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Topic: Bowl -break even?

Topic: Bowl -break even?

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colobobcat66
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Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 1:13:38 PM

I noticed that the Messenger had an article yesterday about the Bobcats breaking even on the bowl game. Anybody have any more info on that? I noticed that there were many folks on here saying we were going to lose a bundle. Were they wrong or not?

John C. Wanamaker
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 1:20:31 PM

Technically both sides are correct, it's all in how you split hairs and count.

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

colobobcat66
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 1:22:34 PM

John C. Wanamaker wrote:

Technically both sides are correct, it's all in how you split hairs and count.

Please enlighten me some more. Give me some idea what the hairs are that you are talking about.

Last Edited: 1/10/2011 1:23:28 PM by colobobcat66

Athens Block
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 1:29:00 PM

colobobcat66 wrote:

John C. Wanamaker wrote:

Technically both sides are correct, it's all in how you split hairs and count.

Please enlighten me some more. Give me some idea what the hairs are that you are talking about.

I'm assuming it's all in how you look at where certain funds came from and what they were spent on. Whether or not you count private funds as revenue or if you count spending them on the bowl against the gross etc. Also, how you count money that goes back into the University system. For instance, did Athletics spend money by housing the Athletes on campus? Probably, but a lot of that money was re-circulated back into the University, so how much did the University actually spend? Just my assumption at least.

John C. Wanamaker
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 2:22:09 PM

If you have income of 100k, and expenses of 200k, but you budgeted an extra 100k of funds to cover cost, of a project, did you lose money or did you break even?

The University set aside cash to cover any revenue shortfalls of post season play. So even though revenue did not meet expenses, there was no loss or overspending, just prudent management.

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Alan Swank
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 3:02:41 PM

Here you go according to numbers reported in Arkley's that quotes Schaus on Saturday.

Revenue

$300,000 MAC bowl pool
$15,880 tickets sold

$315,880 total

Expenses

$412,525.76 house, feed, send team to New Orleans
$68,175.89 house, feed, transport team on campus
$48,645 student involvement in game
$5,542 coaches families

$534,888.65 total

bobcat695 wrote:

I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I am pretty sure some numbers are being left out. Wouldn't the money from Student Senate ($60,000 or so) have to go on the revenue side if the student expenses are on the liability side? I am not trying to start a fight over this, nor do I want a line item expense report, but if Jim Schaus is going to report we broke even, there should be a full documentation of it somewhere. I have to believe those numbers were right before athletics released the information stating it was a break even. Otherwise, it is a huge PR mistake.

Yes the shortfall in revenue vs. expenses was made up with student fees from various sources (student senate, office of student life, athletics student fee reserve fund) and yes those amounts were budgeted. However, we spent $199,000 more than we took in and that represents a loss in any accountant's book.

Last Edited: 1/10/2011 3:03:26 PM by Alan Swank

colobobcat66
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 3:08:13 PM

Agree in spades with Swank on his analysis if those are the numbers. The question I have is the $15,880 for tickets. That's 397 tickets sold!!!!! No way!!!

Alan Swank
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 3:13:29 PM

colobobcat66 wrote:

Agree in spades with Swank on his analysis if those are the numbers. The question I have is the $15,880 for tickets. That's 397 tickets sold!!!!! No way!!!

I just doubled checked the Messenger article and those numbers came right from there. One set of numbers that is missing is the amount it cost to send the band. That amount was covered by student senate which gets it's money from student fees.

DublinCat
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 3:38:18 PM

Anyone know how much we lost on the Volleyball team making the NCAA? Meals, hotel, travel, coaching and zero national TV exposure. I would also be curious to see how much the VB team paid the football team for promoting their endeavors at each game. It would also be great to know the true attendance numbers of volleyball without the free give aways and using the football ticket stubs to exaggerate and inflate the numbers. I love the volleyball team; but I think this is important information that each fan should be aware of. We should probably include the attendance numbers for field hockey too.

OU87

OHIO50
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 5:06:08 PM

DublinCat - Not sure if you were trying to be funny but you made me laugh out loud. Thanks I needed that at 5:00

Ted Thompson
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 5:36:55 PM

Alan Swank wrote:

bobcat695 wrote:

The $68,175.89 is part of the $412,535.76. So you can't add that twice.

