There are very small corporate offerings at Miami for additional revenue for Football and zero corporate offerings at Miami for additional revenue for Basketball.
Premium seating for football and basketball would need to be associated with other perks such as food options.
Miami should develop a plan for corporate options and premium seating options for fans.
For those of you that were around for the Miami/Michigan basketball game, Brad Bates set up a tent behind the black curtain. Inside there was food pre-game. Desert at half. He discussed putting in TV’s and was really a good fix. I believe that tent was around for one season the first year court side seats were available but then went away when Miami calculated that the cost was not worth it. Unfortunately, that’s how Miami does things. They don’t give things a chance to grow and they’ve done a terrible job marketing and pursuing those $$$
I liked Dave Diles, an OU grad. He used to do the old Prudential College Football Scoreboard show after the one televised Saturday afternoon game. Diles had women who walked behind him and updated the scoreboard manually during the broadcast. Today’s youngin’s can’t even imagine it. You might even learn that Susquehanna beat Ursinus during that broadcast.
But if you missed it - and you happened not to live within the radio range of your favorite school - you might not find out if your boys won until the Sunday morning paper arrived on your doorstep.
I remember phoning the newspaper occasionally and getting a score or two from a kind person on the sports desk.
The good old days? A totally different age for sure.
I was once at a dinner with President Hodge, about a decade ago, who told me that he thought that college football would break down between those who wanted to be in professional leagues and ones that wanted to maintain amateurism and not pay players. He included the schools you listed plus Notre Dame and, perhaps, some of the service academies. I thought that made sense but, unfortunately, there is too much money to expect Northwestern and Vanderbilt to give up close to $100M per year. It still seems possible if Stanford and Cal get left out of realignment and the PAC-8/10/12 dies. You might end up with a Tulane or SMU so Rice would have a travel partner relatively close by even though they are good schools but do not have the same academic profile. It doesn’t seem impossible but it does seem less possible given the amount of money in college sports today. And yes, this is a group that Miami should aspire to be associated with, although I think we still have some work to do academically.
We all assume tv will always be able to pay these huge fees. What if that well dries up? Media fragmentation suggests it’s not 100% impossible that advertisers will wonder if it’s worth the huge money. Also, money isn’t always a harbinger of success. T.Boone Pickins gave Oklahoma State 1 billion bucks. Hasn’t seemed to get them much in the major sports. Where’s the SEC invite?
People thought the media money bubble would pop when streaming become popular…well it’s actually only gone up, so I wouldn’t worry about that.
My hope is the power that be (ADs, MAC officials, Presidents) are ready to bargain with ESPN/other TV companies to get the best deal possible for the MAC schools to stay competitive with other G5 schools. That’s what the SBC just did this offseason
Boy does that sound familiar. Diles gave Miami a lot of pub in the 70’s run. Our game was often highlighted on his show.
It was a big advance when the scroll on ESPN/CNN would show the scores. Would learn when our score was coming up, about every 6-7 minutes. And, another option, sitting in the car searching for the game on our opponents feed. Listened to part of the LSU game on a La. station. My wife, mother-in-law and I were at an upscale seafood restaurant in suburban Detroit. I would sneak out every few minutes to get an update. Fortunately, both of them drank way too much wine so they probably didn’t even know I was gone.
Another option back in the day in Southwest Ohio - on late Saturday afternoons in the fall - was Telescore 84 from 3-6 pm on WHAS radio in Louisville. They had “stringers” out on campuses all over the region who would call in their post-game reports. You could also call in and request a score.
They once did and probably still do announce the Slippery Rock score at all Michigan home games.
Reminds me also that many yeats ago when the”other Miami” played at Michigan, Bo had Florida in parentheses put behind their name on the scoreboard and program.
I have to always add the “as I recall” as I have been known to make a few incorrect observations on long ago events. If not, I quickly find there is someone ready to correct me!
Cost of doing business in Chicago/Evanston + cost of demolishing Ryan Field + building a new stadium with all the bells and whistles = a mammoth expense for a venue that doesn’t seat much more than Yager did at one point.
though