Arkstfan

Season ticket sales is a 246 day process. If you aren't working on it five days a week for 48 weeks (plus six home football Saturdays) you aren't going to be good at it. 2005 and 2006 AState goes 6-6 and season tickets jump 2,200 in 2007. Dipped 150 in 2008 after a 5-7 campaign but they went back to work, went up about 360 after another 6-6 campaign. Go UP 340 after a 4-7 campaign. Go UP 860 after another 4-7, go up 1,050 after 10-3, up 320 after 10-2, go up after 8-5. It starts with the basics. Working to get every local employer you can to do corporate tailgates and creating a super-friendly environment for the individuals tailgating. They are your host committee. Get potential fans on the grounds having a nice day whether or not you lay an egg on the field. Convincing businesses in the area to put up signs of support. Drive down Red Wolf Boulevard or Caraway in Jonesboro and the majority of businesses have signs up supporting AState. TODAY. I'm in Jonesboro tonight and the business community is all in. It started as a football campaign, it is now 365 days a year. When we have recruits come in you think they make it out of town without the coaches mentioning all the signs and telling them to look at the other places they visit? Our chancellor told me Thursday it has helped recruiting faculty because they are amazed at the local show of support for the university. It WAS NOT THAT WAY when I was in college and it wasn't that way 15 years ago. It was a long-term relationship building thing. THEN we could worry about selling season tickets. You've got to build buzz and brand identity first. We sold AState as an affordable DAY with the family, not three hours, a day. Sure most people arrive around kickoff but our philosophy was you can have fun all day long for the price of a ticket. Winning guarantees you nothing. I remember when Tim Floyd was at UNO, they'd start the year struggling to get 1000 people in Lakefront Arena, then they would rack up win after win and the place would be near full in late February. Then next season attendance was right back at around 1000 people. They sold basketball games in a city that isn't that hoops crazy, they needed to sell something else. That's the first step for UNT. Figure out what your "it" is that people will pay for and there is a football game as part of it. You cannot play name teams six times a year at home, you can't get six Texas teams on your home slate unless you form some sort of new conference. If those are your "it" then you are doing as well as you can. The "it" is not conference affiliation (12 of 14 CUSA schools saw season ticket sales decline). The thing is, you have to construct your "it". MP3 players and smartphones were geek devices until Apple figured out how to make them "it" for the average consumer. People never knew they "needed" those devices until Apple explained why they needed them. Worst thing you can do is ask people not coming what they want, you have to create your "it" and show them why they want "it". Until you get that figured out you don't have the foundation to sell season tickets.

Gonzaga earned four units, BYU earned one. Year before Gonzaga earned two units, BYU earned one. Gonzaga is carrying the weight in the conference.

WOW, 12 of 14 sold fewer season tickets in 2014. Man I was complaining we had such a modest increase in 2014.

Those "high school" gyms host the 9th best basketball league in the country. BYU's former home MWC was rated 11, CUSA 17. They earned five units in this year's tournament to divided between 10 schools. WCC is a big deal in hoops and it is a league that fits BYU's academic profile.

BYU receives $800,000 to $1.2 million from ESPN for every home game ESPN telecasts depending on the date and network. Last year they had five telecasts so assuming they got the minimum they made $4 million on television. NIU receives $833,000 in TV money and $1 million at least from CFP in the MAC. CUSA under the current deal would offer $1 million in TV and $857,000 in CFP money. It would cost them $1.833 million to leave the MAC and if CUSA waived the entry fee it would only take NIU 77 years to recover the cost of moving to CUSA from the enhanced payout CUSA would offer and that's before factoring any difference in travel expenses. So what if UAB has to play 2016 as an FCS, starts transition in 2017, completes transition in 2018 and is full FBS in 2019? CUSA took Charlotte and played without football the past two seasons, play this year as a transition and won't be full FBS until 2016. UAB would play as many years without playing the league schedule in football as Charlotte did and UAB at least earned the league two units last year. They made $1.5 million for the league by winning their tournament game that the league wouldn't have had and it is $1.5 million more than Charlotte produced.

