ZZZZzzzzZZZZZzzzzzz

[proshox]

Cold - I appreciate the effort. There was zero financial support.

Furthermore, I hear the basketball office is pushing some pretty crazy ideas to generate revenue at games. Maybe they will get some takers, but the numbers I heard them approach one firm with were laughable.

[C0|dB|00ded]

During the previous football effort (bringbackfootball.com or something like that) there were reports of donors standing by with ten million dollar checks. Maybe it was an urban legend. As far as the most recent attempt is concerned... it never got off the ground. It was only a fact-finding mission. Once we got accepted into the AAC it was wise to shelve it for a bit until the upcoming costs/benefits were fully realized. Bringing the topic of football back up in 3-5 years makes sense if everything is going swimmingly with basketball and baseball.


T


...:cool:

[Aargh]

The arena ideally would be owned by the city/county and financed with bonds.

With that sentence you just proposed a huge tax increase. Really? Do you think that could get a favorable vote? IBA has incredibly more function and benefit to the community than a football stadium would have. The Stones didn't sell out Cessna. You won't get the big acts into Wichita. I struggle to find much practical use for a 40,000 seat venue in Wichita other than football.

[Aargh]

On the subject of athletic department funds, it's worse than just not having the $$ to fire Butler. The latest tax package out of Washington includes a penalty for non-profits who pay salaries past a certain threshold. Marshall is well past that threshold, and it's going to cost the athletic department over $500,000 a year in penalties for his salary level. Plus there's the $2 mill that was borrowed to pay the entry fee into the AAC.

Football is a dead issue at WSU. It is now. It will be in 3 to 5 years. It will be in 20 years. It's not going to happen, so you may as well stop fantasizing about it. If anybody thinks for a moment that Bardo didn't beat every bush - at least twice - looking for the $40 mill his study said was needed, you'd be sadly mistaken. That man wants every aspect of a dynamic campus that can possibly be created and maintained. He decided it wouldn't work.

The guy with the ability to rattle the big money guys, the guy who probably wanted more than anything to find the money, couldn't find it. It's not there. The community would never agree to tax increases to help fund it. I don't believe even the most radical tax and spend politician would ever propose taxing the public for WSU football.

Basketball is a social event in Wichita. Seeing people and being seen at basketball games is a social function for a lot of people who show up at the games. You're not going to get many of the 70+ age group that supports basketball to go to football games. We can't always sell out IBA for games there, and that's inside for a team and a sport that the city loves, and it's against "name" teams.

[1972Shocker]

nm

[C0|dB|00ded]

With that sentence you just proposed a huge tax increase. Really? Do you think that could get a favorable vote? IBA has incredibly more function and benefit to the community than a football stadium would have. The Stones didn't sell out Cessna. You won't get the big acts into Wichita. I struggle to find much practical use for a 40,000 seat venue in Wichita other than football.

Monthly debt service on a $200M 30 year municipal bond at 3% would be around 900k. The Shocks would pay around $200k per game to rent the stadium then some share of ticket/concession/advertising revenue I assume. I'm getting these rough numbers from the rental rate of Giants stadium which is $250K + $15K per additional day.

A project of this magnitude would indeed require a not insignificant participation from the tax base. But this is a municipal center for the city. These projects are not supposed to be self-sustaining in a traditional business sense. A stadium's success would be measured by the perceived benefits to the growth and happiness of the community.

And of course there's always plan B: Give old Cessna Stadium a face lift.


T


...:cool:

[C0|dB|00ded]

Of course if I were going the govt-owned route, I would do the one cent sales tax again. Nearly a third of that is paid for by out-of-county visitors. We could raise $200M in 3 years then it would be free and clear just like the IBA.


T


...:cool:

[ShockerFever]

I hate CAVE'rs. And this city is mindlessly full of them.

