Rice's new league a saving grace

[MeanGreen61]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3290326

C-USA MEDIA DAYS

Rice's new league a saving grace

Owls will benefit from less travel, more visiting fans

By MOISEKAPENDA BOWER

Mike Pede was not being disrespectful when he laughed at the question posed to him that had a most obvious answer.

Will Rice be better off in its new conference?

Pede, the director of marketing and promotions at Rice, has toiled for a dozen years to make lemonade out of lemons. For most of his time on South Main, Pede has worked alone, and only recently did his staff grow to three full-time employees.

Most any marketing idea was plausible, no matter how far-fetched. After all, with identity-challenged San Jose State on the Owls' schedule, there was only so much Pede and his staff could do.

For the most part, those days are over. After nine athletically successful and financially challenging years in the Western Athletic Conference, Rice joined Conference USA this summer. The change is expected to provide a financial boost for its athletic department, with several factors impacting the number of dollars flowing in and out of its coffers.

"The extra revenue is fantastic for the bottom line of our athletic program," Pede said enthusiastically. "We don't necessarily get to turn around and re-spend that, but from what we're doing in a marketing standpoint, it's been made easier in a couple of ways."

Significant savings

The jump to C-USA could save Rice $1 million or more in annual travel costs.

Direct flights to WAC destinations were either exorbitantly priced (Hawaii) or impossible to secure (Fresno). Rice teams made nine trips to Hawaii in the 2004-05 academic year — two for women's soccer — at a cost of $300,000 to the athletic department.

With shorter flights and more frequent departures, Rice immediately cuts its travel costs. More flights to choose from also provides a chance to return home earlier than in previous years, saving on hotels, meal money and fatigue

"On the West Coast ... you play a late-night game over there — you've already lost two hours — and it was nothing to get back here at four or five in the morning," Rice football coach Ken Hatfield said. "That just zapped you and cost you one whole day to recover."

In baseball, Rice visited five WAC opponents. In C-USA, Rice will make four trips in 2006, and one of those is at Tulane in New Orleans, reachable by chartered bus. Rice will save about $25,000 by eliminating one trip through the air and additional money by exchanging a flight west for a bus trip to New Orleans.

In basketball, Rice endured five-day, two-game road swings, leaving on Wednesday, playing on Thursday, then traveling on Friday to play on Saturday before returning Sunday.

In C-USA, Rice will fly to and from each destination, not only saving money but preserving class time.

Visiting fans welcome

The visiting team revenue generated from the move to C-USA could be significant.

In football, C-USA programs Tulane, Southern Mississippi, Memphis and UAB purchase an average of 2,000 tickets for road contests — four times what Rice's opponents in the WAC typically requested.

Should those numbers hold to form, Rice could generate $64,000 annually from ticket sales alone. That figure doesn't include the windfall Rice could reap in concessions with additional fans.

In baseball, Rice recorded an average attendance of more than 2,800 fans for WAC games, a number that essentially matches its season ticket base. The lack of quality conference opponents — Fresno State (1997, 2000-01) and San Jose State (2000, '02) were the only other WAC schools to qualify for the NCAA Tournament since 1997 — hurt Rice at the gate.

In C-USA, where at least four programs reached the NCAA tournament in each of the last four seasons, Rice should witness a spike in attendance.

"We had to do such an education process in every ad ... on who was Fresno and where is Fresno and how good they are and how long they've been good, and that's completely changed now," Pede said. "We have found that our fans in this market know 80 percent of the teams that we are playing real well.

"Name recognition in this league has made selling sponsorships and activities around games much easier. That hurdle is easier to get over because of the other side of the equation."

Accounting for the tube

Rice's residual resources also should grow. With a more lucrative and comprehensive television contract (with ESPN and CSTV as the leading partners), to a vastly improved Web site managed by CSTV, to the dollars generated by a championship game in football and five C-USA bowl tie-ins, Rice will gain on a number of fronts.

Rice will have five football games televised this season, compared with two in 2005.

Games at UCLA (Sept. 10) and Texas (Sept. 17) will be carried on FSN Houston; CSTV will show UTEP-Rice (Oct. 29), Rice-SMU (Nov. 5) and Rice-UH (Nov. 26).

ESPN broadcasts twice as many C-USA games (16) than it does for the WAC. CSTV will televise some 160 C-USA games.

"Anytime you can improve the bottom line, it's going to be important," Rice athletic director Bobby May said. "And we are every bit about doing that.

Of course, Rice is as committed to winning championships, 26 of which were claimed in the WAC. Rice hopes switching conferences will yield an even greater bounty.

"I think it's a plus in every sense — financially and competitively," May said. "We felt like it was a place for us to be because of where Conference USA will be over time. We're really excited about competing for league championships in Conference USA. We had success in the WAC and we're excited about seeing how we can do in Conference USA."

[PlummMeanGreen]

Yeah, I'm sure with Rice's $1 billion plus endowment they were really sweating bullets over on Houston's South Main.

Edited August 3, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

[ipEAGLE]

Rice plays Football?

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

---LaTech should read this....The situation will be even worse for them this year .....Rice had some close opponents including LaTech, SMU and Tulsa.... La Tech will have none in the future unless they call NMSU close. LaTech isn't even located near a major airport nor are some of their oponents.

---North Texas has no business going into the far-flung WAC. I am not even so sure TCU did the smart thing going to their new conference. The new conference might be better than CUSA athletic-wise but the economic issues needed to be considered.

---We need to help improve the Belt and if CUSA happens then it does, if not, make the Belt a good conference. The Belt stretches across a highly populated football crazy part of the country. It can be done by several teams with good programs defeating other confernece's teams. sic 'em, Belt..

[THOR]

  I am not even so sure TCU did the smart thing going to their new conference.  The new conference might be better than CUSA athletic-wise but the economic issues needed to be considered.

←

Does money matter at TCU? I mean, will it hurt them with the extra travel?

I agree on making the Belt the best that it can be.

[Got5onIt]

What ever happened to Rice looking into dropping down to I-AA?