As Big East Money Dries Up, UConn Must Create Fresh Revenue Streams

[Drew]

http://www.courant.com/g00/sports/u...urant.com/g00/?i10c.referrer=#nt=oft12aH-1gp2

UConn's share is larger than many AAC teams because the conference redirects more money from Big East exit fees to former Big East schools, but that money ends after the next fiscal year. That means UConn's revenue share will be considerably less.

Combine that with a drop-off in attendance in football and men's basketball, and UConn faces revenue challenges. The AAC is hoping for a more lucrative TV deal for football, but the current contract does not expire until 2020.

The revenue disparity between the AAC and the Power Five also is huge. The AAC reported revenue of about $79 million in the 2015-16 fiscal year. ACC revenue was $373 million, the Big 12 was $313 million and the SEC $639 million.

A June draft of a UConn budget for fiscal year 2018 noted that "Athletics continues to face revenue challenges, stemming from both attendance and conference revenues."

All of that makes for a big job for UConn athletic director David Benedict, one reason UConn has a deal to play a football game at defending national champion Clemson in 2021 that will bring in $1.2 million.

"I don't think that there's this huge gap with what we can provide in experience, what we have in facilities, what we offer academically," Benedict said. "The difference is right now we average under 20,000 people a [football] game and [Power Five schools] average 90,000 or 100,000. There's a difference in perception, a difference in what you're generating in money, those things. And those are real differences. But when you're just talking about the financial [spending] aspect, a lot of it is in very focused areas."

In 2015-16, UConn received $10,523,469 from the AAC, followed by Cincinnati ($9.485 million) and South Florida ($9.144 million). The three schools compensated the least were Navy ($2.757 million), Central Florida ($3.514 million) and SMU ($3.57 million).

The AAC is still distributing $70 million in exit fees from the Big East. AAC schools that were formerly Big East members are UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida.

 

[huskymedic]

>>The Huskies have a lucrative TV deal with SNY (about $1 million a year) and a media rights deal with IMG (bringing in about $9 million a year, and set to expire after 2017-18) that is one of the best in the nation. The SNY money had gone directly to the AAC and then split among all member schools, but UConn argued during recent conference meetings that it should keep that money. Athletic directors voted in favor of that proposal, and UConn will retain about $3.1 million over the next three years because of it.<<

>>The argument has been made that UConn, which has an annual athletic budget of about $80 million, should drop football to the FCS level and focus on an attempt for its other programs to rejoin the Big East.

That lessens expenditures but hurts on the revenue side. Most Big East teams, without the benefit of big-time football, received between $2.3 million to close to $3 million from the league in 2015. Benedict also brings up another revenue issue. "The misnomer with that thought process is that a lot of the money that we derive from multimedia rights — if you look at our ticket sales for football, even though they're not great right now, if you look at the multimedia rights deal, you'd lose the majority of those dollars if we said we're going to drop down to FCS in football," Benedict said. "I think most of those people are saying that because of the financial piece, but it's counter-intuitive because we're going to get over $9 million from our multimedia rights deal next year. … They're not going to pay us like that if we don't have football."<<

 

[Drew]

I thought the ticket portion of this article was also worth noting:

The major moneymaking opportunity right now is football ticket sales. The season ticket base was about 16,000 each of the past two seasons, down from an all-time high of 32,500 in 2005. Season ticket renewals and new sales are up from last year at this time, though only slightly.

In 2016, UConn averaged 26,796 for home games, about 16,000 less than the average among FBS schools. Michigan averaged more than 110,000 fans. Each year since 2010, when the Huskies averaged 38,248, there has been a dropoff. The last time UConn averaged at least 30,000 fans for home games was 2013.

Men's basketball also has taken a hit. Last season the Huskies averaged 10,413 for home games, 40th in the country, but still far below the more than 13,000 fans it averaged from 2004-2007.

Ticket revenues were $10,362,040 in fiscal year 2016.

"We've got to sell more tickets, we've got to raise more money, and we've got to be really good with how we manage our budget," Benedict said. "We have a big upside with tickets. If we can start to fill up our venues again, that will eliminate [some deficit]. There is a lot of work to be done there. It's not going to happen just because we hired Randy. He's going to have to show that he's making progress, which he will."


If you can afford them and don't have them, and are encouraged by what you've seen and heard since UConn hired HCRE in December, it is incredibly important to hop back on the bandwagon and get season tickets. Getting UConn back to 20k+ season tickets (and eventually 25k+) would be absolutely enormous, first from a perception standpoint but second from a revenue standpoint. Time to start rallying the troops.

 

[Guapo]

I thought the ticket portion of this article was also worth noting:

The major moneymaking opportunity right now is football ticket sales. The season ticket base was about 16,000 each of the past two seasons, down from an all-time high of 32,500 in 2005. Season ticket renewals and new sales are up from last year at this time, though only slightly.