I'm glad IBA passed and we have it but my god was it horribly designed and constructed. That low hanging roof was an abomination. And because of that we have a Newman-level scoreboard with high school graphics and ribbon board that doesn't even have a functioning clock (it would disappear during NCAA games). The whole suites on one side of thing and only building it for 15,000 was retarded. Was that all just to save a few more million to keep the roof so low or something? And with that type of planning, I'm fearful for future projects like the new baseball stadium or Cold's football stadium proposal.

I want those things but I want them done right. With some of the nutter-butters in office and the planning that goes through with them, I'm fearful we throw more millions into half-assed "new" venues just to save a couple dollars., i.e. let's keep a failing baseball coach in power and drive the baseball program deeper into irrelevance by not getting rid of him and saving a few bucks for a former athletic director's mistakes.

[C0|dB|00ded]

They kept the roof low for "acoustic purposes" whatever the fk that means. Ask the guys on the top couple rows of the east end what they think of the acoustics. That being said, even on the top rows at the ends, you can still easily see the entire length of the basketball court.

IBA is a nice venue. It's light years beyond Bug'aha's Quiet Center with respect to comfort and amenities. But it was built too small. And not having the ability to expand is beyond retarded and classic Wichita smallmindedness.


T


...:cool:

[Aargh]

The best scenario for a FB stadium would be Cessna. There is room for expansion by putting seating around the south end zone. Parking could be handled like the Stones concert. There was off-campus parking with shuttle buses. A downtown or K-96 and Oliver location would lessen the impact of football on the campus. I don't think there's a way to make renting a stadium for $200K work. If there's an average ticket price of $30, that's 6,667 tickets sold that go strictly to facilities rental. Against a no-name opponent, that might be the attendance.

I would go to games if football was restarted. I don't believe there is enough community or financial support for that to ever happen. Even when WSU had a great product on the field, we weren't getting 20,000 to the games. North Texas has a long-established program with established rivals and conference opponents. They have the Dallas population base to draw from and they can't average 20K for their games.

I think football could be done "on the cheap", but I don't think the Wichita market would support that type of a program. The community supported basketball through some rough patches, but look what happened to baseball once the team wasn't a consistent winner.

[shoxrox89]

On the subject of athletic department funds, it's worse than just not having the $$ to fire Butler. The latest tax package out of Washington includes a penalty for non-profits who pay salaries past a certain threshold. Marshall is well past that threshold, and it's going to cost the athletic department over $500,000 a year in penalties for his salary level. Plus there's the $2 mill that was borrowed to pay the entry fee into the AAC.

Football is a dead issue at WSU. It is now. It will be in 3 to 5 years. It will be in 20 years. It's not going to happen, so you may as well stop fantasizing about it. If anybody thinks for a moment that Bardo didn't beat every bush - at least twice - looking for the $40 mill his study said was needed, you'd be sadly mistaken. That man wants every aspect of a dynamic campus that can possibly be created and maintained. He decided it wouldn't work.

The guy with the ability to rattle the big money guys, the guy who probably wanted more than anything to find the money, couldn't find it. It's not there. The community would never agree to tax increases to help fund it. I don't believe even the most radical tax and spend politician would ever propose taxing the public for WSU football.

Basketball is a social event in Wichita. Seeing people and being seen at basketball games is a social function for a lot of people who show up at the games. You're not going to get many of the 70+ age group that supports basketball to go to football games. We can't always sell out IBA for games there, and that's inside for a team and a sport that the city loves, and it's against "name" teams.

I remember a lot of people saying wsu switching conferences was a dead issue 4 years ago.

[C0|dB|00ded]

https://media3.giphy.com/media/4vQZcC96dTfG/giphy.gif


T


...:cool:

[1972Shocker]

Some input odds and ends to add to the football discussion.

https://www.kansas.com/sports/colleg...166203132.html

To play football in a conference that made sense for WSU basketball would require much more than $20 million poured into Cessna Stadium. Houston opened a new stadium in 2014 at a cost of around $125 million. Tulane’s stadium, also opened in 2014, cost around $73 million.

In Tampa, South Florida unveiled early plans for a $200 million stadium that would seat 40-50,000 fans.

Houston's stadium seats 40,000 and Tulane's 30,000.

