How does Tech rank financially? This is not a pretty picture

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Where does your school rank among richest and poorest Power 5 college football programs? New revenue figures for all 65

It took a little longer this year for the U.S. Department of Education's Equity in Athletics Data dump. But the latest numbers are out now. See where your favorite program ranks in the numbers that actually matter most -- on the business end of college football.

www.pennlive.com

 

[Supersize that order mutt]

You can't blame this on Collins, because it's been like this for a long time. At least part of the blame for this lies at the feet of selfish fans. Time to pony up, boys and girls, whether you like the current state of things at Tech or not. If we don't, and it TStan can't get a helluva lot bigger corporate donations, the we might as well write Tech athletics off, and not just football.

 

[nedleeds]

GTRI alone produced $1.5 billion in economic impact. About 50/50 in sponsored research and raw revenue.

Why anyone even acknowledges our alma mater has a football team is mind blowing. Just disband it until there is an academic league or some place where schools that teach math and science can compete in something resembling a level playing field.

 

[andrew]

You can't blame this on Collins, because it's been like this for a long time. At least part of the blame for this lies at the feet of selfish fans.

A similar sad story here as native Georgian Geoff Collins came from Temple to relieve longtime triple-option proponent Paul Johnson and the Jackets sank into a 3-9 morass. Football eeked out a $1M profit and tumbled farther in one year than any program in the rankings. Men’s hoops ran a deficit of slightly over $1M.

The GT fanbase as a whole is extremely fair weather. Combine that with extremely poor performance from Collins and you have a recipe for disaster.

The really scary thing is that these figures are from his first full year as coach, when no one really expected much. I can only imagine how bad the numbers wil be for years 2 and 3.

To emphasize: these are revenue figures relating to the 2019 football season and the 2019-20 basketball season, not last season. So, they do not reflect the broad fiscal distress of the COVID-wracked and, in some cases, stunted 2020 football season, but do include decrease in funds from the lack of a 2020 NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

 

[StraightFresh]

GTRI alone produced $1.5 billion in economic impact. About 50/50 in sponsored research and raw revenue.

Why anyone even acknowledges our alma mater has a football team is mind blowing. Just disband it until there is an academic league or some place where schools that teach math and science can compete in something resembling a level playing field.

I think this is called D3. COFH with Emory instead?

 

[nedleeds]

I think this is called D3. COFH with Emory instead?

Sure. Emory, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, maybe the service academies essentially the bottom 90% that have a 0% chance of ever winning in D1 just form a competitive football league. Your players must all read at an 8th grade level and can't have a felony arrest. They must solve the following problem 21 = X - 10 ... What is X?

You'd at least watch a competition instead of a sad joke. There would be an actual game.

 

[vapspwi]

You can't blame this on Collins, because it's been like this for a long time. At least part of the blame for this lies at the feet of selfish fans. Time to pony up, boys and girls, whether you like the current state of things at Tech or not. If we don't, and it TStan can't get a helluva lot bigger corporate donations, the we might as well write Tech athletics off, and not just football.

We’re a really weird case. The traditional Tech engineering nerd, if he’s into football, is going to be much more practical and analytical than the meathead fan of some big factory school. The engineer is going to be more measured in his support and weigh the costs and benefits. So that’s what we’re dealing with.

Expanding and broadening enrollment might help, but a) we’re still pulling disproportionately “smart kids” and people from other states/countries who don’t become fans, b) we’ve lost a generation of fans by being mostly mediocre to bad (with a lot of “not like that” attitude when we were legit good like 2014), and c) the deck is stacked against us for attracting “sidewalk fans.”

The pool of old people who remember Dodd fondly is shrinking, the media is all Dwag (and we haven’t given them much to report even if they were so inclined), metro Atlanta is majority transplants, and rural Georgia defaults to Dwag even if they aren’t outright hostile to Tech for being brainiacs and city boys.

I don’t have any answers, but it’s easy to see all the problems we’re up against.

JRjr

 

[LagrangeJacket]

I think this is called D3. COFH with Emory instead?

That would be a tough matchup. Emory football is still undefeated.

