Is it time to rethink the paycheck games?

[meangreanmick]

Because we should never compare ourselves to other universities like ourselves, just that terrible crappy athletic program that we have been, correct?

Other ADs didn't have Apogee to work with. RV does, and has done piss with it. Remember how we were told how bigger named opponents would finally come here when Apogee was built? Year 4 and still waiting with nada on the horizon and an AD that said in a podcast he would rather play money games than bring a name opponent to Apogee.

Why don't we look around at our peers and at least expect our AD to schedule as competently as them?

Or maybe we should just keep doing things the same terrible way we have been that has led to no home sell outs at Apogee.

Oh, and the fact that we have only 4 home games scheduled for next season because our AD didn't have the foresight to anticipate Tulsa's departure from the conference and amend the contract for home and homes with them accordingly leads me to believe it's laziness. Or naive. Or whatever you want to call it. I also think RV schedules at Apogee like he scheduled at Fouts. And that is lazy.

Well off the top of my head in the last 4 or 5 years at home, we had a Big 10 opponent in Indiana, we had Big 12 opponent in K State, several Conf USA opponent before we were Conf USA, service academies, several MAC opponents, and now SMU which might well be our biggest crowd ever. Given we can only have a few non conference opponents at home each year, I am pretty OK with that. I want some home non conference games we can win so we can build more long term fan support, against good mid majors and some bad P5 teams when we can swing it. Thats pretty much what we have had.

[meangreanmick]

Yeah, winning seasons defines a program. Getting your ass throttled once a year for a couple bucks is not a good thing.

I'm not saying I am for the body bag games, but its pretty much the standard for alot (not all) of the mid majors.

I would think any logical person would at least have to agree, it would be a calculated risk at best for us to ditch the body bag games in favor of less money to try to win more games. If it works and you get more fans to home games to cover the money you gave up you are a genius AD, if it fails and you kill your athletic budget you are either fired or worse left to try to manage an athletic program with not enough money to cover your budget.

[UNT90]

Well off the top of my head in the last 4 or 5 years at home, we had a Big 10 opponent in Indiana, we had Big 12 opponent in K State, several Conf USA opponent before we were Conf USA, service academies, several MAC opponents, and now SMU which might well be our biggest crowd ever. Given we can only have a few non conference opponents at home each year, I am pretty OK with that. I want some home non conference games we can win so we can build more long term fan support, against good mid majors and some bad P5 teams when we can swing it. Thats pretty much what we have had.

Hey, you want the same old same old and are ok with getting your head kicked in every year on the road by a P5. I get it.

But is it working? Lets see how many actually show up for SMU.

Edited August 31, 2014 by UNT90

[Ben Gooding]

Getting our face punched through every year is not worth a dime to me. The university needs to reach out to its alum and ask for donations. When people invest in money into something they are just not investing money, but they are investing themselves. As I type this I am watching the Baylor pregame and they showed a Charlie Strong interview and we were referred to as a measuring stick. If we don't want to be considered a measuring stick we need to reach out to the alum base.There are thousands upon thousands of alum in the area that are untapped and some could very well be willing to give, they just need to be asked.

[untjim1995]

It really doesn't matter in the long run. When the P5 makes it to where there are no OOC games against non-P5 teams, we won't deal with this anymore. At that point, we could really be one of the best G5 teams in the country. Granted, the normal 15-20k will be all that cares, but I suspect these scheduled body bag games within five years will need to get rescheduled. Just my $.02.

[Green P1]

I sure enjoy traveling to and attending these games.

[JesseMartin]

I sure enjoy traveling to and attending these games.

Wouldn't you enjoy them even more if we played known programs and won? Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, etc...

[NT91]

Home and home with Iowa St would be nice.

[Ben Gooding]

Iowa State would be hesitant to schedule an iffy OOC game. They are currently wiping blood stains off of their butt cheeks caused by an FCS program.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

RV has stated he played these paycheck games at Southern Miss and will continue to do so at UNT.

My question is should we? Is the money worth it?

This has been debated before but after last nights debacle I thought it worth discussing again.

We aren't even getting top dollar FAU is getting $1,000,000 for each of their games vs Nebraska and Alabama; it is reported we got $875,000 for our game vs UT.

