Information regarding the new "Tech Fund"

Well if that's what is needed I can't say no, I can come up with the extra $100 each month and pony up the $1,000 (worst case scenario) every year when renewing my tix. That's the thing with unconditional core college fanbases, we always give because we are driven by emotion. I just wonder how this will go with the overall fanbase, schools like Ugag, UT, UF and others that have tons of fans in areas where there are no other sports entertaiment options can afford to do this better than we can, we will see.


It helps that DRad is giving up his suite at bball and football games, shows a comparative level of commitment from him, one that mirrors the financial sacrifices of the fans to a certain degree.
 
How is this possible:

$17.3 million: 2003 cash reserves
$1.5 million: Projected 2007 cash reserves
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Is that from paying down the BDS expansion debt?
 
I agree in thinking that a good bit of the decline in the reserve is due to the annual operating losses of $2.5M to $3.0M per year. Hopefully the plan that D. Rad has in the works, which includes giving up the AD boxes, will help eliminate operating losses and build the reserve back up.

I'm in for doing what is needed to get GT operations back in black, at least up to the point where it remains affordable to my operating budget.
 
This will defintiely put some of us in a bind. I do the best I can to keep my 2 seats on a teachers salary. Oh well, I'll get the money somewhere.
 
Overall sounds reasonable, but the devil is in the detail. I do like the fact that DRad is addressing this up front rather than waiting for it to worsen and put us in a crisis situation. We want to compete with the best, so we have to figure out how to pay for it.

As an offshoot, maybe this will mean those who buy the premium seats will actually be Tech fans and will sit in them? Also interesting was the statement that 80% was tax deductible. Hadn't thought of that angle before.
 
80 percent of your AT fund contribution has always been tax deductible
 
Here is the straight poop:

Link

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but it appears that instead of making a $250 per seat contribution to the AT Fund I will now make a $300 per seat contribution to the TECH Fund for my seats in Section 104. This really isn't that much of an increase (less than $10 per game per seat).
 
I'm pleased about the new licensing system even though it means more $$$. If we don't accept mediocrity, then we have to pay the cost of being better. That includes us as fans. As a grad student with limited income (though thanks to schollies far better than my peers) keeping two season tickets in the $200 area will be a stretch. I'm not sure what I will do. But I do know that when I graduate I will gladly throw my hat into the ring for better tickets. More than likely I'll get one or two tickets in the $200 or $150 system, despite being a grad student, and just cut my entertainment budget in other areas.


If you read the hive this sent them into a rather interesting meltdown. I'm no longer surprised that some people are thrilled with mediocrity--they don't won't to pay for success. Now that CCG is starting to turn the corner will they turn on him for causing ticket prices to go up (I'm joking about them turning)?

Glad to see Tech is taking the steps to be competitive in athletics and asking more than just the really wealthy folks to play a role.
 
TechSBP said:
I'm no longer surprised that some people are thrilled with mediocrity--they don't won't to pay for success. Now that CCG is starting to turn the corner will they turn on him for causing ticket prices to go up (I'm joking about them turning)?
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I hope this works. I really do. Our track record says otherwise though.
As a whole, Tech fans have gotten spoiled on the cheapest season ticket program in Southern college football. Of course a major reason for that is we have had a horrible time filling a very small stadium even with cheap seats.

Our biggest need is attracting more fans in a region where 98% of all existing college football fans already have their allegiance set for life.
Because we don't seem to generate much interest from the blue collar high school grads, our economic future rests even more on recent, current and future graduates that care about Tech football.

I will happily shell out the extra $$, but I will now demand a strong finish instead of just complaining that CG can't give us one!
Accepting mediocrity is over.
 
pocket_watch said:
but I will now demand a strong finish instead of just complaining that CG can't give us one!
Accepting mediocrity is over.
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A great point. This might be the best thing to happen yet (the higher expectations). Whether you are relatively pleased with CCG (I am), enamored, or in another of the camps, we should all recognize that we need greater expectations.

I think in the previous model mediocrity was expected; I think right now we have the right coaches across the board and personell to transition to a program with high expectations.

We've been luke warm for too long. It's time to make our play at high level success.

Let's not forget, there are still plenty of seats without the seat licenses too. If you don't want to pay extra, you won't be out of a seat. Quite frankly, you can still get the cheapest winning college football in the south east even with these changes. You just won't be able to sit in the nicest seats without making a donation of moderate size.

