Honest question regarding Syracuse Athletics

[omniorange]

Let's put a weight on each sport by attendance. That's how much each matters

To us, the fans, yes. But to the administration? Unless it's affecting the bottom line, who knows what emphasis a Chancellor and the BOT will have? Our previous Chancellor, probably the most sports friendly one we have had, thought football AND olympic sports (particularly women's sports) were both important. But then she saw where college athletics were heading and knew that if SU was to have a seat at the big boy table football needed to be addressed while the women's sports incentive was more of a personal crusade.

Now we are in the ACC and sports revenues seem to be growing. So what will motivate our new Chancellor, who seems to want to bring the entire university under better financial management? It brings me no pleasure to ask that question, but it's relevant to what is being discussed. Will SU make the needed investments to improve football in terms of overall coaching and more facilities upgrades or not?

Time will tell.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[orange79]

To us, the fans, yes. But to the administration? Unless it's affecting the bottom line, who knows what emphasis a Chancellor and the BOT will have? Our previous Chancellor, probably the most sports friendly one we have had, thought football AND olympic sports (particularly women's sports) were both important. But then she saw where college athletics were heading and knew that if SU was to have a seat at the big boy table football needed to be addressed while the women's sports incentive was more of a personal crusade.

Now we are in the ACC and sports revenues seem to be growing. So what will motivate our new Chancellor, who seems to want to bring the entire university under better financial management? It brings me no pleasure to ask that question, but it's relevant to what is being discussed. Will SU make the needed investments to improve football in terms of overall coaching and more facilities upgrades or not?

Time will tell.

Cheers,
Neil

That's exactly my point. Thank you.

 

[CuseOnly]

I am no fan of TGD but if you put it in perspective of all sports for men and women ... it seems like the university has benefitted from his efforts. And honestly, the popularity of football may go the way of boxing as our society pushes back against head trauma in sports. So, looking long term I am grateful for the push to have excellence in a diversity of sports at SU.

Unfortunately for me I only watch football, men's basketball and lacrosse. Of these, football is my first love. With regard to football the best work he did, and it may be as much the work of others, was getting us into the ACC. He may have helped get our football team on a national stage with the MetLife games but those were NOT positive ways of advertising this program ... we lost all of them.

I don't want to be a crusty, old school, football-first-and-the-rest-of-the-sports-can-lump-it sort of school but football needs a better, smarter advocate than TGD. Maybe we need someone in addition to him that only oversees football or makes recommendations on future investments? Because TGD doesn't seem too connected to the world of college football.

What good is being on the national stage if you look terrible on that stage?

Being good at Football and being good at every sport, they are not mutually exclusive. We can have both, the difference being that you actually have to expend a lot of dollars to be good in football. The other sports, the expenditure is far less. That is a function of the SU administration, BOT and Chancellor not opening up the wallet. The AD is just the conduit taking all of the blame IMO. You can't spend $8 mil on a football coaching staff if you don't have approval to do so from the higher ups. I don't put this on gross because I think he is hamstrung by budget.

 

[CuseOnly]

Attendance alone is not the sole indicator of revenue generation, particularly when it comes to a relatively small venue like the Dome. An increase in terms of ticket prices and/or donations required for preferred seating can offset a drop in overall attendance.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the football only revenue on the internet but I did find the overall total revenue reported to the ODE site for the following years:

03-04 - $40,731,865
04-05 - $42,283,724
06-07 - $43,732,382 (2nd year of GRob)
08-09 - $52,050,104 (last year of GRob)
11-12 - $73,287,687
12-13 - $76,366,113 (last year in Big East)
13-14 - $87,647,822 (1st year in ACC)

Not sure what this says, I just thought it might be interesting to add to the discussion.

Cheers,
Neil

Revenue has never been higher and is going to continue to go even more so.

Not sure where SUBear got that Revenue for Football was falling off a cliff. It has increased and more than doubled since DDG was hired.

 

[SUbear]

Revenue has never been higher and is going to continue to go even more so.

Not sure where SUBear got that Revenue for Football was falling off a cliff. It has increased and more than doubled since DDG was hired.

Season tickets and attendant donations for those tickets has fallen, we now offer discounted season tickets that were not offered before. You can not compare just year to year because tv revenue and other revenue may increase. If football revenue is so great(in your opinion), then why all the complaining about lack of support and attendance. Maybe I should have said income generated by attendance, ticket sales, and ticket donations. My point was that the figures omni was using were not a fair representative comparison between the gross era and years previous. They still are not.

 

[omniorange]

Season tickets and attendant donations for those tickets has fallen, we now offer discounted season tickets that were not offered before. You can not compare just year to year because tv revenue and other revenue may increase. If football revenue is so great(in your opinion), then why all the complaining about lack of support and attendance. Maybe I should have said income generated by attendance, ticket sales, and ticket donations. My point was that the figures omni was using were not a fair representative comparison between the gross era and years previous. They still are not.

Hey, I'm willing to be convinced. Again, where is the link to back up anything you have said?

