AD is posting real donor numbers

MeanGreenTexan · June 7, 2018

16 minutes ago, SteaminWillieBeamin said:

It is preaching to the choir -- for sure. We all give to the AD one way or the other.

It seems like what we get back from the AD is less over time. Sure, I appreciate the large flag pole. It looks great when I drive to CO once every other year.

Though for my four tickets on the HUB level, I am getting less and paying substantially more than under RV. My per seat money went up. The level of competition when down (dramatically). The number of games per year when down. The number of realistically attend-able games has gone down (Thursday night games!). The level of competition makes it impossible to even *give* my tickets away. The AD money it takes to park close to my seat has gone up dramatically - they want rough $500 PER GAME to have ONE spot on the north side of the stadium.

Note: I am not and was not an RV fan. I think the transparency is great. Definitely better than RV.

I don't think squeezing blood from a rock is the right way. I know 8 people that have dropped out from the HubClub and plan to just watch TV this year... they are gone. They don't donate to the AD at all anymore. They are likely not to come back. Frankly, I am teetering on that edge too. Trying to figure out if 5-6 game days per year is worth $5000+ dollars. Hard to stomach 2 home games to miserable programs and then a way late Thursday game... that will require a babysitter and time off of work to attend.

Down vote all you want. This is a real problem. They need to get their headcount up.. Period. Not try to get me to donate $10k to make up for their poor sales numbers.

Maybe consider (and tell your 8 buddies as well) moving out of the HUB Club and sit in 206/207 for much, much less, and have access to the same football games!

...rather than dropping completely.

oldguystudent · June 7, 2018

I anticipate a certain eventuality of getting priced out of my club seats so they can be occupied by somebody who will pay more than I do.

If/When that day arrives, I don't know what I'll do going forward. Fresh out of grad school, (still) burdened with student debt, and entry level in my profession, It was a bit of a financial stretch for me when I signed on for them, so I do feel some level of entitlement to them today. I would probably be resistant to downgrading after all of it.

(Insert certain members who will inevitably tell me to suck it up and pay MOAR)

UNTLifer · June 7, 2018

3 hours ago, UNTFan23 said:

I think 2 winning seasons over the last 10 years has more to do with the disappointing MGSF numbers than a single game/opponent.

Actually, even through the Sun Belt glory days the numbers were poor because our prior AD didn't put any effort in to building the MGC. Prior to that, it was an institutional issue dating back to President Matthews, so this is an entire culture change and chasing aging alums that have never given to the university or to the athletic department is almost futile. Go after the younger alums, recent grads and prime the current students.

Aldo · June 7, 2018

42 minutes ago, SteaminWillieBeamin said:

I don't think squeezing blood from a rock is the right way. I know 8 people that have dropped out from the HubClub and plan to just watch TV this year... they are gone. They don't donate to the AD at all anymore. They are likely not to come back.

That seems like an extreme overreaction.

To not donate at all seems that something else is at play here. Football is expensive and market price changes. We get what we pay for, and I'm sorry that you are getting priced out (I got priced out last season and am in GA now), but I expect these pricing structure changes means we are in for a more quality athletic program, instead of coasting by with putting lipstick on aging facilities.

Green Crazy · June 7, 2018

40 minutes ago, SteaminWillieBeamin said:

It is preaching to the choir -- for sure. We all give to the AD one way or the other.

It seems like what we get back from the AD is less over time. Sure, I appreciate the large flag pole. It looks great when I drive to CO once every other year.

Though for my four tickets on the HUB level, I am getting less and paying substantially more than under RV. My per seat money went up. The level of competition when down (dramatically). The number of games per year when down. The number of realistically attend-able games has gone down (Thursday night games!). The level of competition makes it impossible to even *give* my tickets away. The AD money it takes to park close to my seat has gone up dramatically - they want rough $500 PER GAME to have ONE spot on the north side of the stadium.

Note: I am not and was not an RV fan. I think the transparency is great. Definitely better than RV.

I don't think squeezing blood from a rock is the right way. I know 8 people that have dropped out from the HubClub and plan to just watch TV this year... they are gone. They don't donate to the AD at all anymore. They are likely not to come back. Frankly, I am teetering on that edge too. Trying to figure out if 5-6 game days per year is worth $5000+ dollars. Hard to stomach 2 home games to miserable programs and then a way late Thursday game... that will require a babysitter and time off of work to attend.

Down vote all you want. This is a real problem. They need to get their headcount up.. Period. Not try to get me to donate $10k to make up for their poor sales numbers.

i am confused by this section. i understand the cost going up, but the level of competition has stayed the same. the number of home games/non-weekday games has been better. from 2012-2016 we had two seasons of 5 home games and 4 seasons of a weekday game and two seasons of 5 home games where one of them was a weekday game.

also, i bet you could sell your tickets on this board and not have to give them away. :)

GrandGreen · June 7, 2018

34 minutes ago, SteaminWillieBeamin said:

It is preaching to the choir -- for sure. We all give to the AD one way or the other.

