I have not seen robotic striping machines but sounds cool. I will say there is more than meets the eye to maintaining an excellent grass field in terms of both biology and equipment. And I think @88Aggie that may be up the decider between natural and artificial turf at the high school level at least. Grass is a living thing and has to be responded to in real time. While artificial requires special know how to repair, it can wait for a vendor visit. My high school’s grass was definitely not laser leveled and had gopher holes about the depth of a broken ankle. We probably don’t have good data on what’s safest because so much of the research has been funded by the turf companies. But if I were to hypothesize, artificial turf may be better than a poorly maintained grass field but not as good as a professionally maintained one. @movielover I would vote for real grass here but unlikely to be considered until the turf is worn out. I tend to think it’s worth the water investment when it’s grass people use rather than just look at, especially if reclaimed or irrigation water is available.

, @Pacifico2 I had not heard of hybrid turf before but I looked it up and it is a thing. It’s real grass with about 5% reinforcing fibers sewn in after. In my area we use Bermuda grass for fields, typically Tifway, Latitude, or Celebration. We overseed with annual rye so you still have the lateral strength of the Bermuda but the winter rye grows though for color. When artificial fields came into vogue 25 years ago the argument was lower maintenance and better for the environment. As for maintenance, you trade mowing and striping for raking, blowing, and sewing repairs. For the environment, they didn’t really mention that an artificial fields have a finite number of reps before they must be replaced in whole. I think UCDHS is on its 3rd turf. So water and fertilizer/pest control vs a giant non-recyclable pile of plastic every few years. In severe weather natural turf has the advantage in the heat, artificial turf in late season rain. The artificial turf companies don’t tell you that the pellets get everywhere and may be carcinogenic or that vomit, Gatorade etc are difficult to clean up. I prefer natural turf but I understand the optics of water conservation are a weighty factor in CA.

the college pay premium is evaporating and it sucks but it’s not entirely unjustified. I don’t know whether it’s just the ineffectiveness of zoom, burnt out instructors or what. But as a manager of college age interns, I of course have some top performers, but increasingly I get young people who can recite useless-to-me facts about film history or ethnic poetry or whatever their major is, but struggle to get along with others or think through basic business tasks without explicit direction. A big part of staying relevant is that colleges will need to return to teaching what is actually needed in the job market so that people decide the cost benefit is in favor of investing.

Sac will have more capacity for older students maybe finishing an education or acquiring new skills for a changing job market. Credit where due, the Folsom campus and AI center contribute. Not convinced that overextending on athletics or fight club do. Changing enrollment dynamics may end up having as much to do with rivalry erosion as division and conference change.

I was replying to someone else mentioning a potential recession. By historical metrics, you are correct that the economy looks good. But there’s an interesting divergence in public perception that it doesn’t “feel” great for a lot of people in terms of prices, housing, or entry level professional jobs. My point was that I don’t necessarily agree we are on the edge of a recession so much as I think AI and private equity may reallocate the winning cards. To what extent will this affect national athletic budgets is just me speculating, but I do think the more that private equity takes a stake in media companies or athletic departments themselves, they are going to demand current returns at a lower cost with no care as to whether the car ultimately runs or gets chopped for parts.

I agree the market can probably support about 40 national caliber teams and that the blue blood conferences have some historical members that wouldn’t belong in a super conference. Not sure if we are headed toward a recession or just a new (worse) normal thanks to crypto and private equity. Those top teams don’t have a revenue issue, though they do have a spending issue. And for any getting ready to tango with PE, get ready for the cost buzzsaw. Everyone else will get squeezed on what’s left. At our level, any prospective suggesting G6 football will be a cash cow and drive nearly a billion dollars of regional economic impact is nonsense. At best, one could argue FBS football helps build national name recognition for a fee.

