2009 Fb Schedule Negotiations Ohio Bobcats, Mid American

[OldTimer]

I was doing a google search and ran across a web site that stated Ohio (College or University) Bobcats were negotiating to play AT North Texas in 2009. Ohio Bobcats are in the Mid American Conference ...same as Ball State where we are scheduled to play there in ? Is this true? I don't know.

[emmitt01]

If it's true it is the kind of game that I would like to see us play. Beatable team that is also 1A.

Yes, I am fully aware that getting a more local team in Fouts would be preferable. Yes, I am aware that most fans might not know who Ohio is. Save it. We aren't exactly calling the shots when it comes to our home schedule just yet.

P.S. The even larger bright side is that the Daily often runs a typo that states we are playing whichever team their writers have heard of. In 2000 the Daily said we were playing Florida when South Florida was coming to town. Chances are the Daily will run headline saying Ohio State is coming to Fouts.

[GoMeanGreen1999]

I have to say though, I like the idea of Ohio University coming to Denton. Haven't they had a pretty decent team in the last few years? I bet more people have heard of that though than LaLa or whatever they go by.

[forevereagle]

I have to say though, I like the idea of Ohio University coming to Denton. Haven't they had a pretty decent team in the last few years? I bet more people have heard of that though than LaLa or whatever they go by.

They have been decent recently. Their HC is Frank Solich, former Nebraska HC. He has taken that program out of the crapper. They still aren't great, but they have improved.

[UNTflyer]

I'll take home-home series with MAC teams. Might be able to snag a couple players from up there.

[FirefightnRick]

I'll take home-home series with MAC teams. Might be able to snag a couple players from up there.

I agree.

Rick

[LongJim]

This is exactly the type of OOC game UNT should schedule. Kudos if it happens.

[GrandGreen]

I am not excited about playing a MAC team. They are not close and will bring a very small group to the game as will NT when visiting. Obviously, they are teams that you can get a home and away series with, but other than that I don't see any advantage to playing them. Shortly, NT will only have 4 oc games a season and if lucky two will be at home. It seems a waste to schedule a Northeastern team with little appeal in this area. Playing a local 1-aa team at home with no return games makes more sense to me than this. I doubt a game with Ohio, Akron, etc. would draw any more interest then a game with Texas State, SFA, Sam Houston, or McNeese State.

[UNTflyer]

I like it. We should be playing MAC, C-USA, MWC in home-home series instead of going to Oklahoma or LSU to get our asses handed to us for $500,000.

25,000 home seats at $20 each is the same thing.

[Huff]

I agree 100 per cent with the feelings of Grand Green. I am not sure what the cost of jet fuel will be when we play these guys but it will be expensive to get our team and administrators up there and back. That money could better be spent by contracting with Texas State - San Marcos, Sam Houston State, or SFA to play in Denton. I said as much to Hank and Rick a few days ago. I have such a huge amount of influence in that area that I am just certain that the contracts will be retuned to the MAC schools without a signature.

[PHSCoach]

I like it. We should be playing MAC, C-USA, MWC in home-home series instead of going to Oklahoma or LSU to get our asses handed to us for $500,000.

25,000 home seats at $20 each is the same thing.

Let's see last year the TOTAL for all ticket sales was $405,000 for all five homes games. Now you are going to get $500,000 extra for a MAC or MWC team???

Also I would question the 25,000 seats, the students have already paid their $4,000,000 so take off the 10,000 students seats.

This program can not make ends meet wihout the money games, I don't care what they do to student fees, until they can make about $900,000 per home game....

[greenjoe]

And somebody will confuse Ohio University with Ohio State.

"Did you hear North Texas knocked off Ohio State ?"

By the way, Matt Lauer of the Today Show is an Ohio University Alum.

GO MEAN GREEN

[UNTLifer]

Let's see last year the TOTAL for all ticket sales was $405,000 for all five homes games. Now you are going to get $500,000 extra for a MAC or MWC team???

Also I would question the 25,000 seats, the students have already paid their $4,000,000 so take off the 10,000 students seats.

This program can not make ends meet wihout the money games, I don't care what they do to student fees, until they can make about $900,000 per home game....

RV said years ago that we needed to average 25,000 per game to give up a money game.

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

Let's see last year the TOTAL for all ticket sales was $405,000 for all five homes games. Now you are going to get $500,000 extra for a MAC or MWC team???

Also I would question the 25,000 seats, the students have already paid their $4,000,000 so take off the 10,000 students seats.

