No I don't have any real numbers for you. But wanted to post some of my observations since Sean Frazier has stepped on campus.

First of all Sean Frazier is the best AD we have ever had. He has done more in a little over a year than any other AD we have had.

With that being said, I am a little concern with the amount of money being spent. I'm sure since the Orange Bowl our revenue has gone up the past 2 years by quite a bit. We didn't get a number on how much HAF took in last year from donations, Compher usually posted it in the packet and it was always nice to know that donors and dollars increased every year.

Last year we had 15 people working in Athletic Administration according to last year's media guide. This year we have 24(this years media guide). In one year that is a large jump. Not saying it wasn't deserved, because it was. Just more payroll.

Things that have been improved:
All new NIU helmets and jersey's (I know Adidas gives us $175,000 a year in free clothing the past few years, but to get all new jerseys is a lot of money and I'm sure some of the other sports will have new uniforms as well)

Building the Coaches Club (Yeah I know that roughly 100 people paid $650 for the club, which was probably the cost to remodel the room. But how much of that money is "New money" coming in (See below by what I mean by "New money".

Refinishing the volleyball court

Completely new basketball court

Setting up the Yard

Banners on the outside of the stadium.

Building the Sky Club (Is there a lot of new money coming in for this. What I mean is John Smith donated $2000 last year and paid for 2 chair back seats. The donation for the chairback seats did not count towards HAF. This year John Smith donated $300 and now can use the remaining 1700 to get 2 seats in the SkyClub. Either way NIU was getting that money, now NIU is getting less because John is actually getting something back from the donation.)


I might be missing more improvements.

Again, I am not bashing Frazier. I love what he is doing. Just want to know in a couple years we are not making crazy budget cuts because he improved too much, too fast. Obviously, if the fans and alums wake up and see all the improvements and teams are getting better, the money will follow. But what if they don't wake up?



What are your thoughts?

And I don't want to hear "You have to spend money to make money" lol

I would like to see the hard data on how much of an Orange Bowl bounce did NIU get.
Did donations go up?
TV and radio revenue go up?
Applications go up? I assume yes.
Did ACT test scores go up?
Season ticket total go up?
Did football revenue go up?
Did our AD and staff cost go up?
Are we getting better students that would increase our horrible drop out rate?
Is our football attendance up from a ten year average?

it could be a high risk/high reward gambit on his part...if its this, i fear that this will be unsuccesful, because the NIU fanbase is slow growing with the potential to be big. but, if this gambit plan (theoretical) has a 2-3 year window for a huge growth in attendance, i fear it will be unsuccessful.

again, no basis here, but thoughts for conversation sake

In the end you have to make the numbers work but in this industry (entertainment) the best way to drive yourself into failure is to forget to embrace promotion. If advertising didn't have a ROI nobody would do it.

Some stuff was planned/obsolescence (like the courts).

I think the push is on to put us in a bigger Conference. To me it is do or die time. In 5 years it will be such a wide gap between the haves and the have nots.

Also Frazier is now has the Convo and those employees under him.

I suspect a lot of stuff is also not all that expensive/accomplished with existing funds. The banners come to mind- I'd bet they aren't terribly expensive. And the Coaches Club probably wasn't all that expensive either- at some level it was just the refurbishing of old office space- just not in the conventional way. And like the courts, uniforms are a planned replacement thing- the only extra expense on the football side is having a second helmet. And besides adding the Convo personnel to the department, some new positions may also be some combo of restructuring (turn 2 old higher paid jobs into 3 slightly lower) and slots that were budgeted but unfilled.

I'd think the budget has grown, but not radically. They've probably mostly been seizing opportunities to make low cost, high visibility improvements and aiming to turn that into buzz and more money.

All I know is compher sucked at scheduling

(08-30-2014 04:36 PM)DogTracks Wrote:  I suspect a lot of stuff is also not all that expensive/accomplished with existing funds. The banners come to mind- I'd bet they aren't terribly expensive. And the Coaches Club probably wasn't all that expensive either- at some level it was just the refurbishing of old office space- just not in the conventional way. And like the courts, uniforms are a planned replacement thing- the only extra expense on the football side is having a second helmet. And besides adding the Convo personnel to the department, some new positions may also be some combo of restructuring (turn 2 old higher paid jobs into 3 slightly lower) and slots that were budgeted but unfilled.

I'd think the budget has grown, but not radically. They've probably mostly been seizing opportunities to make low cost, high visibility improvements and aiming to turn that into buzz and more money.

I admire Shawn Frazier he is very resourceful and creative in making the most of what he has to work with. I do think that he is the best AD that NIU has had in my lifetime and I have been following the program since 1971

(08-30-2014 05:38 PM)yesman815 Wrote:  All I know is compher sucked at scheduling

Compher just kept things status quo with very marginal changes. Basically would keep him in a safe position for his job and if something better came along he would take it. No different than football coaches. The football team put him up there as a AD other schools might want when he really did jack IMO.

(08-30-2014 03:19 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote:  Also Frazier is now has the Convo and those employees under him.

Great observation...most of the employee numbers come from adding the Convo operations to AD

The rest of the expenses seem within reason for what we are doing with the money

Cannot stand still nor take steps back....we made the commitment to forge ahead once the Yordon Center and IP were built

I noticed NIU home schedule was on my mountain dew can purchased at Jewel Osco in Sugar Grove, has anyone else seen this, and does NIU pay to have the schedule on can?

(08-31-2014 12:30 PM)ADOG05 Wrote:  I noticed NIU home schedule was on my mountain dew can purchased at Jewel Osco in Sugar Grove

I want this!

(08-31-2014 12:34 PM)NIURedBlack Wrote:  

(08-31-2014 12:30 PM)ADOG05 Wrote:  I noticed NIU home schedule was on my mountain dew can purchased at Jewel Osco in Sugar Grove

I want this!

I'm trying to attach a pic via phone, not working, I'll attach one once I get to desktop.

(08-31-2014 12:30 PM)ADOG05 Wrote:  I noticed NIU home schedule was on my mountain dew can purchased at Jewel Osco in Sugar Grove, has anyone else seen this, and does NIU pay to have the schedule on can?

They did this several years ago - at least 8 to 10 years ago - also on Mountain Dew.

I think every team in history gets it's schedule put on a pepsi can at some point.