College AD business model

oldguystudent · March 17, 2015

There are very, very few baseball programs that make money -- like maybe five out of over 300.

That said, because of the scholarship limit, and the fact that most teams don't tend to much travel out of region, baseball isn't an expensive program once you've got the facilities in place. Coaches get paid less, players get less scholarship money, equipment is generally sponsored, etc.

wardly · March 17, 2015

"Where are we now,where are we going,and how are we going to get there?" are basic questions in forming a written business plan. The only sports that UNT alumni and students seen to support to any degree are football and men's basketball. Women's basketball is a financial pit based upon attendence and lack of revenue, as will be our baseball program.[ If I were king for a day I would choose the one sport that we are best at and concentrate my limited resources towards it].If I were to emulate a program, I would fine a University with a similar budget and location issues. I am sure there is a school that is surrounded by a bevy of "Big 5" programs that has had success.

FirefightnRick · March 17, 2015

I write that portion in context of the existing UNT fan base. I can see there would be lots of grumbling if a guy like that were to come to Denton.

The thing with Orange County is that the school had only existed for 40 years when he came around. The student enrollment hadn't yet reached 20,000 students, and a very, very large percentage of those were, um...international students who came, got their pre-med degrees, and fled, never to be heard from again.

I have no idea how this guy did his data mining and soliciting, because if you think UNT alum are apathetic, you've never seen young California commuter schools.

That's the point. I don't know how he'd find them, but there would be more than 8 big donors. And he'd tell them how he is spending their money, not the other way.

But I reiterate. Guy's a dick if you're not sporting the AMEX black.

Well there's not many around here left to grumble, so I don't see him being a stand-off'ish dick a problem if he's getting the job done.

Just a guess here, but he is successful because he probably has a stated goal, demands effort to reach that goal, and holds himself and his staff accountable when they don't. I doubt he cares about being everyone's buddy and he probably has no problem at all being the barer of BAD NEWS.

I can see why people would feel comfortable investing in a program they know is going to be accountable and responsible with their time and money.

Rick

Arkstfan · March 17, 2015

Baseball is a money pit if you are in a region where you can't play at home the first third of the season. Across the south (especially near the gulf) it can be a nice revenue source, ditto the far west like Arizona and southern California.

wardly · March 18, 2015

Based upon return on investment, base ball is a loser.UNT is going to add another underfunded program as the price of admission to CUSA, which I understand.

oldguystudent · March 18, 2015

UNT is going to add another underfunded program

Travis · March 18, 2015

I wouldn't mind following BSU's model. They did enough to get the locals interested. Sure they had little to compete with, but, they make for an exciting atmosphere. They have a sub-par, old stadium with horrible sight lines and they make up for it with the crowd spirit, they have a pretty rockin' indoor/practice facility and a whole town that really gets into it. We can have what they have, but we have to have a product worth getting excited about. Even in our SBC run, I saw a huge (relatively speaking) bump in interest from the local community and I was raised in Denton my whole life. BSU did what they needed to do to keep the morale high from the community.

We need to have an AD that puts pressure on his staff to get things done and makes it public that he is doing so to gain the confidence of the fans. We sucked this past year and it reflects on our athletic department. If they don't want to suck, it would be nice to see them do something to show us that. Instead, we get nothing. We have no plan. And, UNT is ok with it.

GreenGonzo · March 18, 2015

NTSU2.0

wardly · March 18, 2015

BSU is to Idaho what U.of A. is to Arkansas.A business model more appropriate to UNT might be found in larger states such as California and Florida who have a mixture of major and mid-major conferences.

Travis · March 18, 2015

BSU is to Idaho what U.of A. is to Arkansas.A business model more appropriate to UNT might be found in larger states such as California and Florida who have a mixture of major and mid-major conferences.

Central Florida? Houston? South Florida? Rutgers? Marshall? Vanderbilt?

Eagle1855 · March 18, 2015

Central Florida? Houston? South Florida? ~~Rutgers? Marshall? Vanderbilt?~~

Yes.

meanrob · March 18, 2015

Is it too much to ask that we create the "UNT model" that not only works for us but other schools want to emulate?

Tired of us looking everywhere else for everything.

StealthEagle84 · March 18, 2015

I haven't read every post but I have skimmed through a lot and have not seen mention of Baylor. If you want to look at how to run an athletic department and want see how a vision and a plan can turn into real results, look no further than Waco. Don't just look at what they've done with their football program but every program. Their football team was in the dumps and one of the worst in the nation. Hell, we kicked their ass by 38 points and ran the ball about 5 times the entire game. I know that was 12 years ago but its certainly not a lifetime ago. Their mens basketball team was nearly exterminated and now look at them. It starts with a mission statement and clearly stated goals. Where are we? Where do we want to be? How are going to get there? What steps will we to take to ensure these goals are met? How will we hold the decision makers accountable for actual results?