Hosting two in-state schools to start the year helped tremendously. 27k for Troy 29k for Alabama A&M 16k for FIU 20k for UNT 9k for LaTech then rumor breaks about dropping football, 28k for then #18 Marshall.

MTSU has always had a little more swagger than they've earned. They get under my skin.

I wouldn't think UAB would want to move up any faster than that. They've got to rebuild their roster, most of the kids still there did not have an FBS willing to take them.

Bring it on Rick. AState usually signs as many or more Alabama players as Texas players. We took kids who were committed to UAB before UAB dropped football.

A reporter quoted an NFL GM as saying if Hannibal Lector had size and could run a 4.3 they'd dismiss his issues as an eating disorder. A player doing something stupid isn't shocking, the Deadspin report quoting the police officer as saying that the coaches refused to cooperate shouldn't be tolerated.

Cousin used to teach at Arizona Med School. She and her husband are outdoors people and liked it there but one of my uncles who lives in Phoenix asked how she liked living in God's Country. She responded that it wasn't God's country because God made green things.

Everyone who wins half their games, no one is advocating 1-11, 2-10, 3-9, 4-8, 5-7 teams go to post-season yet somehow a bowl for a team that went 5-3 in CUSA is offensive and everyone getting a medal? MTSU finished second in the east and didn't get a participation medal.

Didn't have their finances all together. Soon as LR announced they were out, Austin called the Sun Belt and got a contract signed. CUSA had agreed but never signed the contract.

That's who the organizer said http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/12600613/austin-tucson-little-rock-orlando-apply-host-ncaa-bowl-games

Might want to get a second opinion from MTSU.

Austin was announced as CUSA vs. AAC, CUSA backed out. Can't blame that on AAC.

Southern Miss is the only school to play every year of CUSA football. I once saw a comic who juggled as part of his act. He held up a hatchet and said "This is the hatchet George Washington used to chop down the cherry tree...... well the handle has been replaced....... and the head, but it occupies the same space."

Here is the downside of being hugely reliant on student fees (I think FIU is north of 70% of revenue from student fees). We know that over the next decade or so total national college enrollment will dip. Now some schools will stay steady, some will even grow, but many will lose students. If student population falls 2% and 70% of budget is from student fees, you have to cut 1.4% from your budget. You won't cut contracted salaries, chances are your cost of employee benefits will rise (they have risen for decades so no reason to expect that to change). Your school will probably increase tuition which means you get billed more athletic scholarships. Very quickly to get a 1.4% cut in budget you are looking at cutting about 10% of a budget area that is discretionary because much of your budget is not discretionary. Right now the trend is for states to not increase or even cut higher ed funding. So budget shortfalls in the general university budget have to be made up elsewhere, money spent to help athletics will be on the chopping block. We also know that student loans are starting to become a political issue. If student loans become harder to get or more expensive, again we are looking at possible declines in enrollment along with more price sensititivty from students and parents. Having a high athletic fee is not good in a price sensitive market.

Interesting they elected to shut it down "for five years" on the heels of dropping men's tennis for financial reasons last year and the announcement comes just two weeks short of one year after that announcement.

Unless you are San Diego State who is playing a non-scholarship FCS. They can't count them.

What is wrong with scheduling in the 2020's? AState goes to Iowa State in 2024 and hosts in 2025. We wanted earlier but we took what they were offering rather than get nothing. Terry Mohajir was on CBS Radio yesterday. He was asked how he finagled a home and home with Mizzou. His answer? "We asked. That's how."

Signed them back in September to a home and home 2018 and 2020. It was probably a joint effort to screw UNT.

I figured someone would cite AState vs. Tulsa.

In the Big XII at Iowa State you are pretty much guaranteed two road conference losses though. The 1976 Earl Bruce team is arguably the best ever at Iowa State and they lost at Colorado and Ok St and at home to OU. McCarney's 2000 team is the only ranked Iowa State team since 1976. They only lost once on the road (at Kansas State) but lost at home to Nebraska and TAMU.

Smart AD's know that unless the coach really stinks and has alienated fans, that the fans generally like the coach more than the AD. You try to keep them happy because someone is always wanting to interview a coach or big donors are spending time with them. Don't want them blaming you for the coach's shortcomings.