THIS IS THE OPINION I AM HANGING MY HAT ON. We all have far less of a clue than in past seasons due to the new nature of things. So, at this part of the season, I choose to see my Pirates in the best light possible. It makes me happy. The games will be played to make this thought look wise or foolish. But while we are in the realm of what might be, my might bes are gonna be positive! And if we look bad to start, I will remember a Pirate team that struggle to beat NJIT in an exhibition becoming the team that beat Uconn by 15 and won the NIT (an event I found terrifically exciting and rewarding unlike so many others here.)
So far
- Thread starter Halldan
- Start date
...and we'll just have to keep reading the regurgitation of that "thinking" ad infinitum, apprarently.
More likely they did not want to play 4 games in Walsh.
Playing in Walsh cost the school big time money.
Playing in Walsh cost the school big time money.
Not really ......just don't force yourself to read anything you disagree with. That simple.
Agree with this. There will be plenty of time to be miserable if things go south.
It's not that I disagree with it all, necessarily, it's just that you've been grinding this axe going on a calendar year.
Really? That's what you came up with there?
Let's say there are 5.000 full season ticket holders in Newark (I think that's a reasonable estimate). That's four times what can fit in Walsh and those tickets are paid for even if the Rock is completely empty that night.
Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if the buy rate for UNH is less than it would be for any of the teams we're playing at Walsh if those games were actually taking place in Newark.
As Halldan notes, we take a large revenue hit playing games at Walsh as opposed to Newark. Between tickets and the season ticket holder surcharge, I'm paying $80 a ticket per game. I'm on the high end but you get the idea. You cannot price Walsh tickets comparably.
That we are playing three games there is not helpful to our program in any way.
Can someone walk me through that math? I assume terrible weeknight non conf games at the Rock don’t bring in all that many non-season ticket holding fans. I also assume our costs to rent out the Rock are significantly higher than our costs to put on a game at Walsh.
All true. But season tickets make up for the difference even if they no show.
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What do we pay a visiting team at Walsh v. the Rock? Would we get lot of TV revenue from UNH? To me as a fan, that one conjures up thoughts of our dramatic game vs. Caldwell College of a few years past.
Thinking that if 4000 of the 5000 ticket-holder dressed as "empty seats" (Don Criqui) it's a really bad look. Don't know the specifics, but Fairfield would have been a better game and draw for Newark. Active alumi, big in the NYC area, close enough to travel, and the teams biggest game and venue of the season (within 75 miles of home).
OK. I get it financially, I think. What does it cost to play a game at the Rock: ushers, concessions, security, etc.?
What do we pay a visiting team at Walsh v. the Rock? Would we get lot of TV revenue from UNH? To me as a fan, that one conjures up thoughts of our dramatic game vs. Caldwell College of a few years past.
Thinking that if 4000 of the 5000 ticket-holder dressed as "empty seats" (Don Criqui) it's a really bad look. Don't know the specifics, but Fairfield would have been a better game and draw for Newark. Active alumi, big in the NYC area, close enough to travel, and the teams biggest game and venue of the season (within 75 miles of home).
My estimate is that playing at the Rock cost somewhere in the $80K range.
The St Peters Elite 8 team was NOT a good offensive team that year until the tournament. And how much of that was was really Sha's offensive schemes in the tournament vs Whalen?
Not saying we don't need good players but it's palpably obvious when a coach is clueless offensively. I have yet to be convinced we will ever be a capable offensive team. Until proven otherwise, offense is not a Sha strongpoint.
The math still doesn’t math to me.
Season ticket revenue is what it is no matter where we play the games. I assume the same is true of guarantees to opposing teams. Incremental ticket sales is probably a wash as well between Walsh and the Rock.
Moving 3 games to Walsh saves us $240k in Prudential costs. I’ll assume 3 games at Walsh cost us $30k to put on.
Not trying to break balls with this line of questioning. Just genuinely want to understand.
The math is actually very simple.
We played two games at Walsh last season. Attendance was 1,286 and 1,219 for an average of 1,252.5. Tickets were priced at $40. That works out to just over $50,000 in revenue for each date.
