gohornedfrogs
Tier 1
I'm betting that those who are clamoring for beer sales will be the first ones to complain about the price of beer and how great it used to be when you could go outside at halftime and grab a free one.
Dallas Coaches Event Recap???
- Thread starter johnp923
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gohornedfrogs
Tier 1
Have we not been winning the last 16 years?
TCUdirtbag
Active Member
I see reality is lost on you. I was describing why things are the way they are. You can accept it or [ hundin] about it. But the latter doesn't motivate anyone to your way of thinking.
TCUdirtbag
Active Member
Agree with first paragraph. Disagree with second, but only in the sense that people will throw a fit but adapt anyway provided they sell beer in the stadium.
cheese83
Full Member
We need to reseat the stadium, too many empty seats behind the team in the lower bowl. It looks horrible on TV and in person. Increase the club/suites and move those 100 club peeps to the other side. We need more fans down there to cheer.
No reason why beer shouldn't be sold in the stadium, the insurance cost and all that other stuff is just an excuse. Just do it. I also find it hard to believe UT only sold $3.2 million in beer. At around $8/beer and the size of their stadium that's like .67/beers per person for each game. They must have it in special sections and be really slow to serve.
In reality our stadium is very family friendly, as a result you have tons of little kids who can't sit still and want to leave the game or get restless. It's happened to me and I reduced my season tickets as a result. Too much of a hassle to try and corral young children while also paying a ton of money for them to leave.
Also the stadium gets really hot in the beginning of the season, I wish we could negotiate night games like LSU. While it would never happen this could have been a solution to the early season issues we have. When it feels like 100* and you are sitting in the sun it's a beating for some people, especially the younger kids and older folks. How many people want to fight it out for a game for S Dakota St or Kansas in 100 degrees on the East side? That's a tough sell when they can sit at their tailgate drinking cold bevs under a tent.
Why doesn't our school try to do something to help increase the stadium presence instead of blaming the fans for it. That's pretty lame IMO.
No reason why beer shouldn't be sold in the stadium, the insurance cost and all that other stuff is just an excuse. Just do it. I also find it hard to believe UT only sold $3.2 million in beer. At around $8/beer and the size of their stadium that's like .67/beers per person for each game. They must have it in special sections and be really slow to serve.
In reality our stadium is very family friendly, as a result you have tons of little kids who can't sit still and want to leave the game or get restless. It's happened to me and I reduced my season tickets as a result. Too much of a hassle to try and corral young children while also paying a ton of money for them to leave.
Also the stadium gets really hot in the beginning of the season, I wish we could negotiate night games like LSU. While it would never happen this could have been a solution to the early season issues we have. When it feels like 100* and you are sitting in the sun it's a beating for some people, especially the younger kids and older folks. How many people want to fight it out for a game for S Dakota St or Kansas in 100 degrees on the East side? That's a tough sell when they can sit at their tailgate drinking cold bevs under a tent.
Why doesn't our school try to do something to help increase the stadium presence instead of blaming the fans for it. That's pretty lame IMO.
TCUdirtbag
Active Member
I actually think the complaints will be about the price of parking. Which is what many people are missing here. IMO, it's not about liability of beer sales. It's CDC realizing they are raking in season parking money, and if you end the in/out culture, you lose demand for premium parking which could have a real impact on that scholarship-designated revenue. Look at how hard parking garage sales have been - people want to tailgate and they'll pay a premium to be close enough to go out st half to a nearby tailgate.
So I think it's fear of lost parking revenue more than liability etc. You'd love to have more butts in seats, but you have to have the revenue.
Hoosierfrog
Tier 1
Got it, your way or no way.
So the reality isn't that the people that desert their seats well into the second half don't care more about socializing or drinking than supporting TCU? Gotcha.
TCUdirtbag
Active Member
They aren't going to reseat. There would be an outright revolt. So we can nix that fantasy. Plus it won't really help. The 2012 top end donors are still the top end donors - you'd just be shuffling the bottom half of PP rank.
I hear complaints about how it "looks" but the reality is the seats on tv are the ones that are usually full. Empty seats are typically right behind the bench and upper deck corner. The parts least show on tv. It looks fine. The issue isn't how it looks. It's that fans want the seats behind the home bench. Which is understandable. But let's top pretending the motive is anything other than selfish want for the shady, low level seats.
TCUdirtbag
Active Member
You're really struggling to understand things. Heat of the summer is tough on us all. Hang in there.
What seems odd to me is that we are now bringing in about $35M more per year (just in conference payout money) than we were in the MWC days yet it seems we are more desperate for money than we've ever been.
