Future of the XL Center as a Home Site

[Waquoit]

The state by and large has been a good partner to UConn and UConn athletics for years.

I would say the state buying UConn a stadium was a sign of good faith.

 

[krinklecut]

25% im sure they would love that. But the kids arent showing up. There were more at Nova during XMas Break then there were last night against the #10 team in the country

Let’s make the student section one sideline for XL games. We have a rabid student fan base that’s absolutely neutered by their hockey rink seats at XL.

Of course, I know this will never happen. But at least it might inject some life into the building.

 

[XLCenterFan]

We went to Sorella. It was packed yet the service and food were excellent. I still laugh at the fact that the biggest Hartford haters don't even go to games.

And the biggest Hartford haters haven’t even been to Hartford. It’s delusional.

 

[Slick]

Civic center served a purpose from it’s opening to around 2010ish. Not anymore. Either fix it or knock it down.

Knock it down. Totally outdated and in terrible condition.

 

[krinklecut]

This is my exact sentiment (definitely not because this twitter user is me).

Hartford has plenty going on. People acting like UConn games are the lifeblood of Hartford are just wrong. I’d rather have the money dumped into the Storrs economy and the University than Hartford and the XL.

 

[LBird33]

I wouldn't care who made the profit if it were either the university or some other state department. Problem is there are too many hands in the pot and Spectra is the party making the profit, I would think. Hartford owns XL. CDRA manages it. Spectra operates it. What a disaster. If it were an on campus university owned facility, it would surely be a much better financial alternative.

"The XL Center (originally known as the Hartford Civic Center) is a multi-purpose arena and convention center located in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Owned by the City of Hartford, it is managed by the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) under a lease with the city and operated by Spectra."

Most mis managed entity.

 

[LBird33]

This is my exact sentiment (definitely not because this twitter user is me).

Hartford has plenty going on. People acting like UConn games are the lifeblood of Hartford are just wrong. I’d rather have the money dumped into the Storrs economy and the University than Hartford and the XL.

Hartford is unfortunately not nearly as vibrant as 20 years ago. From what I experienced

 

[hardcorehusky]

Part of the frustration is when the athletic budget deficit comes out, the knives come out at UConn and no one from the state ever addresses it. It's always UConn that has to defend itself and after all these years of a one sided deal, enough is enough.

 

[Gburyhusky]

 

[CL82]

Did UConn claim they are losing money playing in Hartford? The claim as I read it was that it cost them $4M to play basketball at the civic center and football at The rent, it doesn't mention ticket revenue, seat donations, and/or donations to the school/AD by Hartford centric fans.

I’ve done a quick and dirty calculation and posted it here previously on a few occasions. Essentially UConn needs to have a sell out at the XL center to break even with playing in Storrs.

That quick and dirty computation did include ticket revenue, but did not include seat, donations, or “donations by the school by Hartford centric fans” because I don’t have access to those numbers. If you do, post them and I’ll incorporate them, otherwise, I’ll consider it a wash.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

undergrad enrollment down around 1.5 millions across the land.
cuts and job losses to come.
“College enrollment declines appear to be worsening,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which released its latest enrollment figures Thursday.
https://www.usnews.com/news/educati.../college-enrollment-declines-are-here-to-stay
looks like young folks are wisening up to the reality that egg farming and oil changes pay more. way more. no big debts to learn are needed.
plan accordingly.

 

[upstater]

I’m actually interested in the numbers, not sure if you have access to them. But I have a hard time believing some of the departments/programs are not in the red.

Regardless my point is: shouldn’t the president put all negative revenue departments, programs, activities, etc. on the chopping block due to the budget cuts?

Hypothetically, it may cost UConn $25k per student in expenditures. If the tuition is $15k per student, and the subsidy, endowment, research fund make up the 2nd $10k, that's how you arrive at $25k total per student.

At my university, our departmental funding comes directly from the amount of students we sit in each class and the amount of majors. This literally means our funding is tied to our service of students as customers. It's a cockamamie system for a lot of reasons, but at the end of the day, it gives you insight into how administrators handle accounting.

Our breakdown is that we spend $10k per student in our department. So, hypothetically, if our tuition were $15k, our students would be subsidizing other students, and I can tell you for sure, they'd be subsidizing students in engineering.

