Author Archives: NewsTeam
UConn to Add 2,000 Temporary Seats for Michigan Game
By: Hunter Mundy
The Connecticut Huskies will be hosting the Michigan Wolverines football team on September 21, 2013. For UConn, this may be the biggest home game ever scheduled. The game will take place at the Huskies’ Rentaschler Field, which has a normal capacity of 40,000 fans. This will be the second game in the contracted series between the two teams. The first game, a 2010 Wolverine victory of 30-10, was held before of a crowd of 113,090 at Michigan Stadium.
Connecticut normally allots 3,000 tickets to visiting opponents, but the contract with Michigan requires UConn to reserve 5,000 tickets for the Wolverines. In order to keep the same amount of season ticket opportunities, UCONN plans to add 2,000 temporary seats to the stadium’s capacity. While the Huskies have had numerous games in past years where crowds reached the 40,000 capacity, the additional seats, along with this game’s high demand for tickets, are sure to set a new record for football attendance.
In 2009, UConn’s average attendance was 38,229, and in 2012 the average number of spectators at Connecticut’s six home games was 34,672. Over four years, the ticket demand for Huskies football tickets has decreased by approximately 3 percent. Not taking into account required donations during the 2009-2011 cycle, tickets ranged from $150 for reserved seats to $210 for mezzanine chairs for a six-game home schedule. For 2013, which has a seven-game home schedule featuring the Wolverines, season ticket prices range from $175 for reserved seats to $280 for mezzanine chairs. UCONN/Michigan game attendees (outside of those purchased through the Wolverines allotment) will be required to purchase season tickets through the Huskies Athletic Ticket Office.
Some may ask why Michigan would not renegotiate or buy their way out of this contract in order to allow for an extra home game and the additional revenue that would generate. Dave Brandon, Michigan athletic director, stated to CBS Sports that even though he could have broken the deal, he opted not to because, “it would screw up [UConn’s] schedule” and force Michigan to “run around trying to find another game.” While cancelling this game would have led to scheduling difficulties for both groups, allowing this game to take place is truly a win-win for both institutions.
Michigan’s allotted 5,000 seats for this game does not nearly meet the expected ticket demand of Wolverine fans. With UConn located in one of the most populated areas of the United States, Michigan alumni are plentiful. For instance, the University of Michigan Alumni Club of New York, based in New York City, has over 13,000 members. Additionally, there are at least eight UM alumni clubs within a three-hour drive of UConn’s Rentaschler Field. UM Alumni Club members typically have the opportunity to purchase tickets for most home and away Michigan football games. However, it is the norm for these benefits to exclude rivalry games with Notre Dame and Ohio State as well as other games with traditional high-ticket demand.
As an example of the excitement and limited supply of tickets in the marketplace, the UConn game has also been added to the excluded list of games available directly to UM alumni club members. Look for UM fans throughout the region to either increase their UM athletic club donations and/or purchase UConn season football tickets in an effort to see their beloved Wolverines live and in person.
The 2013 season will be Connecticut’s first year in the newly named and configured American Athletic Conference. Having a home opponent on the schedule such as Michigan could not come at a better time. With losing former Big East rivals West Virginia, Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Huskies schedule, the Wolverines visit to Rentaschler Field will give the university and its football program a spark and a chance to shine on the national stage.
Many college programs choose to schedule traditional powers in order invigorate their home schedules and grow their program’s budgets. For instance, UConn’s rival Rutgers hosts the SEC’s Arkansas Razorbacks on the same day the Wolverines visit the Huskies.
In 2010, Duke University hosted the Alabama Crimson Tide, which set a modern day attendance record at the Blue Devils’ Wallace Wade Stadium (35,237). The #1 Crimson Tide routed Duke 62-13 in front of what ESPN dubbed “a crimson coated stadium named for a former Alabama coach.” Duke also used temporary stadium seating to accommodate the extra Alabama fans for this big contract game.
Additionally, Michigan State, along with Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan are a part of an agreement known as “Celebrate the State.” This contract contains 12 games from 2011 to 2020 with Michigan State facing each team four times during the period. One game of each these four game series will be played on the home field of Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan. In 2012, Michigan State visited Central Michigan and won 41-7. This game set an attendance record for Kelly/Shorts Stadium of 35,127 spectators with plenty of green-clad Spartans fans in attendance. Johnny Adams, Michigan State’s cornerback, stated to ESPN, “It was a little different, a smaller environment; but at the end of the day it’s all football. It’s good for the fans and it’s good for Central to bring the fans out here and put on a great show.”
New Databases Added: 2010-2011 Football Revenue and Expenses
Here at BusinessofCollegeSports.com we keep enormous databases of information to assist in our reporting and analysis. We try to share as much with you as possible, but our web capabilities aren’t always what we wish they were. That being said, we recently came across a great WordPress plugin called TablePress that will allow us to post more of our databases. So, today we give you our 2010-2011 databases on football revenue and expenses (broken down by category) for public FBS schools subject to public disclosure laws.
