Wow, I really did chase a rabbit down a hole coming here for discussion.
Listen Lady Huskies fans.......if somebody got on the phone to the AD at Ohio University today and told him/her that they were going to get a home game against PSU in 40 days? The top shelf bottles would be coming down and everybody getting drink...plenty of drinks, all made with the expensive stuff. Just saving on the travel expenses for the entire football program would be enough to bring those bottles down.
Is anyone here under the impression taht Ohio would be sharing the gate receipts equally with PSU? THat ohio is getting any of the parking/concessions? Equally?
I truthfully don't know how much money UConn made going to play in front of over 110,000 people at the Big House on the gridiron in 2010. I guarantee you it was well under a million, most likely in the $500-600k range, if that high. I do know off the top of my head, that we paid Texas Southern $450,000 to come to Rentshcler in 2010 and screw up their own schedule, for a one time game in 2010, to the fill the hole that Northeastern made in the schedule when they shut down their football program unexpectedly in 2009. And that number was a big number to pay out, and we paid it b/c it was last minute scheduling, and Texas Southern traveled their program to CT, and screwed up their own scheudling to get it.
Ohio, most likely would be taking in high end $500k in from that game. PSU is notoriously tight with their money, shockingly right?
With a 20,000 seat stadium, and announcing tomorrow that they've got a game in Sept against Penn State? Let's be low end here, with numbers - and say they put the tickets on sale for $20 a seat. All of them are going to sell. That's 400,000k right there. and that's a $20 a seat. Parking, concessions, merchandise, etc......and factor in that they just saved tens of thousands on travel expense. YEs, they'd be excsctatic for a home game.
Change that 20,000 seat capacity to 50,000?
Look - lady huskies fans. College football is a dirty, cut throat business. It is and always has been. THeres a river of money that flows through it, and large scale athletic departments live off football money. It's far greater than any other sport can generate, and that goes for uconn too, football at UConn, in few short years, has leaped well ahead in revenue of both mens and women's bball combined.
It's a dirty, dirty business though, and all you have in college football, is your reputation.
There are three ways you can go with that reputation.
#1. You can do the best you possibly can to do things the right way, all the time, and deal with consequences up front and truthfully as they come when something bad happens, and never lie about anything and develop that rep. (We've been fortunate enough to have a string of coaches at UConn for many years that have kept that rep, and I fully expect it to continue.
#2. You can completely disregard rules, and win at all costs and hide nothing about how you do things, and deal with the consequences if and when you get caught, and develop thatoutlaw rep.
#3. You can go try to do the right things all the time, and then lie like hell to avoid problems when they happen, and they always happen, and develop that rep.
As far as the topic at hand. Penn State, for decades, touted their football program as the model of the highest standard. No NCAA violations by any of the thousands of players and staff that came through State College over all the decades. THose of us in teh college football world marveled at it. The ability to keep so many young men, so many support staff, so many boosters - out of the dirty business.
The truth, is that it was all a lie.
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