This is precisely why in many countries, there's differential tuition. At U. Toronto, you pay a lot less for a liberal arts degree than you do an engineering degree. The charge almost doubles.

Every school is different though, which is why I used a hypothetical. Nonetheless, nationally, the liberal arts are money winners. If you take a market driven approach though, they are only money winners to the extent that "customers" are willing to pay up for a Liberal Arts degree. If you got rid of the liberal arts, then you'd maybe find other less expensive departments than engineering to house these students. Would that be communications? Media? I dunno. But if those students didn't move to other departments, you'd likely bankrupt the university.

This is why colleges are very careful not to admit a huge amount of engineering students. A lot of them flame out in their first year, and this creates havoc with university finances.

 

[John]

Let’s make the student section one sideline for XL games. We have a rabid student fan base that’s absolutely neutered by their hockey rink seats at XL.

Of course, I know this will never happen. But at least it might inject some life into the building.

The lifeblood of the program and athletic department sits on the sideline now and pays dearly for it.

 

[upstater]

undergrad enrollment down around 1.5 millions across the land.
cuts and job losses to come.
“College enrollment declines appear to be worsening,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which released its latest enrollment figures Thursday.
https://www.usnews.com/news/educati.../college-enrollment-declines-are-here-to-stay
looks like young folks are wisening up to the reality that egg farming and oil changes pay more. way more. no big debts to learn are needed.
plan accordingly.

Essentially, the decline of the country.

Because demographically, we are NOT shrinking.

It's that we've stopped subsidizing education with taxes.

 

[krinklecut]

The lifeblood of the program and athletic department sits on the sideline now and pays dearly for it.

So sick of this argument. So sick of seeing crypt keepers come in late and leave early. Let them pay for those seats at Gampel. We give our students awful seats at the XL.

If a big part of the argument of not playing on Storrs is people are too lazy to make the extra commute, why are we punishing students who have to travel off campus with garbage seats?

The “lifeblood” ticket holders can deal with having seats elsewhere at XL or pick another fanbase to cheer for.

 

[Husky25]

Not sure if it's been mentioned in any of the recent threads on the subject, but one clauses the State and UConn can agree to remove from the Rentschler agreement is that UConn pays up to $250,000 in loss offset, yet risk losing that amount if an event at Rentschler doesn't at least break even.

The money basically comes from the same source and is an example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. So Rentschler sits virtually unused for its intended purpose 359 days out of the year because the CDRA is either too scared to take a chance on an event and/or they are unable to budget, banking on UConn giving them back funds the State previously gave to UConn.

 

[Chin Diesel]

At my university, our departmental funding comes directly from the amount of students we sit in each class and the amount of majors. This literally means our funding is tied to our service of students as customers.

This is precisely why in many countries, there's differential tuition. At U. Toronto, you pay a lot less for a liberal arts degree than you do an engineering degree. The charge almost doubles.

These both are perfectly normal ways of doing business.

 

[karstenkibbe]

On your last point, isn't there a difference between a private entity trying to be profitable through revenue streams compared to a state university getting the revenue from parking, concessions, suite or it going to the state's revenues?

Absolutely there’s a difference. A significant difference. Those ancillary revenue streams impact everything from roster players contracts/free agent signings down to the headcount in the sponsorship sales or finance departments. Some of that revenue would certainly be used differently at UConn. Perhaps I should have been clearer, but I’m just pointing out that those streams are tangible and important to any organization - pro or amateur.

 

[upstater]

I’m actually interested in the numbers, not sure if you have access to them. But I have a hard time believing some of the departments/programs are not in the red.

Regardless my point is: shouldn’t the president put all negative revenue departments, programs, activities, etc. on the chopping block due to the budget cuts?

I would add that the only way you put the Humanities and Liberal Arts on the chopping block is if you no longer care about being a national top 100 ranked university. I'm not even talking about the rare air of the AAU where things like departmental breadth are essential metrics.

Some schools have indeed done just what you describe, but they've become known as service schools or professional schools, or sometimes they are derisively referred to as finishing schools. Very rarely are these state flagships.

