bull_trojan

I agree that AAC would be more of a draw for local fans, than MAC. One of the big negatives about UB to AAC you hear from AAC fans is our facilities. Again an image thing, but they want to be seen as the P6. They want all teams to have near-P5 level facilities. Guess at the end of the day, we just gotta win this year, trust that Buffalo will come around now that we have a shiny Number in front of our name, and hope that we're cashing in on this season via donations so we can keep building our program up.

I only ask, because I feel the UB community had this conversation 10 years ago, but "consistently good" was annually competing for the MAC championship and winning it every couple of years. I don't want to look back in 5 years in the #15-#30 level basketball and have the conversation be, well to really win Buffalo you gotta be top 10.

I don't get how it is a blue-tinted comparison, I did the research first, conclusion after, there was no intent to pair UB and SMU, because honestly I don't put SMU up there as a great basketball school. WKU is a good comparison, although they were more consistently good 10 years ago than now. UNCW hasn't had our level of success. Moreover, only SMU has the competition from a NHL/NBA team. Wins past 10 years: UB 199 WKU 199 SMU 197 Bona 184 UNCW 141 Wins past 5 years: SMU 126 UB 106 Bona 104 WKU 101 UNCW 92 NCAA Tourney past 10 years UB 3 appearances, 1 round of 32 WKU 3 appearances, 1 round of 32 SMU 2 appearances Bona 2 appearances UNCW 2 appearances

Brown was hired for the 2012-13 season, won 15 games, Attendance avg 3,443, 38% full. Next year, renovated arena, AAC conference, 27 wins, NIT berth, Attendance avg 5,653 81% full.

I did a lot of research and found 18 teams that last year had 4k+ on average AND filled 74%+ of their building. I included Buffalo and made a rudimentary metric to score the quality of their past 10 seasons, Gonzaga, Wichita State, Butler and Xavier were a clear tier 1, tier 2 was VCU, SDSU and Dayton, then there is a tier 3: #8 Creighton, #9 SMU, #10 Nevada, #11 Providence, #12 Davidson, #13 Buffalo, #14 Rhode Island, #15 WKU, #16 Richmond, #17 Bona. Then a clear Tier 4: #18 UNC Wilmington and #19 GCU. As a reminder, this is a measurement only of the teams with the 4k average and 74% capacity (plus Buffalo). SMU ended up being a really good comparison: SMU 197 wins over last 10 years, 126 wins over last 5 years, 2 NCAA appearances UB 199 wins over last 10 years, 106 wins over last 5 years, 3 NCAA appearances and 1 round of 32. Both are in metro areas (Dallas is a bit bigger of course), both have in-city professional winter sport competition (Stars, Mavs, Sabres). In the 5 seasons from 2008-09 to 2012-13: SMU won 71 games & averaged 2,590 fans and their building was on average 29% full. UB won 93 games & averaged 2,531 fans and Alumni was on average 41% full. In the past 5 seasons (2013-14 to 2017-18) SMU won 126 games (up 77%), was the NIT runner-up and went to two NCAA tournaments. They averaged 6,612 fans (up 155%) and their building was 94% full. Same period, UB won 106 games (up 14%) went to 3 NCAA Tournaments and 1 round of 32. UB averaged 3,545 fans (up 40%) and Alumni was 58% full. 5 Seasons ago at least two things happened. 1) SMU moved from the C-USA to the American (better opponents) 2) SMU renovated their arena with a focus on improving premium seating and hospitality options. 3) SMU won 77% more games. So based on SMU some combination of better opponents, arena improvements and winning is probably what we need.

BYE BYE OHIO. UB in with a WIN or a Ohio Loss, that hasn't changed... but feels good to know the Cats can't get in.

Can ya'll define "consistently good program" in both level of success to be considered "good" and length of time needed to be considered "consistent" I think sometimes easy answers like "consistently good" are easy answers because they are undefined.

