GTAA Finances

gtg970g

gtg970g

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Per this article "Revenues from ticket sales, TECH Fund, suites and club seats and concessions were down a combined $1.1 million against projections." That is not good folks. The fiscal year starts July 1 so this would reflect season ticket sales for Football & Basketball for 2019-2020 but not ticket sales after July 1.

The article also mentions that we are getting new LED stadium lights and other unspecified "upgrades".

https://www.ajc.com/sports/college/updates-store-for-bobby-dodd-stadium-2020/fInA8t6GVqkdOBhqLtU1nM/
 
Start selling alcohol. Iirc nothing prevents us from doing it but us. Georgia law now allows it. Acc doesn’t prevent it i dont think. Just do it.

also think of it this way.

in 2017 our budget was 77 million

just 3 years. Its 84 million.

we are willingly and gladly spending more. The reason being is we aim to break even every year. We dont aim to profit. All this teeth gnashing is silly. Our aa wants to spend more. It wants to break even or even mis by a tad. Now we missed by 600k. Not good. But way better than the 1.7 prior.

point is. The aa is fine. A 10 percent willing increase in 3 years on budget shows that. We could produce a budget lower than 84 and be just fine. The aa will always push the edge of budgets. Its how its slated to operate
 
Going to have to make the games more attendable.

September Thursday night games (not November). Sell beer to the commoners . Don't half ass things like the DJ, go all in. Fix the problems with the PA. Transform the crappy south end zone into something appealing. Work with the band and enhance traditions, don't replace them. Get rid of the stupid "enhancements" CGC did for rideouts and make it exciting again. Let people bring whatever ööööing food and water they want and risk the terrorist attack that will never happen. Show other big games during TV timeouts.

We are going to have to get incredibly creative to fix attendance and build a new generation of fans. This is a case where Tech really does need to be unique, because even the factories are hurting. Following their lead will not fix our problems.
 
The problem is GTAA has no idea how to fix the issues. It makes me wonder if they even care about the product that they aim to market and sell.
 
Attendance issues at McCamish are mostly due to the product on the floor, though some game times are bizarre for television.

Attendance issues at Bobby Dodd Stadium is complex and multi-faceted, but just a few I'd list:
- Bleachers are crap and for a high demand game the average amount of butt exceeds the allotted seat bleacher butt carrying capacity (BBCC) ... go to chairbacks
- Have food vendors that can sling it quickly with a better menu and the option to have them bring it to your seat ... Chic-Fil-A, WaHo, MickeyD's, Bojangles, etc
- Sell alcohol
- There is a near 10 year waiting list for premium seating at Bobby Dodd Stadium because there just isn't enough of it. Might I suggest making the entire stadium chairback and then you just have cheap premium on up in your inventory?
- Thursday games are a traffic armageddon ... if you're coming out of town on I-85 if you're not inside the perimeter by 4:00p you're so screwed
- Get rid of the mandatory TECH Fund contribution and go back to selling all the good tickets through the Alexander-Tharpe Fund. For people buying solo outside the A-T Fund fine have some fee you tack on that goes to the A-T Fund. But for your real actual boosters who are supporting the GTAA make the damn tickets cost what they cost and don't hide behind a fee structure like an unscrupulous bank.

Fixing some of these issues is a mixed bag. The Master Plan is from the Centennial Olympics and badly needs to be updated. Bobby Dodd Stadium itself needs wholesale renovation and reconfiguration. Doing this immediately drags in 4-6 other buildings, one of which is about to be brand new (Edge). And if you're going to do it really properly and thoroughly now you're talking about dragging in 8-12 buildings including several dorms and a dining hall (admittedly they all badly need redoing themselves).

All Stansbury is going to be able to do for now is nibble around the edges with new areas like the chairbacks and Tech Terrace. You're not going to be able to seriously address needs until Cabrera has had more time on the job and gotten into a good working relationship with Stansbury. And a glaring high priority item for the two of them is an updated Master Plan. Whenever in the coming months/years that comes out will be deeply revealing to the long term vision they have for the athletic department.
 
The article also says attendance was still higher than CPJ's last season, so it looks like TStans was a little optimistic about year 1 attendance.
 
Maybe with the new lighting GT will be able to start September games like South Florida and Citadel at sunset rather than 2:00pm and 12:30pm like they did this year. Most normal people don't want to be sitting outside in the sun on a September afternoon. Auburn started their comparable Tulane and Kent State games at 6:30pm and 6:00pm for comparison.

I think if you really want be bring change, get Cabrera to stop the admissions office's practice of crapping on legacy applicants. If a legacy applicant has the grades and test scores they should get in. Second and third generation alumni are good for supporting the school and for supporting the GTAA; that goodwill should be nurtured, not squandered.
 
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The problem with more premium seating is it would likely cannibalize current season ticket holders. Maybe I'm wrong and we have big donors in the wings whom want a cushioned seat upon which they can rest to watch a football game. Unless premium seating brings new bodies in the door it isn't going to bring enough additional revenue to recoup the initial investment unless they charge through the nose (I skeptical that we can charge enough to make it worth the investment).
 
