Northern Iowa - Standing Room Only

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

I see LSU women plays SE Louisiana, Tulane, New Orleans and La Tech. Apparently they feel OK with those games. They rotate in and out other Louisiana schools as opponents year to year.

I did notice that La Tech endured a 11-game losing streak vs LSU from 2003 to 2016, and haven't played them since then, until later this season. So I guess La Tech was a bit gun shy about the series.

At LSU or at those schools?

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

Who would you like to play instead? The last 5 years Drake and UNI have both been top 100 NET teams. That is moderately helpful for Iowa's NET rating. What top 100 NET teams would you like to play instead? Would those teams come to Iowa City for a buy game? Or are you proposing that Iowa replace Drake and UNI with typically lower NET teams? Unfortunately, Drake and UNI both suck this year. If that were to become a more permanent state of affairs, then a big part of the benefit of playing Drake and UNI would go away, in which case Iowa might need to rethink things.

Regarding money, aren't Drake and UNI both low-cost travel options that give Iowa a road game to help them prepare for more challenging road environments? Relatedly, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that Iowa doesn't pay Drake or UNI to come to Iowa City, because they get a return game at their place. Iowa currently pays $40,000-$45,000 for buy games (last year Toledo and Washington State cost Iowa $40,000 each). So if Iowa replaced Drake and UNI with 2 home buy games, that would cost Iowa $80,000+ for likely inferior opponents that would hurt Iowa's NET rating. Not sure that helps the bottom line or the resume.

I’m not against playing them, I’m against giving up home games. Come play at Iowa. Your calcs ignore the revenue. Average ticket price is $15. It they sell 15,000 tickets that is $225k per game, and $450k for both. I would say 10k tickets sold but given their alumni in state, probably sell outs. Throw in concessions, parking, etc, which google ai estimated to be $50k per game. So $550k in and they pay $80k out. How is netting $470k less appealing financially? And that does not account for lost sales to local restaurants and hotels. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. This is basic business and math.

 

[Burghawk87]

I’m not against playing them, I’m against giving up home games. Come play at Iowa. Your calcs ignore the revenue. Average ticket price is $15. It they sell 15,000 tickets that is $225k per game, and $450k for both. I would say 10k tickets sold but given their alumni in state, probably sell outs. Throw in concessions, parking, etc, which google ai estimated to be $50k per game. So $550k in and they pay $80k out. How is netting $470k less appealing financially? And that does not account for lost sales to local restaurants and hotels. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. This is basic business and math.

It would be pretty easy to sync schedules so you only play one of them on the road per season, and make it an every other thing. Home game with Drake when they play ISU in Ames, at Drake when ISU comes to Carver. Then swap with UNI the next 2 seasons. Missing one home game against a nobody won't kill the athletic department. Playing zero road games before conference play starts (last season) isn't the best idea either.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

It would be pretty easy to sync schedules so you only play one of them on the road per season, and make it an every other thing. Home game with Drake when they play ISU in Ames, at Drake when ISU comes to Carver. Then swap with UNI the next 2 seasons. Missing one home game against a nobody won't kill the athletic department. Playing zero road games before conference play starts (last season) isn't the best idea either.

$235k is a lot of money. Every dollar will count with the payouts required for the Revenue sharing cap.

 

[Burghawk87]

$235k is a lot of money. Every dollar will count with the payouts required for the Revenue sharing cap.

Raise ticket prices by $1. Problem solved. (With an extra 20-35k if people show up to games)

 

[o_AMAYS]

I’m not against playing them, I’m against giving up home games. Come play at Iowa. Your calcs ignore the revenue. Average ticket price is $15. It they sell 15,000 tickets that is $225k per game, and $450k for both. I would say 10k tickets sold but given their alumni in state, probably sell outs. Throw in concessions, parking, etc, which google ai estimated to be $50k per game. So $550k in and they pay $80k out. How is netting $470k less appealing financially? And that does not account for lost sales to local restaurants and hotels. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. This is basic business and math.

Appreciate the response, but who do you propose to play instead? It’s at least doubtful that Drake and UNI would come to Iowa City without a return game. Their men wouldn’t.

 

[iThinkiWill]

Money and increased risk of losing.

