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Bama-West Virginia contract
Posted on 8/13/14 at 10:31 pm
Posted on 8/13/14 at 10:31 pm
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted some interesting information about the West Virginia contract here which was obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request. Here are some points I found interesting:
1. Alabama and West Virginia are each guaranteed a $3.2M payout if they sell their allotment. But with over 3,000 tickets still on hand two weeks before kickoff, that's not going to happen for Alabama.
2. Alabama got 6,000 more tickets than West Virginia. Part of that number includes 2,700 student tickets that Bama is selling for $50 each. West Virginia has no student ticket allotment.
3. The other part of that 6,000 ticket difference is that Bama received over 3,000 more upper level endzone tickets...approximately the same number that remains unsold.
4. While Oliver Luck signed the contract for WVA, Battle did not sign the contract. The Bama official who signed it was Associate VP for Finance Reba Essary. Was she the decision maker for the university?
So let me see if I understand this...even though we may sell as many tickets as WVA, we may not get 100% of our contracted payout because won't sell all of our contracted allotment?
So West Virginia is going to make more money than we do...even if we sell just as many tickets...because we don't sell all of our agreed-to allotment?
Am I missing something here, or is WVA getting a better deal to play in this game than we are? I'll give Bama credit for getting a chunk of student tickets included...but in total it looks like WVA got a better deal than we did. I'm trying to figure out why WVA is a program worthy of that.
And even if we did sell out, is a $3.2M payout more profitable than, for example, a home and home with a major OOC opponent that we can sell 100,000 tickets for $75 each, even with playing the return game on the road? I always thought that playing the neutral site game was more profitable than playing home and away. But if we could make $7,000,000 just in ticket sales for a home game...plus concessions and all the other revenue that comes with it...wouldn't that be more profitable, even after traveling to Columbus or South Bend or Stillwater for an away game?
1. Alabama and West Virginia are each guaranteed a $3.2M payout if they sell their allotment. But with over 3,000 tickets still on hand two weeks before kickoff, that's not going to happen for Alabama.
2. Alabama got 6,000 more tickets than West Virginia. Part of that number includes 2,700 student tickets that Bama is selling for $50 each. West Virginia has no student ticket allotment.
3. The other part of that 6,000 ticket difference is that Bama received over 3,000 more upper level endzone tickets...approximately the same number that remains unsold.
4. While Oliver Luck signed the contract for WVA, Battle did not sign the contract. The Bama official who signed it was Associate VP for Finance Reba Essary. Was she the decision maker for the university?
So let me see if I understand this...even though we may sell as many tickets as WVA, we may not get 100% of our contracted payout because won't sell all of our contracted allotment?
So West Virginia is going to make more money than we do...even if we sell just as many tickets...because we don't sell all of our agreed-to allotment?
Am I missing something here, or is WVA getting a better deal to play in this game than we are? I'll give Bama credit for getting a chunk of student tickets included...but in total it looks like WVA got a better deal than we did. I'm trying to figure out why WVA is a program worthy of that.
And even if we did sell out, is a $3.2M payout more profitable than, for example, a home and home with a major OOC opponent that we can sell 100,000 tickets for $75 each, even with playing the return game on the road? I always thought that playing the neutral site game was more profitable than playing home and away. But if we could make $7,000,000 just in ticket sales for a home game...plus concessions and all the other revenue that comes with it...wouldn't that be more profitable, even after traveling to Columbus or South Bend or Stillwater for an away game?
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Posted on 8/13/14 at 10:41 pm to BamaGradinTn
quote:
1. Alabama and West Virginia are each guaranteed a $3.2M payout if they sell their allotment. But with over 3,000 tickets still on hand two weeks before kickoff, that's not going to happen for Alabama.
Damnit people.
quote:
Am I missing something here, or is WVA getting a better deal to play in this game than we are?
You'd expect so, yeah. They're going to get stomped on national TV. Seems fair enough.
Posted on 8/13/14 at 10:49 pm to BamaGradinTn
Has WV sold their allotment?
I'll bet that UA will make the same as WV, but don't really care if another team makes more
money.
Saban likes the neutral site games for recruiting purposes. It seems to be working well for him. I expect neutral site games until Saban leaves.
I'll bet that UA will make the same as WV, but don't really care if another team makes more
money.
Saban likes the neutral site games for recruiting purposes. It seems to be working well for him. I expect neutral site games until Saban leaves.
Posted on 8/13/14 at 11:00 pm to bona fide
quote:
Has WV sold their allotment?
The only seats they have available on their website are $120 lower level endzone seats. Because WVA doesn't have the seat finder feature, there's no way to see exactly how many seats they have left.
Posted on 8/13/14 at 11:13 pm to BamaGradinTn
WVU had 4k unsold tix mid-July.
