ACC rivals' financial documents for 2019-20 - Public Schools Only

GT98 said:
Didn't exactly get a major bump after a National Title.

Reality is GT alumns are notoriously cheap. If many of them can't be convinced to buy tickets or donate to the program, what makes anyone think that they will participate in the NIL silliness?
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I think the problem is you don’t have sustained success to attract new fans. Five years of top ten finishing teams and you’ll pack the stadiums
 
Alums aren’t the only ones to donate to athletic departments. I don’t know if they keep track of these numbers, but I know plenty of non-alumni Clemson fans that have given a lot of money over the years. I would wager that our lack of sidewalk fans is a bigger problem than alumni donations.
 
johncu said:
Alums aren’t the only ones to donate to athletic departments. I don’t know if they keep track of these numbers, but I know plenty of non-alumni Clemson fans that have given a lot of money over the years. I would wager that our lack of sidewalk fans is a bigger problem than alumni donations.
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Why you need to be ranked for ten years like Clemson. No one ever comments about how long it took for them to climb the ladder. They used to be our cannon fodder.
 
Louisville? Kicking our asses financially? Wow, didn't see that coming.
 
We won't match these numbers with our regular fans. It doesn't work that way. I would guess that our dollar-per-donor ratio is pretty close to VT and UNC. We have a smaller pool to pull from.

GT continues to fail to bring in those few megadonors who can be game changers. I'm not saying its from a lack of effort. And maybe things have improved on that front since these numbers with our newest campaign. But this has long been an issue at Tech from what I've gathered. Our younger wealth is less connected to athletics than our older wealth was.

The AA has tried some strategies to improve that - even things that seem tacky to me like student football seminars at Grant Field with head coaches.

I'm not sure what the solution is. I do know that I grew up in the Atlanta area in the 1990s, and in a 400-person high school class, 4 of us went to Tech and 66 went to UGA, and every damn one of those 66 went there to bark on Saturdays, while the 4 of us went to Tech because of the institution.

And now I live in NJ, and probably a third of all college age kids want to go south for college, and about 75% of them want to go to a school that has a lively football culture.

This is something that the Hill has never quite understood, and our old friend Wes Durham used to repeatedly talk about this in booster gatherings - "athletics - specifically football and basketball - are the front porch of the academic institution". Look at how Texas's application numbers and quality jumped after their NC. I can't tell you how many kids from NJ were accepted to numerous schools but have chosen to go to Bama. Clemson's academic reputation has gone way up because it's incredibly hard to get into now, because kids want to go there in large part due to their football success. These are proven cause-and-effect relationships, and I'm not sure why the Hill has ignored them for so long.

You can be well-ranked and well-regarded as an academic institution and still make athletics a top priority. We aren't the #1 ranked public university in the country, guys, I hate to break it to some who think we are or should be. Lots of schools who make athletics are far higher priority than we do are ranked above us, routinely.

Lastly, Tech's total enrollment numbers are also not as low as they used to be. We're in the same range or above the likes of UNC, Auburn, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, UVA, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Clemson, to name a few, and that was before our enrollment surpassed 40,000 recently (https://www.news.gatech.edu/news/2020/11/05/georgia-tech-enrollment-continues-rise-despite-pandemic). Our undergrad enrollment numbers are still low - at around 16,000 I think we're the the lowest of the above-named schools, which is an issue but let's be clear that we aren't Wake Forest or Duke. We're only 3,000 shy of UNC, 1,000 below UVA...

Bottom line, the academic institution could flip a switch tomorrow and change the game by making an INVESTMENT in athletics, if it truly viewed athletics as the front porch of the institution. More sports, top facilities, etc. It just doesn't view it that way.
 
THWUGA said:
We won't match these numbers with our regular fans. It doesn't work that way. I would guess that our dollar-per-donor ratio is pretty close to VT and UNC. We have a smaller pool to pull from.