Travis · March 18, 2015

Is it too much to ask that we create the "UNT model" that not only works for us but other schools want to emulate?
Tired of us looking everywhere else for everything.

It sounds like you forget that we are a government agency looking elsewhere to find benchmarks are what we do.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Travis

Mean Green 93-98 · March 18, 2015

Is it too much to ask that we create the "UNT model" that not only works for us but other schools want to emulate?
Tired of us looking everywhere else for everything.

You trust our A.D. to come up with a unique model that's never worked anywhere else? That's a lot of confidence. We seem to have followed the "UNT model" for our entire existence, while lesser schools have passed us by athletically.

Others have observed that a flaw with this A.D. (athletic department in general) is that they're not receptive to outside ideas.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel. If something works, steal it, tweak it as needed, and don't apologize.

UNT90 · March 18, 2015

Is it too much to ask that we create the "UNT model" that not only works for us but other schools want to emulate?
Tired of us looking everywhere else for everything.

Plus 1,000,000

But some would say no model is the UNT model.

Edited March 18, 2015 by UNT90

UNT90 · March 18, 2015

I haven't read every post but I have skimmed through a lot and have not seen mention of Baylor. If you want to look at how to run an athletic department and want see how a vision and a plan can turn into real results, look no further than Waco. Don't just look at what they've done with their football program but every program. Their football team was in the dumps and one of the worst in the nation. Hell, we kicked their ass by 38 points and ran the ball about 5 times the entire game. I know that was 12 years ago but its certainly not a lifetime ago. Their mens basketball team was nearly exterminated and now look at them. It starts with a mission statement and clearly stated goals. Where are we? Where do we want to be? How are going to get there? What steps will we to take to ensure these goals are met? How will we hold the decision makers accountable for actual results?

Lol.

That will never happen under current management.

greenit · March 18, 2015

In order to get Denton behind us, we first need to be the only game in town. Figure out a way to buy/merge/whatever with TWU. That would put us in the 40-45k student range and help unite the city behind a single school.

We are in a town of less than 150k and we still have to fight for attention.

And oh yeah, F Baylor.

meanrob · March 19, 2015

You trust our A.D. to come up with a unique model that's never worked anywhere else? That's a lot of confidence. We seem to have followed the "UNT model" for our entire existence, while lesser schools have passed us by athletically.

Others have observed that a flaw with this A.D. (athletic department in general) is that they're not receptive to outside ideas.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel. If something works, steal it, tweak it as needed, and don't apologize.

I'm talking about it coming from higher up the food chain.

Arkstfan · March 20, 2015

You want a model that works?

Starts at the CEO's office.

Most university CEOs are not athletics people even if they are fans and enjoy sports they don't get the nitty gritty. So they are looking for an AD, they look at the athletic budget and the first thing that jumps out is athletics needs more money, donations seem too low, ticket revenue seems too low.

Conclusion. I've got to hire someone who can solve that problem. So the final list of five candidates will be made up of three types of people.

1. Someone with a fund-raising background who has some awesome project to their credit. Never mind that the skills involved in getting T Boone to donate to OKST or the Gaylord family to donate to OU do not transfer to Denton, Jonesboro or El Paso.

2. Someone with a ticket sales background even though the skills involved in selling tickets in Austin or Baton Rouge are not the same ones needed at a G5 or struggling P5.

3. Some locally connected business person who knows how to run business but knows little of NCAA compliance, government budget process or fair rates for games and salaries.

A quality AD is going to miss on coaching hires but should get it right more often than not, should be able to watch a team and be able to figure out if an 8-4 football team is more likely a 5 or 6 win team but for some good breaks and not over-react to the winning in making decisions, likewise has to be able to see if the 12 win basketball team was well coached and is suffering from inexperience or injuries and should improve enough the next year to warrant riding out a bad year.

They also have to understand the big picture. When Malzahn was at AState, a new operations center for football was priority one and the AD had drawings done and all that. New AD comes in and first thing he says is "I'm not making a $20 million project that produces no revenue and has a limited impact on competitiveness my top priority".

Press box renovation with suites, loge boxes and club seating became the top priority, spending $7 million for a project that will generate over a million in direct revenue was a higher priority especially once he secured a $5 million gift and another just short of a million to build it without borrowing.

Indoor practice facility was priority two (construction began on it first because you can't gut your press conference during the season) because it was cheaper to build and impacted more sports (football, soccer, baseball, and track) and depending on the year the impact on competitiveness could be huge (for example AState baseball this year got in like two practices in four weeks because of the weather, football has had rain at two of three practices so far this spring other years we lose few if any practices).

Ops center is up next but it has been redesigned to include suites and loge seating so it will generate some revenue and the revenue from the press box will help fund it.