It seems like what we get back from the AD is less over time. Sure, I appreciate the large flag pole. It looks great when I drive to CO once every other year.

Though for my four tickets on the HUB level, I am getting less and paying substantially more than under RV. My per seat money went up. The level of competition when down (dramatically). The number of games per year when down. The number of realistically attend-able games has gone down (Thursday night games!). The level of competition makes it impossible to even *give* my tickets away. The AD money it takes to park close to my seat has gone up dramatically - they want rough $500 PER GAME to have ONE spot on the north side of the stadium.

Note: I am not and was not an RV fan. I think the transparency is great. Definitely better than RV.

I don't think squeezing blood from a rock is the right way. I know 8 people that have dropped out from the HubClub and plan to just watch TV this year... they are gone. They don't donate to the AD at all anymore. They are likely not to come back. Frankly, I am teetering on that edge too. Trying to figure out if 5-6 game days per year is worth $5000+ dollars. Hard to stomach 2 home games to miserable programs and then a way late Thursday game... that will require a babysitter and time off of work to attend.

Down vote all you want. This is a real problem. They need to get their headcount up.. Period. Not try to get me to donate $10k to make up for their poor sales numbers.

NT fans in general bitch about anything. Imagine paying $5 coverage charge for the Coaches Caravan with refreshments provided. Now the shame of being charged like the vast majority of D1 programs for premium tickets.

I made a very easy calculation, maintaining premium seatings is not high enough on my priorities to continue. However, I don't fault Baker or the university for their decision.

There too many NT fans who squawk about lack of commitment to athletics by the University., but then complain when any attempt is made to raise revenues from fans.

Kudos to Steamin- for supporting the program at a high level, but the truth is that athletic departments are not ran on prior donations. Contribute at the level you feel comfortable with. I don't understand why anyone who supported the program enough to have Club access would not attend future games because they have felt wronged because NT had the gaul to raise donations level for premium seats.

GTWT · June 7, 2018

4 hours ago, UNTFan23 said:

I think 2 winning seasons over the last 10 years has more to do with the disappointing MGSF numbers than a single game/opponent.

Maybe, but scheduling will cost at least one (albeit minor) supporter for the foreseeable future.

GTWT · June 7, 2018

2 hours ago, Green Lantern said:

Also, the Houston home and home is only on the schedule because of the Liberty for Army switch. The changing of available dates made that series possible.

Dont much care for the Liberty series one way or another, but if we view it more in the context of adding a Houston - North Texas series, losing a couple games with Army, and tolerating a spare Liberty series, I think we still win. Having H & H’s with Houston, SMU, Memphis and Wyoming (AAC and MWC) are the perfect opportunities to elevate the program in the eyes of our (slightly) aspirational peer group if we keep progressing on the field and win a bunch of those games.

Could we have dropped Army, thus freeing up dates for Houston, without adding Liberty?

forevereagle · June 7, 2018

11 minutes ago, GTWT said:

Maybe, but scheduling will cost at least one (albeit minor) supporter for the foreseeable future.

So your hate for Liberty is greater than your love for your university? You are willing to give up on the program because you don't like playing a team twice? Just want to understand the logic here.

Edited June 7, 2018 by forevereagle

MrStrange18 · June 7, 2018

2 hours ago, greenminer said:

I can't point to any singular decision/event as a reason for these numbers. I think the story of UNT and these numbers is a perfect storm of disastrous hires/fires, administration, constant losing, pissing off the wrong people....just about anything that you can imagine to disconnect from your alumni, we've done...consistently for decades.

Do I think Liberty in place of Army is bad? Yes, but I think it's okay if we we get the majority of everything else right. We don't need to be perfect; we don't need to nitpick every fine detail as if the world is coming to an end. But we can look for trends that indicate what direction our AD is taking us.

Meh... I am still optimistic that our NEW AD will see these same trends and have some ideas to better things for us.

I do think its interesting that this thread has turned into a Liberty replacing Army thread.

UNTFan23 · June 7, 2018

7 minutes ago, GTWT said:

Could we have dropped Army, thus freeing up dates for Houston, without adding Liberty?

Tough to say. Army could have made it a stipulation that in order for the two games to be dropped, NT had to help find a replacement. Liberty also signed a multi-game agreement with Army (which coincidentally was announced at the same time as NT/Army were dropping its two games), which could have been in part brokered by NT. Liberty could have said they'd agree to Army if we played them in a home-n-home 2-game series.

meangreenlax · June 7, 2018

After a long and storied history of being the worst kind of mediocre, some on this board are completely befuddled as to why people haven't come back after two winning seasons... Unbelievable.