GT continues to fail to bring in those few megadonors who can be game changers. I'm not saying its from a lack of effort. And maybe things have improved on that front since these numbers with our newest campaign. But this has long been an issue at Tech from what I've gathered. Our younger wealth is less connected to athletics than our older wealth was.

The AA has tried some strategies to improve that - even things that seem tacky to me like student football seminars at Grant Field with head coaches.

I'm not sure what the solution is. I do know that I grew up in the Atlanta area in the 1990s, and in a 400-person high school class, 4 of us went to Tech and 66 went to UGA, and every damn one of those 66 went there to bark on Saturdays, while the 4 of us went to Tech because of the institution.

And now I live in NJ, and probably a third of all college age kids want to go south for college, and about 75% of them want to go to a school that has a lively football culture.

This is something that the Hill has never quite understood, and our old friend Wes Durham used to repeatedly talk about this in booster gatherings - "athletics - specifically football and basketball - are the front porch of the academic institution". Look at how Texas's application numbers and quality jumped after their NC. I can't tell you how many kids from NJ were accepted to numerous schools but have chosen to go to Bama. Clemson's academic reputation has gone way up because it's incredibly hard to get into now, because kids want to go there in large part due to their football success. These are proven cause-and-effect relationships, and I'm not sure why the Hill has ignored them for so long.

You can be well-ranked and well-regarded as an academic institution and still make athletics a top priority. We aren't the #1 ranked public university in the country, guys, I hate to break it to some who think we are or should be. Lots of schools who make athletics are far higher priority than we do are ranked above us, routinely.

Lastly, Tech's total enrollment numbers are also not as low as they used to be. We're in the same range or above the likes of UNC, Auburn, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, UVA, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Clemson, to name a few, and that was before our enrollment surpassed 40,000 recently (https://www.news.gatech.edu/news/2020/11/05/georgia-tech-enrollment-continues-rise-despite-pandemic). Our undergrad enrollment numbers are still low - at around 16,000 I think we're the the lowest of the above-named schools, which is an issue but let's be clear that we aren't Wake Forest or Duke. We're only 3,000 shy of UNC, 1,000 below UVA...

Bottom line, the academic institution could flip a switch tomorrow and change the game by making an INVESTMENT in athletics, if it truly viewed athletics as the front porch of the institution. More sports, top facilities, etc. It just doesn't view it that way.
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Put this in a letter to Stansbury.
 
BigDanT said:
Five years of top ten finishing teams and you’ll pack the stadiums
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That hasn't happened here ever. The 50/60s would be the closest to such a dominant program.

You'd definitely pack stadiums with that sort of performance over a decade. Not sure what kind of long odds I'd place on that. I think that you'd need a fundamental shift in how the school operates to bring that about, not too mention superior recruiting and coaching.
 
GT98 said:
That hasn't happened here ever. The 50/60s would be the closest to such a dominant program.

You'd definitely pack stadiums with that sort of performance over a decade. Not sure what kind of long odds I'd place on that. I think that you'd need a fundamental shift in how the school operates to bring that about, not too mention superior recruiting and coaching.
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You need a successful coach that stays.
Example: O’Leary vs Beamer.

O’Leary left because of the almighty dollar
 
THWUGA said:
We won't match these numbers with our regular fans. It doesn't work that way. I would guess that our dollar-per-donor ratio is pretty close to VT and UNC. We have a smaller pool to pull from.

GT continues to fail to bring in those few megadonors who can be game changers. I'm not saying its from a lack of effort. And maybe things have improved on that front since these numbers with our newest campaign. But this has long been an issue at Tech from what I've gathered. Our younger wealth is less connected to athletics than our older wealth was.

The AA has tried some strategies to improve that - even things that seem tacky to me like student football seminars at Grant Field with head coaches.

I'm not sure what the solution is. I do know that I grew up in the Atlanta area in the 1990s, and in a 400-person high school class, 4 of us went to Tech and 66 went to UGA, and every damn one of those 66 went there to bark on Saturdays, while the 4 of us went to Tech because of the institution.