Locally in Buffalo, I've seen Niagara U. outrecruit Canisius which has moved away from a breadth of offerings to emphasize things like accounting or physical therapy. It's a move to stay afloat. Niagara tries to get Catholic students who want a more traditional college experience. Both have their value. This is why the phenomenon of axing the liberal arts is mainly a private school thing. In the age of AI, we'll see where all this goes.

As disciplines, most of these departments are undergoing great upheaval internally anyway, quite apart from any budgetary pressures.

 

[karstenkibbe]

Good info, thanks for posting! Just curious, what was the capacity at the venues you rented. I would think that most MLS venues are 18,000 or more.

If I recall correctly, UConn pays an additional “facilities fee” in the neighborhood of $20,000-25,000, in addition to the $40,000 lease fee and the three dollar per ticket surcharge. I am very confident that the only other long-term tenant in the building is not paying that much.

Capacities were 18,000, 20,000, 20,738. Different terms for each venue on rev share for suites, concessions, and parking.

 

[Fishy]

So Maric is telling the world she’s upset with the $160M budget cuts, so she’s going to war saying “we’re pulling out of Hartford to save $4M.” 2.5% of the budget cut. Meanwhile, UConn invested a lot of money in the grad school & law school in Hartford.

She might be the dumbest person in this entire state. Yes the deal needs to be renegotiated but I don’t know why she’d send out a nuke during the opening statements.

With you upright and breathing, the state’s ”dumbest person” is way out of her reach.

She's in charge of $1.7bn. Not the $3.3bn budget.

The $160m cut is to the enterprise that has a $1.7bn budget. This is almost a 10% budget cut. I can't even begin to describe for you how catastrophic this is, since very little of that budget is fungible. This would devastate UConn.

As for the $3.3bn, there's an additional $160m being cut from the other side which she isn't responsible for.

By any measure, the state of Connecticut is nowhere near a good partner for the university. It's bottom of the barrel lowest quintile in support. You're quickly entering Pennsylvania territory as you drop below 20% in state subsidy,

Bingo.

The governor‘s proposed budget is ruinous to the university. He has a thousand priorities…higher education in the state is not remotely close to being one of them.

The prez is 100% right to threaten Hartford. It’s a crap deal and we should walk from it - have fun operating that pile of garbage on third-rate hockey and PAW Patrol.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I’ve done a quick and dirty calculation and posted it here previously on a few occasions. Essentially UConn needs to have a sell out at the XL center to break even with playing in Storrs.

That quick and dirty computation did include ticket revenue, but did not include seat, donations, or “donations by the school by Hartford centric fans” because I don’t have access to those numbers. If you do, post them and I’ll incorporate them, otherwise, I’ll consider it a wash.

There's likely no way to quantity the general donations, but center court lower bowl seat donations are as high as $800/per seat/season. Even if there are only 2k of those you're talking $1.6M for the season.

The agreement in vacuum is less favorable to UConn if you view it as an independent entity from the state, but viewing through the lense of a political arrangement it becomes a lot more mutually beneficial.

As for @upstater comments regarding the budget I have no clue as to what that budget would entail though he seems like he does. I have no claim one way or another regarding the budget and it's outcomes on the school.

 

[Kolumbo]

The best solution would be to build a new modern facility in Hartford for basketball with all the great amenities. Since it has to have hockey, how much would MSG Sports kick in? anything? They're always trying to do too many things but nothing great. XL Center is far too old. Gampel was nice but the design by modern standards, meh.

Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee $1.2 billion, 17,3685 for basketball and 15,178 for hockey
Wintrust Arena, Chicago, $173 million, 10,387 for basketball

 

[How Sway?!]

The UConn operating budget is like $3.3Bn (all campuses and medical).

State is proposing a $160M cut (assuming just for storrs/regional campuses).

The UConn President "threatening" publicly (first mistake) to pull games out of Hartford and pointing to the financial hardships that amount of a rounding error in the scheme of things comes off very ineffectual.

The state has publicly supported UConn athletics with votes of confidence in spite of us falling behind our regional peers in terms of top line rev due to no media deals (and in footballs case playing in front of sparse crowds for years) and now this President thinks it's the time to play hard ball publicly?

Since when is 10% a rounding error?

 

[Storrs South]

View attachment 83970

Possibly one of the dumbest things I've ever read. No one ever took our politicians to be the brightest individuals.