A survey of AAC Football Attendance (2017 season) and Facilities:

UCF 37,000 / 44,200
ECU 36,700 / 50,000
Memphis 36,300 / 61,000 Liberty Bowl *
Houston 32,600 / 40,000
USF 31,000 / 65,000 Raymond James Stadium (Also home of the Tampa Bay Bucs) *
Cincy 28,400 / 40,000
Temple 27,300 / 68,500 Lincoln Financial Field (Also home of the Philadelphia Eagles) *
UConn 20,300 / 40,000
SMU 19,300 / 32,000
Tulsa 18,500 / 30,000
Tulane 17,000 / 30,000

* Community owned stadiums

The most impressive attendance is probably ECU considering that area's population base. The least impressive is perhaps SMU's.

Most comparably situated demographically to Wichita State would seem to be Tulsa. Tulsa shares a relatively small population state. Oklahoma (4 million - 28th) with two Big 12 schools, OU and OSU, both with good football programs. Wichita State shares Kansas (3 million - 35th) with two Big 12 schools, KSU and KU, one with a good program as long as Bill Snyder is at the helm and the other striggling mightily currently. A 30,000 seat stadium would seem to be more than adquate for WSU.

The median annual expenses for FBS football programs in 2014 was $16,000,000 according to an NCAA report. I assume that includes the cost of scholarships. Not sure how the AAC programs compare to this.

Another NCAA study based on 2013 budgets (all sports) showed that only 20 FBS schools generated profits. The average loss at among P-5 programs wa $2.3 million. At non P-5 FBS programs the average loss in 2013 was $17.6 million.

Bloomberg had a series of 6 articles on the financial challenges facing college football programs that ran at the beginning of 2017. Here is a link to those articles:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/speci...llege-football

I don't know if Wichita State ever released the study that they conducted about football prior to joining the AAC. It would be interesting to see that.

I suppose where there is a will there is a way but it certainly seems like a daunting task and success is far from assured. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that at this point in time the will sufficiently exists at least among those who really count. And it does seem like a bet the athletic department move especially in the current environment and with WSU still dealing with a costly move to to the AAC.

[Topshock]

Houston built what is perhaps the nicest new non-P5 stadium in the country for $130M. It’s slick.

North Texas built a nice joint for $80M, and they didn’t cut corners.

A $500M new stadium would make all but probably 25-ish schools in the entire country jealous, as well as at least one NFL franchise.

I don’t have $130M myself to give, but David Koch gave somewhere around that amount so the .01%ers of the NYC upper crust could have more comfy seats to watch ballets, opera, and whatnot, when they aren’t otherwise busy talking about how evil the Kochs are.

North Texas has NEVER sold that stadium out and averages 22,000 fans in a metro population of over 7 million in football crazy Texas. You do the math in Wichita.

[AndShock]

10-15 years ago was the perfect time to build Wichita and then we MIGHT be in a good spot to bring back football right now. A downtown casino with a badass arena would have provided so much $$$$ for everyone. Throw whatever BS money they spent on Gander Mountain on some sort of job creation and we might have enough fans to fill up the stadium. I just wish we had Bardo 15 years ago to lobby the city throughout everything. As it stands now, football can only come back if Koch is 100% behind it. Even then, it’s probably not great football, but it’s football.

[WstateU]

https://twitter.com/kstatefb/status/1023009644241924096?s=21

[C0|dB|00ded]

https://media1.tenor.com/images/19c6...itemid=5385105


T


...:cool:

[WichitaStateGuy]

Basketball season cannot get here soon enough.

[Shockerman]

Some of the projections on the new AAC media contract are predicting 8-10 million dollars per year for all Sports schools. We would see maybe a tenth of that as a non football school. Not that we could tap into that $$ right away but it would go a long ways towards funding a program.

[Stickboy46]

1/10 of any number is more than we were getting while paying to produce our own stuff for ESPN in the MVC.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

The number I've heard thrown around is non-football schools would get 25%-30% of the contract. This is based on the premise that Navy gets 70%-75% of the contract as a football only.