Casual fans are just wondering when UNT will regress back towards their historical average of suck-assery. To change that, you have to win, and win for a long time. Maybe things will change if we're able to sustain some success for a long period of time. How else can we get rid of the stench that the Mean Green brand has cultivated over the past couple decades?

MeanGreenTexan · June 7, 2018

3 hours ago, oldguystudent said:

I anticipate a certain eventuality of getting priced out of my club seats so they can be occupied by somebody who will pay more than I do.

If/When that day arrives, I don't know what I'll do going forward. Fresh out of grad school, (still) burdened with student debt, and entry level in my profession, It was a bit of a financial stretch for me when I signed on for them, so I do feel some level of entitlement to them today. I would probably be resistant to downgrading after all of it.

(Insert certain members who will inevitably tell me to suck it up and pay MOAR)

IF it does... I hope you stick around and come join the bourgeois down below instead of just walking away altogether.

However, the obvious solution is to suck it up and pay more.

GTWT · June 7, 2018

3 hours ago, forevereagle said:

So your hate for Liberty is greater than your love for your university? You are willing to give up on the program because you don't like playing a team twice? Just want to understand the logic here.

Don't conflate the AD with the University of North Texas. I won't support UNT athletics while such bad choices are being made. I will continue to contribute to my old department & to the general scholarship fund.

Green Lantern · June 7, 2018

4 hours ago, GTWT said:

Could we have dropped Army, thus freeing up dates for Houston, without adding Liberty?

i don't believe so. In dropping the Army games in 2018 and 2019, it created a 2019 open date home game at Apogee which was replaced with Houston since they had a mutual open date that same weekend. We return to UH in 2023 according to the MeanGreeSports.com article announcing the series. Great that the series is front loaded for us getting the home game first.

Objectively, a series against UH can't be seen as inferior to Army. In state rivalry. Houston area vs. DFW area. Better for recruiting. If both teams continue to be very competitive in the coming years, this will be a highly attended, financially beneficial series to both parties. Both programs sets of fans attend these games in significant numbers making for a fun game day experience. Plus another great alumni engagement opportunity for our alumni in Houston, along with an easy in state travel game for DFW, Austin and San Antonio area fans.

GTWT · June 7, 2018

29 minutes ago, Green Lantern said:

i don't believe so. In dropping the Army games in 2018 and 2019, it created a 2019 open date home game at Apogee which was replaced with Houston since they had a mutual open date that same weekend. We return to UH in 2023 according to the MeanGreeSports.com article announcing the series. Great that the series is front loaded for us getting the home game first.

Objectively, a series against UH can't be seen as inferior to Army. In state rivalry. Houston area vs. DFW area. Better for recruiting. If both teams continue to be very competitive in the coming years, this will be a highly attended, financially beneficial series to both parties. Both programs sets of fans attend these games in significant numbers making for a fun game day experience. Plus another great alumni engagement opportunity for our alumni in Houston, along with an easy in state travel game for DFW, Austin and San Antonio area fans.

Yes. The UH series is a positive. However, you didn't answer my question. Why, after dropping Army, did we have to add Liberty? How was scheduling the Houston games dependent upon playing Liberty?

GTWT · June 7, 2018

5 hours ago, UNTFan23 said:

Liberty could have said they'd agree to Army if we played them in a home-n-home 2-game series.

Do you really believe that Liberty U has that much leverage? I suspect LU would really love to play an institution with the status of the Military Academy. It's a shame Army agreed to play them. It's a bigger shame that we agreed.

Green Lantern · June 7, 2018

1 minute ago, GTWT said:

Yes. The UH series is a positive. However, you didn't answer my question. Why, after dropping Army, did we have to add Liberty? How was scheduling the Houston games dependent upon playing Liberty?

Because we dropped Army in 2018 & 2019, which meant we added the away game this year at Liberty. Due to their FBS transition status Liberty was one of very few teams that had 2018 availability. We already had an FCS team in Incarnate Word scheduled for 2018, so we couldn’t just plug a non FBS game in that slot. Only 1 FCS win counts towards bowl eligibility in a given year.

I’m not jazzed about Liberty, but them having schedule flex allowed us to add Houston after our coaching staff asked to reduce the number of times we have to play Army. I believe there’s still more UNT-Army games on future schedules down the road. Hope so, cause I really enjoyed my trip to West Point when we played there last time. Would definitely do it again.