You can find all of our databases under the Data tab above.
Penn State on the Rebound
By: Alexandria Jenkins
An entire nation was left shocked and speechless when news of the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal surfaced in November 2011. The Penn State community fell victim to the horrifying betrayal of its former defensive coordinator and was forced to sit by idly as the effects of the crime rippled through “Happy Valley.” For university officials, students, fans and alumni alike, nothing could have proven more sickening than the life-long damage inflicted on Sandusky’s victims.
Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, the NCAA imposed an unprecedented $60 million, five-year fine and four-year postseason ban on the Nittany Lions. Additionally, numerous sponsors cut ties with the university, with along with other costs associated with the scandal brought the school’s total estimated losses attributed to the scandal to $46 million and counting over the past 17 months, according to an article posted by Advertising Age.
Since Dec. 31, 2012, Penn State says it has spent more than $41 million on NCAA fines, legal and consulting fees. Advertising Age added that the university has lost more than $1 million in sponsorship/advertising after companies like General Motors, Cars.com and Sherwin Williams pulled their support for the football team, while forfeiting another $700,000 in licensing royalties from merchandise sales. Furthermore, This month, Penn State will shell out $3.25 million to the Big Ten Conference to be donated to children’s charities as part of the first installment of a four-year, $13 million penalty, according to Scott Chipman, the Conference’s Assistant Commissioner.
Now, six months removed from Sandusky’s trial, Penn State is finally starting its uphill battle towards financial recovery. After pulling its ads in late 2011 “out of respect for those involved,” Cars.com returned to football telecasts last season and has announced plans of staying on for 2013-2014. There is also hope of potential sponsorships with Chevy and State Farm, although no deals have been finalized.
The shamed Penn State brand is also showing signs of recovery. According to Marketing Arm, Penn State ranked in the top five most-trusted NCAA properties in June 2011. By January 2012, the university had fallen to last place among 104 nationally measured schools. It bounced back to the mid-60s in 2012, now ranking among well-respected schools like Stanford, Michigan and Harvard.
Despite all of this, Cynthia Hall, Penn State’s acting Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, said that the university did not increase its overall marketing budget since the scandal occurred.
Educators: Business of College Football Text Coming Soon!
If you’re an educator who teaches a course that could benefit from BusinessofCollegeSports.com founder Kristi Dosh’s upcoming book on the business of college football, SATURDAY MILLIONAIRES, please visit this page and register for more information.
Naming Rights Deals (Updated)
The first of many resources we’re adding here at BusinessofCollegeSports.com is a database of all the current naming rights deals in college athletics.
You can view the database under the Data tab above or click here. Thanks to intern James Maddox for compiling all the data!
If we’ve missed any, please let us know.
Who Fans are Most Mad for March?
By: James Maddox
It’s a forgone conclusion that in this day and age large sporting events will have a huge social media influence. This past February’s Super Bowl helped generate 24.1 million tweets during “America’s Game.” Now, the holy grail for college basketball fans is taking the spotlight as March Madness gets prepared to crown the 2013 national champion. And it seems the Twitterverse has spoken when it comes to which school and fan base is making the most noise.
Fizziology, a social media research company, recently did an analysis of the NCAA tournament based on organic discussion on Twitter this past Tuesday and Wednesday. Organic discussion in this sense is defined as discussion pertaining to anything related to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament that users talk about on their own, without any prompt. The conversation was broken down as follows:
- South region: 37%
- Northeast region: 26%
- Midwest: 21%
- West region: 16%
It makes sense for the South region to lead in Twitter conversation. Louisville, the #1 overall seed, is in the South and Florida Gulf Coast has dominated headlines as they continue their miraculous tournament run. According to Fizziology, the South has 41% more conversation about March Madness than the Northeast, 79% more than the Midwest, and 124% more than the West on Selection Sunday. Keep in mind these regions refer to geographical regions and not necessarily the regions according to the tournament bracket.
With many of the 68 teams representing large metropolitan areas, it’s no surprise that the list of markets with the most Twitter users talking about March Madness reflected this as of 3/27/13:
| Designated Market Area (DMA) |
| 1. New York |
| 2. Washington, D.C. |
| 3. Chicago |
| 4. Atlanta |
| 5. Los Angeles |
| 6. Charlotte |
| 7. Indianapolis |
| 8. Philadelphia |
| 9. Louisville |
| 10. Dallas/Ft. Worth |
| 11. Boston |
| 12. San Francisco |
| 13. Kansas City |
| 14. Raleigh |
| 15. Detroit |
Fizziology was able to gather other interesting tidbits of data as well:
- Overall conversation among Tweets was 59% positive, 37% neutral, 1% negative, and 3% mixed
- Conversations regarding brackets constituted approximately 32% of the organic conversation.
