MGB: Key questions UNT’s new AD will face Part III — What’s the scheduling philosophy?

[MeanGreenTexan]

22 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

Your "high end" hotels are generally the only ones that have enough meeting space for the entire team for all the pre-game meetings that take place.

I guess your idea of "high-end" and mine are a little different.  Yours may line up more with Rick's, but when I think "High-end", I think The Mansion, Ritz-Carlton, The W, The Omni, Hilton Anatole, etc...    

...Not a Courtyard/Garden Inn by TMS.

[UNTFan23]

Just now, MeanGreenTexan said:

I guess your idea of "high-end" and mine are a little different.  Yours may line up more with Rick's, but when I think "High-end", I think The Mansion, Ritz-Carlton, The W, The Omni, Hilton Anatole, etc...    

...Not a Courtyard/Garden Inn by TMS.

That's why I put high-end in quotes, because there are much nicer hotels than what the team stays in prior to games.

[Aldo]

15 hours ago, FirefightnRick said:

4. Stop wasting money buying 3-5 different uniforms every year.

[UNTFan23]

11 hours ago, Silent Eagle said:

Regarding Wardly's response to my post, Rick is spot on. Expenses can be cut for travel and uniforms.  Regarding the rest of it, we do have to continue to increase the student fee.  If the students protest, go away.  We don't need that crowd.  We won't win them over anyway.  As we improve and in the very near future become a winner, the students won't care.  We can't worry about alienating the "Berkeley South" clique. It won't be an issue if we offer a game day experience, not an amateur hour half-assed effort that we're used to.  Market, Market, Market!  If we do that, the body bag games will become a non issue.  RV fell back on the body bag games because he refused to do his job.  And I can say that because I had to reach out and ask to donate money.  People have to reach out to renew their season tickets.   

Let's also share the burden and raise ticket prices as well. No reason people on the press box side can't chip in a little more.

[GreenTexan13]

21 hours ago, UNT90 said:

So it's a rivalry then?

Sure.... Can't wait to call out all the fan's wearing Portland State shirts and throw up the Claw everytime I see Portlandia....

[FirefightnRick]

Dickey's teams never stayed in a hotel for home games.  

Not sure what the motor speedway costs but I've seen us stay in hotels at DFW airport before too that are surely more expensive.  So if we have to continue to waste money with this practice then find ones that are the MOST affordable around here. 

And I've seen players tweet out pics from out-of-town hotels where the rooms come with robes etc that seem a bit more fancy than I would think we need.  

But it is certain that if we wanted to get serious about saving money in this area I'm sure we could?

Rick

Edited June 2, 2016 by FirefightnRick

[UNT90]

I would hope we get more serious about raising money than saving money. The last AD was miserable at the former.

[FirefightnRick]

1 hour ago, UNT90 said:

I would hope we get more serious about raising money than saving money. The last AD was miserable at the former.

This is true.

 

Rick

[Aquila_Viridis]

If the paid games from big conference schools are a financial necessity, then something has to fundamentally change so that it is not a necessity. One thing, it is reasonable to expect the NT decision-makers to get committed to finding more money for the athletics program, through means other than these paid games. When you compare how very large NT is to most other schools, it is absolutely sad that NT is being outspent or matched by tiny schools.   Setting that aside, while I know that getting people in the stadium will raise some funds, realistically I don't see that being a substantial source because ....

... let's say that NT decision-makers are committed to remaining laughably small-time despite NT's huge size. I can live with that. I can live with small 'crowds' in the stadium. I can live with playing opponents who have almost no tradition or recognition. What I can't live with is losing so many %^&*# games year after year. Do a campaign to raise funds to get out of the contractual commitments. Figure out a way to put together a program that regularly plays opponents it will beat; not all of them, but most of them. Maybe it seems hard to do, but there are universities out there doing it. Study and learn from them.  It seems like NT has no ability or willingness to tackle this problem. That means there is terrible guidance and leadership; letting this disaster drag on for decades. I feel like the place is being held hostage by lazy idiots and only a few people care. It really is a chicken/egg problem. At least the airplane-delivered terrorist kite of hate speech went to raise awareness.  I feel like there needs to be more attention-grabbing events like that so maybe some more people will understand the injustice that is going on down there.  You guys are talking about stuff that ain't gonna happen like P5s often in the stadium, and about SMU; I don't give a damn about them, it's a much better university and has all kind of money and is not relevant to us. SMU is an easy distraction; don't fall for it. Getting people in the stadium (to see what, another NT lopsided loss??) is the least of our worries.  Meanwhile the more immediate issue is that you have people over there bending ears saying stuff like 'This is a financial necessity'.  GTFOOD!