My guess is we probably paid Fordham and Wagner about $50,000 for their buy rate. Halldan, SPK or someone else might have the actual number but I think that's around the low end that opponents receive for guarantee games. I would suspect -- but I don't know -- that we might negotiate a lower number for Walsh games but I doubt that makes a big difference.
We played four mon-conference games in Newark last season. Announced "attendance" (tickets sold) was 8,072, 8,606, 8,099 and 8,791 which comes out to an average of 8,392. If we use that same $40 average (which might be conservative given the variety of price points available), each game generated more than $330,000 in ticket revenue or more than six times what you made at Walsh.
Even after taking out $80,000 for rent and something north of $50,000 for the buy rate and you should be solidly in the black.
I'd say losing 75-80% of your revenue is a big hit.
Seems like average Buy game rate was $80-100k 5 years ago. Found an article which examined buy games from the 2019-20 season. It lists the amounts for 2 of our Buy games as $80,000 each. One of those was the game at Walsh vs Stony Brook and the other was vs Praire View A&M at Prudential. I sure hope we aren't paying full Buy Rates for 4 games at Walsh.
But you need to subtract season ticket holders out of those ~8,000 ticket Newark tickets sold. As we've learned over the years, they can play as many non conf games in Walsh as they want and season ticket holders aren't getting any of their money back for "lost" Newark games. Season ticket revenue is a constant in either scenario.
Let's say you sell 2,000 more walk up tickets at the Rock vs Walsh. Using your $40 average, that comes to $80,000 in ticket revenues that is 100% offset by costs paid to the Rock.
So even if buy rates are the same for the Rock and Walsh (which I find hard to believe) you're still looking at basically a financial wash for a stinker of a non-conference game in Newark vs Walsh
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Therein lies my beef, Dan. The 5,000 season tickets sold are banked revenue for the school no matter where they decide to play the games. Then, as season ticket holders, we get told to pay more if we actually want to see 3 of the non-conference games that we thought we were paying for when we signed up for season tickets.
If season tickets at The Rock are subtracted as fixed revenue then the $80,000 rental fee should be discarded as a fixed cost.
I'd bet buy rates are the same or similar regardless of venue.
Playing one game at Walsh is understandable. Anything more is small time and a smack in the face of all the season ticket holders who will get shut out of the game.
I know this year was an anomaly, but we have to do a better job of scheduling. 3 games at Walsh, regardless of the circumstances is ridiculous.
The Rock is way more profitable, even with the cost there.
Also, the season ticket package does not include Walsh; you merely get first crack to buy those tickets. So what you paid for season tickets is only for those at Prudential; you lost 3 games to what you may've been expecting. All you're getting from the Walsh games is what you sell the meager ~1,500 tickets for - (costs to operate + the fee to opponents). It's nowhere near the profit dollars and probably a net loss.
More ineptitude from The Hall.
But I do get a kick of out of the "historic Walsh Gym" marketing.
Does it cost significantly more to open the top level? I asked that above but curious if anyone knows.
That makes sense. Even in the better Willard years we wouldn’t open it for all BE games, and I always figured it was because they weren’t sure we would draw enough of 10k+ to cover the costs to open the top shelf. With a Nova and their Jersey presence or a Uconn it makes sense, and we should always do it for Rutgers irrespective if it adds a bunch of red to the upper level of the arena.
I hear you, but I think that's the game that the casual NJ sports fan attends, or for the folks who only go to 1 or 2 games a year. Anything to help with revenue. If Rutgers played at a professional arena and didn't open up the top for fear of certain opponents fans buying up the tickets, our boards would have had loads to say about that over the years.
As far as I'm concerned, it would be never. Why open up more seats for rutgers fans, particularly when they have gone out of their way to block SHU fans from getting tickets at the RAC? This is an annual topic, and people forget that when the entire CAA was available in the years we played there, we never saw the "sea of red" that the knights fans who complain about us keeping the upper bowl closed imagined.
we pkay them in the rac and get bupkus tickets and you want to open it up the upper tier...that is nuts. give us 1500 seats and i would think about it