ACC votes to add Stanford, Cal, SMU: Conference presidents approve expansion to 18 schools | Page 8 | The Boneyard

ACC votes to add Stanford, Cal, SMU: Conference presidents approve expansion to 18 schools

Fishy said:
The students.

Remember them? They’re paying Geno and Danny. They pay $450-500 a head directly to athletics and then around $35M that ideally would be spent on them is diverted to athletics to keep that machine alive.

That’s how all of this is working.
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I'm not sure people are looking around enough to see what's going on. I see an unwillingness to look at reality, because the alternative is too bleak.

We have a P4 school in West Virginia firing 20% of the university.

We've got a new president at UConn openly threatening the legislature in the media.

We have U. Cal--a well-heeled school that spent way too much on athletic facilities with a massive hole in its athletics funding--back when it was in the Pac12, never mind now.

These are not normal things.
 
Gentlemen, it has been a privelage sh!tposting with you this past decade…

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The attitudes of some people on this board are hard to take. Is what happened to UConn in realignment a positive? Of course not, but you learn to move forward. People talk about revenue shortfalls, but did anyone notice there were 35k tickets distributed for the football game on Thursday? Of course there were freebies,... But, I think UConn did <$2 million in football ticket sales last year. What if you had 30k paying customers (not including students) to football games at an average of $30/ticket. That's $900k per game times 6 equals $5.4 million per year. Fill the Rent, and revenues will increase.

There are many options to raise revenues going forward. Increase attendance at all sports, hockey, soccer, football, basketball; make donations a focus and dramatically increase athletic giving; Increase reach out to potential corporate sponsors; figure out a way to monetize UConn+. Put it on cable systems in Connecticut and charge for it, maybe $0.25 to $0.50 per month; Figure out a way to monetize the naming of Gampel;....

Some will accuse me of being a pollyanna, but in my business career, I have never seen a company succeed when they thought the obstacles were too steep and they decided they couldn't compete. And, don't say there is nothing you can do. Buy a ticket to a game, rally your friends and family to attend a game, buy a UConn T-shirt, watch games on TV to improve ratings, donate $25 to the athletic department,...
 
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upstater said:
We've got a new president at UConn openly threatening the legislature in the media.
These are not normal things.
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For this one, at least, I think we can chalk it up to President Maric's unfamiliarity with legislative funding, negotiation, and in particular, public negotiation. She made a valid point in a tone deaf manner and an in opportune moment.
 
UConnJim said:
The attitudes of some people on this board are hard to take. Is what happened to UConn in realignment a positive? Of course not, but you learn to move forward. People talk about revenue shortfalls, but did anyone notice there were 35k tickets distributed for the football game on Thursday? Of course there were freebies,... But, I think UConn did <$2 million in football ticket sales last year. What if you had 30k paying customers (not including students) to football games at an average of $30/ticket. That's $900k per game times 6 equals $5.4 million per year. Fill the Rent, and revenues will increase.

There are many options to raise revenues going forward. Increase attendance at all sports, hockey, soccer, football, basketball; make donations a focus and dramatically increase athletic giving; Increase reach out to potential corporate sponsors; figure out a way to monetize UConn+. Put it on cable systems in Connecticut and charge for it, maybe $0.25 to $0.50 per month; Figure out a way to monetize the naming of Gampel;....
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Yep this has to be the plan moving forward. The doom and gloomers who offer no solution are part of the problem themselves.
 
CL82 said:
For this one, at least, I think we can chalk it up to President Maric's unfamiliarity with legislative funding, negotiation, and in particular, public negotiation. She made a valid point in a tone deaf manner and an in opportune moment.
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It is very difficult to believe given the risk-averse mentality of 99.9% of the people in that position. They get there by NEVER EVER stirring the pot. It's practically in their DNA.
 