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Flomo-genized
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/10/2011 7:32:20 PM

DublinCat wrote:

Anyone know how much we lost on the Volleyball team making the NCAA? Meals, hotel, travel, coaching and zero national TV exposure.

I realize this was tongue in cheek, but doesn't the NCAA cover all of each teams' travel expenses once they qualify for a national tournament? I'm pretty sure the only sport where schools lose hundreds of thousands of dollars for post-season competition is college football and its fraudulent bowl system.

UpSan Bobcat
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 11:43:03 AM

Ted Thompson wrote:

Alan Swank wrote:

bobcat695 wrote:

The $68,175.89 is part of the $412,535.76. So you can't add that twice.

I wouldn't even count it once personally. We all want a program that goes to a bowl game every year and we should plan every year for the costs associated with practicing into December. It should be a normal part of the football budget.

Ohio69
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 12:28:35 PM

UpSan Bobcat wrote:

Exactly.

Can somebody hit a pull up jumper for me?.....

Scott Woods
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 12:59:46 PM

Ohio69 wrote:

UpSan Bobcat wrote:

Exactly.

What???

I do want a program that is good enough to go to a bowl game every year.

But I also want an Athletic Department that doesn't have to play games with numbers to make a situation look better than it is. Just because it is part of the budget doesn't mean it isn't a cost of going to a bowl game. It just means that maybe you won't go over budget.

I'm not an accountant, but the way I account for things is pretty simple:

+Revenue from project
-Expenses for project
=Cost/Benefit of project

You can argue all day about what the expenses and revenues should be from going to a bowl, but whether or not they were budgeted has no affect on the true cost/benefit, just whether or not you planned well enough.

Last Edited: 1/11/2011 1:01:45 PM by Scott Woods

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Athens Block
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 1:13:14 PM

Scott Woods wrote:

Whether or not they were budgeted has no affect on the true cost/benefit, just whether or not you planned well enough.

Ok... so what's the issue? If the department planned well, then what else are they supposed to do? They can't just print money.

I don't understand what the issue is with the money that was already budgeted. If I understand it correctly, the department put away a certain amount of $$ in case there were extra expenses associated with post-season play. And they used that money. The money was there to be spent and it was spent. No money was "lost"... they didn't put it on a Credit Card or run to a pay-day loan shark... How is this a bad thing?

Also... today's front page of The Post is just another in a long long line of ridiculous headlines. "Bowl Budget Breaks Bank!"... followed by a lot of numbers... The actual important figures "Expenses vs. Revenue" are hidden at the bottom. The articles are actually fair... but all of that is lost by the false headline...

I'm waiting for an article tomorrow entitled.... "Faculty salary breaks the bank!" Because under this logic of "If you have money in your budget and you spend it... you're breaking the bank" any single budgeted expense on the university books is a loss...

colobobcat66
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 4:12:19 PM

I don't know why nobody else is as shocked as I am by the ticket sales number. I've seen them, I just can't believe them. If they're true, we don't deserve to go to a bowl. any bowl, period. 397 tickets, you've got to be kidding me. Why waste our time pretending to be a D-1 program if no more than 397 tickets can be sold? Please don't tell me that it was the opponent either, because we play a lot of teams that are worse than those guys (in our conference every year).

Last Edited: 1/11/2011 4:43:02 PM by colobobcat66

Ted Thompson
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 5:58:08 PM

colobobcat66 wrote:

I don't understand the number either. The only thing I can think of is that is the net number. So Ohio sells 1,397. But then gives away 500 to students, 300 to the band and 200 to parents. So they bought 2,397 from the Bowl and only got revenue for 1,397. So they netted revenue for 397. Dunno.

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Alan Swank
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 6:11:00 PM

http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=33240

Interesting comments. I have a feeling this one may not go away very quickly.

And I have to agree with our friend from Ironton, Scott Woods. Making the assumption that a bowl appearance should be an expectation and a budgeted item, he makes some very good points.

Ohio69 wrote:

UpSan Bobcat wrote:

Exactly.

