Ya get what ya pay for

[The_Reaper]

" A Reaper Commentary"

After Tom's interview in the chat, it opened my eyes a little. After accusing the Mkt. dept. of not doing their job, I found out the budget they had to work with. Heck, big HS teams have that budget to work with. It seems our college upity ups have gone to the Vince Namoli/Devil Rays school of economics. Their philosophy... Talk BIG, pay little! It's a no wonder why UF and FSU rule this town. Their answer to it all...win baby, just win and they will come. Just look at what the Bucs did... Well folks, it took the Bucs almost 20= years to acheive this status. YES we are a Young program, but we are a GOOD program. The kids deserve to have $$$ put out to help the situation. The schools answer...well we can't foot ALL the bill. Correct. Where are these big donors that made our way to the big east. Are they still contributing? I hope so. Because without them... well you know the story.

So in conclusion... Tom Veit, please accept my appologies. You can only work with what is given. Maybe these next years, the University will give more than they recieve.     Until then, I hear Namoli's looking for a free Hamburger again.    Reaper

[smazza]

i don't buy it

there are smaller schools that do just fine

in football,with all the talent around,usf should be a top 25 without a problem

same in baseball,notwithstanding the poor facilities

cut some minor sports if we have to

[ChiTownBull]

the old adage is you have to spend $$$ to make $$$

[Guest S.  Bien]

" A Reaper Commentary"

After Tom's interview in the chat, it opened my eyes a little. After accusing the Mkt. dept. of not doing their job, I found out the budget they had to work with. Heck, big HS teams have that budget to work with. It seems our college upity ups have gone to the Vince Namoli/Devil Rays school of economics. Their philosophy... Talk BIG, pay little! It's a no wonder why UF and FSU rule this town. Their answer to it all...win baby, just win and they will come. Just look at what the Bucs did... Well folks, it took the Bucs almost 20= years to acheive this status. YES we are a Young program, but we are a GOOD program. The kids deserve to have $$$ put out to help the situation. The schools answer...well we can't foot ALL the bill. Correct. Where are these big donors that made our way to the big east. Are they still contributing? I hope so. Because without them... well you know the story.

So in conclusion... Tom Veit, please accept my appologies. You can only work with what is given. Maybe these next years, the University will give more than they recieve.     Until then, I hear Namoli's looking for a free Hamburger again.    Reaper

Reaper, well done.  The fact is we just didn't have the money some thought we did.  Everyone had an idea or a reason but when you looked at ALL the jobs Tom Veit had to do with absolutely no staff or help and zero budget you begin to realize the situation we were in and are in.  Smazza can criticize but he hasn't done anything financially lately to rectify the situation.  He doesn't even care to find out the situation, he doesn't even take the time to help the situation he just amplifies it with ignorant posts.

I was told many times by people within that Tom's done a good job with almost nothing.  Now that he's been given something things might change.  The season tickets were higher than in 2003 but fans didn't show up to Memphis or Pitt because of the time and our record.  Nothing Tom could have done might have rectified that situation short of having some stupid free concert which he had no money for.  Basketball is the same situation.  The Big East will help us and it already is by giving us more dollars to work with but success on the field will help, so will more personnel to help him achieve those goals, and dollars to advertise with.  You can't market a big time product and expect big time results without big time dollars.  In comparison, UF has about 10-15 times the budget Tom has to work with and about 3X's the personnel.  They do it with more donors and more conference dollars.  Until that happens for USF it's all just a bunch of wishful thinking.

[The Sheriff]

What a bunch of crap Reaper... don't cut them any slack... I personally tried myself to get things moving... other people on this board have tried to get things done... and I know for sure the Bulls Country people have tried to combine efforts with Veit and got shot down or talked down to like they were six year olds. Attendance is at an all time low since I've been around USF. I tried blaming RMC... but seriously... what did Veit and company do to get students to the game (they were more concerned about paying alumnus). If you get the students to the game... they make the place electric. Alumni will come. In our case, it is the other way around. They've pissed away 35 years of fans by reaching out to the wrong crowd. Reach the students now... and they will come back as grads.