Money… opportunity costs

‘Increased’ risk of losing… compared to what

 

[Roncuba65]

I think we should play home and aways with UNI and Drake. It was an unique thing our state had. Fran was the one who whined about it and dwindled it from DSM to nothing... Tom Davis, Steve Alford and Todd L had no problem playing these games...

Frans coaching ego is a lot bigger than reality.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

Appreciate the response, but who do you propose to play instead? It’s at least doubtful that Drake and UNI would come to Iowa City without a return game. Their men wouldn’t.

No idea. If drake or uni doesn’t want the pay out, someone else will.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

Money… opportunity costs

‘Increased’ risk of losing… compared to what

Compared to playing in front of your own crowd while having all of the benefits attendant to not traveling. In terms of opportunity cost, that doesn’t make sense. The opportunity to play on the road and lose money compare to playing at home. Awesome trade off.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

I think we should play home and aways with UNI and Drake. It was an unique thing our state had. Fran was the one who whined about it and dwindled it from DSM to nothing... Tom Davis, Steve Alford and Todd L had no problem playing these games...

Frans coaching ego is a lot bigger than reality.

They also didn’t coach when with a $20m line item to pay and it goes up every year.

 

[UpstreamHawkeye]

At LSU or at those schools?

Played at Tulane tonight, will play at New Orleans next month. SE Lousiana is a home game this year, La Tech is a neutral site game. It's hard to gauge its home vs away ratio against the other in state teams since the schools get rotated in a out, but going back a few years LSU has played at SE Louisana and Louisiana Lafayette. The series vs Tulane seems to be regular home and away series. The series vs La Tech when it was ongoing was home an away and neutral. Played Northwestern State a couple of times the last few years and were all in Baton Rouge.

 

[UpstreamHawkeye]

By the way La Tech, New Orleans, SE Louisiana, Northwestern State and Louisiana Lafayette are all part of the University of Louisiana System, and Tulane is an influential private research university, vs LSU which is part of the Louisiana State University System.

 

[WCFHawk]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Fran nixed that moving forward after the game in Cedar Falls when he got ejected due to the horrible officiating.

Fran and Hoiberg both said no more to UNI and Drake.

 

[iThinkiWill]

Compared to playing in front of your own crowd while having all of the benefits attendant to not traveling. In terms of opportunity cost, that doesn’t make sense. The opportunity to play on the road and lose money compare to playing at home. Awesome trade off.

If you’re arguing to replace these road games with home games, then I can understand your point. The following response is made without reference to any specific terms regarding revenue sharing of a home and home agreement - eg is it 50/50 split? It does seem however that you are ignoring, discounting, or simply do not understand, the opportunity costs in the cost/benefit decision analysis. The opportunity cost is an economic concept. In this case, it involves paying another team to play in CHA. (What would it cost to bring in a similar caliber team?). It (opportunity cost) is also (and even more so to the point) the loss of experience that comes with playing in unfamiliar/hostile road environments, which is subjective and impossible in theory on which to assign a value. Revenue from home games minus monetary compensation paid to visiting teams equals net income per game which is compared to any alternative income and experience of playing road games. Technically, the cost/benefit analysis is much more complicated than that but the point is the same. You probably do give up some income playing Drake/UNI on the road (assuming the agreement is 50/50). The question is how much and I think it is less than your estimate and the benefit is greater than you realize.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

If you’re arguing to replace these road games with home games, then I can understand your point. The following response is made without reference to any specific terms regarding revenue sharing of a home and home agreement - eg is it 50/50 split? It does seem however that you are ignoring, discounting, or simply do not understand, the opportunity costs in the cost/benefit decision analysis. The opportunity cost is an economic concept. In this case, it involves paying another team to play in CHA. (What would it cost to bring in a similar caliber team?). It (opportunity cost) is also (and even more so to the point) the loss of experience that comes with playing in unfamiliar/hostile road environments, which is subjective and impossible in theory on which to assign a value. Revenue from home games minus monetary compensation paid to visiting teams equals net income per game which is compared to any alternative income and experience of playing road games. Technically, the cost/benefit analysis is much more complicated than that but the point is the same. You probably do give up some income playing Drake/UNI on the road (assuming the agreement is 50/50). The question is how much and I think it is less than your estimate and the benefit is greater than you realize.