This program can not make ends meet wihout the money games, I don't care what they do to student fees, until they can make about $900,000 per home game....

The Equity in Athletics Report indicates that $1.433 million was the TOTAL revenue from football. There's another $14+ million that's unallocated which I'd assume is from student fees, Mean Green Club, concessions and other forms of revenue.

We'll never be able to make $900,000 per game from ticket sales with this stadium unless we can charge upwards of $60 per ticket. There are too few seats that would warrant the reserved price and the student fees do not count toward football revenue.

Last year our total revenue for all sports was $16.787M and our expenses were $15.874M, giving us a surplus of $913,000. We should do better this year.

[houstonmeangreen]

I am not excited about playing a MAC team. They are not close and will bring a very small group to the game as will NT when visiting. Obviously, they are teams that you can get a home and away series with, but other than that I don't see any advantage to playing them. Shortly, NT will only have 4 oc games a season and if lucky two will be at home. It seems a waste to schedule a Northeastern team with little appeal in this area. Playing a local 1-aa team at home with no return games makes more sense to me than this. I doubt a game with Ohio, Akron, etc. would draw any more interest then a game with Texas State, SFA, Sam Houston, or McNeese State.

I agree, our students would turn out better with Tx State or Sam Houston....they know about these schools and possibly have friends that go to them.

[JesseMartin]

I am not excited about playing a MAC team. They are not close and will bring a very small group to the game as will NT when visiting. Obviously, they are teams that you can get a home and away series with, but other than that I don't see any advantage to playing them. Shortly, NT will only have 4 oc games a season and if lucky two will be at home. It seems a waste to schedule a Northeastern team with little appeal in this area. Playing a local 1-aa team at home with no return games makes more sense to me than this. I doubt a game with Ohio, Akron, etc. would draw any more interest then a game with Texas State, SFA, Sam Houston, or McNeese State.

Though I agree with you as far as drawing local fans of the opponent, I think it's really a toss-up because playing Ohio would give us a bit more recognition overall than would playing a lower level team from the same state. Though I'd still rather we play TCU or UTEP...decent teams but not somebody to whom we're likely to lose by 50 points.

[Arkstfan]

Being I-A and being worth a crap as member costs.

There is the cost of buying things and paying salaries (which is why you see money games).

But there is the cost of building a program that is more than a whore.

Schools should strive to play as many at home as they do away as an interim goal while playing more at home than away should be a long-term goal.

Fans have to become educated as well. UNT could play very regional schedule in the Southland, I don't recall 30,000 seat stadiums being something that was needed.

The pool of I-A schools willing to travel to a North Texas is limited. When you start matching up available dates, that pool gets even smaller. You have 15 weeks to squeeze in 12 games. The last week of the season is automatically not available for 63 teams (SEC, Big XII, ACC, C-USA, MAC, Army, Navy). 117 of 120 schools have to set aside 7 to 9 dates for conference play. It gets more challenging in the Sun Belt because the conference schedule isn't made until the members turn in their non-conference dates. That squirrels it up even more, leagues like the Big XII and SEC set their conference dates and then tell the members what days they have available for playing non-conference.

Would a MAC team or WAC team be my first choice? No. But if the choice is a road trip for a check or MAC school at home, the better long-term interest of the program says you take the I-A opponent.

[JesseMartin]

That squirrels it up even more

I like squirrels!

Seriously though...even though they renamed IA and IAA, what is generally considered IA still includes MAC/WAC and the big money schools.

[Cowtown]

I believe this to be the 4th part of the 4 game home and away NT vs MAC series.

1st game was @ Akron.

2nd game was to be at NT last year, but they backed out and we filled with Navy.

3rd game is up there somewhere. Bowling Green maybe???

4th game is vs Ohio.

And for what its worth I actually enjoyed the trip up to Akron, those northerners were pretty nice folk, sort of a mutual curiosity between fans...kind of like when you meet someone from Australia or Ireland.

[JesseMartin]

That's odd. I grew up in the north (NY and PA, so pretty close to OH) and I didn't meet many nice people in those 18 years. Maybe they all lived in Akron.

[GrandGreen]

I like it. We should be playing MAC, C-USA, MWC in home-home series instead of going to Oklahoma or LSU to get our asses handed to us for $500,000.

25,000 home seats at $20 each is the same thing.

