If the problem gets bad enough, they will dump some money in the AD accounts from the enormous university endowment. People will bellyache for a while. Fin
If the problem gets bad enough, they will dump some money in the AD accounts from the enormous university endowment. People will bellyache for a while. Fin
Cal's endowment is not that enormous relative to the operation it supports and a lot of that $$ is restricted.
It's not that easy ... it's not like there's a 4 billion cash acct they can just raid to fix fuck ups. Far from that simple.
If the problem gets bad enough, they will dump some money in the AD accounts from the enormous university endowment. People will bellyache for a while. Fin
I can't ever see the ivory tower types at Cal approving that.
Can @BearsWiin or someone else provide a rundown of how they decided to finance a 300MUSD stadium reno in the first place? I vaguely remember it being part of Tedfords demands, then there was fault line reasons to help justify it.
It's baffling that these financial terms ever got approved.
Can @BearsWiin or someone else provide a rundown of how they decided to finance a 300MUSD stadium reno in the first place? I vaguely remember it being part of Tedfords demands, then there was fault line reasons to help justify it.
It's baffling that these financial terms ever got approved.
Sooner or later that debt hole will start eating the university. Even Cal alums won't let things get so bad that they can't stay in D1A, the Pac-12 or playing Stanford. So they'll do something.
The endowment is 4.1BN independent of state support. The money's there.
Sooner or later that debt hole will start eating the university. Even Cal alums won't let things get so bad that they can't stay in D1A, the Pac-12 or playing Stanford. So they'll DO SOMETHING!!¡¡
The endowment is 4.1BN independent of state support. The money's there.
Football and basketball support a shitload of sports programs at Cal. The Athletic Department is too big, but like the federal budget everybody complains that it's too big but nobody wants to stick their necks out and go on record about what they'd cut.
Cal financed the stadium ten yeas ago with the ESP program, Endowment Seating Plan or something like that. It was a nonbinding agreement whereby donors would pledge to donate a certain amount per year for 30 or 50 years. In exchange for that ongoing pledge, donors would get the nice seatbacks on the shady side of the stadium between the 30's, and they'd get access to the fucking Donor's Club where they could drink heavily whilst watching the game and congratulating each other on how much money they had to throw away on status perks. So the stadium was financed on the expectation that donors would keep donating no matter how fucked the product was on the field.
Turns out that Cal donors aren't suckers. They see a shitty product and an AD (Williams) who is horrible at alumni/donor relations, they stop coming. Many backed out on their ESP pledges, and lo and behold money for the yearly payments dried up. Williams didn't resign; he was told that he wouldn't be retained after his contract was up, so he then made the resignation statement. He's made some right moves so far (getting rid of Dykes and hiring Wilcox) but pissed off basketball donors after Martin left by not listening to their concerns/suggestions and just went ahead and hired Martin's assistant instead. The new AD will have to be somebody who can reach out to the money (it's there) and coax it back to Cal.
The stadium plan was too expensive. Some things needed to be done (seismic retrofit), but that could have been done on the cheap. Instead, Sandy Barbour and Co. went ahead with a more pricey plan to make attending Cal Football games a status symbol. But you can slap a MBZ star on a Kia, and it's still a fucking Kia. Improve the car, and the donors will come back. Maybe. Hopefully. The landscape is changing anyway; people like me aren't big money, but I'm one of many who used to religiously attend games but long ago decided that it was cheaper to drink at home (comfy couch, HDTV, 20+games per Saturday). Winning ought to cure this problem, but we'll see.
If anybody really thought that stadium finance would be a god use of TV revenue, they should be summarily shot. Everybody in the conference got that money and put it to use in the coaching arms race. Cal needs to do that too, so no money there, really.
Football and basketball support a shitload of sports programs at Cal. The Athletic Department is too big, but like the federal budget everybody complains that it's too big but nobody wants to stick their necks out and go on record about what they'd cut.
Cal financed the stadium ten yeas ago with the ESP program, Endowment Seating Plan or something like that. It was a nonbinding agreement whereby donors would pledge to donate a certain amount per year for 30 or 50 years. In exchange for that ongoing pledge, donors would get the nice seatbacks on the shady side of the stadium between the 30's, and they'd get access to the fucking Donor's Club where they could drink heavily whilst watching the game and congratulating each other on how much money they had to throw away on status perks. So the stadium was financed on the expectation that donors would keep donating no matter how fucked the product was on the field.
Turns out that Cal donors aren't suckers. They see a shitty product and an AD (Williams) who is horrible at alumni/donor relations, they stop coming. Many backed out on their ESP pledges, and lo and behold money for the yearly payments dried up. Williams didn't resign; he was told that he wouldn't be retained after his contract was up, so he then made the resignation statement. He's made some right moves so far (getting rid of Dykes and hiring Wilcox) but pissed off basketball donors after Martin left by not listening to their concerns/suggestions and just went ahead and hired Martin's assistant instead. The new AD will have to be somebody who can reach out to the money (it's there) and coax it back to Cal.