I have no knowledge specific to this project, but it is common to have a quiet period where big dollars from donors, sponsors, and politicians are put together to create critical momentum before they ask you and I to buy an engraved paver. Speed of construction is often based on financial strategy because the full cost of construction typically isn’t just sitting ready in checking. Sure, performance and schedule bonuses can speed up a contractor if the owner wants to pay (like Stanford rebuilding their stadium in 9 months). But other times donors may be splitting contributions over multiple tax years and bonds or loans may be issued on a quarterly schedule. It can slow projects dramatically if the schedule of when you need to buy materials doesn’t quite match what quarter the money is available. Happens in both public and investor projects.

the wild card is that sports media rights are overvalued. For Disney and Comcast it was palatable to overpay because the cable bundle extracted sports viewer fees from people who didn’t watch sports. At present, Disney and Comcast are still willing to overpay to drive viewers to their streaming platforms relative to Netflix and at the same time Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple are sitting on mountains of cash willing to bid up prices as loss leaders for their streaming businesses. The leagues would like to fragment media rights so much that you need cable-by-any-other-name like YoutubeTV to put it back together in a bundle where non-sports viewers subsidize sports once again. But if Disney exits or the tech bros decide not to overpay anymore, rights may collapse to their actual value. The networks probably still overpay in 2027, but 5 years after that who knows. All the talk of media market size is kind of irrelevant. There are smaller markets with more football interest than Sac area.

kind of funny how it can be inconsistent between sports for a lot of historical reasons. Not that anyone cares but the Band-uh had something of a rivalry with Humboldt for years after our last athletic meeting.

there’s a fun history with Reno, but in their eyes would probably always be a secondary rivalry to UNLV. It’s unfortunate really that Sac couldn’t have approached things in a different way because they are geographically ideal, but healthy rivalries require some level of mutual respect and I don’t think that’s there right now. Plus I don’t think it would take much for their program to become unstable while this overextended. Glad the trophy is properly secured until further notice. For the present, I’d say Poly remains the rival at least for football. I don’t think the horseshoe really extended to basketball.

that Big Mountain guy got his chapstick all over Luke Wood’s backside. If it was menthol, sitting is gonna burn.

the MAC wanting Sac is about as delusional as thinking a stripper is actually flirting with you. Only as long as you still have money to spend.

lest we not forget, from his state of the university speech, the financial premise is that FBS football will make Sac a destination university for out-of-state students who will balance his budget by paying higher tuition rates. I’m surprised the ride has lasted this long. Between irresponsible financials and possible corruption with his brother’s business interests, that the CSU president hasn’t said enough is enough.

I’d probably suggest to an Asst AD a quantitative study to deep dive the ticketing data. What zip codes are credit cards from. Who purchased and then didn’t come. Who only came once. Then find people from different data groups and do some qualitative work. In most businesses, customer acquisition is way more expensive than retention so you need identity what factors impact likelihood to return or recommend to friends (there’s a reason that equation is always on surveys!). For example, in the hotel business we know that perception of cleanliness upon entry is the key driver, so we’ve scientifically tested details down to which lights are left on. Surely winning and explosive high tempo offense are fun. But it’s good to know what are the details that convert a dad and son from Sacramento from a single game ticket to a mini pack.

Pen is to paper. — Kadeezy

Others might characterize as crayon to coloring book. But to each their own. This is the equivalent of financing a used Saturn at a West Jefferson car lot. It might get you where you want to go. Or not.

one thing to keep in mind is many schools have majors in hospitality, sports management, journalism, digital media, advertising, etc. that provide a talent pipeline that drives excellence in these areas. We are unlikely to add those majors and it is difficult to retain experienced talent on the open market in these areas without that academic support. Interns are only so good when the person training them has limited experience.

no joke. If he was taking a legit course load for 9 years, he’d be close to a practicing MD by now.

Will be interesting to see if NDSU plateaus as a solid football member of MWC or if they excel to the point of seeking larger pastures in the next re-org. I believe their challenge was different than ours though. While they certainly have a dedicated fan base, some described a growing apathy of the FCS title becoming too common to be interesting. Deep home playoff runs in the Dakotas at night also have icy roads and fundamentally prevent ls the Fargodome from booking events Nov/Dec just in case. There’s a lot of upside. New, theoretically tougher opponents drive up demand and at some point maybe a bowl game in a sunny locale that they travel well to.

I don’t think their seat at the table mean we won’t have one at some point. I have no inside knowledge, but from interviews I think MWC is interested in stability. Presumably they saw us as a bet worth investing some time. There were other options with immediate availability that they did not entertain.

so what, dude is pushing 30 on a team with 19 year olds? There’s bad luck and then there’s not taking a hint from the football gods.

a classless POS — aggiedt60

Bobby Hauck theme song right there.