And now I live in NJ, and probably a third of all college age kids want to go south for college, and about 75% of them want to go to a school that has a lively football culture.

This is something that the Hill has never quite understood, and our old friend Wes Durham used to repeatedly talk about this in booster gatherings - "athletics - specifically football and basketball - are the front porch of the academic institution". Look at how Texas's application numbers and quality jumped after their NC. I can't tell you how many kids from NJ were accepted to numerous schools but have chosen to go to Bama. Clemson's academic reputation has gone way up because it's incredibly hard to get into now, because kids want to go there in large part due to their football success. These are proven cause-and-effect relationships, and I'm not sure why the Hill has ignored them for so long.

You can be well-ranked and well-regarded as an academic institution and still make athletics a top priority. We aren't the #1 ranked public university in the country, guys, I hate to break it to some who think we are or should be. Lots of schools who make athletics are far higher priority than we do are ranked above us, routinely.

Lastly, Tech's total enrollment numbers are also not as low as they used to be. We're in the same range or above the likes of UNC, Auburn, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, UVA, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Clemson, to name a few, and that was before our enrollment surpassed 40,000 recently (https://www.news.gatech.edu/news/2020/11/05/georgia-tech-enrollment-continues-rise-despite-pandemic). Our undergrad enrollment numbers are still low - at around 16,000 I think we're the the lowest of the above-named schools, which is an issue but let's be clear that we aren't Wake Forest or Duke. We're only 3,000 shy of UNC, 1,000 below UVA...

Bottom line, the academic institution could flip a switch tomorrow and change the game by making an INVESTMENT in athletics, if it truly viewed athletics as the front porch of the institution. More sports, top facilities, etc. It just doesn't view it that way.
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BigDanT said:
Put this in a letter to Stansbury.
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Put this in a letter to Stansbury and Cabrera.
 
gpburdell said:
GT alums may not give a ton to athletics, but GT's 2.2 billion endowment is almost twice that of UGA and triple of Clemson.
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Yes. I’ve known the Academic side was rich. And should be. But don’t nobody want foobaw?
 
BigDanT said:
I think winning cures everything.

Guys: we can out recruit half the teams on that list. Just need to start winning.
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Yeah, but we have to keep playing the other half year in and year out.
 
I really can’t understand why GT never figures out we need top notch Sales and Marketing types. We don’t sell ourselves. We should be deluged with Techie stuff on Saturdays. We should have the most optimized football gear, the ultimate in sports statistics and analytics, we should be one the forefront of every sports-related technological advancement in every sports category- go read an article on our swimming pool. We should have endless technological events, displays, etc at all our sporting events; every chance we get to highlight our student athlete accomplishments they should be out there front and center. We do very little of this, an occasional good story, it’s indicative of leadership that just doesn’t give a F. We should be promoting our collective butts off. We’re letting a few GT sports staff, inexperienced at that, do all that work and it shows. Not a good strategy for a program trying to find its way.
 
Surprised to see NCSU so low. Seems like everyone I meet from that area likes them best.
 
GT98 said:
He likely knows this. The attitude on the Hill needs to change more...
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President Cabrera seems receptive and possibly the right guy. The rubber will meet the road on the next Campus Master Plan. They haven't done one since the Olympics. They're overdue. And they haven't finished the tailgating lot outside the North Endzone that they put in that plan over 20 years ago. If they're going to invest -- REALLY invest -- the master plan will address the need to do something with the football stadium. There's a decade long wait for premium seating but nobody wants to sit in the Upper North. If GT is willing to properly and fully redo Bobby Dodd Stadium then I know they're serious. Or if they're willing to endow the scholarship costs across ALL sports as part of a capital campaign, freeing the GTAA to fundraise for improvements instead of operations. That too would be another sea change the mothership can help bring about.
 
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