I am fine with AA, my thoughts were on outside perception, of the multipurpose gym. It is fully functional, unlike UBS. I feel outside of the functional issues of UBS, the perception of it as "not a real college football stadium" also hurts community fan engagement. Sometimes, you have to look the part.

I don't know how buy games work, we have other means to get teams 😉 (and a 10k seat arena which still works fine despite a normal attendance between 4-6k).

Profit is most important, profit is Revenue - Expenses. I agree you don't build a big facility for the seats to sit empty, the hypothesis is that a more "pro" style gym would attract more fans. My argument is there are people who look at alumni and wouldn't go to a game for free, cause it's not big time like the arena they are used to going to. So you'll never have them getting turned away or beating down the door. Nova fans prefer the Pavillion, UB fans may prefer the Wells Fargo. That's a revenue issue. We can earn at least 90k on a buy game. So we have to be able to net at least 90,001k to buy someone to us and have it make fiscal sense. 6,000 seats, Throw in 1,000 student tickets and 2,000 season ticket holders who were going to buy anyway, you have 3,000 seats to sell @ $30/seat, or 2,000 seats at $45/seat. Same equation in a 10k building you'd have 4,500 seats at $20 up to 7,000 seats @ $13 to sell in order to afford that opponent. I dig your hypothesis of schedule improving attendance and revenue tho, I'd love to open with like a Cuse, a Michigan or a UConn, and have the single game price = the season ticket price. Imagine this year if locals who normally wouldn't go to Alumni went to see us play WVU, and bought the season tickets figuring hey might as well buy seasons if it's the same price as the one ticket, we played a great game and won, some of those fans may be motivated to come back to see us play south east Houston state, and Kent.

Cynical me says if we win this and the MAC we'll land at #25 so ESPN can use it to help sell whatever bowl we end up at. (hopefully anyone but Georgia Southern's option run team.)

10,000 seats would be tied for 101st in the nation with Clemson, George Mason, NIU, Evansville, and Washington. 10,167 is the median capacity of the American Conference arenas. If you're going to maximize revenue you'll either have to max out attendance at a lower price, or have high demand at a high price. In my opinion, a sport that starts during Bills season and plays during Sabres season, in a lower income city to start with, won't really be able to throw the price that high, so they gotta have seats. I attempted to explain this. My feeling is our fans our used to MSG, Keybank, the ACC, TD Garden, the Q etc. Major Arenas. Alumni feels more HS. If UB played in an arena that felt more big league, I think it would draw more fans. I personally love Alumni, and see no reason why it isn't operation 6k every game right now. The team is top 25, there is not much else they can do on the court to attract fans. So what do you think the issue is?

Anywho, loved hearing Oats kinda confirm what we discussed in some other thread. He doesn't want to move around, and he wants to win. He said something to the effect i could be making 10x more but if i lose im still gonna go home mad. He mentioned A LOT about being the next Mid-Major-Major, and I'm here for it. Long Live Ball & Oats

We won the MAC, then won the MAC again, then had a down season, then won the MAC again, then beat Arizona, then beat WVU, then got ranked. ONLY THEN has WGR conceded that MAYBE they should start to cover some UB Basketball

Run heavy vs BGSU, Get to the Dome, and throw it 40 times. Play somewhere warm and southern, throw it 40 more times.

I think one of the issues with football and Basketball is that they don't look like major college sport venues. My theory is if you build a 10k bowl for basketball that looked like the venues the top schools have, you'd get more butts in seats. To the OP, I don't see expansion possible at Alumni. I think you'd have to (and honestly I think you'd want to) build a new building.

The analytics hate UB. One reason is the special teams. The other reason is the bend but dont break defense The other reason is on offense we've won like 6 different ways (some games air raid, some games power run, some games nothing works but we still score 30.) That gives me confidence over the 2008 and 2013 teams that I felt had more weaknesses you could attack, I think this team is built to counter anything (even our own special teams deficiencies have worked for us by making Lance more aggressive)

Just when you DONT need to drink away the pain of UB Athletics.