 

[nedleeds]

I'm O'Leary era, smart, out of state, and immensely wealthy. I know I'm not alone, and people like me would enjoy a competitive program just have better things to do than be humiliated by associating with our football program. It's sad, but true. I was hoodwinked into thinking we'd be competitive by coaches like O'Leary and to a small extend the NFL players recruited by Gailey. It's clear D1 has moved beyond Tech.

 

[THWUGA]

We’re a really weird case. The traditional Tech engineering nerd, if he’s into football, is going to be much more practical and analytical than the meathead fan of some big factory school. The engineer is going to be more measured in his support and weigh the costs and benefits. So that’s what we’re dealing with.

Expanding and broadening enrollment might help, but a) we’re still pulling disproportionately “smart kids” and people from other states/countries who don’t become fans, b) we’ve lost a generation of fans by being mostly mediocre to bad (with a lot of “not like that” attitude when we were legit good like 2014), and c) the deck is stacked against us for attracting “sidewalk fans.”

The pool of old people who remember Dodd fondly is shrinking, the media is all Dwag (and we haven’t given them much to report even if they were so inclined), metro Atlanta is majority transplants, and rural Georgia defaults to Dwag even if they aren’t outright hostile to Tech for being brainiacs and city boys.

I don’t have any answers, but it’s easy to see all the problems we’re up against.

JRjr

Lots of schools have similar problems and don't have these problems because their fans and alumni support athletics disproportionally to Tech's fans and alumni. Stanford, UCLA, Michigan - I'll exclude Notre Dame thanks to their TV contract - Cal... all schools more difficult to get into than Tech, all schools that have world-renowned engineering programs, etc.

Personally I get really tired of the "engineers don't waste money" argument to rationalize poor support of Tech athletics.

The facts are, even during the "pre-internet, before everything-is-on-TV-anyway" years we struggled to sell out BDS@HGF, and then we learned that it wasn't even 50,000 seats like we thought it was.

In my 22 years since becoming a Tech freshman, I've seen countless gimmicks to "improve the gameday experience" and they are all terrible because they are all manufactured. Our best gameday experiences are the ones that have stayed the same - The band, buzz and wreck visiting various tailgates before the game, coming down the hill together to enter the stadium, our fight songs and the budweiser song.

Just win. And everything changes. Fans come back. College Gameday comes back. The entire world is not against Georgia Tech. In fact ESPN, the AJC, everyone would love a contender in Atlanta.

But a bad program will be poorly supported, especially in major markets. We saw it at blue blood USC this past year, despite their fake attendance figures:



You guys will laugh at me for this but there's nothing keeping us from being the Stanford of college athletics if the academic school wanted to make the athletic department part of its mission and make a real investment in it. And I've laid out here before that I think there's a strong case to do so. It's certainly capable of doing so, financially, I'm just not sure of the governance issues.

 

[18in32]

I'm O'Leary era, smart, out of state, and immensely wealthy.

 

[cyptomcat]

...
You guys will laugh at me for this but there's nothing keeping us from being the Stanford of college athletics if the academic school wanted to make the athletic department part of its mission and make a real investment in it. And I've laid out here before that I think there's a strong case to do so. It's certainly capable of doing so, financially, I'm just not sure of the governance issues.

I don't know about Stanford. As far as general athletics, they are a premier program, not sure if a realistic goal for Tech. As far as football, they are way down from the Harbaugh / early-Shaw years:
2019 Stanford 4–8 3–6 T–5th (North)
2020 Stanford 4–2 4–2 3rd (North)
2021 Stanford 3–9 2–7 6th (North)

 

[THWUGA]

I don't know about Stanford. As far as general athletics, they are a premier program, not sure if a realistic goal for Tech. As far as football, they are way down from the Harbaugh / early-Shaw years:
2019 Stanford 4–8 3–6 T–5th (North)
2020 Stanford 4–2 4–2 3rd (North)
2021 Stanford 3–9 2–7 6th (North)

Fine, Stanford is probably a top 5 overall athletic program the last decade, and I think they won a couple of director cups. The point is they are elite because despite an A+ academic institution, the school prioritizes the athletic program and invests in it. While we run on a budget with little/no help from the academic institution.

