Needing a successful football program to benefit othe sports

[SlyCy]

During Mac's infamous resignation press conference Pollard stated that ISU athletics needed the football program to be successful to benefit other athletic programs. (or something close to that)

I'm assuming he means benefits financially. Can someone explain how this works? I can understand that football brings in a lot of money but I would also think it spends a lot of money.

Is this a viable business model to rely on a succesful football program? I thought Pollard said he wanted the basketball program to be the main sport at ISU?

[clone52]

Originally Posted by SlyCy

During Mac's infamous resignation press conference Pollard stated that ISU athletics needed the football program to be successful to benefit other athletic programs. (or something close to that)

I'm assuming he means benefits financially. Can someone explain how this works? I can understand that football brings in a lot of money but I would also think it spends a lot of money.

Is this a viable business model to rely on a succesful football program? I thought Pollard said he wanted the basketball program to be the main sport at ISU?

The money football brings in far outweighs what it spends. Men's basketball is profitable, but not as good as football. Women's BB is around the breakeven point. Every other sport is in the red. Football, and to a lesser extent, basketball pay for everything. More ticket money, more donor money, it all starts with football. There aren't luxury boxes (yet?) for basketball, those are major money makers. Iowa sells their luxury boxes for almost twice as much as ISU does. If we have a successful football program, you can sell more tickets at a higher cost and sell the luxury boxes for more. There just isn't as much room for growth financially in mens basketball.

[Angie]

Even if you just look at season ticket prices alone vs. capacity, it shows why football brings in so much more money:


Hilton Capacity- 14,999 Cheapest Tickets - $99
JTS Capacity - 46,721 Cheapest Tickets - $125, I think, for hillside?

[hansen55]

I believe all Pollard said is that the basketball program needed to be a catalyst for the athletic department.

[isucy86]

I heard Pollard's interview & I never heard him say he wanted basketball to be ISU's main sport. What he said was ISU has a strong basketball tradition and that historically ISU would be considered a basketball school. I never heard him say that he wanted ISU to be a basketball school in the future. I think he wants ISU to be a school with success across athletic programs.

FB is the key to a healthy athletic deparment.

Basketball is limited. Lets say last year we averaged 12k fans per game- there are only about 2k more seats we can sell. 2k x $25/game x 18 games=$900k for a season. Consider a soldout Hilton & raising season ticket prices by $50ea. 14k x $50/yr =$$700k.

Conversely FB stadiums can be expanded if fan demand is there. Lets say ISU could avg. 55k fans instead of 46k per game. 9k x$40/game x 7 games=$2.5m Currently, ISU season tickets might be the cheapest in the Big 12. Lets say we have a good team and can raise prices to $50 per game. 55k x $13/game x 7 games =$5.0m

Those numbers are rough and don't include suite revenues, impact of current discounting programs and NCC memberships; but a solid FB program is going to bring $5-6mm more annually than a successful hoops program.

[CyCy]

Got these numbers for ISU from the NCAA Financial Reports Database.
Football $11.5M income, $7.2M expenses, net +$4.3M
MBB $5.0M income, $3.0M expenses, net +$2.0M
WBB $1.1M income, $1.9M expenses, net -$.8M
Other sports $1.9M income, $6.0M expenses, net -$4.1M
Non Program Specific $9.4M income ($4.4M donations), $10.1M expenses ($4.2 support staff salaries), net -$.7M
Total Budget $28M

[SlyCy]

Originally Posted by CyCy

Got these numbers for ISU from the NCAA Financial Reports Database.
Football $11.5M income, $7.2M expenses, net +$4.3M
MBB $5.0M income, $3.0M expenses, net +$2.0M
WBB $1.1M income, $1.9M expenses, net -$.8M
Other sports $1.9M income, $6.0M expenses, net -$4.1M
Non Program Specific $9.4M income ($4.4M donations), $10.1M expenses ($4.2 support staff salaries), net -$.7M
Total Budget $28M

Good stats. Thanks for the info.