He said a lot without saying much there...but it's telling he can't borrow money until a new contract is signed.
Pollard on Cyclone Club Level Changes
- Thread starter nfrine
- Start date
I also wonder are state funds included in those amounts? Seems like not too long ago when we stopped getting state funds we found out that a lot of schools use state funds extensively to support their ADs.
But a 0% increase at the Century level and 20% at the State level seems kind of odd. I’d think anyone could come up with $50 to $125.
The problem is that there are only so many premium seats available especially in Hilton, and when current donors can buy bunches of tickets, there’s just not much room for new donors if you have any interest in MBB. Having grown up with Hilton Magic, my first concern is still MBB over FB and based on the donor map of Hilton it seems I’m far from alone. And that’s going to be a problem for a while - as much as I love CMC and know we need FB to lead the program, I’m not super excited to donate that much $$ for 6-7 Saturdays a year without comparable benefits for MBB. That doesn’t work when JTS seats 61,500 and Hilton is only 14k.
Another thought - how about a fairly steep ticket price for non-donors? If even an increase of $15 to $25 per football ticket might drive more folks to join the CC to avoid to adder. Once they are in, they tend to stay in. Spitballing here….
Agree, would be interesting to know what are the goals and strategies. Maybe something like every graduate gets a CC packet with a new donor class of $50 a year for the first 5 years and they get same benefits as Century level. Maybe a goal of 1% of each graduating class or something like that - I'm spitballing here it's not all gold!
Do people really think Pollard hasn't tried to grow the Cyclone Club? He said right in the video that donations have tripled during his tenure, and now we're just casually tossing off that it needs to double? I'm guessing he's quite aware of what the possibilities are and limitations he may have bumped up against.
Both schools were of similar size and growth until the mid 2000's. ISU student population growth from the mid 2000's is just now starting to hit donation age. The years we were above 30K students.. Those grads are in their late 20's to early 30's (Like me).
Most made poor financial decisions and borrowed up to their eyeballs to pay for school. They aren't in positions yet to become donors that move the needle
Not suggesting at all that he hasn’t tried but just pointing out that the total number of donors is paltry at best. I’ve led fundraising efforts in the past for organizations and you typically focus on those already giving to give more as they are already vested but you also go after new donors just as hard. Seems JP needs to continue to focus on all fronts, but perhaps he has failed in this one area to date…
I agree on the Hilton conerns over JTS. Sitting on the 50 yard line in the upper deck is a GREAT SEAT and requires a $300 donation. For center court at a MBB game in the balcony. That donation is $3750...
The practicality of this isn’t easy, but what about a ticket exchange of high donor seats for donors first? We all know there are pockets of lower-level seats that aren’t used for non-conference games. Priority for student section seats for those games? Balance it with the Jr. Cyclone Club as that’s important too. You’ve got to find ways to get your donors at the lower levels at least a chance at access to better seats. For any game that isn’t full we should be packing people as close to the floor as possible. I used my grandparents’ seats down low for 3 non-conference games and for 2, I was the only person in their row. For the other, there were maybe 5 others for about 16 seats. It was nice to have the room but it also really bugged me that we didn’t have loyal fans getting to use them.
Every year I try to find better seats in Jack Trice in my donation level as my seats are 1 level below than what I donate. I have yet to find 4 seats in my donor level. I really believe people will just up their donations. This is long overdue.
Also, I really hope they go after the parking for additional money. It is a steal for a donor to get a season pass for $50. Public parking for the Iowa game was $40. I have had an RV pass for the last 15+ years. I fully expect this will go up and budgeted $1000 for it this fall.
I'm astounded at how small the donor base is. Kansas St and Iowa have similar donor amounts and I was shocked Iowa was that low. KSU benefits greatly from the KU fan base that goes to their football games and donates.
I have already paid at the new amount for my level. After listening to the video I went on cyclones.com, saw the updated amount and paid.
You take out students, band, visitor tickets, and Jr Cyclone tickets. We probably have 40,000 season ticket holders as donors. Now you have seats not requiring them, the cheap package ones, and large level donors able to get 8. It may be only able to push a thousand more until we get the non donor seats into required seats.
I think the best is to not raise the general admission seats but require a $10-25 donation per seat for them. Break the ice even with the cheap seats, the first one is the hardest one.
No. Ksu has a 25+ year head start on winning football/ having donors.
No, not surprising. Just disappointing when they don’t really have any other advantages over us beyond Snyder.
Too many people overvalue the actual revenue of beer sales. It doesn't move the needle that much.
We’re so far behind. We’re looking at least a slight loss of tv revenue.
People in this thread are talking about dropping a level. It’s scary.
Same here. Three years in a row had me at 33% over. Next year's 110% would have compounded to 46% over my donor tier so fortunately the 50% change has basically no impact in my planned giving