Understanding and thinking strategically about these things is a big deal, Maryland nearly had to drop numerous sports before the Big 10 rescue because they did a massive department wide construction project that they borrowed a lot of money for and planned to fund with new premium seating even though there was virtually no wait list for existing premium seating.

Someone who understands you need to hire people to help you win and understands college athletics finance is far more important than hiring the person who handed T Boone his receipt or managed to increase ticket sales 15% when the football team had its best year in a decade.

meanrob · March 20, 2015

I hear you Arkstfan and I agree with your assessment of what presidents look for but....

At our level we're not getting an AD well versed in all the aspects of both sports and fundraising. So give me a sports guy/deal sealer at the top and have a fundraising guy at number two.

Because more often than not the business guy will not get the sports side right. Then you're screwed.

SilverEagle · March 20, 2015

You want a model that works?

Starts at the CEO's office.

Most university CEOs are not athletics people even if they are fans and enjoy sports they don't get the nitty gritty. So they are looking for an AD, they look at the athletic budget and the first thing that jumps out is athletics needs more money, donations seem too low, ticket revenue seems too low.

Conclusion. I've got to hire someone who can solve that problem. So the final list of five candidates will be made up of three types of people.

1. Someone with a fund-raising background who has some awesome project to their credit. Never mind that the skills involved in getting T Boone to donate to OKST or the Gaylord family to donate to OU do not transfer to Denton, Jonesboro or El Paso.

2. Someone with a ticket sales background even though the skills involved in selling tickets in Austin or Baton Rouge are not the same ones needed at a G5 or struggling P5.

3. Some locally connected business person who knows how to run business but knows little of NCAA compliance, government budget process or fair rates for games and salaries.

A quality AD is going to miss on coaching hires but should get it right more often than not, should be able to watch a team and be able to figure out if an 8-4 football team is more likely a 5 or 6 win team but for some good breaks and not over-react to the winning in making decisions, likewise has to be able to see if the 12 win basketball team was well coached and is suffering from inexperience or injuries and should improve enough the next year to warrant riding out a bad year.

They also have to understand the big picture. When Malzahn was at AState, a new operations center for football was priority one and the AD had drawings done and all that. New AD comes in and first thing he says is "I'm not making a $20 million project that produces no revenue and has a limited impact on competitiveness my top priority".

Press box renovation with suites, loge boxes and club seating became the top priority, spending $7 million for a project that will generate over a million in direct revenue was a higher priority especially once he secured a $5 million gift and another just short of a million to build it without borrowing.

Indoor practice facility was priority two (construction began on it first because you can't gut your press conference during the season) because it was cheaper to build and impacted more sports (football, soccer, baseball, and track) and depending on the year the impact on competitiveness could be huge (for example AState baseball this year got in like two practices in four weeks because of the weather, football has had rain at two of three practices so far this spring other years we lose few if any practices).

Ops center is up next but it has been redesigned to include suites and loge seating so it will generate some revenue and the revenue from the press box will help fund it.

Understanding and thinking strategically about these things is a big deal, Maryland nearly had to drop numerous sports before the Big 10 rescue because they did a massive department wide construction project that they borrowed a lot of money for and planned to fund with new premium seating even though there was virtually no wait list for existing premium seating.

Someone who understands you need to hire people to help you win and understands college athletics finance is far more important than hiring the person who handed T Boone his receipt or managed to increase ticket sales 15% when the football team had its best year in a decade.

OK, would taking the job as the next NT AD be a pay cut for you? Otherwise, I have my candidate for our next AD..........

UNT90 · March 20, 2015

I hear you Arkstfan and I agree with your assessment of what presidents look for but....
At our level we're not getting an AD well versed in all the aspects of both sports and fundraising. So give me a sports guy/deal sealer at the top and have a fundraising guy at number two.
Because more often than not the business guy will not get the sports side right. Then you're screwed.

It looks like Arkansas St. did, so why not poor little ole UNT?

That guy also knows a thing or two about scheduling football games.

He should be on our short list for AD whenever RV decides he no longer wants his lifetime job.

Sorry, Arkstfan, but we could really use him.

Cerebus · March 20, 2015

Sorry, Arkstfan, but we could really use him.

Mohajir is an ASU alumn and letterman. He's in his dream job.

meanrob · March 20, 2015

It looks like Arkansas St. did, so why not poor little ole UNT?
That guy also knows a thing or two about scheduling football games.
He should be on our short list for AD whenever RV decides he no longer wants his lifetime job.
Sorry, Arkstfan, but we could really use him.

Again, it's easy to point a finger and say "they did it, let's use their way" or "they found a good AD". But to me that's the lazy way and certainly not the best way for us. We need a model that fits our situation.

And all of Arkstfan's good points aside, new suites can raise money but they can't complete a big third down pass.

I want a guy that can run an ATHLETIC department.