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UConnJim said:
The attitudes of some people on this board are hard to take. Is what happened to UConn in realignment a positive? Of course not, but you learn to move forward. People talk about revenue shortfalls, but did anyone notice there were 35k tickets distributed for the football game on Thursday? Of course there were freebies,... But, I think UConn did <$2 million in football ticket sales last year. What if you had 30k paying customers (not including students) to football games at an average of $30/ticket. That's $900k per game times 6 equals $5.4 million per year. Fill the Rent, and revenues will increase.

There are many options to raise revenues going forward. Increase attendance at all sports, hockey, soccer, football, basketball; make donations a focus and dramatically increase athletic giving; Increase reach out to potential corporate sponsors; figure out a way to monetize UConn+. Put it on cable systems in Connecticut and charge for it, maybe $0.25 to $0.50 per month; Figure out a way to monetize the naming of Gampel;....
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You throw out a lot of ideas, but the reality is that all of them are just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to or won't increase attendance at football games. But an extra $3M from football attendance isn't changing anything significantly for the athletic department.

The only idea I completely disagree with is your UConn+ idea. Charging for UConn+ and putting it on cable is a surefire way to make sure that you lose 95% of your customer base. It goes against the entire purpose of it being created
 
wingsfan055 said:
UConn's athletic director has a lot of explaining to do. This makes no sense on any level. The fact that UConn can't even get an invite to join the ACC makes no sense. They are a fit in many ways. If this truly is a political decision because on a grudge that some school has over UConn, then this should be made transparent once and for all. This isn't fair and in an era of NIL and big money for athletics, this puts UConn at a big disadvantage.

We saw last night firsthand what the big discrepancy in talent level means for the football program. Moves like this will eventually extend to our basketball program and other sports if things aren't changed right now.
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How do you change it?? Yes it is inexplicable, and it happened again.
 
WingU-Conn said:
I don't have a dog in this fight, but can you explain how the 93%+/- of the student body that doesn't play a sport is harmed academically by the conference affiliation for non-academic competition?
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CORRECT
Not one bit!! Go to campus-gorgeous place, go to class,--great education, graduate-great future. The college sports environment is a long way from being defined, is it ugly and messy-yes, has it been good to us-no, should we continue to strive yes, should we give up-no.
 
superjohn said:
Who would you like me to talk to? Noble? Benedict? D'Amelio?

How is this very, very bad for men's basketball? UConn is going to make cuts to men's basketball? UConn is going to get left out of the men's tournament? The entire Big East is going to get left out of the men's tournament?
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Everything except men's basketball is about to have its budget gutted. And as an alum, even as a state resident, this feels like Brutus' knife just landed.

Et tu?

Even men's basketball will need cuts.
 
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UConn basketball programs will be just fine
Olympic sports will suffer because of lack of funding. Not sure where the money will come from
 
Scrutiner said:
After last night they feared UConn's rise to prominence may one day eclipse them if we were in the ACC, so to preserve their status as one of the top six football schools they decided to water the league down and keep UConn out...........
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Don't count this theory out. Call it the BC effect, BC knew it was over for them athletically as we rose to prominence in the 90's, so they beat feet and blocked us. Not exactly the same, but similar for NC St(we coulda shoulda woulda beat them)
 
WeAreUCONN said:
I had someone tell me recently that UConn will be invited to join the BIG 12 next year. This person talks to people within UConn. I won’t say exactly who but it sounded legit.
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not unimaginable, hopefully true
 
upstater said:
It is very difficult to believe given the risk-averse mentality of 99.9% of the people in that position. They get there by NEVER EVER stirring the pot. It's practically in their DNA.
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And yet she did. I suspect it wasn't deliberate. I chalk it up to naiveté.
 
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CL82 said:
And yet she did. I suspect it wasn't deliberate. I chalk it up to naiveté.
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Between deliberate decisions and naivete, there's panic. For instance, I'm reading panic into the ACC move. You have a GOR, no need to run around like your hair's on fire, at least not yet. And when people are panicking, you know things are bad.
 
upstater said:
Between deliberate decisions and naivete, there's panic. For instance, I'm reading panic into the ACC move. You have a GOR, no need to run around like your hair's on fire, at least not yet. And when people are panicking, you know things are bad.
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Yeah I was just talking about Maric's tone deaf comment.

