Wilfork Named in Miami Booster Scandal (Well-Corroborated Allegations)

[upstater1]

A few years ago, I had a long conversation with a U Tenn alum who was a big supporter of the school. At the time he had rights to 8 season tickets (2,2,4) for football. Each year he had to write checks for 2=$10,000, 2=$20,000, and 4 =$50,000........8 tix cost him $80,000 plus face value of the seats. Of course he was invited to all the ****tail parties, dinners and jock sniffing events that his status provided. He estimated that U Tenn was taking in $140 mill yearly on ticket sales and these additional "donations".
This alum happened to be a major insurance salesman in Tenn and he claimed the $80,000 was a sound business investment because it opened up the doors to the alum network that took care of their own.

He was deranged and out of his cotton-pickin' mind. You're saying the school isn't reporting income from tickets and athletics donations? That's beyond bizarre.

 

[FreeTedWilliams]

He was deranged and out of his cotton-pickin' mind. You're saying the school isn't reporting income from tickets and athletics donations? That's beyond bizarre.

They don't have to.....

Schools are "tax exempt organizations" if Obama wants everyone to pay there fair share, maybe he should start with his alma mater, they own half of Cambridge and pay ZERO taxes...


I remember a fight the City of Syracuse had with the University when I was there, the Who played the Dome in their second to last farwell tour and the Univeristy charged a 3 per ticket fee on top of the 25 ticket, that was $3 buck a ticket times 60,000 tickets times 3 shows..all tax free the Univerisity called it an "educational event".

 

[upstater1]

Look at UNC, a state school that is harder to get into out of state than the bottom tier ivys.

Question: how could a state school, with reduced state funding year after year, be this way while continuing to offer admission for 12k a year for in-state students?

Answer: 18 final fours.

So now UNC is the 2nd or 3rd best state school in the country, top 25 overall, has a top 5 undergrad business school and basically rakes in cash from everything associated with additional press to having more successful graduate base with more ability to donate. They build nicer buildings and have a 20k seat dome.

UNC's admit rate for out of staters is in the mid 20%, admit rate for instaters is mid 30s. The lowest ranked Ivies are Penn at 19% and Brown at 11%

State schools restrict by law the number of out of state students in order to serve the native population. UNC has one of the most stringent out of state laws in the entire country. They are forced to accept no more than 17% of its student body from out of state.

Why do state schools without bigtime sports, like Cal San Diego have just as much success as UNC?

Personally I wouldn't call UNC the 2nd or best state school in the country, not with Cal, UCLA, Michigan and Virginia up there, but Virginia is particular has always had a stellar rep and hasn't been to 18 Final Fours. Cal too is known for academics. UNC is a very old school, by the way. It's been around since the 1700s.

Again, you're going to have to explain why schools without bigtime sports do just as well if not better than UNC in terms of money, donations, applications, etc.

 

[upstater1]

They don't have to.....

Schools are "tax exempt organizations" if Obama wants everyone to pay there fair share, maybe he should start with his alma mater, they own half of Cambridge and pay ZERO taxes...


I remember a fight the City of Syracuse had with the University when I was there, the Who played the Dome in their second to last farwell tour and the Univeristy charged a 3 per ticket fee on top of the 25 ticket, that was $3 buck a ticket times 60,000 tickets times 3 shows..all tax free the Univerisity called it an "educational event".

State institutions do have to, Tenn is a state school. I even provided you a link to the USA database where the reporting regulation was described. This is the entire reason why the database exists. It's also why no private schools are required to report.

Quite frankly, I'm one of the few people in the discussion dealing with facts. Much of what's been said is pure BS being pulled out of rear ends.

I'd like to see more posters give links instead of making up BS.

 

[borg]

He was deranged and out of his cotton-pickin' mind. You're saying the school isn't reporting income from tickets and athletics donations? That's beyond bizarre.

Where did I say they weren't reporting these revenues and donations? Ticket sales are athletic department revenues. The "yearly fee" attached to these tickets fell into the category of Alumni donations....seperate from the athletic department. This is the dirty little secret that these big time sports universities try to keep hushed up. The revenue from bowl appearances, TV, tickets, merchandise is the measurable they want public to see. But the powerhouse schools with extreme alum support generate massive $$ via these yearly seat licences. Quality of ticket is based on donor level.

 

[upstater1]

Where did I say they weren't reporting these revenues and donations? Ticket sales are athletic department revenues. The "yearly fee" attached to these tickets fell into the category of Alumni donations....seperate from the athletic department. This is the dirty little secret that these big time sports universities try to keep hushed up. The revenue from bowl appearances, TV, tickets, merchandise is the measurable they want public to see. But the powerhouse schools with extreme alum support generate massive $$ via these yearly seat licences. Quality of ticket is based on donor level.

This is incorrect as I've said numerous times. I provided the link showing the financials. Donations and seat licenses are all included as revenue as well as many other forms of revenue. Just look at the link. Royalties, donations, etc., all included under the bottom line.