Does every single decision being made have to be about money? The cost to go to TCU is $50k+/year and enrollment is going up, our athletic program brings in WAY more than they used to, the cost of everything seems to just skyrocket yet there are still buyers. Where the heck is all the money going?
Does every single decision being made have to be about money? The cost to go to TCU is $50k+/year and enrollment is going up, our athletic program brings in WAY more than they used to, the cost of everything seems to just skyrocket yet there are still buyers. Where the heck is all the money going?
YA
Active Member
jake102
Active Member
I am also confused about this. How did we make ends meet in the MWC?
Patterson's salary has increase a couple million, to be generous probably a total of $5MM among total football staff. Add a few million for basketball, a million for baseball and it decreases significantly from there. At most we are talking $10-$15MM in additional salary costs. Just hard to understand where the extra money is going. Travel costs should be the same/less than in the MWC....
Big Frog II
Active Member
Aren't they also giving each athlete a stipend now, plus helping pay parent's trips to bowl games etc. You also have to figure in the added cost of keeping all of the new facilities in tip top shape. We don't nickel and dime everything any more. Coaching staffs are also now larger. The cost of being big time is high.
CountryFrog
Active Member
A lot. I never said we hadn't been winning. And in the seasons where we've done the most winning, the attendance stuff has been a much smaller discussion point. Particularly the Big 12 years.
jake102
Active Member
Which has only been two of five seasons. A 40% successful season rate isn't going to bring in the crowds.
Jet Set Frog
Full Member
I think the whole point is that, for the most part, the crowds ARE there. They just aren't there for the entire game.
netty2424
Full Member
I don't disagree with the re-seating comment regarding the revolt. Those folks put up big money to get there. I have no problem with them staying there until someone wants to put up bigger sums.
But if there's a way to not re-seat and add more seating by just reworking the rows into standard rows so those folks are not giving up location, just giving up a little space. Still have their exclusive seating close behind the bench, beer, wine, etc etc. but you're adding more fans which means more revenue opportunity and more emotion and noise behind the bench which helps the players. And you're helping eliminating the empty look.
Buddy of mine got some tickets in 100's that we used for the OU game. There were 11 seats to my immediate left on the same row that never filled. One guy came and watched a few minutes of the start of the game, then left and never returned. Not sure he even belonged there to begin with, but they sat empty for the entire game. Versus OU?!? Couple that with extra wide rows and it's gross how much empty space there is there.
There has to be a compromise at some point. Those seats need to be a location sale, not a gross misuse of space sale.
Limp Lizard
Full Member
Why not just count last year, a 0% success year. For GP the success rate is 13/16 = 81% success rate, but even that isn't enough for some. So I guess you want to fire Patterson?
TCUdirtbag
Active Member
First of all all, athletics was losing a lot of money in the MWC era. Second, you're drastically underestimating the change in expenses over the past 6 years.
Patterson's salary has doubled. The trove of assistants have gone through the roof, plus we've added more coaches, analysts etc. Jim Christian wasn't making $1M. Dixon makes $3.2M. His staff is also much more expensive than past staffs. You can keep going down the list - Schloss, Saarloos and Mo, Pebley, Kramer and Roditi, and CDC himself.
Big 12 travel is roughly the same as MWC travel if we were using the same methods. But we aren't. For example MBB travels charter now. They were traveling commercial. We are recruiting across the country and in some cases world, and those travel costs are much, much higher.
Big time athletics means big time athletics marketing. From tv ad quality to the fancy season renewal packets and street banners - everything costs more to put out and advertise a quality product.
Our programs are more successful. We're traveling minor sports to more NCAA tournament events - which are net money losers.
Look at the facility growth. New AGCS costs a lot more to upkeep than old AGCS. Just look at the number of square feet now vs. 2010. Those bills have to get paid.
More people at sporting events means more contract workers - concessions, security, janitorial, etc.
And perhaps most of all it costs money to keep up. Every P5 program is scraping for Loren money to get a competitive advantage. Comparing Big 12 TCU to MWC TCU is pointless. You have to compare Big 12 TCU to Big 12 Baylor, Pac 12 Stanford, ACC Clemson, B1G Nebraska, SEC Arkansas, etc. That's the competition - not a 2010 mid major.
And let's not forget that we are still playing catch up. Our peer programs have been in a higher financial tier than us for a long time. We just started getting full revenue in summer 2016.
CountryFrog
Active Member
Technically last year would've been a 46% success rate. The crowds were great for the first few home games when we were still highly thought of and the chances still existed we'd have a great season. Helped in part, obviously, by playing Arkansas and Oklahoma in night games.