Thoughts??

I've said many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, times that we should do it like Bill Snyder did it at Kansas State - schedule very winnable games at home for out of conference.

Snyder turned around the worst program in America doing that. But, many schools, stick to the easy-money formula. It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks...especially during these daunting times when alumni are impatient about everything.

[GrandGreen]

Everyone wants to win more games and this comes up after ever bad loss in NT's away guarantee games. What is seldom addressed is how do you replace the lost revenue which is close to as much as NT makes on its whole home schedule. Fans want well paid staffs and top notch facilities, but pay little attention to financial realities. It is ok to depend on students fees but the football team can't play one marquee opponent away a year.

Notice the difference in the reaction to the Georgia game last year when NT did better than expected to this year's fans responses.

I like the team playing these games, it is a good measuring stick for the team, gets more publicity than any regular season game, gives the players a big opportunity to show their stuff on a big stage, and yes it is a big plus in financing the program.

[UNT90]

Everyone wants to win more games and this comes up after ever bad loss in NT's away guarantee games. What is seldom addressed is how do you replace the lost revenue which is close to as much as NT makes on its whole home schedule. Fans want well paid staffs and top notch facilities, but pay little attention to financial realities. It is ok to depend on students fees but the football team can't play one marquee opponent away a year.

Notice the difference in the reaction to the Georgia game last year when NT did better than expected to this year's fans responses.

I like the team playing these games, it is a good measuring stick for the team, gets more publicity than any regular season game, gives the players a big opportunity to show their stuff on a big stage, and yes it is a big plus in financing the program.

If you believe what RV said, you replace this revenue with increased home attendance and increased membership in the Mean Green Club. You increase that membership with a winning program, home games that matter to casual album that you hope to convert to fans once you actually get them in the stadium, and wins over teams that matter.

RV said if we could get 30k a game and mean green club membership around 3k we wouldn't need to play these games. This should be his goal, not playing money games every year to get by.

Edited September 1, 2014 by UNT90

[UNT90]

Iowa State would be hesitant to schedule an iffy OOC game. They are currently wiping blood stains off of their butt cheeks caused by an FCS program.

Except we aren't an FCS team and that was a money game for that FCS team.

Do you now think Iowa St will stop paying FCS teams to come to Aimes, Iowa?

Hardly.

[Ben Gooding]

Everyone wants to win more games and this comes up after ever bad loss in NT's away guarantee games. What is seldom addressed is how do you replace the lost revenue which is close to as much as NT makes on its whole home schedule. Fans want well paid staffs and top notch facilities, but pay little attention to financial realities. It is ok to depend on students fees but the football team can't play one marquee opponent away a year.

Notice the difference in the reaction to the Georgia game last year when NT did better than expected to this year's fans responses.

I like the team playing these games, it is a good measuring stick for the team, gets more publicity than any regular season game, gives the players a big opportunity to show their stuff on a big stage, and yes it is a big plus in financing the program.

Double the student fee. It's a minuscule number right now that could easily be doubled. Tap into your alum base and get active donors. There are hundreds and thousands of potential donors living within a 2-3 hour perimeter of Denton. Even if the marketing department/administration could get 25k alum to donate 100 dollars a year..100 DOLLARS!! That is 2.5 million directed straight to the athletic department a year. Not only that, but those 25K would feel a closer connection to the university and football program and get more involved. Schedule opponents that we have a shot to beat and attendance will go up, it's inevitable. The University is doing little to nothing to do this from what I have seen and heard. They schedule the body bags because it's easier rather than actually coming up with a revamped marketing plan to get donors and attendance up. It's frustrating and please don't tell me this is the best they can do in terms of getting donors and attendance. There is an untapped well that North Texas isn't bothering to tap into.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Ben Gooding

[10Eagle10]

To start off, most who know me know that I prefer 7-8 home games per year and that I'm also heavily in favor of building an indoor practice facility. The latter is a little random for this conversation, but it IS one of the things I've been super consistent about. ...that and getting rid of some of our long time associate AD's, etc, but I digress...