For the ACC, I view their expansion move as being one of short term maximization of income. That's probably the correct decision if you consider the ACC not to be viable beyond the lapsing of their existence GOR.

Are the addition of Stanford, California, and SMU ideal for the long term, composition of that conference? Absolutely not. Do they bring in millions of dollars of additional revenue over the next seven years, absolutely.

Additionally, the addition of schools allows them to whether a pre-GOR exit of FSU Clemson and UNC without an automatic reopening of their media deal with ESPN.

All of those are sensible reasons for their expansion. When viewed in that context, the decision seems one of people maximizing their choices rather than acting in panic.
 
CL82 said:
Yeah I was just talking about Maric's tone deaf comment.

For the ACC, I view their expansion move as being one of short term maximization of income. That's probably the correct decision if you consider the ACC not to be viable beyond the lapsing of their existence GOR.

Are the addition of Stanford, California, and SMU ideal for the long term, composition of that conference? Absolutely not. Do they bring in millions of dollars of additional revenue over the next seven years, absolutely.

Additionally, the addition of schools allows them to whether a pre-GOR exit of FSU Clemson and UNC without an automatic reopening of their media deal with ESPN.

All of those are sensible reasons for their expansion. When viewed in that context, the decision seems one of people maximizing their choices rather than acting in panic.
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I agree with all of this. I just think that ESPN is going to hold this gimmickry against them, and that when schools leave the conference (easier now with a huge payout from those schools), the league will be so weakened by these additions that they can be poached by the B12.

I always thought the opposite would happen.

They went for short term money but the long-term dissolution of the conference.
 
Somewhere in all the realignment posts, a person reframed the "$50 million deficit" as an annual investment in a University that has constantly been striving to become an elite State U. Part of that elite infrastructure is "Big Time athletics". While getting a conference to pay for that infrastructure would be preferable, it is not absolutely necessary.

Compare us to NC St. Which school would you rather go to to? I'lI argue UConn all day every day. There are plenty of athletes out there that would want to go to UConn, it is up to the coaches to recruit to UConn, not to what UConn wishes it were. Hurley has done a great job of this.
"We ain't for everybody"

As Mora and his staff continue to grow together and learn what and who we/they are, you'll see the same thing happening. They will find "their guys", and they will win. Maybe B1G.

My expectation/hope/goal for us vs NC State was skewed by the Big 12 strip show we all went to this summer. I wanted "it"(to beat them) just to show the Conference Gods how wrong they were, and I wouldn't be surprised if a little of that was on the field for us as well. (can you imagine Mora saying to the kids, Conference realignment future is all on this game). While it wasn't quite like that, many folks, me included had that in their consciousness. I was initially very disappointed. I hate to lose, and in this case it was worse because of the Big12 hangover.

In reality, we closed the gap appreciably in one year, and while not playing very well in some areas, we had a shot at winning that game. No wine before its time I guess.

If all of us can concentrate on the fundamentals and stick to the plan(go to games, donate, talk up our school, be excited and positive, show great Pride), this can continue to be a great era to be a Husky.

A positive Conference realignment outcome for us would be great, but, we are UConn, we need to accept and revel in that fact. We are Huskies and you aren't, too bad for you!!
 
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upstater said:
I agree with all of this. I just think that ESPN is going to hold this gimmickry against them, and that when schools leave the conference (easier now with a huge payout from those schools), the league will be so weakened by these additions that they can be poached by the B12.

I always thought the opposite would happen.

They went for short term money but the long-term dissolution of the conference.
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If they view it as inevitable, then they made the right call.
 
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navery12 said:
You throw out a lot of ideas, but the reality is that all of them are just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to or won't increase attendance at football games. But an extra $3M from football attendance isn't changing anything significantly for the athletic department.

