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Post by atownbeaver on May 24, 2017 13:43:24 GMT -8
It is considerable. but relative to revenue, Cal is the disaster. Oregon and UW certainly have big numbers but they are pulling in big dollars. Even in a bad football year for them, they still had a hugely successful basketball year for both men's and women's programs. In other words, the size of your mortgage depends on the size of your paycheck... Cal and Colorado have the more eye opening numbers. Oregon State is sneaking up there relative to the number of butts we are putting into Reser or Gill... |
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Post by bennyskid on May 24, 2017 15:07:00 GMT -8
Cal is an absolute train wreck. "Cal’s debt service payment for the Memorial Stadium renovation and Simpson High-Performance Training Center (approximately $18 million) is interest-only. The principal doesn’t kick in until the 2030s. At the same time, Washington’s payment for the Husky Stadium renovation in FY17 is approximately $16 million, but 30 percent is principal."
I wish I could buy a house and make interest-only payments for 15 years!
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Post by bennyskid on May 24, 2017 15:07:41 GMT -8
An aside: is there a better journalist on college sports than Jon Wilner?
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Post by Werebeaver on May 24, 2017 17:17:45 GMT -8
It's been documented that *uck "attendance" numbers routinely include game day staff, security, concessions workers and on-field coaches and competitors. No joke. That's common for almost everyone in the industry Do you know whether OSU does this? |
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Post by bennyskid on May 24, 2017 17:37:21 GMT -8
There is no standard for how to count attendance. Take it for granted, *everyone* fudges it. But the lower the real number, the more everyone fudges.
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Post by nabeav on May 25, 2017 10:05:42 GMT -8
I don't know if OSU does this exactly, but I remember during GA's first offseason when they used stats like "season tickets are being renewed at double the rate of the previous year," which I think meant something along the lines that 10 people renewed the first week of January as opposed to the 5 people that did the year before. They did this because they couldn't say "season ticket sales are up X%" because they weren't. They also released more student tickets for availability because nobody was buying them, then touted higher student attendance numbers than in past years.
Bottom line is that when you're down, you'll do whatever you can to make yourself look as good as possible. When you're packing the stadium and people are banging on the gates to get in, you don't really need to juke the stats.
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bbfan
Freshman
Posts: 204 
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Post by bbfan on May 25, 2017 10:13:03 GMT -8
That's common for almost everyone in the industry Do you know whether OSU does this? Don't know for Oregon State but I can tell you the numerous times I have reviewed event settlements/attendance reports for teams in the Portland area I have yet to find one that doesn't get creative with their attendance numbers. I will say I have been in Reser and Gill numerous times where the announced attendance doesn't match the reality of what I am seeing visually. |
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Post by obf on May 25, 2017 11:46:05 GMT -8
Here is an article on the difficulty on counting large crowds.... tangentially associated with the OP topic, I know, but I found it interesting... Bottom line, for a myriad of reasons, getting a good head count at events is hard to do, including using your own eyes as estimating skills... turns out humans aren't very good at counting large numbers or estimating...
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Post by kersting13 on May 25, 2017 13:48:24 GMT -8
Here is an article on the difficulty on counting large crowds.... tangentially associated with the OP topic, I know, but I found it interesting... Bottom line, for a myriad of reasons, getting a good head count at events is hard to do, including using your own eyes as estimating skills... turns out humans aren't very good at counting large numbers or estimating... Didn't read the article, but most larger venues require you to scan in your ticket, so actual ticket usage ought to be a relatively easy number to come up with. Tickets sold/distributed should also be really easy for anyone to count. Total # of people actually in the stadium, including paid staff and participants, is kind of an odd concept for anyone other than the Fire Marshal to think is a relevant #. |
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Post by bennyskid on May 25, 2017 13:55:28 GMT -8
Actually, the only formal reason for the count is for the fire marshal. The NCAA and the conference do enter it into the record books, and the press usually reports it in the box score, but none of those organizations have any stake in the number at all. They don't publish any rules for how it's calculated. Only the fire marshal really cares.
So why be honest? Everyone knows that everyone else fudges. There is no profit in being the one honest venue.