Cheers,
Neil

 

[CuseOnly]

Season tickets and attendant donations for those tickets has fallen, we now offer discounted season tickets that were not offered before. You can not compare just year to year because tv revenue and other revenue may increase. If football revenue is so great(in your opinion), then why all the complaining about lack of support and attendance. Maybe I should have said income generated by attendance, ticket sales, and ticket donations. My point was that the figures omni was using were not a fair representative comparison between the gross era and years previous. They still are not.

Really? Attendance has fallen? You should look again at the actual numbers below. And how you would know that actual donations have fallen, I would love to know, please explain where that info comes from other than your assumptions based on incorrect attendance assumptions?

Attendance figures from SU below.

From 1964 through 2011
http://www.suathletics.com/sports/2008/4/23/sufootballhomeattendance.aspx

2012 Overall was 189,763 (5 games) and Average was 37,953
2013 Overall was 229,661 (6 games) and Average was 38,277
2014 Overall was 242,682 (6 games) and Average was 40,447

I would also love to know where you are getting your overall revenue number that shows income generated by attendance, sales and donations? Anything factual to support what you have said?

 

[Crusty]

If we bump up the head coach's salary by one million, what about the staff? At least another million dollars there for a top notch staff. Money talks, If Syracuse is really serious about a better program, we will know, if they make the investment in the coaching staff.

That goes without saying. Most coaches have staffs or parts that come with them so you need to budget for them.

 

[Crusty]

But weren't we middle of the pack in the ACC just last year? We finished tied for third in our division (the tougher division with 2 sure losses) and were tied for 7th place overall. Now, as a football fan, I'm not happy about that myself, but again, if one looks at the OPE site, we are third again in the ACC in terms of revenue - behind only FSU and Louisville.

Not sure the administrators have the sense of urgency on this topic that we do as fans.

Cheers, and a beaten up NCS team. Neil

If you are going to take only parts of the data for football and then jump to total sports revenue, that is a pretty tortured analysis.
I have no idea what the admins are thinking, but it seems that they are paying attention. Chancellors are political animals so I don't think he will ignore this issue for long.

 

[CuseOnly]

If you are going to take only parts of the data for football and then jump to total sports revenue, that is a pretty tortured analysis.
I have no idea what the admins are thinking, but it seems that they are paying attention. Chancellors are political animals so I don't think he will ignore this issue for long.

It is amazing that they have ignored the athletics department (particularly football) since Pasqualoni...doesn't seem that it has changed a bit.

Do you get the feeling that anything with regard to athletic funding, policy, procedure has been met with any kind of urgency from this BOT or administration?? I would love to hear anything that would prove it.

 

[Crusty]

It is amazing that they have ignored the athletics department (particularly football) since Pasqualoni...doesn't seem that it has changed a bit.

Do you get the feeling that anything with regard to athletic funding, policy, procedure has been met with any kind of urgency from this BOT or administration?? I would love to hear anything that would prove it.

Since we aren't in those meetings, we can only judge by their actions. We have an IPF and we moved to the ACC. That's two in their favor. If Shafer doesn't make it, I would not be surprised to see TGD gone and a bump in the football staff budget. If Shafer succeeds, he will get a bump and we will be in the same place. I think it is only a matter of time.

 

[CuseOnly]

Since we aren't in those meetings, we can only judge by their actions. We have an IPF and we moved to the ACC. That's two in their favor. If Shafer doesn't make it, I would not be surprised to see TGD gone and a bump in the football staff budget. If Shafer succeeds, he will get a bump and we will be in the same place. I think it is only a matter of time.

We can only pray they are paying attention. $10 mil on an IPF isn't showing commitment, it is just treading water until we fall further behind.

 

[GoSU96]

Football revenue has fallen off the cliff since DG appt. of Gerg, therefore hard to use that statistic as any basis to support any discussion of greater revenue producing sport. Pre that disastrous appt. football was the equal or slightly greater revenue producer.

What??????

That's just not true.

 

[GoSU96]

Season tickets and attendant donations for those tickets has fallen, we now offer discounted season tickets that were not offered before. You can not compare just year to year because tv revenue and other revenue may increase. If football revenue is so great(in your opinion), then why all the complaining about lack of support and attendance. Maybe I should have said income generated by attendance, ticket sales, and ticket donations. My point was that the figures omni was using were not a fair representative comparison between the gross era and years previous. They still are not.

Attendance, ticket sales, and ticket licenses make up a smaller and smaller percentage of revenues for everyone.

The variation between 2004 and now is on the margins. The dollars flowing to the school related to football are multiples higher now than ten years ago, it's not even close.

 

[omniorange]

Since we aren't in those meetings, we can only judge by their actions. We have an IPF and we moved to the ACC. That's two in their favor. If Shafer doesn't make it, I would not be surprised to see TGD gone and a bump in the football staff budget. If Shafer succeeds, he will get a bump and we will be in the same place. I think it is only a matter of time.

But both of those things were done or started under the previous Chancellor who was, as I said, probably the most sports friendly Chancellor the university has ever had (regardless of how one feels about anything else she did). And she spent more $$$ on a lot of things including new buildings, etc.

It's too soon to judge what the new Chancellor will or will not do yet. But the early returns seem to be that he is much more of a financially frugal administrator than a spender. And that most likely will be coming from the BOT, who hired him.

Time will tell.

Cheers,
Neil