(09-16-2021 01:20 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(09-16-2021 01:00 PM)bullet Wrote:  https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/...281171002/

Why budgets matter:




This is a school that needed more than a decade and a significant loan to recently open an $11 million indoor practice facility for the football program in 2020...."

They certainly didnt need 10 years. What they needed was their own board of regents, which they finally got and transitioned to sometime between 2017 and 2018. Prior to that, all 4 year universities in the state operated under the same board of regents. Memphis raised $40million in about 4 years for the IPF and other upgrades such as for basketball.

I would hate to see the move to an OCS. For one, the Liberty Bowl is as on-campus as you can get, and is located closer to the university's dorms than a lot of other "OCS's". Its easy to get into and out of traffic wise, is a B12 sized stadium, and locker rooms and Tiger Lane are top notch. The press boxes are getting replaced now, and more seatbacks are being put in. The current press boxes blow, and is one of the biggest eyesores of the stadium. They are also cramped inside.

Just to add a bit - apparently TBR had some weird rules about building things and funding and it was a pain to get everything going. Which is almost certainly true because TBR is always a pain to deal with.

With that being said, an OCS would be amazing from an alumni engagement perspective. Lots of alumni go to football games, getting them on campus regularly would be huge from a "campus is waaaay better than you remember" perspective. It's the "Come reminense about old buildings, classrooms and labs" that allows you to build a relationship with the alumni. From the alumni who remember the old book store in the basement of the old UC and Richardson towers to newer alumni who haven't seen recent upgrades in buildings.

The OCS gets your people back on campus for one reason and allows them to take that nostalgia trip. I've seen it over and over. As long as they weren't treated like dirt, chances are, you can get them to donate.

The liberty bowl breaks that relationship building aspect and nostalgia trip cycle. It makes alumni engagement more difficult and thus getting donations from the far more numerous "average alumni" more difficult.