(11-03-2020 10:09 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (11-03-2020 10:05 AM)Hambone10 Wrote: (11-03-2020 09:54 AM)Volkmar Wrote: Roadrunner chiming in here. If the 'economic sense' argument were a valid reason for not allowing fans, wouldn't it have made more economic sense for Rice to just not have a football season then? I mean, how much economic sense does it make to start playing halfway through the season - half of those games being away games - and not even allowing fans in the stadium for home games?
Yep... I have to imagine the cost of now a dozen busses, twice the number of planes and twice as many hotel rooms, not to mention 'safe' meal practices while away is VASTLY greater than the cost of hosting a home game.
But then you'd have the potential fallout from canceling the season - people are probably a lot less likely to pull donations, reducing support, etc. over the long term if we at least play this year.
Not wedded to the idea, but was just thinking that Rice could basically be trying to cut the least painful losses.
That has little (imo) to do with the economic sense of not allowing fans.
I could pithily add, unless its an admission that the games our fans are least interested in are home games against conference foes.
We didn't play UH
across town
We didn't play
at home vs Army
We didn't get paid a whole lot of
money to play LSU
down the street
We didn't play Lamar
at home
We didn't play (*but might make up) UAB
at home.
Thats 5 of 6 games that ALL would have been at or very near home. Very low cost to a profit and relatively easy to contain and protect our students. What did we protect our students from that we didn't turn right around and expose them to against MTSU? 3 of those 5 would have likely been decent TV games, even if you didn't allow fans.
So now we get MTSU, UTSA and UTEP at home, but travel to USM, LaTech and UNT??
IDK if there was 'business interruption insurance' anywhere along the line... but I'm betting that most donors would have rather we canceled the latter 6 than the first 5... two of which were technically not 'home' games.
The only way this makes sense is if they did it to pad the record... avoiding the better teams and playing only teams we most likely had a shot at beating, which is why UAB MAY be made up. I mean, every other year we 'end on a hot streak' that we credit to some improvement in our team as opposed to a softening of our schedule. It MAY be about ensuring our cut of conference revenues (the paltry sum they are).
I get your point and there may be something in there to it... but given the exposure we're still putting our people to, the loss of revenue and local interest, I think there could have been vastly better ways to keep our donors happy. If you're going to not allow fans for cost and safety, why cancel 5 of your 8 'home' (meaning lower cost and safer) games?