[UNTLifer]

The hotel by TMS goes for about $80 a night.  I am sure they get a better rate than that considering the number of rooms, conference rooms, etc...  Not expensive.

[caseyorourke]

9 hours ago, FirefightnRick said:

Dickey's teams never stayed in a hotel for home games.  

Not sure what the motor speedway costs but I've seen us stay in hotels at DFW airport before too that are surely more expensive.  So if we have to continue to waste money with this practice then find ones that are the MOST affordable around here. 

And I've seen players tweet out pics from out-of-town hotels where the rooms come with robes etc that seem a bit more fancy than I would think we need.  

But it is certain that if we wanted to get serious about saving money in this area I'm sure we could?

Rick

Back when Nigel Burton was the HC, they say he saw a player coming out of a 7-11 on game day with a Slurpee. He then decided to put the team in a hotel the night before a home game so he could make sure the team wasn't out doing what he considered stupid things.  That was one of the first things Coach Barnum changed when he became our HC.

 

By the way, Nike just did a major rebranding for us replacing the old "Buffaslug" with a new primary (PS) and secondary (Viking head) logo and uniforms. I really like the helmets

 

Edited June 2, 2016 by caseyorourke

[UNTcrazy727]

Those are sharp AF. I REALLY dig the new Viking logo. Maybe we should hire Nike to develop us a new look? We desperately need another logo to go with SOW. "North Texas" simply doesn't cut it.

[FirefightnRick]

7 hours ago, caseyorourke said:

Back when Nigel Burton was the HC, they say he saw a player coming out of a 7-11 on game day with a Slurpee. He then decided to put the team in a hotel the night before a home game

 

 

Did Nigel Burton win 26 straight conference games in a row and 4 straight conference championships enroute to 4 straight bowl games??

 

Rick

[caseyorourke]

13 minutes ago, FirefightnRick said:

 

 

Did Nigel Burton win 26 straight conference games in a row and 4 straight conference championships enroute to 4 straight bowl games??

 

Rick

Not even in his wildest dreams

[FirefightnRick]

5 minutes ago, caseyorourke said:

Not even in his wildest dreams

Coach Dickey did and without putting the team in a hotel the night before home games.

I guess Dickey figured the players were men and were expected to be responsible for themselves and to the team. Whatever it was his motivational tactic for this worked.

 

Rick 

[wardly]

I don't see how you can cut back on travel expenses enough to have any meaningful impact on the budget. The few times I have traveled with the team we either spent Friday night in a Holiday inn, returning after the game Saturday, or flew in Saturday morning and home that night. In the past few years we have  upgraded our hotels, but you can't put kids in a Day's Inn anymore.In addition, the cost of uniforms is all about what recruits want and expect. In order to eliminate one body bag game, we must increase giving an additional $1 million per year. To make then go away will be another $million. Hard to do when your giving base is only $800,000 annually.We just can't waive a magic wand and expect our financial shortfall to go away.

[FirefightnRick]

1 minute ago, wardly said:

I don't see how you can cut back on travel expenses enough to have any meaningful impact on the budget. The few times I have traveled with the team we either spent Friday night in a Holiday inn, returning after the game Saturday, or flew in Saturday morning and home that night. In the past few years we have  upgraded our hotels, but you can't put kids in a Day's Inn anymore.In addition, the cost of uniforms is all about what recruits want and expect. In order to eliminate one body bag game, we must increase giving an additional $1 million per year. To make then go away will be another $million. Hard to do when your giving base is only $800,000 annually.We just can't waive a magic wand and expect our financial shortfall to go away.

Sure we can.  We can do all of the above.  It just takes some vision, hard work and some imagination.

I mean some folks couldn't even imagine us getting rid of our previous AD just a little over a week ago and look what happened.

 

Rick 

[UNTcrazy727]

1 hour ago, FirefightnRick said:

Sure we can.  We can do all of the above.  It just takes some vision, hard work and some imagination.

I mean some folks couldn't even imagine us getting rid of our previous AD just a little over a week ago and look what happened.

 

Rick 

I don't think you understand how modern college athletics work. I bet you want us to bus to every game too.

[Aldo]

5 minutes ago, UNTcrazy727 said:

I bet you want us to bus to every game too.