 

[savbandjacket]

Tech needs to do a better job of making students appreciate the athletic experience (whether as a SA or as a fan) that the Institute provides. Tech grads value worth in terms of academics. This is evident in how Tech fans look down on people who didn’t go to Tech and retreat to academic arguments when we get our asses kicked. Other schools view worth in terms of football success. Some schools have a mix. We need to get to where our graduates view both as worthy of support and admiration and appreciate those fans of the Institute’s teams who did not go for whatever reason.

 

[THWUGA]

Tech needs to do a better job of making students appreciate the athletic experience (whether as a SA or as a fan) that the Institute provides. Tech grads value worth in terms of academics. This is evident in how Tech fans look down on people who didn’t go to Tech and retreat to academic arguments when we get our asses kicked. Other schools view worth in terms of football success. Some schools have a mix. We need to get to where our graduates view both as worthy of support and admiration and appreciate those fans of the Institute’s teams who did not go for whatever reason.

Won't happen without wins. You can create all the gameday gimmicks you want -- none of them have ever stuck. Winning brings everyone in, and increases donations. You have to make the right investments and bring in a turnaround guru to get results - it's no different than any other business.

 

[Supersize that order mutt]

Lots of schools have similar problems and don't have these problems because their fans and alumni support athletics disproportionally to Tech's fans and alumni. Stanford, UCLA, Michigan - I'll exclude Notre Dame thanks to their TV contract - Cal... all schools more difficult to get into than Tech, all schools that have world-renowned engineering programs, etc.

Personally I get really tired of the "engineers don't waste money" argument to rationalize poor support of Tech athletics.

The facts are, even during the "pre-internet, before everything-is-on-TV-anyway" years we struggled to sell out BDS@HGF, and then we learned that it wasn't even 50,000 seats like we thought it was.

In my 22 years since becoming a Tech freshman, I've seen countless gimmicks to "improve the gameday experience" and they are all terrible because they are all manufactured. Our best gameday experiences are the ones that have stayed the same - The band, buzz and wreck visiting various tailgates before the game, coming down the hill together to enter the stadium, our fight songs and the budweiser song.

Just win. And everything changes. Fans come back. College Gameday comes back. The entire world is not against Georgia Tech. In fact ESPN, the AJC, everyone would love a contender in Atlanta.

But a bad program will be poorly supported, especially in major markets. We saw it at blue blood USC this past year, despite their fake attendance figures:



You guys will laugh at me for this but there's nothing keeping us from being the Stanford of college athletics if the academic school wanted to make the athletic department part of its mission and make a real investment in it. And I've laid out here before that I think there's a strong case to do so. It's certainly capable of doing so, financially, I'm just not sure of the governance issues.

What's sad about the current situation is that Collins (or maybe TStan, who knows) has done away with some of the time-honored traditions on game day. Buzz is no longer allowed on the field, and, at least so I have heard, Collins (or TStan?) didn't want the Wreck leading the team on the field. Fortunately, somebody immediately vetoed that idea. The team no longer enters carrying the US and GA flags. And (I know I am beating a dead horse here on this site), we see more blue now than we see White and Gold, and for me and many others, that totally sucks. In fact, I think all those changes I listed totally suck,

 

[savbandjacket]

Won't happen without wins. You can create all the gameday gimmicks you want -- none of them have ever stuck. Winning brings everyone in, and increases donations. You have to make the right investments and bring in a turnaround guru to get results - it's no different than any other business.

It all starts with Tech doing a better job of getting its alums to start supporting athletics both by going and financially. Tech is an efficient machine in collecting money for academics. More money mean better coaches, better facilities, and hopefully better players and results.

 

[georgia_tech_swagger]

The football program is the lifeblood of the GTAA. It's like that for all of the football firsts in the ACC and SEC. You field the worst GT football team in over a generation and slide into what is now a nearly decade long slide into the cellar and that's what you're going to get. I would say if Clemson were in a decade long mire they'd look similar but they at least have IPTAY to fall back on. Whereas the A-T Fund at Georgia Tech has only recently been treated as something other than a legal structure for the AD to talk to the big money. Clemson's financial strength is built on the back of not just deep pocketed money but also the wide net of smaller donations like a Ron Paul / Bernie Sanders type political campaign. The A-T Fund has sucked massively until very recently at encouraging new small donors to connect and stay connected with the program.