1) I'm cool with scheduling an FCS buy game every year in order for us to get a minimum of 7 home games per year. I remember when we announced Nicholls State (and Texas Southern, etc) and it seemed like 60-80% of posts were people whining about the quality of opponent. THIS is one of the reasons we play P5 schools for paychecks...because there's a chance we might win and draw in the casual fan. All of the casual fans, and most of the posters on this board, from the aforementioned generic sample, are not interested in an easy Green win. Since we aren't Nebraska and won't sell out Apogee no matter who the opponent is, I support playing these types of games - primarily for the exposure.

2) Ben, I hear you when you talk about alums in a 2.5 hour perimeter but I want to give you real numbers to show you how high you've set that bar at 25k donating 100. There is a much larger school in the state, that has a much larger fan base and they only have 15K fans that donate $100 or more. When setting goals, remember to set the bar at a reasonable, attainable level and then work your way up

Lastly, I've thought Coach Mac should use his past connections to get us a series with Iowa State. That would be a P5 school that travels a thousand fans. They also have a history of playing home-and-home with G5 schools, and they do some serious recruiting in the DFW area. As an additional tidbit, I believe they are the only Big 12 school that North Texas has never played. I reserve my right to be wrong on that last statement, though.

[UNT90]

To start off, most who know me know that I prefer 7-8 home games per year and that I'm also heavily in favor of building an indoor practice facility. The latter is a little random for this conversation, but it IS one of the things I've been super consistent about. ...that and getting rid of some of our long time associate AD's, etc, but I digress...

1) I'm cool with scheduling an FCS buy game every year in order for us to get a minimum of 7 home games per year. I remember when we announced Nicholls State (and Texas Southern, etc) and it seemed like 60-80% of posts were people whining about the quality of opponent. THIS is one of the reasons we play P5 schools for paychecks...because there's a chance we might win and draw in the casual fan. All of the casual fans, and most of the posters on this board, from the aforementioned generic sample, are not interested in an easy Green win. Since we aren't Nebraska and won't sell out Apogee no matter who the opponent is, I support playing these types of games - primarily for the exposure.

2) Ben, I hear you when you talk about alums in a 2.5 hour perimeter but I want to give you real numbers to show you how high you've set that bar at 25k donating 100. There is a much larger school in the state, that has a much larger fan base and they only have 15K fans that donate $100 or more. When setting goals, remember to set the bar at a reasonable, attainable level and then work your way up

Lastly, I've thought Coach Mac should use his past connections to get us a series with Iowa State. That would be a P5 school that travels a thousand fans. They also have a history of playing home-and-home with G5 schools, and they do some serious recruiting in the DFW area. As an additional tidbit, I believe they are the only Big 12 school that North Texas has never played. I reserve my right to be wrong on that last statement, though.

You do realize that we have never had a 7 home game season and will have to buy an FCS opponent next year to get to 5 home games, correct?

I'd love to have 7, right now I'd settle for a minimum of 6. A hard minimum.

Edited September 1, 2014 by UNT90

[Ben Gooding]

Yeah 25K was just a throw out number. 5K would still give the athletic department 500k a year. Anything and everything helps. I am not in the business of getting slaughtered. Someone said on here that UT has a perception that they are just as good as the other standing blue bloods, but UT doesn't schedule them to never give the general pop proof. So they can carry that perception forever. Why put our players and program perception to the test every single year for a little money when the school can tap into its alum and avoid these games, most years. I am ready to see drastic changes and hate to say it, but money will do this. I am still waiting to get a letter in the mail asking for money. I am a prime example. I just graduated a few months ago and I have still not received an alum letter requesting a donation. When it comes I will fill it out and give. If it doesn't eventually come on its own accord I will call and make it happen. We have some good fans, but apparently a lot of them are tight wallet fans. And that's fine, if you really can't donate because of financial reasons its completely understandable. But if you can, then why not? GMG

Oh and a tiny athletic fee is still inexcusable. We could double it and that would tremendously help out.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Ben Gooding

[UNT90]

The refusal to increase the athletic fee tells you everything you need to know about where UNT places athletics as a priority.

Still can't seem to grasp the very hard lesson.

Dear BOR, take a very hard look at your endowment and then ask yourselves if maybe a different approach may help not only athletics, but the UNT system as a whole.

Problem is, you won't get there with an AD hell bent to do things the 1999 way.