That's too expensive. Make em run, keeps em healthy.

Oh, and makes a man out of em, too.

[Army of Dad]

2 hours ago, wardly said:

I don't see how you can cut back on travel expenses enough to have any meaningful impact on the budget. The few times I have traveled with the team we either spent Friday night in a Holiday inn, returning after the game Saturday, or flew in Saturday morning and home that night. In the past few years we have  upgraded our hotels, but you can't put kids in a Day's Inn anymore.In addition, the cost of uniforms is all about what recruits want and expect. In order to eliminate one body bag game, we must increase giving an additional $1 million per year. To make then go away will be another $million. Hard to do when your giving base is only $800,000 annually.We just can't waive a magic wand and expect our financial shortfall to go away.

Why do you keep talking about two body bags per year?

[MeanGreenTexan]

3 minutes ago, Army of Dad said:

Why do you keep talking about two body bags per year?

There is only a need for 1 paycheck game per year.  I'm not sure why Wardly is saying this.    
The TN game this year was due to RV playing 'kick the can' for as long as he could.  The IA game was the paycheck game.    
We should not have any more seasons with 2 paycheck games in the future.  
And with an AD worth his salt, we should easily be able to raise enough funds to eliminate the budget shortfall of ~$500-750k between the paycheck games we're receiving money for & the FCS games we're paying to bring in.

[wardly]

Sorry, I thought that games against Iowa and Tennessee last year were both "body bags." If we are down to only one, then an annual  giving increase of $1 million to $1.2  might get us to where we need to be, but it is going to have to come from new givers as I don't see our existing base of $800,000 increasing that much from the same fan base.But hey, I certainly could be wrong.

[Ben Gooding]

3 hours ago, wardly said:

I don't see how you can cut back on travel expenses enough to have any meaningful impact on the budget. The few times I have traveled with the team we either spent Friday night in a Holiday inn, returning after the game Saturday, or flew in Saturday morning and home that night. In the past few years we have  upgraded our hotels, but you can't put kids in a Day's Inn anymore.In addition, the cost of uniforms is all about what recruits want and expect. In order to eliminate one body bag game, we must increase giving an additional $1 million per year. To make then go away will be another $million. Hard to do when your giving base is only $800,000 annually.We just can't waive a magic wand and expect our financial shortfall to go away.

Yeah, 800K sucks. That would fall at the feet of a certain individual. That individual was mutually fired last week. Let's hope the next person we get in here can triple that. That's where we must be. And we should have been there years ago. But no one wants to associate themselves with a loser and rightfully so. 

[Army of Dad]

10 minutes ago, wardly said:

Sorry, I thought that games against Iowa and Tennessee last year were both "body bags." If we are down to only one, then an annual  giving increase of $1 million to $1.2  might get us to where we need to be, but it is going to have to come from new givers as I don't see our existing base of $800,000 increasing that much from the same fan base.But hey, I certainly could be wrong.

They are body bag games, but even RV couldn't/wouldn't manage to schedule two every year. As it stands, we have one body bag (and only one) for the next 4-5 years already scheduled.

As bad as RV was at football schedules he didn't usually arrange more than one per year so we don't need to look at elimination two games. 

Sorry to call you out, but this is I think the second time this week I saw you post something about two games and I thought we should try to clear this up.

[MeanGreenTexan]

10 minutes ago, wardly said:

Sorry, I thought that games against Iowa and Tennessee last year were both "body bags." If we are down to only one, then an annual  giving increase of $1 million to $1.2  might get us to where we need to be, but it is going to have to come from new givers as I don't see our existing base of $800,000 increasing that much from the same fan base.But hey, I certainly could be wrong.

They were, but the TN contract was signed almost 10 years ago and did not have a set date... but could not be played >10yrs from when it was signed.   Guess when year 9 or 10 was?    Rick kicked it down the road as long as he could.  He knew it was coming, but could not schedule around it.   Hence, we had 2 paycheck games in 2015.  

Hoping that wont happen again since we don't have a floating contract out there that needs to be "squeezed in" and we have a new AD coming that hopefully knows how scheduling works.

Agree on milking additional funds from the already minuscule fan base that is currently giving.  That's where an AD that knows what he's doing can create new opportunities for new donors.

15+ years of dealing with RV has left many people wondering if the light at the end of the tunnel is real.   The next AD hire is incredibly critical.  Because if we hit with the right guy, the sky is the limit.