GTWT · June 7, 2018

2 minutes ago, Green Lantern said:

Because we dropped Army in 2018 & 2019, which meant we added the away game this year at Liberty. Due to their FBS transition status Liberty was one of very few teams that had 2018 availability. We already had an FCS team in Incarnate Word scheduled for 2018, so we couldn’t just plug a non FBS game in that slot. Only 1 FCS win counts towards bowl eligibility in a given year.

I’m not jazzed about Liberty, but them having schedule flex allowed us to add Houston after our coaching staff asked to reduce the number of times we have to play Army. I believe there’s still more UNT-Army games on future schedules down the road. Hope so, cause I really enjoyed my trip to West Point when we played there last time. Would definitely do it again.

If the only available replacement for Army in 2018 & 2019 was Liberty then it was a mistake to drop Army. I really don't care how hard it was for UNT's coaching staff to prepare for Army - that's their job. Playing Army is good for the program, playing Liberty isn't. Do what's best for the program & let the coaches bitch about how tough it is.

Green Lantern · June 7, 2018

9 minutes ago, GTWT said:

If the only available replacement for Army in 2018 & 2019 was Liberty then it was a mistake to drop Army. I really don't care how hard it was for UNT's coaching staff to prepare for Army - that's their job. Playing Army is good for the program, playing Liberty isn't. Do what's best for the program & let the coaches bitch about how tough it is.

Agree to disagree then. UNT has a promising, well regarded, up and coming head coach (along with several young well regarded assistants). It benefits us to try and keep these guys happy and feeling like their needs (and sometimes just desires for the program) are being supported. Feel like Wren and the team did best by the program by addressing the coaches concerns in scheduling, then creating a great opportunity for us with the UH series as a result.

I understand your personal issues with Liberty. Just feel like most of our fans will view it as a "meh" game. UH series, along with the other AAC and MWC home and homes are genuinely exciting opportunities..

forevereagle · June 8, 2018

2 hours ago, GTWT said:

Don't conflate the AD with the University of North Texas. I won't support UNT athletics while such bad choices are being made. I will continue to contribute to my old department & to the general scholarship fund.

Then why are you here? This site, especially this particular forum, is dedicated to athletics. If you no longer support athletics because of this, then why are you here constantly bringing it up?

Harry · June 8, 2018

The coaching staff wants winnable games. The AD wants games that will drive attendance, increase revenues AND wants to keep their coaches (especially winning ones) happy. It's a tough path to negotiate.

meangreenJW · June 8, 2018

8 hours ago, GTWT said:

Maybe, but scheduling will cost at least one (albeit minor) supporter for the foreseeable future.

Then chances are we were gonna lose you anyway. I've heard of fickle fans but damn

Green Crazy · June 8, 2018

2 hours ago, GTWT said:

If the only available replacement for Army in 2018 & 2019 was Liberty then it was a mistake to drop Army. I really don't care how hard it was for UNT's coaching staff to prepare for Army - that's their job. Playing Army is good for the program, playing Liberty isn't. Do what's best for the program & let the coaches bitch about how tough it is.

Don't say choices when you mean choice, singular.

meangreenJW · June 8, 2018

9 hours ago, SteaminWillieBeamin said:

It is preaching to the choir -- for sure. We all give to the AD one way or the other.

It seems like what we get back from the AD is less over time. Sure, I appreciate the large flag pole. It looks great when I drive to CO once every other year.

Though for my four tickets on the HUB level, I am getting less and paying substantially more than under RV. My per seat money went up. The level of competition when down (dramatically). The number of games per year when down. The number of realistically attend-able games has gone down (Thursday night games!). The level of competition makes it impossible to even *give* my tickets away. The AD money it takes to park close to my seat has gone up dramatically - they want rough $500 PER GAME to have ONE spot on the north side of the stadium.

Note: I am not and was not an RV fan. I think the transparency is great. Definitely better than RV.

I don't think squeezing blood from a rock is the right way. I know 8 people that have dropped out from the HubClub and plan to just watch TV this year... they are gone. They don't donate to the AD at all anymore. They are likely not to come back. Frankly, I am teetering on that edge too. Trying to figure out if 5-6 game days per year is worth $5000+ dollars. Hard to stomach 2 home games to miserable programs and then a way late Thursday game... that will require a babysitter and time off of work to attend.

Down vote all you want. This is a real problem. They need to get their headcount up.. Period. Not try to get me to donate $10k to make up for their poor sales numbers.

Huh? Prices did go up. But home schedules are done for several years. We have at least six every year and a couple years will have seven so the less games claim is blatantly false. As is the claim schedule is worse. in the next decade we will have home games against Houston, Cal and Texas Tech. Get you on being upset your tickets went up. The rest of this isn't true. And by the way at the Rockwall caravan WB mentioned club seat sales hit an all time high last year and they expect to sell out this year.