- 83% of those filling out brackets completed at least two, 5% filled out at least 5, 4% filled out at least 10, and another 4% filled out at least 15.
Furthermore, ViralHeat was able to summarize an interesting collection of information regarding the tournament with an info graphic titled “March Madness: The Journey to the Socially Sweet Sixteen.” Here is what they discovered:
- Based on Twitter mentions the most talked about team among the Sweet 16 is the University of Miami with well over 312,000 mentions; the least talked about team is Michigan State with 29,980 mentions.
- The most positive messages on social media were related to Wichita State with 66% positive sentiment; the lease positive messages were regarding Syracuse with 44% negative sentiment.
- When Wichita State defeated Gonzaga, the Bulldogs’ overall positive sentiment dropped to 22% while Wichita State’s overall positive sentiment soared to 46%.
- Florida Gulf Coast’s upset over San Diego State landed the FGCU Eagles as the only team in the top 3 for both total mentions and positive sentiment.
- Based on a combination of the team’s seed and total social media attention, the social media world predicted Kansas, Indiana, Florida Gulf Coast, and Duke in the Final Four.
March Madness Social Media Buzz
Viralheat, a social analytic platform, has created the following infographic about social media buzz around March Madness.
Are you surprised to learn Miami is getting more mentions than FGCU? Or that Kansas-UNC was the most-mentioned game?
VCU: The ‘Smart’ Place to Go
By: Jason Singer
When Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) burst onto the NCAA Basketball scene in 2011 and made it all the way to the Final Four, nobody thought anything of it. Everyone, including the teams in their own region, thought VCU was just another Cinderella team, one that managed to get the magic slipper for one year, and would never get back amongst the elite of Men’s basketball again.
However, this has not been the case, as VCU has now reached the past three NCAA tournaments, and has won at least one game in all three years. Most recently, they gained their highest seeding ever (#5 seed), with an at large bid from the Atlantic-10 Conference, and defeating #12 Akron, in their 2nd round matchup.
VCU has now gained popularity all over the country, with support from celebrities like Spike Lee, who made sure to see them play at their conference tournament at the Barclays Center this year. He even tweeted to the coach and the players:
As evidenced by Spike Lee’s enthusiasm for the team, the uproar of VCU basketball has clearly reached a national level.
Shaka Smart, the Head Coach of VCU, exemplifies the image of the basketball team, school, and the city of Richmond, Virginia in general. For example, a professor from the University of Maryland, Ronald T. Rust, said it perfectly: “By highlighting him … (officials) project an image of the city — young, hip, multiethnic and successful — that is not necessarily Richmond’s current image.” Rust and many others say that by Smart staying in Richmond and not bolting for a bigger, more well-known university, he shows that there is reason for kids to come to VCU, whether they play basketball or not. The basketball program increases tourism, merchandising, and business growth in general, and makes students who are applying for colleges want to attend VCU, since the university and city are becoming more reputable as a result.
Furthermore, the program has increased interest by companies and businesses throughout the fifty states, as those travelling through town may be inclined to go see a great team play basketball. Lee Warfield, a president of a commercial real estate brokerage firm, in Henrico County, Virginia, says that the success of the team is lifting the profile of the region, and in turn luring clients in. VCU, and Richmond, being shown on national television gives the region a positive image, which is the exact image that Warfield and other in the area want.
Of course, VCU has benefited from the basketball success in other ways as well, from apparel sales to applications to donations. Last year, Kristi Dosh wrote on ESPN.com that apparel sales in 2011 topped $1.3 million during March Madness, donations to athletics were up 376 percent and donations to the university were up 46 percent.
All in all, it seems that having Shaka Smart stay in Richmond to coach VCU Men’s Basketball, at a time when the program is becoming increasingly better, will continue to have great outcomes for the region. VCU has now became a force to be reckoned with in Men’s Basketball, and nobody will be taking them lightly for years to come. Personally, I look forward to seeing what they can do in future years, and can’t wait to see when Shaka Smart and his players are cutting down the nets after winning it all.
NCAA Tournament Viewership Up
From IMG College…
The NCAA Tournament is off to its best start in viewership in 23 years. A highly entertaining mix of marquee names, scrappy underdogs, the overlooked, and the schools no one saw coming is bringing a 6.3 average rating to the tournament – the most viewers since the event expanded to its current format.
On Sunday, across all networks (CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV), NCAA Tournament coverage averaged a very strong 7.6 overnight – the best average for the first Sunday of the tourney since ’93. Highlights as reported by Sports Business Daily:
- Kansas’ win over North Carolina on CBS led all weekend games with a 7.3 overnight Nielsen rating (+14% from comparable 2012 game)
- Indiana’s win over Temple earned a 7.2 overnight (+20%)
- Ohio State’s last-second win over Iowa State earned a 5.4 overnight in the early Sunday CBS window (+26%).
