Veazey provides good info from last night...

dawgstudent

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Apr 15, 2003
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<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Most of what we learned at last night's Extravaganza at the Mississippi Coliseum was included in this morning's story in The Clarion-Ledger. The bullet points from that:</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• Season ticket sales have already surpassed last year's total, athletic director Greg Byrne said.</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• Giving and membership in the Bulldog Club is up, he said.</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• State's goals this year, per Sylvester Croom: Win the SEC, go to a BCS bowl, beat Alabama, beat Ole Miss.</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• John Cohen had big things to say: "I'm here to tell you, on the horizon is a national championship and that's what I came here to do," he said.</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• The crowd being larger than Ole Miss' 1,500 gave Croom a chance to zing. "Looks like we win again," he said to loud applause. "Never gets old, does it?"</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">But there was more that we learned, the kind of stuff that didn't make the paper. Here are those bullet points:</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• I asked Croom questions on two topics as a matter of housekeeping: 1) any news on Rodney Prince and Anthony Johnson and 2) any players suspended or otherwise ineligible for the season opener or more games. He would not comment on either.</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• Byrne wants Bulldog Club membership in the 12,000 range in 4-5 years.</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• Women's basketball coach Sharon Fanning enticed fans to come see her team play Tennessee this year by saying there will be lots of t-shirts to give away. "And we'll sign them when we beat them afterward," she said. A guarantee?</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• Cohen turned down a 10-year, $6 million contract from Kentucky to come to Mississippi State. What's he making here? Hard to say, as State is notoriously silent when it comes to dollar figures.</font></p>

<font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• Croom made another funny when he mentioned what he's hearing from voluntary workouts. Coaches can't see those, he said, because of NCAA rules. "And of course, I'm not going to attack the NCAA. Even though Ron (Polk) has retired, I'm going to leave that up to him," he said.</font></p><font size="2" face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">• Croom spent vacation in Green Bay, Detroit, Mobile and Charlotte, N.C. - where he attended defensive coordinator Charlie Harbison's wedding. "Probably as good a vacation as I've had," he said.</font>
 

Fletch Fletcher

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Sep 25, 2006
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One thing that KV left out was that Byrne said that in the near future, all Bulldog Club members would be mailed some kind of card, he compared it to a Kroger card, to go on their key chain. Presenting this card at certain sporting events (women's basketball was his example), would increase your Bulldog Club priority points to the equivelent of a $100 donation. I took it to mean that this benefit would only apply to women's sporting events, not positive though. If I was in Starkville, I would be all over this. Walk into 10 women's games, swipe your card, walk out, and you've got $1000 of donation credit to your Bulldog Club account. However, living in Jackson this is worthless for me.
 

Sarc Dawg

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Nov 9, 2003
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if spending 20 min to drive to campus, swipe your card, and leave nets a Starkville resident the equivalent of $100 toward their ranking, then a lot of people in Starkville are going to suddenly be overtaking a lot of regular donors like me who live 4+ hours away and don't have that option.

Hell, you could donate the bare minimum and hit up about 15 of those events for 20 min. and probably come out ahead of 2/3 of the BC donors.</p>
 

dawgstudent

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Apr 15, 2003
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and made a good point. I am going to copy and paste...
What I hope this leads to is a way of tracking people who give opposing fans tickets in high dollar sections. It's ridiculous the number of non-Bulldogs you see, even in the club level. Nebraska had a policy, I believe, where ticket holders who sat near opposing fans in booster club seating were encourage to call and give the seat info to the AD, which would result in a warning for that fan. I believe it may have been Papa Byrne who instituted that.
 

Sarc Dawg

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Nov 9, 2003
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I would love to see the seats around me which usually are 1/3 filled with the opposing teams fans, become more maroon. Everyone has a set of friends that are fans of the opponents from time to time, but it's crazy to see everyone but MSU fans the entire season.

And if it is 5/$100 or a maximum I can handle that. If not, you're punishing people who live hours away.
 
M

MasterDawg

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Are we at the point where we can risk losing the money of pissing off fans in high dollar seats?
 

Porkchop.sixpack

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Jan 23, 2007
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giving my tickets to whtf I want to give them to, and they keep letting me?