[GrandGreen]

Double the student fee. It's a minuscule number right now that could easily be doubled. Tap into your alum base and get active donors. There are hundreds and thousands of potential donors living within a 2-3 hour perimeter of Denton. Even if the marketing department/administration could get 25k alum to donate 100 dollars a year..100 DOLLARS!! That is 2.5 million directed straight to the athletic department a year. Not only that, but those 25K would feel a closer connection to the university and football program and get more involved. Schedule opponents that we have a shot to beat and attendance will go up, it's inevitable. The University is doing little to nothing to do this from what I have seen and heard. They schedule the body bags because it's easier rather than actually coming up with a revamped marketing plan to get donors and attendance up. It's frustrating and please don't tell me this is the best they can do in terms of getting donors and attendance. There is an untapped well that North Texas isn't bothering to tap into.

Minuscule compared to what. Currently about $300 a year per full time student of which about half never go to any athletic event. Yes, if NT had 20,000 or about 10% of the alumni giving an equal amount, NT would be in much better shape. If you want to pontificate, what if NT like a lot of universities actually raised enough money to fund the building of Apogee and that student fee could be used for operations not debt service (assuming that NT could have got it approved without tying it to construction like every other school).

As far as scheduling opponents that NT is competitive with, raising attendance; really? Seems the whole home schedule last year fit that requirement, yet a 9-4 team couldn't sell out Apogee.

It is alright to speculate what greater support would generate, but NT is not there yet; so how is NT going to replace that one guaranteed game now?

[10Eagle10]

You do realize that we have never had a 7 home game season and will have to buy an FCS opponent next year to get to 5 home games, correct?

I'd love to have 7, right now I'd settle for a minimum of 6. A hard minimum.

Unfortunately, I do know these things. I was merely stating that I would prefer for us to make 7-8 home games the standard. The current 2015 schedule with only 4 home games is one of the many reasons that I believe it is time for a change at the top. RV did some great things, but if he truly cares about North Texas reaching the next level then he needs to step down and hand the torch off to a new, outside hire. However, he selfishly hangs on because he wants all the credit.

6 should always be the hard minimum. Anything less is unacceptable. SMU in Dallas is not a home game

[UNT90]

Minuscule compared to what. Currently about $300 a year per full time student of which about half never go to any athletic event. Yes, if NT had 20,000 or about 10% of the alumni giving an equal amount, NT would be in much better shape. If you want to pontificate, what if NT like a lot of universities actually raised enough money to fund the building of Apogee and that student fee could be used for operations not debt service (assuming that NT could have got it approved without tying it to construction like every other school).As far as scheduling opponents that NT is competitive with, raising attendance; really? Seems the whole home schedule last year fit that requirement, yet a 9-4 team couldn't sell out Apogee.It is alright to speculate what greater support would generate, but NT is not there yet; so how is NT going to replace that one guaranteed game now?

Like every other school!! WTF?? You mean like absolutely no other school, right?

UTSA has an athletic fee twice the size of UNT and they haven't built a damn thing to tie it to.

Another reason why Dallas Lee and his terrible brand of "leadership" should be shown the door. The students voted for the fee and Dallas Lee stood by and allowed the legislature to change the will of the students.

If students don't want to pay the fee, they have the right to choose to go to school elsewhere. But they will probably be paying a bigger fee at UNT's competitors.

Raise the damn fee, already. This is yet another failure of RV to get this done. I often wonder if the BOR wishes that fee had been voted down. I do believe that is what they expected and they have appeared to take steps to minimize the fee since it's inception.

Like Jim often says on here, we care .way more about UNT and UNT athletics than many people in the UNT administration. RV goes along to get along to keep the easiest job in America, AD at UNT. And we the alumni and fans are stuck with what they give us.

[GrandGreen]

Like every other school!! WTF?? You mean like absolutely no other school, right?

UTSA has an athletic fee twice the size of UNT and they haven't built a damn thing to tie it to.

Another reason why Dallas Lee and his terrible brand of "leadership" should be shown the door. The students voted for the fee and Dallas Lee stood by and allowed the legislature to change the will of the students.

If students don't want to pay the fee, they have the right to choose to go to school elsewhere. But they will probably be paying a bigger fee at UNT's competitors.