The reality is the total and complete opposite of what you describe. Schools are messing with their financials to hide the fact that the AD is losing money, so there are all sorts of direct institutional supports and subsidies counted on the ADs revenue side that are not generated by the AD.

This is precisely why these reports to the Feds almost always zero out income and revenues. It's a shell game. I ran my own business 20 years ago before selling it, and I would have been totally hard pressed to have my expenses come within .01% of my revenues. How do the schools do it? $60 million in revenues, $59,989,677 in expenses? Year after year? Ask anyone in business they'd tell you it's impossible without some funny business going on. The schools do it by meeting any AD shortfall with revenues from the academic side.

Beyond that, any debt on facilities' buildout is paid for by the academic side. Texas's AD, for instance, doesn't pay any of the interest on the $250+ million in debt it's incurred.

 

[borg]

This is incorrect as I've said numerous times. I provided the link showing the financials. Donations and seat licenses are all included as revenue as well as many other forms of revenue. Just look at the link. Royalties, donations, etc., all included under the bottom line.

The reality is the total and complete opposite of what you describe. Schools are messing with their financials to hide the fact that the AD is losing money, so there are all sorts of direct institutional supports and subsidies counted on the ADs revenue side that are not generated by the AD.

This is precisely why these reports to the Feds almost always zero out income and revenues. It's a shell game. I ran my own business 20 years ago before selling it, and I would have been totally hard pressed to have my expenses come within .01% of my revenues. How do the schools do it? $60 million in revenues, $59,989,677 in expenses? Year after year? Ask anyone in business they'd tell you it's impossible without some funny business going on. The schools do it by meeting any AD shortfall with revenues from the academic side.

Beyond that, any debt on facilities' buildout is paid for by the academic side. Texas's AD, for instance, doesn't pay any of the interest on the $250+ million in debt it's incurred.

For the 2008-09 school year, the Tennessee Fund (where seat licences are deposited) generated $35 million and yes, this money is earmarked for the AD. But this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as revenue generation occurs. Just because a sideline seat may require a $5000 Tennessee Fund donation, doesn't mean a seat is available. "Yes the seat does cost $5000 if we had one to sell you....but what I can offer you is an exclusive platinum level that allows you to use the same washroom where Fulmer used to take craps." When this game is played at any institution where demand outstrips supply, the fundraisers will use any resource and advantage. The Tenn alum I cited that paid $80,000 /year which is approximately double the costs cited on the Tenn Fund website was writing checks to the Alumni Fund (as well). When these big schools are expanding their stadiums to seat more fans, their eye is not on adding more $10 ticket holders. Their goal is to expand access to bigger fish and moving the smaller fish to higher ground.
By the way, in 2008 Tenn AD donated/gave $10 mill surplus back to the school. Profitability can happen. No doubt Tennessee is/was an exception and most schools will overspend to achieve respectability and never come close. And I'm sure your arguement about revenue and expenses being too inline is valid. But it can work in the opposite direction as well...."Don't show too much profit or we will be accused of overcharging."

 

[patsfan13]

Re: Wilfork named in Miami Mess

As I've said numerous times in this thread, schools lose money on sports. They rake in nothing.

the grad rate for athletes is higher than for regular students, which isn't a surprise when you consider how students struggle to pay for school.

The grad rate for D1 football is pretty respectable at 60%+.

Depends on the School and the Sport at a large D1 school football and basketball are money makers, the rest of the sports are not revenue sports. My daughter played D1 Softball, no revenue gained there, they had 12 scholarships available for their team. The school was ranked highly for academics. They used the non revenue sports to pull up the GPA for the athletic dept as a whole. The cumulative GPA for her team was well over a 3.0 (IIRC it was 3.2-3.3, in non creampuff majors, the kids were there for an education since they would never be pros.


In talking with a number of coaches during the recruiting process I asked what they looked for when a prospective student athlete contacted them I was told by them they were looking a SAT & GPA to see if they were a fit academically, then if they were a good enough player for the school's program they would talk with the young lady.


I have no problem with a player in a evenue generating sport getting $$$ from boosters. the revenue they generate make it possible for student athlete's to attend school. We could never afford the school my duaghter attended without the athletic scholarship $$$.

 

[upstater1]

Where did I say they weren't reporting these revenues and donations? Ticket sales are athletic department revenues. The "yearly fee" attached to these tickets fell into the category of Alumni donations....seperate from the athletic department. This is the dirty little secret that these big time sports universities try to keep hushed up. The revenue from bowl appearances, TV, tickets, merchandise is the measurable they want public to see. But the powerhouse schools with extreme alum support generate massive $$ via these yearly seat licences. Quality of ticket is based on donor level.

You're totally wrong. I've shown it.

I'm bowing out of this thread because people don't like the facts and dealing with reality.

 

[borg]

You're totally wrong. I've shown it.

I'm bowing out of this thread because people don't like the facts and dealing with reality.

What have you proven? You read off a balance sheet from one department and believe the revenue road ends there. it doesn't