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Post by Werebeaver on May 25, 2017 14:28:41 GMT -8
Here is an article on the difficulty on counting large crowds.... tangentially associated with the OP topic, I know, but I found it interesting... Bottom line, for a myriad of reasons, getting a good head count at events is hard to do, including using your own eyes as estimating skills... turns out humans aren't very good at counting large numbers or estimating... Used to have turnstiles but now they have ticket scanners - shouldn't those provide an accurate paid attendance count? |
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Post by Werebeaver on May 25, 2017 14:34:01 GMT -8
Actually, the only formal reason for the count is for the fire marshal. The NCAA and the conference do enter it into the record books, and the press usually reports it in the box score, but none of those organizations have any stake in the number at all. They don't publish any rules for how it's calculated. Only the fire marshal really cares. So why be honest? Everyone knows that everyone else fudges. There is no profit in being the one honest venue. "So why be honest?" Because lying and dishonesty are bad? Because credibility, accuracy and truthfulness are good? Because it takes more energy to gin-up a b.s. number than to just report out the true number? Jesus, I'm sounding like a conservative. |
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Post by bennyskid on May 25, 2017 15:04:07 GMT -8
How much money should OSU give up in the interest of "integrity"? Because when everyone knows that tickets are easily available, they are much less likely to buy tickets in advance (let alone, season tickets). And when folks don't buy tickets in advance, they are much less likely to attend at all, as any change in weather or circumstances can easily cause a change in plans. In addition, people tend to follow whatever seems popular. So every program does everything it can to reinforce the idea that tickets are a hot item and people are coming out in droves to see the games.
Even the networks know it. They go out of their way to *not* show the empty stands, as a courtesy to the schools and to reinforce the idea that the game they are showing is important and the viewer should stick around to watch it. It's just Marketing 101.
Integrity is easy when it doesn't cost you anything.
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Post by obf on May 25, 2017 15:07:24 GMT -8
Here is an article on the difficulty on counting large crowds.... tangentially associated with the OP topic, I know, but I found it interesting... Bottom line, for a myriad of reasons, getting a good head count at events is hard to do, including using your own eyes as estimating skills... turns out humans aren't very good at counting large numbers or estimating... Didn't read the article, but most larger venues require you to scan in your ticket, so actual ticket usage ought to be a relatively easy number to come up with. Tickets sold/distributed should also be really easy for anyone to count. Total # of people actually in the stadium, including paid staff and participants, is kind of an odd concept for anyone other than the Fire Marshal to think is a relevant #. I mostly found the article interesting in reference to the "Well the announced attendance was 40k, but by my eyes there was no more than 20k" type of comments that we see a lot. Sure the announced attendance may not be right, but our human skills as estimators and counters of large numbers are pretty poor as well, not to mention the biases we have coming into it (just like the announcers have a bias to inflate, the audience member who is disgruntled at the product on the field is biased to under estimate) Most of all I just found the article interesting... specifically in the article they were estimating things like marches and inaugurations and such, no tickets sold, no turnstiles, the best they could do was take a picture and try to count actual heads, which even then only gets you to a 90% confidence range... |
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Post by obf on May 25, 2017 15:16:04 GMT -8
How much money should OSU give up in the interest of "integrity"? Because when everyone knows that tickets are easily available, they are much less likely to buy tickets in advance (let alone, season tickets). And when folks don't buy tickets in advance, they are much less likely to attend at all, as any change in weather or circumstances can easily cause a change in plans. In addition, people tend to follow whatever seems popular. So every program does everything it can to reinforce the idea that tickets are a hot item and people are coming out in droves to see the games. Even the networks know it. They go out of their way to *not* show the empty stands, as a courtesy to the schools and to reinforce the idea that the game they are showing is important and the viewer should stick around to watch it. It's just Marketing 101. Integrity is easy when it doesn't cost you anything. I know lots of people (myself included) that would at least claim that integrity is priceless... Of course marketing and integrity probably don't belong anywhere near each other... But I would still claim that you can stick to marketing your good qualities without being dishonest, without lying... Not showing empty sections is different than straight up lying, IMO. Listing the attendance at 45k when it was actually 25? That is a straight up lie. Avoiding embarrassment by not purposely showing empty sections on TV? That is just being discreet... |
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