Chuck Martin approves! MAC disapproves (too cheap)!

I took two trips east this year. One trip I drove from Buffalo to Cleveland. Another trip I drove from Cleveland to Grand Rapids, MI. Two similarly timed drives, but there is no denying Buffalo to Cleveland is boring. Your only major stopping place is Erie, and if you're a MAC man, there is no school or stadium to stop by on the way to the closest schools, Akron and Kent. From Cleveland, you're solidly in MAC country: close to Akron and Kent, a few hours west, Toledo and BGSU. When I was at UB, everyone dreaded the six hour bus ride football took to BG or Toledo, but from Cleveland, you're flipping off the Toledo Rockets sign on the I-75 in what seems like no time. A few minutes north from Toledo, you start to see a lot of 'Block M' which let's you know you're close to clocking into the Factory. From Ypsi, you can get to WMU or CMU in about 90 minutes. Anyway my trips made me think the MAC's divisional format is all wrong. Buffalo needs to be connected to EMU, via Canada, not to Kent and Akron, via Erie. BG and Toledo deserve to be together. You can't break up the Michigan trio. We need to embrace Miami and Ball State. So I created a grid-based Conference with 3 Quartets and 4 Divisons North South West East Erie Quartet EMU BGSU Toledo UB L Quartet CMU Miami Ball St Ohio Snake Quartet WMU Kent NIU Akron Each team would play their Division (2 games) and their Quartet (3 games) Then 2 predetermined games against a team from 2 other divisions, and a semi final/flex game against the third division. I think you have a quartet champion, for braging rights, along with double the division race, technically making each season more meaningful. So UB would play in this scenario Division: 1) Ohio 2) Akron Quartet: 3) EMU 4) BGSU 5) Toledo Predetermined (vs South and West) 6) Ball State 7) Miami Semifinal/Flex (vs. North) 8. WMU (semifinal game) MAC Championship 9) Winner of North vs East semi vs Winner of South vs West semi.

True but diminishing returns. I'd assume at 600k a year you could pretty much do whatever you want in Buffalo.

Would you rather be Oats with 1.1 million over 3 years with 2 Conference Championships, 2 NCAA Appearances and a NCAA win or Hurley with 4.9 million over 3 years with 0 conference championships, 1 NCAA appearance and 0 wins. It seems in the 1 and done era, you have as good a chance to make it to the final four as an elite mid-major than an average major. So why leave? That dynamic may change once the 1 and done era ends again, sadly.

AAC TV deal expires July 1, 2020, ESPN has a 30 day negotiation window that ends around the end of February '19. American can take ESPN's deal, or shop around, but they cannot take a deal for less than what ESPN offers. I'm reading people like Danny White saying the current AAC deal under-values the conference. They currently get about 1.7 million/year, double the MAC's payout, but still less than a third of the (new) Big East's payout. AAC has said they want a P6 payout. The P5 is getting: B1G 440 million/season: 220 from Fox, 190 from ESPN 10 from CBS (basketball) - 31.4 million/school SEC 380 million/season: 255 from ESPN/CBS and 125 from SEC Network - 27.14 million/school ACC 238 million/season from ESPN. = 17 million/school. Hoping for additional 140 million once ACC net launches would give - 27 million/ school PAC 225 million/season - 18.75 million/school Big 200 million/season from ESPN/Fox - 20 million/school Also the MWC deal is up at the same time, so the two top mid-major conferences will be negotiating against each other. If you were ESPN, what would you do?

Ohio still has a glimmer of hope. (UB losing out, Ohio winning out, Miami losing once) We can finish the job on Wednesday.

seeing as the Bama Band crowd-fund raised 40k in under 2 weeks, I'd assume a lot of people have affinity for the band I'd say 99% of that would be attributed to their relationship with the football team. If Bama went to their CFP game but said "the band couldn't afford to come to the game" Bama's fans would have a major problem with it.