year higher than what the University wants it to be for quite some time.
$50mm is a round number close to what the EZF will run. I think I heard the ezf was 42 and another 10 for general stadium upgrades, but for this conversation, that is close enough.
a $20mm maintenance endowment at 5% generates $1mm per year in maintenance.
So we're adding facilities and covering the 2-3mm over-run and generating 2-3mm more in revenue from the scholarship endowment to go towards increased spending across the board that should eliminate the smoke and mirrors we have been faced with, and then we're going to target marketing this program to the public and generate even more revenue that will enhance the programs beyond their current levels of success.
That's where my numbers come from.
Sloth, in general yes, but the rles for the athletic department are different from the university and different from most other schools. I suspect he is on there because resource development needs to be part of the job