Last Edited: 1/11/2011 6:13:07 PM by Alan Swank

colobobcat66
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 6:24:15 PM

I've gone to enough away games during the last 4-5 years to know that the OU following other than family of the players is not too large, but 397 tickets? sold. I figured that we sold 1000 or so anyway, but 397. Ouch. The more I think about how often the OU crowd (?) has been small, maybe I shouldn't be surprised about this turnout. Other than this years' OSU game, I think NW a few years back had the most OU fans there. Maybe it is all about who we play. I must be in the minority-I go to see OU play and don't care so much about who we play.

John C. Wanamaker
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 10:30:15 PM

Al, none of our sports programs can operate on an income = expenditures model. Each and everyone of them are subsidized by the University and student fees, and each one of them have a budget line for championships. This is simply the cost of being a Division I institution. Some of our other sports fly under the radar with this because they are not the 800lb elephant in the room.

As for ticket sales, that number is not surprising at all. I have been trying to tell you guys our ticket sales are not what some think, we are still trying to build that base and it takes years and real effort, heck just remember that 7 years ago we had players walking around uptown giving away tickets, 15 years ago you could go to Krogers and get free ones. Many people will not purchase because they grew up with free ones.

The "athletic department donor funds" mentioned in the article is the OBC funds that are given unrestricted.

Last Edited: 1/11/2011 10:34:24 PM by John C. Wanamaker

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cc-cat
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 10:37:36 PM

Alan Swank wrote:

Here you go according to numbers reported in Arkley's that quotes Schaus on Saturday.

Revenue

$300,000 MAC bowl pool
$15,880 tickets sold

$315,880 total

So Temple made $300,000 by not being picked for a game. Would it not make sense for the Conference to collect all money the conference makes for making bowl games. Cover costs for the teams heading to bowls and then take the remaining dollars and spread them evenly across the members? And sense it makes sense I am sure there is a dumb reason it is not done.

Ted Thompson
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/11/2011 11:05:52 PM

cc cat wrote:

Alan Swank wrote:

Here you go according to numbers reported in Arkley's that quotes Schaus on Saturday.

Revenue

$300,000 MAC bowl pool
$15,880 tickets sold

$315,880 total

The MAC gives money out of its Bowl pool to those schools in Bowls to help offset their expenses. Temple did not get $300,000.

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Scott Woods
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/12/2011 10:10:53 AM

Athens Block wrote:

Scott Woods wrote:

Whether or not they were budgeted has no affect on the true cost/benefit, just whether or not you planned well enough.

Ok... so what's the issue? If the department planned well, then what else are they supposed to do? They can't just print money.

[DISCLAIMER: I have not read any information on this subject other than what is posted on this board, so take my comments with this perspective in mind.]

My issue is simply that I want to hear the truth. I'm not suggesting that any of Ohio's athletic programs make money or break even. I understand this to be the reality and am not making an argument whether it's good or bad to continue to fund them.

All I am suggesting is that if the revenue from the bowl game is less than the expenses, state that as such. And if you want, you can say "We budgeted for that shortfall and are using money from X to make up the difference." The fact is, if they did not make a bowl game, the money that was used to make up the difference could have been used elsewhere.

Please also note that I understand that the effect of being on national TV, and all of the other "intangibles" are not accounted for in this situation. If they wanted to say that "The exposure we got and [all these other intaglibles] were valued at $Y and we feel we broke even" I would let it slide. I could argue with how they got to value $Y, but at least they would be making an honest argument.

Let's say I open a lemonade stand and it costs me $20. I only make $15 from selling lemonade. I've got another $5 in my pocket that I was going to buy lunch with, but instead I put it in with the lemonade sales money so now I've got $20 in the lemonade drawer. Did I break even on the lemonade stand? No. Were my expenses covered because I had other money? Yes.

UpSan Bobcat
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RE: Bowl -break even?

Posted: 1/12/2011 10:38:58 AM

Scott Woods wrote:

Athens Block wrote:

Scott Woods wrote:

Whether or not they were budgeted has no affect on the true cost/benefit, just whether or not you planned well enough.

Ok... so what's the issue? If the department planned well, then what else are they supposed to do? They can't just print money.

It's not exactly like this.

It's more like you're running a profitable lemonade stand (the football program as a whole is profitable, right?) and set aside money from your profits in order to operate an extra month. Business during that extra month is not profitable and you already knew it probably wouldn't be, but hopefully you make a few new customers during that time and it will make your business even better in the future.

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