This is the legacy of the no talent ass clown Mike Bobinski (who is thankfully ruining Purdue these days), Collins face planting his first three seasons on the trot, John Swofford having the worst TV contract in the P5 with the longest retention span which just so happened to benefit his kiddo at Raycom, and not having a properly loved and cared for A-T Fund to bridge the gap. Remember ... the Disney money alone is $4,000,000/month more deposited in Athens than Atlanta. Feelin' the love for our "partner" for the ACCN yet?



Picked Nits:
- Georgia Tech exports its alumni. You only need so many nuclear engineers in metropolitan Atlanta. As a result of GT alumni being far more scattered than your typical land grant, they have to travel quite a lot more to go to games. And that's travel to Atlanta which is like a double penalty on time. This knocks attendance down.

- Those who do stay in Atlanta have no shortage of entertainment options as opposed to say Oxford, MS or Columbia, SC where massive drinking before, during, and after a football game is all there is going on pretty much ever. This knocks attendance down.

- Due to the neglect of several prior Presidents and ADs, the gameday experience beforehand at BDS is scattershot at best. I suppose you could walk from the 5th St bridge through the Greek buildings to Bobby Dodd Way NW and call that "the tailgating area". Peters was suppose to be tailgating space in the last master plan done for the Olympics in '96. Note it still isn't f'n there. They should also consider turning the top of Centergy and other decks into a tailgate space. I'm largely ignorant on the specifics, but it feels like unless you donate bank it's damned near impossible to get an RV remotely close to the stadium. This knocks attendance down.

- Get some proper chairback seats and spacing. It's not a big deal for me, but it is a deal breaker for older family and friends. I saw some intrepid older fans attempting to "cane bleacher" their way down in the Upper East during the NIU game, so I can't be alone here.

Having said that winning cures all those nits. I was at the NIU game. I said I was not coming back until staff changes were made. I held to that and did not attend another game all season. No regrets, just applying the one piece of leverage I have that is well understood at the GTAA. And look -- changes were made. So now I'll be back in the stands for next season. I think you'll see *some* recovery with the staff changes in attendance. Think what NIU looked like -- 15k empty instead of 30k empty.




If Angel Cabrera has his mind rite, he would propose as part of the next capital campaign to fully endow the scholarship costs of all the GTAA programs. It's insane that the GTAA has to spend much of the year fundraising to cover operational scholarship costs. That needs to stop. The programs should all be structurally endowed like golf is. Think of paying for your sports teams more in the Stanford/Duke way (endowment) as opposed to the Tennessee/Michigan way (expensive football tickets to a so-so facility that houses over 100k). Georgia Tech needs a blend of the two and they only really half a sliver of endowment and depressed ticket sales to a non-ideally configured stadium that can't even seat enough to make the math work that way.

 

[savbandjacket]

What's sad about the current situation is that Collins (or maybe TStan, who knows) has done away with some of the time-honored traditions on game day. Buzz is no longer allowed on the field, and, at least so I have heard, Collins (or TStan?) didn't want the Wreck leading the team on the field. Fortunately, somebody immediately vetoed that idea. The team no longer enters carrying the US and GA flags. And (I know I am beating a dead horse here on this site), we see more blue now than we see White and Gold, and for me and many others, that totally sucks. In fact, I think all those changes I listed totally suck,

The flags didn’t start until D-Rad. I know because I emailed him about it and specifically said the GA flag needs to be included as a reminder that Tech is a GA school. The immediate next week, players came running out with flags. Then it became Tech’s favorite photo - the team coming out behind the Reck with the US and GA flags flying.

 

[georgia_tech_swagger]

Fine, Stanford is probably a top 5 overall athletic program the last decade, and I think they won a couple of director cups. The point is they are elite because despite an A+ academic institution, the school prioritizes the athletic program and invests in it. While we run on a budget with little/no help from the academic institution.

Google the "Stanford Easy A List" that was passed around to athletes. Stanford has lots of utterly bogus bull**** liberal arts majors to hide people in.