Jesus get over yourself, I understand the concept of opportunity cost; it’s not exactly splitting atoms. The fact is that nobody here has said anything that makes any economic sense - you included. The opportunity cost of playing on the road is not playing at home where more money is made. We make more money playing home games against uni and drake every year than playing home games every other year. That is just an indisputable fact and that has been my repeated economic point.

I also made the point that building a tournament resume is a noneconomic reason to play a home and home with another school. For that, typically, beating Drake and uni don’t move the needle at this point in their existences, but losing to them is catastrophic. Whatever benefit to be derived from playing on the road for the sake of the experience will come soon enough with ISU, preseason tourneys, and the conference games. They simply offer nothing to tip the scales in their favor of doing a home and home.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

Raise ticket prices by $1. Problem solved. (With an extra 20-35k if people show up to games)

If the market would bear it, they would have already.

 

[Burghawk87]

If the market would bear it, they would have already.

Season ticket prices for men went up $10 this season. That's more than my proposed $1. Easily covers the potential one lost game against Maryland eastern shore on a Tuesday night at 8 pm with 8k in attendance (announced).

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

Season ticket prices for men went up $10 this season. That's more than my proposed $1. Easily covers the potential one lost game against Maryland eastern shore on a Tuesday night at 8 pm with 8k in attendance (announced).

You and other posters keep talking about minimizing the financial harm of not of maximizing home games, rather maximizing the bottom line which would be maximizing home games. Whether they can charge an extra $1 per ticket, $10 per ticket, $11 per ticket, or $20 per ticket above the current asking price, balanced with a decreasing number of buyers willing to pay those higher prices, is independent of whether it makes financial sense to give up a home game. And drake and uni can still play at iowa rather than maryland eastern shore.

 

[Burghawk87]

You and other posters keep talking about minimizing the financial harm of not of maximizing home games, rather maximizing the bottom line which would be maximizing home games. Whether they can charge an extra $1 per ticket, $10 per ticket, $11 per ticket, or $20 per ticket above the current asking price, balanced with a decreasing number of buyers willing to pay those higher prices, is independent of whether it makes financial sense to give up a home game. And drake and uni can still play at iowa rather than maryland eastern shore.

I frankly don't care one bit about minimizing the financial harm, I was merely playing along with your number scenario. They already charged $10 more this year and nothing changed other than hope that people would return. Everything costs more every year and based on my lifetime experience it doesn't seem to be changing. So that part doesn't really matter. Prices will go up regardless of what happens because until there is an actual drastic sustained dip in demand nothing changes. I just don't agree with the "no benefit" angle of not playing at either school.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

I frankly don't care one bit about minimizing the financial harm, I was merely playing along with your number scenario. They already charged $10 more this year and nothing changed other than hope that people would return. Everything costs more every year and based on my lifetime experience it doesn't seem to be changing. So that part doesn't really matter. Prices will go up regardless of what happens because until there is an actual drastic sustained dip in demand nothing changes. I just don't agree with the "no benefit" angle of not playing at either school.

Well I might be conflating you with 3 or 4 other people, who are taking similar positions.

 

[Kceasthawk@77]

Lumping UNI in with any potential road opponent is fallacious, in my opinion. Not all opponents are created equal. For example, we trade home court/field with ISU because they are in a power 4 conference, and they are a ratings/attendance draw, and help our tournament/post-season resume. We are better off doing the home and home than not playing them at all, and we cannot make ISU only play in Iowa City. Perhaps this is too crass for the board, but we do not need to play UNI from a financial perspective (and to the contrary, it is money out of the program's pocket), UNI does not help our tournament resume, and UNI does not have any bargaining power. We should only schedule home and home with non-conference teams if they add value we cannot get by playing a different team at home.