Posted on 8/13/14 at 11:38 pm to BamaGradinTn
quote:
1. Alabama and West Virginia are each guaranteed a $3.2M payout if they sell their allotment. But with over 3,000 tickets still on hand two weeks before kickoff, that's not going to happen for Alabama.
Are the tickets left actually from Bama's allotment or are they "general" seating? 31,000 +25,000 is 56,000 which means there would have to be 15,000 "other" tickets to reach a sell out.
quote:
100,000 tickets for $75 each
It won't be near that though. Just think of how many tickets are student tickets, faculty/staff tickets, "Athletic Department use" tickets, etc. Plus the University has to pay for Gameday staffing throughout campus and pay the visiting team (IIRC, Bama/PSU received like $200,000-$250,000 to cover their travel expenses when they were the visiting team).
Posted on 8/14/14 at 12:49 am to BamaGradinTn
Maybe that was the only way to get WVU to agree to participate in what may well be a beatdown
Posted on 8/14/14 at 6:53 am to BamaGradinTn
quote:
Alabama and West Virginia are each guaranteed a $3.2M payout if they sell their allotment
That is a minimum guaranteed. That does not include any other sources of income they may be getting from TV to whatever else. Assuming I am reading the language correctly but these contracts will give a guarantee for playing so that no matter what as long if tickets are sold and lets say a tornado destroys the stadium prior to the game and the game does not happen or lets say other streams of revenue do not meet expectations each team will get at least this amount of money.
I assume that number is based on what the expected cost is for each team to travel, lodging, meals, etc. WVU having a longer distance to travel may account for lesser tickets and UA wanting student tickets may be the reason for UA having to sell more.
This post was edited on 8/14/14 at 6:55 am
Posted on 8/14/14 at 9:20 am to BamaDude06
quote:
Are the tickets left actually from Bama's allotment or are they "general" seating?
They are from Bama's allotment, for sale on Alabama's website. Go here and check out the sections that have several rows of unsold seats.
quote:
It won't be near that though.
Even if it's 90,000, factor in the added revenue from concessions and other sources. The $200,000 travel fee is a wash, because we would get the same on our return trip.
Posted on 8/14/14 at 9:20 am to TideWarrior
(no message)
Posted on 8/14/14 at 9:22 am to BamaGradinTn
Those 3,000 tickets will be sold before game day.
Posted on 8/14/14 at 9:31 am to TideWarrior
quote:
That is a minimum guaranteed. That does not include any other sources of income they may be getting from TV to whatever else.
It's guaranteed IF we sell our allotment, which we won't. As far as TV revenue goes, if we played a major conference power at home, no doubt there would be just as big of a TV payday.
As I mentioned, the student tickets were only a portion of the extra tickets. The other 3,000+ extra ones, in the location where they are in the stadium, are roughly equal to the remaining difference between our allotment and WVA's. You can see from the chart that in all other locations of the stadium, the allotments were equal.
Posted on 8/14/14 at 9:33 am to TideSaint
quote:
Those 3,000 tickets will be sold before game day.
What makes you so confident of that? It's only two weeks away.
Posted on 8/14/14 at 10:31 am to BamaGradinTn
quote:
They are from Bama's allotment, for sale on Alabama's website. Go here and check out the sections that have several rows of unsold seats.
I don't think those are from Bama's allotment because that link takes you off of Bama's site and to Ticketmaster. On WVU's website buying tickets keeps you on their site to buy.
quote:
Even if it's 90,000, factor in the added revenue from concessions and other sources.
It won't be 90,000. The student section alone is 15,000. The visiting team would get 5-10,000 to sell to their fans.
If Home and Home was more profitable than the neutral site games you better believe that we would be playing those instead of going to Atlanta/Dallas every year.
Posted on 8/15/14 at 1:41 am to BamaGradinTn
That's $150,000 for the 3,000 tickets.
The university will probably buy them
and sell them cheap to brokers
so they can get their $3.2 million.
Alabama will make money.
Don't worry about that.
The university will probably buy them
and sell them cheap to brokers
so they can get their $3.2 million.
Alabama will make money.
Don't worry about that.
Posted on 8/15/14 at 8:46 am to Hater Bait
Yep. If there are any unsold tickets right before the Univesity will buy them or have a broker buy them all. Just like NFL teams do to avoid the blackouts on TV.
Posted on 8/16/14 at 7:30 am to BamaGradinTn
quote:
Am I missing something here, or is WVA getting a better deal to play in this game than we are? I
It's the only way we can get people to play us!
Posted on 8/17/14 at 10:23 am to BamaGradinTn
quote:
Has WV sold their allotment?
We have not and aren't expected to. Most WV fans are expecting an arse kicking so they saved their money.
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