Friday, January 2nd, 2009
What would it take to financially compete in the Sunbelt?
As many of you know, I’m all for Georgia Southern stepping up into the FBS division in football IF we can realistically afford to do it, and IF Sun Belt Conference will accept us as a full member. Regardless of what you think, we don’t have many (if any) options of a FBS conference other than the Sun Belt.
But before we go jumping into the deep end without taking swimming lessons we need to take a look at where we currently stand in comparison to current FBS institutions, and also we we currently compare against other leading FCS schools. I’ve put together comparisons of athletic department budgets, football budgets, school enrollments and football home game attendance.
I think you’ll see we have the undergraduate size to move up and we are well on our way to having the attendance. Attendance should not be a problem if we build more seats in Paulson and field teams that put butts in seats every Saturday afternoon.
When you look at the budgets, you’ll see we will need to at least DOUBLE OR TRIPLE our overall athletic budget and probably increase our football budget by 300-to-400%. This is going to take a combination of increased student fees, increased numbers of season tickets and increased ticket prices, and a whole lot of new boosters contributing to our athletic program. Run the numbers yourself and try to come up with your own plan of funding the increases we’ll need to be one of the “Top Three” budgets in the Sun Belt, CUSA or WAC.
Don’t be too discouraged with what you see, because we’ve faced bigger obstacles and come out victorious before. Here’s the numbers I found and put together.
http://www.gata.com/gsuversuscompetition.pdf
To reach the next level of funding for our Eagles, there are several methods of increasing revenues that will have to take place to increase our current $9.115M budget to a competitive level in a FBS conference. Here is my scenario of how we can accomplish this.
Student Fee Increases – $1.875M
Based on 15,000 undergraduates averaging 2.5 semesters each year (7,500 enrolled during summer), an increase of $50 per semester in the student athletic fee would net $1,875,000 per year.
Southern Boosters Increased Giving – $1M
Adding 2,000 new contributors at $500 cash for each contributor would net a $1,000,000 per year. This will take a lot of work to reach our alumni and fans, but it can be done. This figure will rise above $1M over the years.
Football Season Ticket Increases – $600K
The 2,000 new contributors to Boosters will buy 2.5 season tickets per account (average family size) at a cost of $120 per season ticket. This would net $600,000 per year. The question is, “where will 5,000 new $500 seats be located?”
Football Single Game Ticket Increases – $240K
With all the added interest in FBS football, we can expect more walk-up ticket sales on game days. 2,000 additional fans buying single game tickets would net $240,000 per year. Again the question arises, “where will these newly-converted Eagles fans sit?”
Auxiliary Services Absorbs Fees – $2.5M
As in the case with many schools, meals and rooms are absorbed by the university. Being that AuxServices does not operate with “state money” and is not restricted by state laws that say “no state tax dollars for athletics”, our University could have AuxServices absorb the costs currently being paid by Athletics for meals and rooms for our student-athletes. This could be done now if our President decided to take the initiative and simply “do it”! Freeing the athletic budget from these costs would net around $2,500,000 per year.
Playing One Football “Money Game” Per Season – $750K
Once we are a FBS member, we will be able to receive a minimum of $750,000 per game for playing a BSC team at their home stadium. These prices have escalated dramatically over the past five years with some SBC, CUSA & WAC programs receiving over $900K for a guarantee. One of these games would net a minimum of $750,000 per year.
Increased Marketing Sponsorships – $250K
With increased exposure in FCS, a higher-profile conference, more butts in seats for home games, and more regional/national exposure on television, we will have additional opportunities for corporate sponsorships. Taking advantage of these opportunities would net us a minimum of$250,000 per year.
So far, this scenario nets Georgia Southern Athletics an additional $7.215M per year, but much of this growth is based on finding seats for the extra fans 7,000 fans and 2,000 students we are counting on. As you all know, there is no way Paulson Stadium can absorb these addition numbers in her current configuration. We will need to add seats, lounges, private boxes, end zone seating, upper decks, etc. to Our House BEFORE we start our efforts of attracting new paying customers. We can’t afford to bring new patrons into Our House and have them sit on the berms or stand . . . and then expect them to come back again and willingly hand us their money. We have to treat them as members of the family and give them comfortable seating and competitive football for their dollars.