The stadium plan was too expensive. Some things needed to be done (seismic retrofit), but that could have been done on the cheap. Instead, Sandy Barbour and Co. went ahead with a more pricey plan to make attending Cal Football games a status symbol. But you can slap a MBZ star on a Kia, and it's still a fucking Kia. Improve the car, and the donors will come back. Maybe. Hopefully. The landscape is changing anyway; people like me aren't big money, but I'm one of many who used to religiously attend games but long ago decided that it was cheaper to drink at home (comfy couch, HDTV, 20+games per Saturday). Winning ought to cure this problem, but we'll see.
If anybody really thought that stadium finance would be a god use of TV revenue, they should be summarily shot. Everybody in the conference got that money and put it to use in the coaching arms race. Cal needs to do that too, so no money there, really.
Can @BearsWiin or someone else provide a rundown of how they decided to finance a 300MUSD stadium reno in the first place? I vaguely remember it being part of Tedfords demands, then there was fault line reasons to help justify it.
It's baffling that these financial terms ever got approved.
Pac-12 TV money that never came.
All that Cal brain power yet nobody thought to question the assumptions on Larry Scott's Magic Revenue?... and then ACTED on it?
I went to the stadium the year the refurb was finished to watch my (then) shitty Dawgs play. I was all proud of myself because I smuggled in a bottle of Hennessy. My brother in law did a sweet spin move to distract the 20 year old security detail, only after I got in did I realize the kid didn't give a fuck. I digress...
I was disappointed by the stadium. Maybe it has cool shit in the corridors, but the experience up top was just sorta meh. Was is that shitty beforehand? They put in stripper poles in the box seats? I get the earthquake safety but am I missing something's @BearsWiin?
I went to the stadium the year the refurb was finished to watch my (then) shitty Dawgs play. I was all proud of myself because I smuggled in a bottle of Hennessy. My brother in law did a sweet spin move to distract the 20 year old security detail, only after I got in did I realize the kid didn't give a fuck. I digress...
I was disappointed by the stadium. Maybe it has cool shit in the corridors, but the experience up top was just sorta meh. Was is that shitty beforehand? They put in stripper poles in the box seats? I get the earthquake safety but am I missing something's @BearsWiin?
It was built in 1923, and it's been crumbling for as long as I've been a Cal fan (since 1986). It was that shitty. But if you were up top, then you didn't really see where the money went. They spent money on the donor areas, not so much the visitor fan areas. They didn't even touch the east side of the stadium, the part that was originally built into the hill itself; that phase was left for later (if they could ever find the money for it). So if you're on the east side of the stadium in Young Alumni seating, or student seating, of even in the east side of the end zones, you're still making use of the old stadium, not the new part. They spent $320M so that half of the fans would still have to use porta-potties, and the wealthy donors could hobnob amongst themselves in their gated community.
Comments
It's not that easy ... it's not like there's a 4 billion cash acct they can just raid to fix fuck ups. Far from that simple.
It's baffling that these financial terms ever got approved.
The endowment is 4.1BN independent of state support. The money's there.
Football and basketball support a shitload of sports programs at Cal. The Athletic Department is too big, but like the federal budget everybody complains that it's too big but nobody wants to stick their necks out and go on record about what they'd cut.
Cal financed the stadium ten yeas ago with the ESP program, Endowment Seating Plan or something like that. It was a nonbinding agreement whereby donors would pledge to donate a certain amount per year for 30 or 50 years. In exchange for that ongoing pledge, donors would get the nice seatbacks on the shady side of the stadium between the 30's, and they'd get access to the fucking Donor's Club where they could drink heavily whilst watching the game and congratulating each other on how much money they had to throw away on status perks. So the stadium was financed on the expectation that donors would keep donating no matter how fucked the product was on the field.
Turns out that Cal donors aren't suckers. They see a shitty product and an AD (Williams) who is horrible at alumni/donor relations, they stop coming. Many backed out on their ESP pledges, and lo and behold money for the yearly payments dried up. Williams didn't resign; he was told that he wouldn't be retained after his contract was up, so he then made the resignation statement. He's made some right moves so far (getting rid of Dykes and hiring Wilcox) but pissed off basketball donors after Martin left by not listening to their concerns/suggestions and just went ahead and hired Martin's assistant instead. The new AD will have to be somebody who can reach out to the money (it's there) and coax it back to Cal.
The stadium plan was too expensive. Some things needed to be done (seismic retrofit), but that could have been done on the cheap. Instead, Sandy Barbour and Co. went ahead with a more pricey plan to make attending Cal Football games a status symbol. But you can slap a MBZ star on a Kia, and it's still a fucking Kia. Improve the car, and the donors will come back. Maybe. Hopefully. The landscape is changing anyway; people like me aren't big money, but I'm one of many who used to religiously attend games but long ago decided that it was cheaper to drink at home (comfy couch, HDTV, 20+games per Saturday). Winning ought to cure this problem, but we'll see.
If anybody really thought that stadium finance would be a god use of TV revenue, they should be summarily shot. Everybody in the conference got that money and put it to use in the coaching arms race. Cal needs to do that too, so no money there, really.
I was disappointed by the stadium. Maybe it has cool shit in the corridors, but the experience up top was just sorta meh. Was is that shitty beforehand? They put in stripper poles in the box seats? I get the earthquake safety but am I missing something's @BearsWiin?