Raise the damn fee, already. This is yet another failure of RV to get this done. I often wonder if the BOR wishes that fee had been voted down. I do believe that is what they expected and they have appeared to take steps to minimize the fee since it's inception.

Like Jim often says on here, we care .way more about UNT and UNT athletics than many people in the UNT administration. RV goes along to get along to keep the easiest job in America, AD at UNT. And we the alumni and fans are stuck with what they give us.

Easy to spend someone else's money isn't it Yes, the Texas Twins both pay the maximum but that is far from the norm. It is mostly the G5 schools that depend on student fees as their largest source of income. By the way where do you think those extra millions the School has to kick in every year to balance the athletic budget comes from? It is not from the state or donations, it is from students tuition and fees; so I am not sure many schools' students pay more than NT students for athletics.

I am not against NT raising the dedicated athletic fee to the maximum, but I have a big issue with complaining fans who don't contribute or spend near that amount in support of the team advocating that students contribute more.

[GreenMachine]

To start off, most who know me know that I prefer 7-8 home games per year and that I'm also heavily in favor of building an indoor practice facility. The latter is a little random for this conversation, but it IS one of the things I've been super consistent about. ...that and getting rid of some of our long time associate AD's, etc, but I digress...

1) I'm cool with scheduling an FCS buy game every year in order for us to get a minimum of 7 home games per year. I remember when we announced Nicholls State (and Texas Southern, etc) and it seemed like 60-80% of posts were people whining about the quality of opponent. THIS is one of the reasons we play P5 schools for paychecks...because there's a chance we might win and draw in the casual fan. All of the casual fans, and most of the posters on this board, from the aforementioned generic sample, are not interested in an easy Green win. Since we aren't Nebraska and won't sell out Apogee no matter who the opponent is, I support playing these types of games - primarily for the exposure.

2) Ben, I hear you when you talk about alums in a 2.5 hour perimeter but I want to give you real numbers to show you how high you've set that bar at 25k donating 100. There is a much larger school in the state, that has a much larger fan base and they only have 15K fans that donate $100 or more. When setting goals, remember to set the bar at a reasonable, attainable level and then work your way up

Lastly, I've thought Coach Mac should use his past connections to get us a series with Iowa State. That would be a P5 school that travels a thousand fans. They also have a history of playing home-and-home with G5 schools, and they do some serious recruiting in the DFW area. As an additional tidbit, I believe they are the only Big 12 school that North Texas has never played. I reserve my right to be wrong on that last statement, though.

I couldn't agree more about getting rid of some of the long time associate Ad's. We have so much dead wood employed be the Ad, RV should clean house or he should be cleaned out. We bitch and moan about lack of money but continue to pay completely incompetent employees, makes no sense at all.

[untbowler]

I couldn't agree more about getting rid of some of the long time associate Ad's. We have so much dead wood employed be the Ad, RV should clean house or he should be cleaned out. We bitch and moan about lack of money but continue to pay completely incompetent employees, makes no sense at all.

Well they just follow the lead of the BOR, who just gave an incompetent Chancellor a unanimous contract extension for nothing but sabotaging UNT Main Campus and sweeping under the rug a huge financial crisis

[UNTexas]

I have never liked them to start a season. Every single year hope springs eternal. People think "maybe North Texas really is improved". Then we play these body bag games and it's "same ol' North Texas". We could butt pound SMU next week and the stench will still be there. We've proven in week one that the casual fan can chalk us up to "good for a CUSA team".

Is aTm better than UT? Yes. Would they pound them by two touchdowns? Probably. But UT dodges them and ensures that the casual fan never gets proof.

Texas leads their series 76-37-5 and won the last time they played. Why would they schedule an ATM when the can destroy teams like us? ATM left on their own. I don't blame Texas one bit for not playing them anymore when they can beat teams like us before Big 12 games. If I were a Texas fan I'd point the the stats because they dont lie and it pisses Aggies off regardless of how much success ATM gets. Either way, Texas will always play their rival, Oklahoma.

On a side note I think it's pretty laughable that the Aggies fight song starts with a sad display of inferiority to a team they don't play anymore. It bugs some aggies I know to no end. And of course I brought it up over drinks and let the rants begin.