If you were hired as State’s Athletic Director today, what would be the first issue you’d address or area you’d evaluate?
If you were AD today...
- Thread starter Theconnormead
- Start date
If it were me, closing the south end zone would be way down the list of issues we have to fix. We have to get fans in the stadium before we worry about adding seats or doing any significant stadium changes / upgrades.
Rip out the bleachers in DWS and replace with chairs. Take the capacity down 8-10K.
50,000 chiars X $250 each to replace (material and labor) = $12,500,000 project
Raise ticket prices $5/game.. retire the debt in ~7 years.
Considering the financial situation, I'd evaluate and get my feet under me first
Yes, this is why its so hilarious to read some of the opinions on this board. We can't fill half of our stadium consistently and we got morons wanting to spend $25 to $40 million on an expansion.
If I'm hired at State's AD this is actually the first thing I'd do because evidently it's required...
DAY ONE REQUIREMENT
I find it interesting to see what others prioritize. I don't think any answer is necessarily wrong—some people just may not fully understand the budget constraints involved.
$40MM doesn't buy much in the construction space these days.. Unless we want it to look like the trailer park trash in the north end zone at Ole Miss, I figure the starting price is $100MM
This is way more logical than expanding the end zone. Probably worth doing 2 or 3 sections and seeing if you can charge $10 to $15 a seat.
Not fire Lemonis, just transfer him to another Department. Putting him in charge of Dorman Hall maintenance seems like a good way to turn it into a pile of rocks that can be hauled off with considerable ease. Sell the scrap for NIL pocket change.
Rename the Templeton Troughs as the Selmon Spillway.
Bring back Bully's Bone Mobile and George Thorogood intro music.
I mean no matter how you cook it, expanding doesn't make sense if we don't think we can fill the seats.
Fire Lemonis then go see every donor personally to discuss the importance of the State Excellence Fund.
Take any facility plan other than improvements to
new Seal that doesn’t raise revenue and throw them in the garbage
Our own fans would easily fit on 1 side of DWS next season after a couple beat downs. The rest may be filled w/ TX, GA, TN, and Univ of Northern MS fans
I would ban these rogue sports message boards. We don't need our top donors able to post anonymously on here.
I would go to the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma and have them send down a religious leader to do a Ghost Dance because those damn injuns are pissed off.
Re-evaluate every contract we have - media rights/licensing/apparel etc. Open negotiations with Nike. I'd being willing to take less money to get away from the Adidas brand. [I have nothing against Adidas, but recruits don't show up to recruiting visits wearing Adidas - they're wearing Nike.] I'd also talk to popular new apparel brands to see if there's any partnerships we can make (Rhoback, Rhone, Lulu, OC, etc.). Again, I'd be willing to take a loss to get my athletes in better brands.
Evaluate my life choices
Lemon is gone, Hutzler is gone, Lebby is on probation-if he shows little improvement this year and missed on a bunch of evaluations again-he’s on a bus back to Oklahoma
1. Change Football unis to the interlocking throwbacks.
2. Dudy Noble doesn’t get touched for 15 years at least. Waste of money.
3. 80% of resources go directly to football with the remaining going to men’s basketball.
4. Partner with Elon Musk to get more NIL money. Let him build some Space X training ground on campus.
We could just spend that money on rented mules and be really good for one year.
I mean thats probably a better financial decision than expanding the stadium based on ROI.
If it was this easy, MSU would have already done it. The treads on the west side are like 28", you need 33" to do proper chairbacks. 30" is possible but extremely uncomfortable to most.
That project is likely going to involve structural and seating bowl modifications. MSU was looking at doing this like 3 or 4 years ago, I'm not sure what happened.
Contacting PERS to see what the un-retiring process is like if I can’t convince State to let me be a part-time AD…
Bring back the interlocking uniforms/helmets as God intended. Fire Lemonis. Quadruple the price of lounge spots.
If I was athletic director, the first thing I would do is make tickets cheaper. The second thing I would do is improve game day parking. Make concession stand prices lower.
Instead of begging people for money, I would invite people to come be a part of the excitement. Give fans more access by offering tours of facilities that are relatively cheap .
Most of our fans are not breaking the bank and to have the prices of tickets starting off at $325 right now is
Ridiculous .
Redo handicap seating. Fix the west side, get rid of. Leo seal building and building an entirely new locker room for our players in the south end zone. The opposing team would go back to the north end zone locker room, which is located directly underneath the students, that’s why we put the student section there to make it hard for the for our opponents to concentrate.
stop shooting the cannon during the first commercial break of third quarter. Fans like me cannot celebrate our veterans or salute to service because of that damn Cannon . I’m all for removing the monstrosity, but if we have to have it, I would move it straight down to where it was, which is the south east corner behind the bushes.
another thing stop charging ADA patrons for parking passes. It cost $25 a game unless you have a parking pass.
I could go on and on, but I don’t have all day and you guys will get bored reading it.
We already charge for those cheapass uncomfortable chairbacks that you can rent. I'm sure folks would be willing to spend that for some seats that are actually comfortable and DCD-sized.
Until we start winning, revenue is revenue, get it where you can. I'm sure the Starkville merchants would prefer a full stadium than a half empty one. I don't remember too many Auburn fans in the stadium at the 2014 game which shows you what winning will do for your attendance.
Unfortunately, even the Choctaw Medicine men are demanding NIL funds, and we all know how poor we be at little ole Miss i sip State.