That's ********. You buy the tickets, you give them to whoever you want. Now, I always prefer to give them to MSU fans. But, sometimes our athletic product we put out sucks donkey balls, and I am left givng the tickets to whoever will take them. Further, if I have someone that does a lot of business with me, and wants tickets, they are going to get them -- regardless of whichever side they yell for.

Oh, and by the way, my son: going to MSU this fall. Didn't do jack **** to earn my good seats. Guess what? He is going to sit in my seats if I am not there.

I don't give a rats *** when some of you sweat whether you are going to make that $500 BC contribution this year or not. I don't see why someone gives a rats *** who I give my tickets to. Everyone provides something. I don't provide the noise or the attendence record, etc. of our students. They don't provide the money I do. It all works out.
 

rugbdawg

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Oct 10, 2006
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********. If the game is not a sell out, give or sell the tickets to whoever you want. I have no problem with that.

But...if we ever have a problem like Nebraska, where 30,000 more MSU fans want tickets than can get in, then it stupid and selfish to give the tickets to the opposing team.
 

Porkchop.sixpack

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Jan 23, 2007
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if we had a true ticket exchange. But, to be honest, I am not going to put people in my seats I don't know. I don't care who they are. There are MSU fans that I don't know that might be much more unruly than non-MSU fans that I would choose to put in my seats.

As for selfish: Uh, did you pay for my tickets? Nope. You want me to spend my money, and then decide what I do with what I buy. If you haven't made the move already, try the democratic party. They agree with you. Let's see, someone, perhaps from UK, does a lot of business with me. And I give them tickets to attend an MSU/UK game. Selfish? Yep. And not a hard decision at all, either.
 

patdog

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May 28, 2007
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It would be feasible however to provide bonus points on top of your contribution for actually attending the games personally. If you give your ticket away or sell it, you'd lose out on those bonus points and have slightly worse seats the next year. Of course, if you give your "MSU Kroger card" to whoever you give the tickets to, then you've beat the system. As long as they return the card to you.
 

vhdawg

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Sep 29, 2004
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...it sounded like it had two purposes:

1. Reward people that go to "Olympic" (i.e. non-revenue generating) sporting events.

2. Allow for a way for fans to purchase tickets to single games online in football/basketball/whatever, and be able to print the tickets from home and use the rewards card to validate at the gate.

I didn't read it as something that was going to be applied to season ticket holders carte blanche.
 

Porkchop.sixpack

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Jan 23, 2007
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Actually, I don't have any problem at all awarding a limited number of points for game attendence.

It won't change my actions a bit, nor my seats.</p>
 

bulldogbaja

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Dec 18, 2007
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My family's donations will all be handled through my BC account, so say I take my wife to the volleyball game. Do I get credit for her too? Not just to be greedy with the points, but if she's not getting any credit for it then she won't want to go. And if she doesn't want to go, it's much less likely that I will go. I'm starting young with the BC, and still live in Starkville, so I want to get as much out of this as I can right now.
 

rugbdawg

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Oct 10, 2006
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tickets if they consistently gave them to someone else's fans IF we had enough fans so that it wouldn't hurt the university. We don't and we never will be like Notre Dame, Nebraska, etc. The only thing we can do is penalize people on the points.
 

Porkchop.sixpack

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Jan 23, 2007
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IF we had enough fans so that it wouldn't hurt the university.
Are you speaking in terms of attendance? Or in terms of having enough fans so that would make up for a large contributor. I mean, I doubt George Bryan comes to many games. I don't know who he gives probably the 30 or so tickets he has. But, you would yank George Bryan's tickets for giving them to someone from the other team on a consistent basis? That's a pretty drastic action to take for a pretty extreme example I have picked.
 

rugbdawg

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then it shouldn't be done. That's what I meant by that. So...you would always have the George Bryan exception unless some other sausage maker can step in.
 

Seinfeld

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Nov 30, 2006
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I don't think the swipe card has anything to do with who you sell your tickets to and frankly, I don't think many people in the AD really care as long as you're buying tickets. Just the same, if you live in Starkville and go to a women's BBall game just to swipe your card, I again don't think Byrne really gives a crap as long as you bought a ticket to go.