Comments

  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Just copy what Cal Poly has done in one of the endzone areas. No need for Regents capital planning review and they will print money.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    They don’t have plans yet from a real design firm. Just conceptual stuff from the space planning group. That is why it would be smart to do some other stuff while they work through this.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Plough also wasn’t about to sign up for the postseason ban during the transition since that’s getting waived when espn and Fox make their deal on league 1. Spend that 15m on the football program over the next 4 years and things will be in good shape.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    The proposed suites are a totally different product. Expect they will provide buffet/bar access to some of the box seat holders between the 40s for a fee, which is a good idea. What I’m referencing are the new sections designed for a more social experience. Like, I went to this great outdoor bar and grill and a football game broke out in the background. That product helps to capture the local Cal/Oregon/SC/9ers fan in a way that the current options do not and you can put a more premium price tag on this compared to just some end zone beer garden. Kind of like SJSU on the east side or Poly’s north end zone. Boise is reconfiguring one of its end zone sections to do the same.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    This is not entirely unrelated to football. The programs that are having success at the gate and with Gameday revenues are those that have figured out how to broaden participation in a premium experience beyond suites. Look at what Cal and UW have done converting stadium areas to bigger club areas with TVs, different food options and pricey drinks. UCU has the bootleg version of this under the basket. Irvine and SLO have pregame hoops club events where they feed the donors, fill them up with drinks and the staff comes in and breaks down the other team ahead of the game. This sort of offering appeals to a different segment of the market. At Davis, UCUC shows that simply having more seats does not translate to attendance. Same with football. Even the games with attendance listed over capacity had plenty of open seating. The addition of suites is only beneficial to the extent that Mrak wants to push some of the university partnerships more heavily into athletics. But suites are expensive and don’t generate a ton of cash if you only have 5 to sell (subtracting UC Health, Credit Union, Chancellor). A much greater ROI opportunity is a wine garden one side and a bbq/brew seating section in one of the end zones. Add TVs to appeal to non UCD die hards and the average spend will increase 4x. SLO and Montana State opened up these sections over the past couple seasons and are doing well with them.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Just need to let those guys do what they do. What’s your take on hoops as a recent grad? Student participation is well behind UCI, SB, SD, and this is a situation where Davis has the largest venue of the bunch, the most students within walking distance, and pretty solid play.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    It’s free tickets and toomey level attendance accuracy. There are less than 2,500 seats in that thing.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    It’s going to get less expensive. This is one of the few things that Davis is playing correctly. The Sacramento corporate dollar, which is not large, ain’t going to Sac State athletics. They are redirecting some of the minimal support they have to sponsor a suicide mission to Tuesday night football on espnu in the MAC.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Now I’ve heard it all. Academic alignment with unlv, Wyoming, New Mexico and utep.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Actually, no, there are 12-15 programs in similar situations and everyone has decided that jumping right now makes little sense. NDSU and Sac had different reasons to move.
  • 2026 Football Recruiting
    Unrelated. This one is a walk on from San Diego coming off an ACL early in his senior season.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    That could be the case. Oregon game was during the band-uh era. There was a good crowd at Nevada the year prior. Always drew well at SLO when the band would travel since you get 150 kids plus all of the parents and friends.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Again, who are these people? They didn’t show in Seattle last season. Didn’t show up at Cal in 24. Really limited support at Corvallis and Fresno pre-Plough. Even in 18 the Ags beat SJSU week 1 with no support (for either team) and played at a ranked Stanford team two weeks later in front of a friends and family crowd.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    The subscription model is based on participating in football. Even football streaming of the MWC network, which was free, was not a significant number. And that was with Boise, Fresno and SDSU in the league.
  • 2026 preseason thread


    The quarterback play was…not good. That game was Plough’s quest to put coaching over talent and he lost the battle. None of these freshmen are plug and play.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Correct. The budget is 50m. 2/3 of revenues are derived from student fees. 2/3 of expenses are scholarship costs. Admin has been cut substantially which is why there is not much marketing going on. Equestrian was a big blunder.
  • 2026 preseason thread


    I don’t recall if you were back for the UNC game. If not, that would be an enlightening watch for you.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Agree. There will be a fulsome realignment when the TV schools break from the pack and the next tier down will have its own playoff. There will not be a buy in to get to that level. In fact, there will be begging to get programs to spend at the current G5 level. And the Cal fans here should go do Cal and enjoy that 5-7 with 50% roster turnover every year. Good luck finding Wagner without wiki and most of the ACC without a map.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow


    Yes let’s use the single biggest outlier in the history of a 150 year old sport as our guiding light…