I found this abandoned after the soccer match last
week. It looked water-damaged (at least
I hope it was water). I picked up one of
these at a soccer match last year and wrote about the revenue numbers
listed in it (11-9-16). As before, I’m
not a numbers guy, I have no special insight on the Aggie athletics’
accounting, I don’t even really have much in the way of suggestions or
criticisms. I’m just presenting this
along with what I know about the program.
We’ll start at the bottom of the 2017 table, since that’s
where most of the money is. Once again,
let’s thank those nice rich football programs who pay to play our Aggies with
that Guarantee money. That’s almost a million more than last
year. In spite of my dark, angry
thoughts about the NCAA and everyone
else’s general dissatisfaction with the two conferences the Aggies are in (Sunbelt for football and the WAC for
everything else), thank you for paying us to put with our unpleasant
relationship with you people. That’s up
over $600,000.
Unfortunately, the merry-go-round may be stopping next
year. Aggie football will be out of the
Sunbelt Conference. Athletic Director, Mario Moccia, has expressed a dislike
of having to deal with two conferences for sports, but I’m sure they’re going
to miss the money from the Sunbelt as the Aggies go unaffiliated. Worse, I’ve looked at their 2018
schedule. Unlike the most famous
independent university, Norte Dame,
I’m not seeing any big names on the Aggies’ schedule. This likely means the Guarantee money will be
going down sharply. As the department is
trying to pay down a $10M debt as I understand it (and I have no idea what they
spent the money on), this cannot help.
On the plus side, they might get a couple more wins and become bowl
eligible, which would be a windfall, but that’s a mighty big if.
The two other items on the bottom of the 2017 list seem to
be calculated differently than 2016, so it’s hard to compare. Whatever “Multimedia Rights” are for NMSU, they appear to pay well, and/or
the new Underarmor uniforms Licensing paid out well. Concessions
is a bit confusing. Either the “up
diamond” is a misprint on the 2017 Revenue or they’re adding it up
differently. In 2016, university
concessions did change from Coke to Pepsi, which is a big deal, like
changing uniform manufacturers. However,
it’s not a big number either way relatively.
Booster contributions alone (shown
on another table) are over $500,000 and up 15% from last year. As much as concession items cost, you’d think
it’d be a bigger piece of the pie.
Last year, 22% of Athletics revenue was Ticket Sales. For fiscal 2017, it was 16%. Ticket sales were down a half percent, which
is pretty good considering they were down 10% last year. Even in a down year in 2016, five of the
seven team sports had an uptick in attendance, but since football and men’s
basketball were down, it didn’t matter to overall revenue. But in 2017, five of the sports were down. It didn’t affect ticket income since one of
the sports that was up, men’s basketball, was way up, and it’s a lucrative
sport. As men’s basketball and football
go, that’s how the revenue goes. Let’s
break it down by sport.
Aggie Football revenue was down
24%. That was with a “Stuff the Stadium” promotion and a win
over the Lobos at home. I guess team
performance was the main culprit. They
lost every game on the road and only won three games. (I attended two of them.) Not only have they been bumped out of the
Sunbelt Conference for attendance and performance, they’re on the verge of
losing some NCAA status (Division I or FBS?
I’m not sure what, but it’s bad).
Looking at 2016’s numbers, the program seems to be in a downward
spiral and picking up speed.
Media partner, Learfield, has been buying tickets to
keep up attendance figures. (This isn’t
a scandal by the way. Everyone knows
about it.) The income that university
gets from promotional ticket pricing is mostly from various local business and
government offices buying blocks, not individuals. Reducing regular ticket prices might help a
little for individual fans and encourage more group ticket sales, but it’s too
much to ask business owners to subsidize every home game. (Some more suites might get their attention.) Las Cruces just isn’t a large, wealthy
community. Even when they’re down,
football ticket sales are still a huge amount of income, and as long as the
football program is bringing in the Guarantee
income, they’re essential to Aggie athletics.
Losing those “money games” and conference income may bring up some tough
questions though.
The hero in ticket sales was the Men’s Basketball. The team
did well, as it often does. Their “Pack the Pan-Am” event may account for
their big rise in ticket sales. Perhaps
season tickets holders got over the sticker shock price increases last year and
bought in again as well. Women’s basketball had a big drop in
sales, but I think 2016’s huge increase (depending on how they figure their
fiscal year) was due to another “Pack” event (their largest crowd ever). Certainly the team was excellent, so there
wasn’t a drop because of performance.
The university definitely seems to get a good “bang for the buck” on
promotional prices for basketball.
Director Moccia expressed interest in putting suites in the rafters of
the Pan-Am Center. That’s a great idea
(since I thought of it too). It’s a
matter schmoozing the right people to commit buying them long-term and putting
some deposit money upfront.
Volleyball and Softball I’m a bit confused by. NMSU hosted the WAC tournaments for both
sports last school year, so you’d think they’d both be up. The difference may have been that Aggie
Softball was in championship game and Aggie Volleyball wasn’t. I’m really not sure though. The softball team is great to watch, but
until their facilities get some shade for the stands, it’s hard to recommend to
others. The volleyball matches are great
for the fans. The university should
promote the program as much as they can to help keep our very good, 20-year coach Mike Jordan around, who was grumbling
about attendance last week. It’s amazing
women’s basketball coach Mark Trakh
stuck around as long as he did with all his success here (unlike some other
traitorous basketball coach, who I won’t mention).
Aggie Baseball
was down 1%, which isn’t bad considering that the previous year’s attendance
may have been goosed by a “Stuff the
‘Skew” event. (Seems like there’s
pattern here on promotional prices.)
Hosting Texas Tech for a game
here probably helped, and that was with a late change in time to a weekday
afternoon game. Thanks to all those
obnoxious Red Raider fans who showed
up, and to that large crowd of very nice Yale
fans, who came out for two days. Book
more games against teams who have fans that travel with them.
Aggie Soccer was
way up in 2016 (though comparatively pocket change) and way down in 2017 (seat
cushion change). I’ll say they’ll be up
on next years’ revenue thanks to hosting UTEP
and UNM this season. Maybe this happens every other year, and they
should schedule it so that one of them is here every year instead. The program isn’t that great, but it is still
relatively new.
Soccer appears to have a pretty good fan base (of terrible
fans who spend the whole game coaching from the stands), but too many of their
games are on weekday afternoons to get them there for all of the home games. Not only is this inconvenient, but it’s hot
out there on those exposed metal stands.
Lights to play night games would help on both accounts, but given the
small income, would it be worth it? Not
to mention, there’s going to be some scheduling conflicts with volleyball and
football going on at the same time. The
university makes a real effort to allow hard core fans an opportunity to attend
every sporting event.
Attendance does matter for sports. Sports are ultimately for the community and
for the fans. (Actually, other groups of
people have a different view on the reason for sports in this country. Don’t get me started.) While most of the athletic department’s
income isn’t from ticket sales, those other numbers will go up with better
attendance and better team performance.
It all works together.
I’d recommend focusing on getting more
fans to the men’s basketball games. It’s
the easiest sell, as long as they’re a good team. Get more fans to the football games by any
means necessary. Offer a 25% discount
for buying 20 or more tickets for any game.
Make it 50% if they buy season tickets.
It may be more about bodies than income at this point. Mass kidnappings should not be off the
table. Promote the heck out of the other
sports to middle and high schools and club teams and cut some deals with them. Next year may be the pivotal year for the
continuation of Aggie athletics at their current level. Getting the community’s involvement will be
essential in riding out the coming rough patch.
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