- Florida Gulf Coast’s win over San Diego State earned a 2.8 overnight on TBS – the top-rated cable game of the weekend.
Each of the day parts across all four CBS/Turner networks showed a gain in viewers. Of note:.
- The first daytime window (12:00-2:45pm) drew it highest rating since ’02.
- The first primetime window (5:15-9:15pm) had its highest rating since ’91.
‘Old’ Big East TV Deal Reduced After Catholic 7 Bolt
By: James Maddox
Conference realignment has recently taken college athletics by storm and you can expect a completely different look for quite a few teams starting with the 2013-2014 season.
Early last week, ESPN’s Brett McMurphy broke the news that the conference formerly known as the Big East will have their new TV contract with ESPN reduced by approximately $4 million due to the ‘Catholic 7’ leaving and taking the conference name with them. The ‘old’ Big East initially inked a $130 million contract but it dropped to $126 million over 7 years after the news broke regarding the Catholic basketball schools. This is drastically less than the 9 year, $1.17 billion offer from ESPN that was rejected by the Big East nearly two years ago.
According to ESPN.com Sports Business Reporter Kristi Dosh, founder of BusinessofCollegeSports.com, the yet-to-be-named former Big East conference will earn approximately $20 million annually combined for football and basketball from 2014-2020. The conference is also currently in talks with to renew their CBS contract, that would entail a minimum of 14 men’s basketball games featuring Big East teams on the network per season at a rate of $2 million annually. CBS first broadcasted Big East games in 1981. (UPDATED 3/26/13, 2:19 p.m.: The former Big East has announced a deal has been reached with CBS for at least 12 games a year through 2019-2020.)
Looking at the table below you can see the conference formerly known as the Big East looks completely different from its establishment in 1979. The conference has struggled to survive as members have defected for new opportunities and lucrative TV deals. Before the ‘Catholic 7’ (non-football playing schools) departed, the conference struggled to retain members that had not even arrived yet. TCU was expected to join the Big East before signing with the Big 12; similarly, Boise State and San Diego State decided to stay with the Mountain West Conference after prior talks with the Big East.
Conference Members
|
School |
Entrance Year |
Sports |
|
Cincinnati |
2013 |
All |
|
Connecticut |
2013 |
All |
|
Houston |
2013 |
All |
|
Louisville1 |
2013 |
All |
|
Memphis |
2013 |
All |
|
Rutgers2 |
2013 |
All |
|
Southern Methodist |
2013 |
All |
|
South Florida |
2013 |
All |
|
Temple |
2013 |
All |
|
Central Florida |
2013 |
All |
|
East Carolina |
2014 |
Football* |
|
Tulane |
2014 |
All |
|
Navy |
2015 |
Football |
1 = Louisville has officially joined the Atlantic Coast Conference and will be a participating member starting in 2014
2 = Rutgers has officially joined the Big Ten Conference and will be a participating member starting in 2014
*(UPDATE: 3/26/13, 2:19 p.m.: ESPN’s Brett McMurphy is reporting that East Carolina will be admitted as a full member, and Tulsa will also be admitted as a full member.)
All of this plays a large role in the ‘old’ Big East’s recent TV contract. A clause in the contract with ESPN protects the network from any potential financial losses due to future defections, meaning the deal can be terminated if teams continue to leave. To strike a deal with the conference, ESPN had to match the offer set by NBC Sports Network. According to ESPN’s McMurphy, the contract divides the league into two groups: Group A (consisting of Connecticut, Cincinnati, Houston, and Temple) and Group B (all other members). The stipulations are as follows:
-If two group A programs leave, the deal can be terminated
-If one group A program and one group B program leaves, the deal can be terminated
-If two group B programs leave, the deal can be renegotiated
The fact that the deal was reduced by $4 million after the announced departure of the ‘Catholic 7’ shows that the reality of the situation is serious.
Accordingly, this all places an enormous amount of pressure on conference commissioner Mike Aresco, whom has taken the disastrous situation of Big East realignment with stride. “You can’t have any regrets. I knew it was going to be a challenge,” Aresco stated in a recent interview with CBS Sports. “The reality is that a lot of people felt that a break like this was inevitable. Our job was to navigate our remaining schools through these tough times.”
Prior to this new deal, the former college basketball powerhouse known as the Big East locked in a 6 year, $200 million deal with ABC/ESPN and CBS ending this year. According to collegesportsinfo.com, this averaged an annual revenue of approximately $3.18 million for football schools and $1.56 million for non-football schools. It is quite evident as to why the ‘Catholic 7’ departed for greener pastures. It is also evident that the soon-to-be renamed Big East is not the force it once was.