It is not the same thing. Assuming that you could sell 25,000 seats at $20 that would generate $500,000 in revenue plus and minus parking, concessions, and game costs. Never mind that this would be impossible at Fouts, were students are allocated a large portion of the non-end zone seats and the most premium seats you could sell would be about 12,000. Assuming that you are playing a home and away series, you would have revenues of $500,000 for two games and an average of $250,000 a game. That does not compare to the $500,000 to $1,000,000 you get from an away only money game.

I have seem this RV quote about having 25,000 attendance substitute for a money game many times. I would like to see any economic model that would support this contention. I don't think you could ever raise ticket prices and donation levels to the point that it could be financial advantageous to drop a "money game" for a home and away series. There are obviously other reasons to eliminate "money" games but I don't think that it can be justified on an economic basis.

[UNTflyer]

Of course, 25k paid seats will only be possible in the new stadium. As far as I'm concerned, Fouts is a 20,000 seat stadium, and we only get about 3000-4000 students a game.

Also, ticket prices will go up in the new stadium. Premium seats may go for as much as $60 a game, with reserved seats in the range of $30-40 and endzone/visitor seats at $15-20.

Finally, I would say that we would get more non-UNT fans against MAC than we would against Sun Belt teams. Those schools have a longer and deeper football tradition than most Belt teams, and I think we would draw a lot of DFW-area alumni.

[Arkstfan]

It is not the same thing. Assuming that you could sell 25,000 seats at $20 that would generate $500,000 in revenue plus and minus parking, concessions, and game costs. Never mind that this would be impossible at Fouts, were students are allocated a large portion of the non-end zone seats and the most premium seats you could sell would be about 12,000. Assuming that you are playing a home and away series, you would have revenues of $500,000 for two games and an average of $250,000 a game. That does not compare to the $500,000 to $1,000,000 you get from an away only money game.

I have seem this RV quote about having 25,000 attendance substitute for a money game many times. I would like to see any economic model that would support this contention. I don't think you could ever raise ticket prices and donation levels to the point that it could be financial advantageous to drop a "money game" for a home and away series. There are obviously other reasons to eliminate "money" games but I don't think that it can be justified on an economic basis.

25,000 sold at $20 per = $500,000 x 6 home games = $3 million.

Even if you drop the average price of tickets sold to $15 that is $2.25 million.

You can get an average ticket price of $15 by selling 18,750 tickets at $20 and admitting 6,250 students or others for free and average 25,000 attendance.

[GrandGreen]

25,000 sold at $20 per = $500,000 x 6 home games = $3 million.

Even if you drop the average price of tickets sold to $15 that is $2.25 million.

You can get an average ticket price of $15 by selling 18,750 tickets at $20 and admitting 6,250 students or others for free and average 25,000 attendance.

[/quote

The discussion was could an individual game with attendance of 25,000 financially replace a "money game". I think the answer is a resounding no. That is quite different from the question could NT drop a money game based on the entire home attendance averaging 25,000. Assuming the same student attendance used in your example, that would be an average increase of an estimated 3000 students above the number of students at the 15,000 attendance level with would leave about 7000 additional tickets sold. That would leave approximately 13,750 side line seats available for purchase which is only 2,000 more than current levels. The other 5,000 seat would be end zone tickets. Assuming you could sell end zone seat for $10, NT would generate $50,000 in end zone tickets and $40,000 in side line tickets or a total $90,000 a game or $540,000 more a 6 game home schedule.

Estimated ticket distribution at 15,000 attendance: Students 3250, public side line 11,750, end zone 0 (actually maybe 100).

Estimated ticket distribution at 25,000 attendance: Students 6250, public side line 13,750, end zone 5,000

Delta: Students +3,000, public side line +2,000, end zone +5,000

The $540,000 extra a season could theoretically offset one scheduled "money" game especially when you considered the other increased revenues that would follow higher attendance. Adverting, donations, parking, concessions would all rise with higher attendance. I think you are right this is probably the logic that RV used to support his statement. However, I don't think it has ever been NT's plan to not have at least one "guaranteed away game a year.

However, IMO it would be almost impossible to average more than 20,000 at Fouts. Worst end zone seats than Fouts are sold for a lot more at OU and UT but that not going to happen in Denton with NT's schedule. There is also an interesting catch 22 at work with student attendance. The more appealing the opponent the greater student attendance and the less tickets available to the public.

[Green Mean]

I certainly do not mind playing MAC teams. There is some pretty decent talent and teams up there and if I am not mistaken Ohio U went or almost went to a bowl game a couple of years ago. I say bring them on since they are kind of in the same level of playing field as us and this is a winnable game.