There aren't very many bad seats on BDS and I'm sure the visitors will still enjoy those.
 
My thing with the Hive's grumbling is that, if you had seats last year that will require a PSL this year, then you can still easily afford seats that don't require the PSL. Posters on the Hive are complaining that they'll have to stop buying season tickets, which is nonsense. Their A-T points may have become relatively useless, which is something worth complaining about, but with the PSL issue already decided, they could still attend games on their budget.

I will admit, though, that the PSL issue has the possibility of turning into something like the chairbacks in the short term. People that were in the LW will move farther back and corporations/scalpers will buy their old seats to sell to opposing fans. I'd hate to see more orange and red in the LW this year, but if we have to have that for a couple of years to compete at the highest level, so be it.
 
Florida, I think you can expect a whole bunch of the middle sections turning a shade other than gold from now on. Personally I see a major league cluster.... coming.

The part of this plan that bothers me most is that the long term folks that bought extra tickets to help sell Tech are now going to drop those tickets. I think this is plain stupid. We just don't have the fan base, but we are in a growing cycle.

Why are we screwing so drastically with a fan base that is growing but not yet there. Maybe it wasn't fair for a season ticket holder to pay $500 and then get 4 season tickets that he didn't need, but that person helped put fans into BDS. And we still need those fan selling Tech.

This system IMO will drive off a whole lot of those folks.

I come in from Baltimore for two tickets, my fellow Tech fan comes from Knoxville for two tickets. We don't need the four quite frankly. But we did drag in and helped create new fans. It's pretty hard to justify it now, considering we already spend thousands annually just to get there.

I think there are a whole bunch of fans that are going to keep a portion of their tickets and I see our season ticket sales dropping by about 25%. Foolish. By the way, if you look at the numbers, they are expecting a big loss of season tickets too. Doubly foolish IMO.
 
Unless people just have not been donating to the AT Fund, I don't see how these increases are steep enough to make them not affordable to someone that has been buying season tickets. My minimum giving level to keep my seats has been $250 per seat it is now going to $300. I would rather pay $250, but $50 per seat per season is not going to keep me from buying season tickets. There are only 2 sections more expensive than mine and they are the best seats in the stadium. I hope the people in those sections were already donating something close to the $350-$450 level.

Now if there are people going from $50 per seat to $100-200, I can see where that would be a big bite.

Did the increase seem to hit everyone proportionately? Or are the prime seats or cheaper seats getting hit harder?
 
I like the grand scheme of the plan, but I agree; in the short-run, this is hurting our fanbase IMO. I will definitely pay the extra money to have my tix, but we rarely sell out our stadium, and we have bowl venues that don't want us because we don't travel as well as other schools. So this tells me, that until we consistently put a national contender on the field each year (not 7-6 or 8-5), then this will drive people even further from coming to games. The one thing that makes me the angriest about more seats being empty, is that the opposing teams will now have more of an opportunity to buy these tix. I'm not a big fan of having 50%, and maybe more this year, UGA fans in our building. But our future is looking up, and hopefully this will all be over-shadowed by a great year in 2007.
 
There will be some downgrading, but also some upgrading as well. I'm a newly graduated engineer and with my student loan debt, I don't have that much disposable income. But I do know some guys who went through Tech on hope and have the money now to upgrade to far better seats than the old A-T system would have given them. And for many fans, when the old A-T contributions are subtracted from the PSLs, the effect becomes much less and some fans even come out ahead.

Like I said, there will probably be a bit more red and orange in the middle, high PSL stands next year, but I think that many are exagerating what will happen. We sell Tech's fan base too short sometimes and IMO the ND and Miami games last year show that many Tech fans will show up for Clemson, VPI and even UGA.
 
Really? 25%? I doubt it, and if that's true then we simply need to stop expecting a good program or complaining when we lose to ugag or even Duke. The fact is you can get in the stadium for what you pay today. And for most, they will simply move their AT donations to the Tech fund and stay in their current seats.
 
ncjacket said:
Really? 25%? I doubt it, and if that's true then we simply need to stop expecting a good program or complaining when we lose to ugag or even Duke. The fact is you can get in the stadium for what you pay today. And for most, they will simply move their AT donations to the Tech fund and stay in their current seats.
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Exactly!!! And where exactly are you going to find a better value for the dollar on a season ticket package? Because pro teams and every other major college team are way more expensive than a GT tickets in the seating sections that we are talking about.
 
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