[CoolBull1]

What a bunch of crap Reaper... don't cut them any slack... I personally tried myself to get things moving... other people on this board have tried to get things done... and I know for sure the Bulls Country people have tried to combine efforts with Veit and got shot down or talked down to like they were six year olds. Attendance is at an all time low since I've been around USF. I tried blaming RMC... but seriously... what did Veit and company do to get students to the game (they were more concerned about paying alumnus). If you get the students to the game... they make the place electric. Alumni will come. In our case, it is the other way around. They've pissed away 35 years of fans by reaching out to the wrong crowd. Reach the students now... and they will come back as grads.

I think these comments are valid...with the resources available at USF, some of this marketing could be done for free with a little creativity.  Approach the marketing department...give a marketing student an opportunity to showcase his/her talent by taking a new approach, particularly with the getting students to the game.  That would appear to be just the beginning of leveraging resources.  Brilliant minds are just waiting for a door to open.  I have seen that as an opportunity for an under-served budget for some time...maybe the NCAA doesn't allow it.

[MatRatUSF]

What can get students to game besides getting Kegs??

Also, just FYI for people who are interested. The reason the Student Bulls Club hasn't joined forced as a Student Government agency is that if SG were to give SBC money we wouldn't be able to charge for membership and we wouldn't be able to seperate ourselves as a donor based organization. In SG bylaws you have to let anyone in who wants to join and not everyone wants to pay money to join. So that was a snag in that. So i would like to get people's input to get students out there.

[WoolyBully]

What can get students to game besides getting Kegs??

Look...if student's aren't interested in the game, they're not going to show up. I don't know how much of their attendance is based on winning - having nothing to compare it to - but it seems like every time the subject of student attendance is raised, it is intertwined with what-other-than-the-game-is-there-for-the-students type of discussions. Is it a true statement that students will only attend x-event as long as x-event is not the sole item on the menu?

If that is a true statement, stop wasting time and money to get students to attend.

If you need the scratch, then you have no alternative to go with the donor/alumni focus.

Seems to me the most difficult task is finding that middle ground formula that  maximizes results: a winning - or at the very least competitive - event for the alumni/donors and the necessary 'side show' required for student interest.  Winning and being competitive comes from the teams...as for trying to build an artificial  jump-start mechanism for students, I have no idea what that would entail.  But the more limited your budget, the more you really have to scrutinize each and every decision.

[Jim Johnson]

I can say that winning does bring out people, including students... I can remember near sell-outs at the Sun Dome, when the students filled 3/4ths of the lower bowl plus a large section of the upper bowl... I can remember waiting outside at least 30 mins after the doors opened because there were 5,000 students trying to get into Entry 2... But that was back in the early 1990's, when USF was winning more than it was losing...

Looking back, USF probably could have done more to market its programs... especially the football program and its 21-game home winning streak... however, hindsight is 20-20...

I have faith that USF will be doing more this year and beyond... but they still need to put a solid product out there...

To be sure, Ford loyalists still bought the Edsel... and USF loyalists will still buy tickets... but if USF is going to grow its fan base - it needs winning programs. No ifs. No ands. No buts.

To quote Vince Lombardi: "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing."

[Guest S.  Bien]

What a bunch of crap Reaper... don't cut them any slack... I personally tried myself to get things moving... other people on this board have tried to get things done... and I know for sure the Bulls Country people have tried to combine efforts with Veit and got shot down or talked down to like they were six year olds. Attendance is at an all time low since I've been around USF. I tried blaming RMC... but seriously... what did Veit and company do to get students to the game (they were more concerned about paying alumnus). If you get the students to the game... they make the place electric. Alumni will come. In our case, it is the other way around. They've pissed away 35 years of fans by reaching out to the wrong crowd. Reach the students now... and they will come back as grads.

Having a kegger and chicks doesn't qualify you as 'working with USF' on marketing ideas.  No one pissed away 35 years of crap...jeez how the hell would you know your not even 35 years old!  I can tell your ass about USF hoops games that occurred in the 80's that were fun as hell, and the only history you have to draw from was Greenberg and beyond.

You're perception is to limited to be making any judgements such as that!