I hear all the time that baseball can't turn a profit. Where are the expenses coming from? equipment, travel expenses, taking care of the field. But lets just take a look at opening weekend. 5k at each game. 1,700 of those tickets were season tickets. 270x1700= 459,000 plus the 3,300 other fans. I'll say each ticket cost 20 bucks for the MSU series. 3300x20= 66,000. That's 525,000. Say the average amount of dollars spent per person on concessions is 5 for all three games. Could be higher. 15,000x5=75,000. That's 600,000. This year we have 29 home games. Average crowd per home game is probably 3400. Tickets sold for each home games: 3400-1700(already counted season tickets). So 1700x20= 34,000x26(home games left)= 884,000. That's 1,484,000 bucks now. Concessions for rest of year: 3400x5x26= 442,000. That's 1,926,000 in total. Dugout club gives 250k. That's 2.2 mil. Where do we spend all that money?? Maybe I'm WAYYY off.

Thoughts?

I believe baseball makes us money (though not a lot after travel, hotels, salaries). It’s basketball that’s a black hole for us.

(03-13-2018 06:54 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  I believe baseball makes us money (though not a lot after travel, hotels, salaries). It’s basketball that’s a black hole for us.

and it didn't/doesn't have to be....ignoring the product is what got us there....

I can assure you football is getting ready to take the whole thing down....and we won't be the only ones....I give it 8-10 yrs. at the longest.....

you can also toss in titty IX into the 'why'.....that was a crippler for a school like ours.....

it doesn't matter if you like it.....that's just the cold hard facts.....

Women's sports are a financial black hole for anyone not getting a conference welfare check.

No one watches that crap on TV and no one wants to go watch that crap in person.

It's usually the athletic equivalent of watching an 8th-grade boys team and grosses about the same ticket sales.

WeEz EqUaL n ShEeEeEeiIIitTtT

(03-13-2018 06:54 AM)poeanneedychillrens Wrote:  It’s basketball that’s a black hole for us.

Toby's hamburger tax will save the day. Fortunately Sonic of Sumrall will be exempt.

(03-13-2018 06:54 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  I believe baseball makes us money (though not a lot after travel, hotels, salaries). It’s basketball that’s a black hole for us.

I'm going to add to my previous response.....

even MEM recognized they needed to invest in football after tossing salad with fed ex hoop $$$ in isolation....

MEM is primed to be the next UL moving forward.....

we're primed to be sliced well-done,....

if baseball and once every 20 years we get a decent foosball team or hoops recruit that makes a difference.......so be it.......that 'acceptable method' began long ago.....

Baseball travel is rough financially. You have to take about 30 people on each trip. Some involving plane tickets for all those people. Then you have several trips where all those people have to have a hotel room for 3 nights each. All those people have to be fed.

Say the baseball team is traveling to Marshall. That’s around 30 people that need plane tickets there and back. So 60 plane tickets. Then a bus has to be rented for 3 days to use while you’re there. Then that’s 30 people that need a hotel room for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. If you go 2 to a room that’s 45 rooms total. Then you’re feeding every one of those people 2 meals a day. So that’s probably over 200 meals considering you leave Thursday and don’t get back until late Sunday.

That’s just one weekend series. And baseball equipment and field maintanance isn’t cheap either. Then you have to have a recruiting budget. Which is probably a couple hundred thousand.

Also, you added in concession money for the rest of the year by saying 3,400 times 5 for each person. No way in hades we average 3400 people at the game the rest of the year. We might average 2,000 butts in the seats after the MSU series. I know I went to the Sunday Game vs UT Martin and there might not have been 1500 actual people there. That might be generous. But that alone shaved about 200k off your projection. Also, I doubt we average selling 1700 tickets at 20 dollars apiece for the other 26 home games. If you cut that number to 1,400 at 15 dollars apiece, it shaves another 300k off your projection. So total I think you overshot the revenue generated by 300-500k. Also, most years we don’t have a series like the MSU home series.

Also, I think our baseball program actually does make a little money unlike most schools. But it’s not enough to make much of a difference for a D-1 athletic program. When people talk about money making sports, they mean programs that make multi million dollar profits.

(03-13-2018 10:37 AM)Eagle9 Wrote:  Baseball travel is rough financially. You have to take about 30 people on each trip. Some involving plane tickets for all those people. Then you have several trips where all those people have to have a hotel room for 3 nights each. All those people have to be fed.

Say the baseball team is traveling to Marshall. That’s around 30 people that need plane tickets there and back. So 60 plane tickets. Then a bus has to be rented for 3 days to use while you’re there. Then that’s 30 people that need a hotel room for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. If you go 2 to a room that’s 45 rooms total. Then you’re feeding every one of those people 2 meals a day. So that’s probably over 200 meals considering you leave Thursday and don’t get back until late Sunday.

That’s just one weekend series. And baseball equipment and field maintanance isn’t cheap either. Then you have to have a recruiting budget. Which is probably a couple hundred thousand.

Also, you added in concession money for the rest of the year by saying 3,400 times 5 for each person. No way in hades we average 3400 people at the game the rest of the year. We might average 2,000 butts in the seats after the MSU series. I know I went to the Sunday Game vs UT Martin and there might not have been 1500 actual people there. That might be generous. But that alone shaved about 200k off your projection.

Also, I think our baseball program actually does make a little money unlike most schools. But it’s not enough to make much of a difference for a D-1 athletic program. When people talk about money making sports, they mean programs that make multi million dollar profits.

Baseball trips involve closer to 36-37 on road trips.......CUSA games you're allowed a 27 man roster, there's 4 coaches (5 if Collin Cargill who is baseball ops guy goes), Jack Duggan, John Cox, there's a trainer, a manager or 2, and possibly someone else or 2 I'm probably forgetting

I’ll never find it, but some years ago (2005-ish), a national newspaper or magazine published a detailed expense & revenue list by sport for every FBS public institution. How little even football cleared was embarrassing. IIRC, men’s basketball was surprisingly close to breaking even (smaller travel parties, shorter hotel stays, & less facility maintenence, I suppose). As Stink said, it was the women’s & minor sports that were black holes.