Flywheel said:
The article also says attendance was still higher than CPJ's last season, so it looks like TStans was a little optimistic about year 1 attendance.
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Attendance was higher overall compared to 2018 mostly due to UGA. TStan's estimate may have fell short due to repercussions of the Citadel debacle early in the season.
 
Flywheel said:
The article also says attendance was still higher than CPJ's last season, so it looks like TStans was a little optimistic about year 1 attendance.
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Attendance is expected to be higher in season we have uGA on the schedule.
 
gtg970g said:
The problem with more premium seating is it would likely cannibalize current season ticket holders. Maybe I'm wrong and we have big donors in the wings whom want a cushioned seat upon which they can rest to watch a football game. Unless premium seating brings new bodies in the door it isn't going to bring enough additional revenue to recoup the initial investment unless they charge through the nose (I skeptical that we can charge enough to make it worth the investment).
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Agree; but they could add an inch or 2 to each seat on the bleacher at little cost. It would reduce overall capacity and require a re-seating of season ticket holders though.
 
I was at every home game and while the average might have been reported as over 44,000 per game, there weren’t that many butts in the seats.
 
Lotta ideas in this thread have not been fully thought through, IMHO. Any changes to the physical structure of seats/bleachers is a huge cost and also entails a lot of regulatory hoops. The whole reason the club seats are in the less desirable east stands was because it was a lot cheaper to do ADA upgrades on that side than on the west side. The costs are way more than simply the physical installation cost. And it is not easy to fundraise for "widening bleachers by a few inches," so that means the funds are coming out of operational dollars.

Any money the GTAA can find under the seat cushions should be put toward people/services (coaches, analysts, assistants, recruiters, whatever), not into seat reconfiguration. We've got a lot of unused capacity in our stadium and the primary reason is because we haven't been consistently good for a long time. The last time we were consistently good (O'Leary), we expanded the stadium. If we get consistent again, we'll finally start filling it up year in and year out.
 
texstinger said:
Going all chairbacks is a loser. Huge cost and if folks are interested in that kind of comfort and restrictions - stay home and watch on tv.

How many colleges have all chairbacks.
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Lowly little ole Stanford went all chairback. Nobody builds new without at least a huge majority chairback. TF Bank Stadium (Minnesota, the newest P5 stadium, ~$500m) is a nice compromise if you wanna cheap out ... it's all chairbacks on the sidelines where it matters most.
 
cbee said:
I was at every home game and while the average might have been reported as over 44,000 per game, there weren’t that many butts in the seats.
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I think these financial figures only run through June 2019 so the impact of the Citadel loss would not be seen here.

I agree with 18in32 that we need to focus on staff to improve performance vs facilities. I wish we had done this for the Men's Bball program the last 10 years.
 
Staff first ... but frankly the only remaining major staff that isn't a Stansbury hire that remains is Pastner. All of the Stansbury hires so far have been immediate major upgrades. There is some successful carry over as well (Heppler/Golf/Homer Rice hire ... Collier/WVB/Bobinski). I feel dirty saying Bobinski made one non-terribad hire, but selecting a Brazilian to coach your VB staff is like entering a cheat code on a video game. Two of the three lights out players on the VB team are from Brazil.
 
18in32 said:
Lotta ideas in this thread have not been fully thought through, IMHO. Any changes to the physical structure of seats/bleachers is a huge cost and also entails a lot of regulatory hoops. The whole reason the club seats are in the less desirable east stands was because it was a lot cheaper to do ADA upgrades on that side than on the west side. The costs are way more than simply the physical installation cost. And it is not easy to fundraise for "widening bleachers by a few inches," so that means the funds are coming out of operational dollars.

Any money the GTAA can find under the seat cushions should be put toward people/services (coaches, analysts, assistants, recruiters, whatever), not into seat reconfiguration. We've got a lot of unused capacity in our stadium and the primary reason is because we haven't been consistently good for a long time. The last time we were consistently good (O'Leary), we expanded the stadium. If we get consistent again, we'll finally start filling it up year in and year out.
Click to expand...

So you're saying there's no reason not to sell beer
 
If the renovations include other campus buildings and we have handicap compliance issues, why can't the GT Academic Admin pay for a substantial part of the cost of a major renovation out of their capital budget.

I am confused. We have more capacity than we can sell. Yet, if we reduce the capacity slightly by significantly increasing the comfort of the fans and increasing the value of the tickets, we will cannibalize the existing season ticket holders. Providing chairbacks is not going to reduce the capacity of BDS enough to create sell outs of the existing layout.

Premium boxes also need to be added that can be sold to Alumni and to corporations or rented out for corporate events and training.

Planning and analysis for all of these items should be allocated to the MBA, Real Estate, Building Construction, Civil Engineering and Architecture departments as class projects. Why pay for work that can be performed better at minimal cost by on campus resources.

Do we have anyone in the AA that is marketing BDS, McCamish, etc for concerts, external sporting events, corporate events, etc. to generate additional revenue and exposure?
 
The seats are fine. A little bit of pressure washing and some paint and improved concourse lighting would go a very long way in terms of stadium impressions though. The ramp going to upper west, west festival area, and upper east concourse are dumps.
 
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