New Club-Level Lounge (new “Eagle Club”) – $500K
Adding a 1,000 seat club level to the newly-constructed press box/club/private booth facility on the south side of Paulson would net $500,000 per year. It would also be a magnet for attracting some of the new boosters and season tickets we are counting on for our increases. Take a look at what Troy has done with their Trojan Club lounge; they sold out their club level seating at $500 per seat per season before construction started.
New Private Boxes (40) – $700K
Constructing 40 new private suites, each holding 16 patrons, would net $700,000 per year. These suites would lease for $17,500 per year on a five-year lease, and future pricing would be based on supply & demand.
Increased Merchandising, Concessions, Parking, etc. – $150K
Increase numbers attending games will put a stress on parking adjacent to Paulson Stadium and yearly parking fees will increase due to supply and demand. Expect parking to rise to $125 per year. Increased numbers at games will also lead to more lucrative concessions and merchandising contracts, most possibly from off-campus vendors (Aramark, Sodexho, etc.). These outside vendors and other fee increases would net $150,000 per year.
Spring Golf Blitz – $75K
Southern Boosters would conduct a Spring Golf Blitz across the southeast plus DC, holding golf tournament in fifteen cities featuring the Head Football Coach and prominent football lettermen. These tournaments will not only attract GSU alumni, but friends of our alumni that simply enjoy playing in golf outings. We would secure a corporate partner for these outings and set a goal of $5000 profit per outing. This would net $75,000 per year and would also allow us to generate significant interest and enthusiasm for our program outside of southeast Georgia.
These additional revenue sources would net us $1.425M per year, giving us a total of $8.64M in increased revenue for our annual athletic budget. We’ll have a more expenses due to a new conference being more geographically wide-spread, expenses related to bond payments for retiring stadium construction costs, and increased sport program budget for recruiting, etc.
But, taking our existing budget of $9.115M and adding the expected $8.640M will give us an expected budget of $17.755 in current dollars. This budget would put GSU at #2 within the Sun Belt Conference, 11th of 12 in Conference USA, and 6th of 9 in the WAC.
I do want to say that sitting down and coming up with these numbers is a much easier task than actually going out and doing it, but the simple truth is we CAN increase our revenue if we all work together and dig deep. It will not be easy and there will many, many bumps along the way. We probably won’t be successful in most of our sports initially due to the increased levels of competition we will be facing, but if we look on this as an eight to ten year project, then success will eventually come our way.
A couple of options that I intentionally did not include in this scenario is for current boosters to increase their donations and increased ticket prices for football. We all know these will be necessary, but I wanted to run the numbers without these two options. Each of us that currently give to Southern Boosters should expect to increase our giving by 50-100% once the decision has been made for our Eagles to move up into FBS. We can also expect to see ticket prices to rise $5-$10 per seat for “priority” seating inside the 35-yard lines. It will be each of our duties to dig deep for our alma mater and make sure our move into the FBS is a success for future generations of Georgia Southern Eagles.
I also did not include any numbers from Capital Project donations which could offset many of the costs related to stadium construction and renovations.
If you don’t agree with the numbers, or if you come up with other methods of raising funds on a consistent annual basis, please feel free to chip in with suggestions.
on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 4:49 pm:
I will be more than happy to increase my yearly donation to boosters by 100% if we were to make a decision to move up to the FBS. This is something i think makes more sense for GSU than any other school in the country.
Anything I can do to help please feel free to contact me anytime on the e-mail posted.
craigcady@yahoo.com
You have my total support.
on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 4:38 pm:
Most I-AA Athletics Directors would love to have a fanbase that is this interested in the program. What other schools have the amount of fan websites, blogs, and messageboards that Georgia Southern does?
Unfortunately, our A.D. sees our passion as a nuisance to him. While other real A.D.’s would be looking to find ways to harnass this grass roots passion, Sam Baker looks at GSU’s fans with disdain.
There is no other answer to this problem. Sam Baker must be fired, and run out of town on a rail. The man is a secretive, arrogant, do-nothing clown. He needs to go coast into retirement on some other school’s dime.
on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 4:49 am:
When the hell is the study coming out anyway?!Here’s my take on the 2009 schedule:
http://www.opiegsu.blogspot.com
on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm:
The $750 for a money game is getting closer to 1 Million. For good negotiating schools.