The only idea I completely disagree with is your UConn+ idea. Charging for UConn+ and putting it on cable is a surefire way to make sure that you lose 95% of your customer base. It goes against the entire purpose of it being created
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Free to cable customers, forced carry in the cable bundle just like ESPN or SNY. You would get more viewers of UConn+ in the bundle.
 
AllHusky said:
Somewhere in all the realignment posts, a person reframed the "$50 million deficit" as an annual investment in a University that has constantly been striving to become an elite State U. Part of that elite infrastructure is "Big Time athletics". While getting a conference to pay for that infrastructure would be preferable, it is not absolutely necessary.

Compare us to NC St. Which school would you rather go to to? I'lI argue UConn all day every day. There are plenty of athletes out there that would want to go to UConn, it is up to the coaches to recruit to UConn, not to what UConn wishes it were. Hurley has done a great job of this.
"We ain't for everybody"
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$50m is a huge amount of money for a university

The kind of money that forces universities to cut programs

All anyone needs to look at is the rise of tuition. You have 19,000 undergrads paying 19,500 a year in tuition. You could defray that by removing the $500 student fee for sports, and the $2600 per student that makes up the $50m deficit.

Without adding that $50m to a single academic program, you could reduce the tuition per student by $3000. As your tuition rises to the $20k per year range, you will be forced to make this decision. Sooner, rather than later. It has to happen. Because the costs are unsustainable.
 
upstater said:
$50m is a huge amount of money for a university

The kind of money that forces universities to cut programs

All anyone needs to look at is the rise of tuition. You have 19,000 undergrads paying 19,500 a year in tuition. You could defray that by removing the $500 student fee for sports, and the $2600 per student that makes up the $50m deficit.

Without adding that $50m to a single academic program, you could reduce the tuition per student by $3000. As your tuition rises to the $20k per year range, you will be forced to make this decision. Sooner, rather than later. It has to happen. Because the costs are unsustainable.
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Don't disagree with your argument, just don't know when the cost in general or athletic fees specifically bite us in the butt. How long do you hold a losing stock before you divest and say I made a bad decision, cut your losses and run? My guess with the "Athletic Investment" shouldered by the students, we "divest" or "cut our losses" when kids stop coming to UConn because of the athletic fees, and cost in general. When will that be????
 
CL82 said:
You realize that Dan Hurley alone makes more than our entire Big East media rights distribution, right?
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And yet they still gave him and his staff a massive raise.

Why do you think they did that despite this SKY IS FALLING theory
 
zls44 said:
And yet they still gave him and his staff a massive raise.

Why do you think they did that despite this SKY IS FALLING theory
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Oh, and I'm just spit balling here because he was the national championship coach and that's the going rate?

Connecticut may find a way to stay viable, at least for a time, but the Big East media contract is not helping it to do so.
 
CL82 said:
Yeah I was just talking about Maric's tone deaf comment.

For the ACC, I view their expansion move as being one of short term maximization of income. That's probably the correct decision if you consider the ACC not to be viable beyond the lapsing of their existence GOR.

Are the addition of Stanford, California, and SMU ideal for the long term, composition of that conference? Absolutely not. Do they bring in millions of dollars of additional revenue over the next seven years, absolutely.

Additionally, the addition of schools allows them to whether a pre-GOR exit of FSU Clemson and UNC without an automatic reopening of their media deal with ESPN.

All of those are sensible reasons for their expansion. When viewed in that context, the decision seems one of people maximizing their choices rather than acting in panic.
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Why was it tone deaf? It was long overdue. There isn’t anybody in the legislature with enough brainpower to screw in a lightbulb. It’s a bunch of morons. They’ve been treating UConn like a milk cow for decades. Trying to use it shore up crumbling cities that they let go to hello. That came after more decades of treating it like “Cousin Eddie”, an unwanted necessity.

They remain blind to the reality that the poor situation UConn is facing is their fault. They lacked vision then and they still lack vision now. They’re arrogant.
 
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