You have to remember that Jan like lisa, but especially Jan has such close ties to womens basketball in Iowa, going back to her high school days. Jans grandmother, (and Jan I believe) are in the Iowa basketball HOF. Its part of who she is. Jans number is in the rafters at Drake. She and Lisa are Legends there. She also has ties to UNI's coach who is her schools all time wins leader. Like Lisa she believes in the importance of these games as being crucial for womens basketball in the state. This is not at all like Frans deal where he got pissed because the refs bent him over when we played the Panthers in Cedar Falls, and he vowed he'd never play there again. These games do not have the same negative impact on the womens tournament seeding like they could for the mens, so that point is moot as well. FYI, Cory Brada talked about this on his "Hawkeye of the storm podcast" when one of his callers brought this up. His view was that as long as Jan is the coach, we'll be playing Drake ad UNI home and home, as she beliefs its important for womens basketball in Iowa to do so. And for the record, I'd also prefer we play Home and homes with the Iowa schools then some of the crap 250-300 level teams on our schedule. Sorry but its not like we sell out those games, and there is almost NO interest in those games. Drake was 31-4 last year and won an NCAA tourney game. Something Iowa did not do. UNI I believe has actually been to the sweet 16 since the last time we were
there. They're respectable teams.

 

[Burghawk87]

Fran and Hoiberg both said no more to UNI and Drake.

Well they're both gone. So let's get it going again.

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

You have to remember that Jan like lisa, but especially Jan has such close ties to womens basketball in Iowa, going back to her high school days. Jans grandmother, (and Jan I believe) are in the Iowa basketball HOF. Its part of who she is. Jans number is in the rafters at Drake. She and Lisa are Legends there. She also has ties to UNI's coach who is her schools all time wins leader. Like Lisa she believes in the importance of these games as being crucial for womens basketball in the state. This is not at all like Frans deal where he got pissed because the refs bent him over when we played the Panthers in Cedar Falls, and he vowed he'd never play there again. These games do not have the same negative impact on the womens tournament seeding like they could for the mens, so that point is moot as well. FYI, Cory Brada talked about this on his "Hawkeye of the storm podcast" when one of his callers brought this up. His view was that as long as Jan is the coach, we'll be playing Drake ad UNI home and home, as she beliefs its important for womens basketball in Iowa to do so. And for the record, I'd also prefer we play Home and homes with the Iowa schools then some of the crap 250-300 level teams on our schedule. Sorry but its not like we sell out those games, and there is almost NO interest in those games. Drake was 31-4 last year and won an NCAA tourney game. Something Iowa did not do. UNI I believe has actually been to the sweet 16 since the last time we were
there. They're respectable teams.

Solid post. I knew someone was going to bring up the Drake men's team from last year (well, recent years actually). They've had quite a run, but as far as I'm concerned given the loss of successive high quality coaches and players, and NIL starting to take a bite out of lower tier programs, they are going to have an incredibly hard time becoming relevant again. In any event, I understand on the women's side we will continue the status quo for the foreseeable future, but still do not think it makes economic sense.

 

[Burghawk87]

You have to remember that Jan like lisa, but especially Jan has such close ties to womens basketball in Iowa, going back to her high school days. Jans grandmother, (and Jan I believe) are in the Iowa basketball HOF. Its part of who she is. Jans number is in the rafters at Drake. She and Lisa are Legends there. She also has ties to UNI's coach who is her schools all time wins leader. Like Lisa she believes in the importance of these games as being crucial for womens basketball in the state. This is not at all like Frans deal where he got pissed because the refs bent him over when we played the Panthers in Cedar Falls, and he vowed he'd never play there again. These games do not have the same negative impact on the womens tournament seeding like they could for the mens, so that point is moot as well. FYI, Cory Brada talked about this on his "Hawkeye of the storm podcast" when one of his callers brought this up. His view was that as long as Jan is the coach, we'll be playing Drake ad UNI home and home, as she beliefs its important for womens basketball in Iowa to do so. And for the record, I'd also prefer we play Home and homes with the Iowa schools then some of the crap 250-300 level teams on our schedule. Sorry but its not like we sell out those games, and there is almost NO interest in those games. Drake was 31-4 last year and won an NCAA tourney game. Something Iowa did not do. UNI I believe has actually been to the sweet 16 since the last time we were
there. They're respectable teams.

And Allison Pohlman is from my hometown, played/coached at UNI and now Drake. With that many state of Iowa connections it would be a shame if either of those series disappeared for whatever "economic" reasons.

 

[IA79Cam]

Well they're both gone. So let's get it going again.

No

 

[Tenacious E_rivals41982]

And Allison Pohlman is from my hometown, played/coached at UNI and now Drake. With that many state of Iowa connections it would be a shame if either of those series disappeared for whatever "economic" reasons.

I do not really agree, but I appreciate the sentiment. All in all, this has been a good mental exercise.