In 2016, UConn averaged 26,796 for home games, about 16,000 less than the average among FBS schools. Michigan averaged more than 110,000 fans. Each year since 2010, when the Huskies averaged 38,248, there has been a dropoff. The last time UConn averaged at least 30,000 fans for home games was 2013.

Men's basketball also has taken a hit. Last season the Huskies averaged 10,413 for home games, 40th in the country, but still far below the more than 13,000 fans it averaged from 2004-2007.

Ticket revenues were $10,362,040 in fiscal year 2016.

"We've got to sell more tickets, we've got to raise more money, and we've got to be really good with how we manage our budget," Benedict said. "We have a big upside with tickets. If we can start to fill up our venues again, that will eliminate [some deficit]. There is a lot of work to be done there. It's not going to happen just because we hired Randy. He's going to have to show that he's making progress, which he will."


If you can afford them and don't have them, and are encouraged by what you've seen and heard since UConn hired HCRE in December, it is incredibly important to hop back on the bandwagon and get season tickets. Getting UConn back to 20k+ season tickets (and eventually 25k+) would be absolutely enormous, first from a perception standpoint but second from a revenue standpoint. Time to start rallying the troops.

The biggest thing I took from this is getting all the T3 money back. It's insane this wasn't done from the start. Excellent job AD Dave. I'm guessing this is what the Big East rumblings were about a few months back

 

[UConnDan97]

The biggest thing I took from this is getting all the T3 money back. It's insane this wasn't done from the start. Excellent job AD Dave. I'm guessing this is what the Big East rumblings were about a few months back

That's my take too.

Schools don't give back money for charity's sake. Wee must have threatened a move to the Big East in order to accomplish this. If so, well done, AD Dave!!!

 

[Guapo]

That's my take too.

Schools don't give back money for charity's sake. Wee must have threatened a move to the Big East in order to accomplish this. If so, well done, AD Dave!!!

I imagine the addition of WSU was also, in part, to appease us

 

[shizzle787]

Wait so just to be clear: we just got our Tier 3 rights back?

 

[Guapo]

Wait so just to be clear: we just got our Tier 3 rights back?

I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

 

[shizzle787]

I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

Nice.

 

[Guapo]

Nice.

Ok, yeah. We're getting 3.1 million out of it. I'm honestly not sure if legally we are getting those rights back but we are now getting 100% of the money from the SNY deal rather than that money going into the AAC pot to be distributed evenly

 

[huskymedic]

Just be careful trying to figure out the $$... the IMG deals is not necessarily the same Tier 3 rights as SNY deal - it includes all radio broadcasts, coaches shows, advertising rights, website operation rights, and various other marketing & advertising related enterprises not tied into other contractual relationships where applicable.

 

[Guapo]

>The Huskies have a lucrative TV deal with SNY (about $1 million a year) and a media rights deal with IMG (bringing in about $9 million a year, and set to expire after 2017-18) that is one of the best in the nation. The SNY money had gone directly to the AAC and then split among all member schools, but UConn argued during recent conference meetings that it should keep that money. Athletic directors voted in favor of that proposal, and UConn will retain about $3.1 million over the next three years because of it.

Nice.

This was the paragraph I was referring to. How would you interpret it?

 

[shizzle787]

This was the paragraph I was referring to. How would you interpret it?

Personally, only the SNY deal. I don't even know what or if the AAC has to do with the IMG deal.

 

[huskymedic]

This was the paragraph I was referring to. How would you interpret it?

You referenced "getting all T3 money back". My point is that components of both deals may not be as clear as people will try to make them out to be when it comes to figuring future T3 $$$'s

 

[Guapo]

You referenced "getting all T3 money back". My point is that components of both deals may not be as clear as people will try to make them out to be when it comes to figuring future T3 $$$'s

Thanks! I think that's right. When I think of t3 I think of SNY. I think AD Dave is doing a great job with but we really need to get the legal rights to the t3, not just the money.

 

[B1GEast]

So we've become the Texas of the AAC

 

[billybud]

Clemson in early September, it can be miserably hot and humid...spent some time in Clemson watching their soccer in late August-early September...hot, hot.

When you go, think keeping cool.

 

[SubZero]

So we've become the Texas of the AAC

Isn't this what is killing the Big 12? What happens if all the schools leave to form a new conference and we are frozen out?

 

[B1GEast]

Isn't this what is killing the Big 12? What happens if all the schools leave to form a new conference and we are frozen out?

We'd probably be one of the first to leave, just like Texas wants out of the 12.

 

[shizzle787]

I think we should all note that this is also a small status symbol that we are worth more than our conference mates. That can help in the long run.