definitely…and I know more alumni have been attending with an eye towards the FBS future. But that enthusiasm has largely waned into frustration the last two weeks. Rocko needs to regain that.

we’ve been doing that…and still have an engagement problem.

So, think for a second what level we are as it relates to CFB in Sacramento - we are between junior college and FBS. How do you excite people to come out to games that aren’t Aggies? How do you get Aggies to spend on the program without a defined and planned goal?

We can keep winning in FCS all we want but we have to maintain our revenue. That will be harder when the perception is we are D2 among non-Aggies in the region and truth be told that is reality, especially with corporate dollars. If you are advertising, are you putting your dollar with the higher or lower visibility product? The realty is UCD is the lower visibility program now. Sac WILL get more corporate money (enough…remains to be seen) and that will siphon off any potential for us. Sac is much more marketable at this time.

Can we survive as the little program in this region? I’m skeptical we can stay the course successfully. While we will always be better than Sac St we may not have the resources to compete with them the more we give them a head start.

As is being discussed here, this is an economics issue to move up or not. But what lacks in the dialogue are:
- consideration of our lost revenue (realized current or future) due to Sac’s gain through corporate or casual fan development
- future increase in cost to move up
- sustainability in FCS if our revenues drop relative to increased cost of an FCS program
- cost of a large segment of the Aggie fan base being pretty letdown by not just Sac, but NDSU jumping us without any apparent serious attempt to fundraise amongst us with an actual plan.

All of us here despite our disagreements our frankly diehards, and probably amount the most informed and engaged Aggies. A whopping 20 of us or so? I have 20 or so friends and fellow Aggies who are not here who asking WTF are we doing? The vagueness of our course is not helping increase donations or interest. We aren’t interested in funding something (Aggie Ascent) just to stay where we are, and the ambiguous statements and lack of vision is not building confidence.

The point is, what are we doing to gain NEW donors and create new corporate sponsorships? To be honest, Rocko and the ICA sound lost and without a clue what’s next for us in their generic forward looking statements. If they had a plan, we’d know. I think what we are all demanding, those of us here and not here, is some solid and tangible planning instead of concepts that could happen.

legitimately….how do we increase attendance among non-alumni/employee fans when our competition in the region is at a higher level and is more local to the population, especially when we spend far less on marketing and our product is stale?

and paying for their opponents travel to Sac

precisely…no one wants to give money to something unknown.

the 5 year thing is interesting. Curious to see if they can do well enough financially to find another FBS conference, and if not, what happens.

I know. Which isn’t the Big12. Just like we aren’t joining the MWC for football.

we pretty much ARE not in the MWC for football anymore than Sac is in the Big12 for non-football,

There’s no date, there’s no agreement, no nothing. If there is, let’s see it and start acting appropriately. I don’t believe there is however, because if there was a finalized agreement our AD wouldn’t be saying “in the future there’ll be more chances.”

He’d say, “in 2027 when we are we will…”. This would instantly help raise revenue, prevent loss of corporate money that will now go to Sac that we would be able to capture before them (it’s a very limited dollar in this region).

If I’m our ICA bosses I’m working overtime to lockdown revenue for us from Sac and moving our timeline up. Yes, the MAC is dumb and Sac gave up too much, but that doesn’t matter as the visibility they have in this region outdoes us no matter how righteous we are as long ad we are FCS. I actually think it compromises us to remain FCS from a non-alumni/university related person revenue standpoint.

we don’t NEED stadium upgrades to move up, we are on par with plenty of smaller tier FBS programs (even that new MWC program). I do want that however, and we do need it to capture the enormous revenue we are missing.

I think you’re spot on that we need to be FBS before the next realignment and super conference breakaway and before costs get more out of line for moving up. I’d suggest we need to do so ASAP. This year might be too little too late, but I think waiting for the sake of having a 30,000 seat stadium, an FCS Championship, etc etc is not necessary.

I think we need the ICA/AD to be serious about revenue development starting now and a clear plan, draw actual architectural drawings, bid out the stadium project, and get going.

We have to do more than talk. Real legitimate plans and progress will compound the donations and excite checkbooks.

by that justification you also must admit Luke Wood is a D1 university president, and knows more than us.

sounds like Rocko was scared or knew Sac would end up FBS and we’d be perpetually FCS.

Ideally, we SHOULD have moved to the Pac# or MWC as a package. Probably would’ve been cheaper for both schools AND ultimately generated a lot more revenue for both with the whole region behind it.

100%…and that group has to have reason to expand. I’m not willing to give my money like I did in the 2000’s to watch nothing real happen.

that looks very doable

yeah…currently. But our best image is literally a photo from a picture in a brochure. That’s the best image our AD can tweet/X as well. Not a good confidence builder to woo donors. Let’s see the real plans and real donation benchmarks for various phases of construction to start. Otherwise this image is no different than others our ICA and AD’s have previously pushed.

I’m sure there’s a plan, but just like steel prices, circumstances change and you have to react instead of make excuses. Since 2000 we are mostly still saying why not, instead of we are. NDSU and Sac St. are game changers for the landscape of this whole thing. How conferences look and what they need, and the money side. We just lost access to a sizable chunk of money in Sac. It feels like our admin and many here aren’t even thinking about that.

oh…IF we join the MWC. But that isn’t as obvious now. We have to be cognizant the financials are a little tougher now with Sac getting first dibs at the corporate money in the region. I also laugh when our stadium/arena naming rights are just parts of the University (UCDHS and Credit Union). We need actual outside money. Not reallocated internal dollars.

Currently, we need to start drawing on ag and wine money, which, it doesn’t seem like we are doing a great job of in ICA, or the 35,000 seats stadium from the early 2000’s would be 10+ years old.

https://i-3n4b60g25ka6-cdn.plushcontent.com/uploads/files/rp/zzkb09l3n4e63i6k.png

also…how ironic that we did not want to schedule Sac for the Causeway anymore because we thought we held the cards, yet, now it’s them who really can’t schedule us.

appreciate your thoughtful post. Yes, for Sac to make noise they need to win at least enough to go bowling. That’s a mediocre bar for them. However, even without Sac being at a higher level than us we couldn’t get anyone beyond the student/alumni base. Heck, we couldn’t even get the employee base to show up, or we’d have more than 15k every game easily. This makes it much harder to get the CFB fan who wants entertainment, which, due to marketing and in stadium effort we’d already fallen behind Sac. We needed to double our effort already to compete with FCS Sac, now we need to go double double animal style.

funny. More like someone gave AST Tylenol PM and they’ve been asleep at the wheel from a development standpoint for years.

Like RiverAggie said, the middle initial is damning. Yes, the cost of admission is too high.

But what about the cost of non-admission? If you (a non-alumni) can choose between a Sac St, UCD, or your local HS game in a weekend, you won’t be going to the UCD game. We just got relegated guys. Stop acting like anyone gives a hoot about FCS in the region, especially when you now have an FBS team to choose from.