Mark Gottfried Has Been Stellar for the Last 24hrs.

[ryebread]

Nice thread title in good fun.

The front page thread got locked, but I did have some further research on the topic that should possibly go in it. I was about to post the following right as it got locked. I include it here not to continue the argument, but to give more data on the evaluations and to correct a mistake that Tau and I both made with respect to attendance:

Tau: The attendance #s are from the NCAA reports. I pulled them up quickly today. It appears they’ve not reported on this past year yet. I say this because the 2014 report is referencing the Finals being played in North Texas (Arlington) which is when UConn won. So move that spike in NC State’s attendance back a year. It wasn’t TJW that moved the needle. It was the hype from being preseason #6 generating season ticket sales. And people say that those silly rankings and preseason expectations don’t mean anything…..

The Forbes evaluations come out right after the NCAA tournament. So ones for 2015 talk about the 2014-2015 season.

Here’s how we’ve done recently:
-> Gott years:
– 2015: Not in the top 20. Not in the last 5 left out. Attendance not out yet.
– 2014: 12th in attendance — “NC State has nailed down a new multimedia rights deal (10 years, $49 million), agreed to a more valuable Adidas apparel agreement (four years, $7 million) and surpassed $1 million in licensing revenue for the first time in school history.” We were 25th in attendance.
– 2013: 20th in Forbes. 12th in attendance with 16,299 on average.
– 2012: Not in the top 20. No almost there list. 19th in attendance.

-> Sid years:
– 2011: Quick search doesn’t include full stats, but we were 25th in revenue. We were 24th in attendance.
– 2010: Not top 20, no almost there list. We were 21rst in attendance.
– 2009: 18th in Forbes, 16th in attendance.

But hey, when we hired Gott, our brand was awful and no one wanted this job. That was the narrative right? At that point, we were two years off of 18th in value and were still coming off of 2 straight years of top 25 attendance.

As for the whole “more ticket sales” argument, he year we fired Sid we had 13,184 in attendance on average. The first year of Gott, we had 13,779 on average. Let’s say we got $40 a pop for those tickets, with 16 home games that year it was ~$384k through the gate extra. Maybe we were more marketable elsewhere and thus generated more reveneue. Maybe with a new coach we had to do less discounting to get the fans in the seats. I haven’t looked at some of the other data recently (and am too tired now to go look it up) to tell. Regardless, I’ve never bought that future revenues from ticket sales argument when playing the college sports arms race. The only way revenues from ticket sales really go up is if the average price that a fan pays goes up.

The points I’m trying to make out of this are:
1) This is a good job no matter who is in it. Due to PSLs or the ESA, we’re going to pull in a lot of butts in seats. Due to the ACC revenue share, etc. we’re going to bring in a lot of media money.
2) The ESA is the single biggest thing that has impacted our attendance. The year we opened it we were #7 in attendance (under HWSNBN). We’d not been in the top 25 at Reynolds since V prior. Since about 1993 all the top 25 averaged more seats than we had capacity, which meant the bigger arenas were generating more draw.
3) Hiring Gott didn’t really move the needle up.
4) Year two really hurt Gott and the program. It’s not just some pessimistic internet people or the media who aren’t bought in. Our attendance is back down.
5) We may have slid back more this year.
6) There are more bigger picture stats than just the ones you mentioned.
7) You can look at these stats and draw a lot of different conclusions.

[ancsu87]

Item 7 I totally agree with

But since you want to continue the camp discussion:
You can make comparisons and data analysis as complicated as you want especially when trying to prove a point. However I have yet to see anybody prove that the last 4-year run was not best we have seen since the 1980’s, nor can anyone say they do not expect a NCAAT and Sweet 16 even if he runs with the 8 we have today. If he gets the big center and a combo transfer then …..

BTW Lacy left cause his season exceeded his (and everyone else) expectations. Everyone that is but the staff that went out and got him. Think about that for a moment.

4-4 two Sweet 16, a near miss on two Elite 8 and a third Sweet 16. Is it perfect no. Is it trending in right direction yes. Are they some concerns due to Lacey’s surprise transfer based on financial and opportunities to take a chance on yes. Does it mean Gott does not deserve respect for what he has done and some trust in his leadership? I don’t see two camps. I see one camp that that is more negative than I ever dreamed to be and that is pretty damn negative.

Just what is the overall on court performance you would have needed to see to have someone you believe in? Big picture not individual games, transfers, etc.

[Wufpacker]

And ancsu87, before you even ask, it was me who deleted your last post.

This thread is not going to become like the one I just closed. I thought closing it would have been hint enough.

Nothing personal, fwiw.

[ancsu87]

No personal attack taken. See it everyday at WH Press conferences.

[freshmanin83]

lol going all out with the whole pravda theme.

[Tau837]

So I looked at some attendance info out of curiosity since rye brought it up in the other thread. Here is the data for the last 10 available seasons:

2013-2014 (Gott season #3)
Average home attendance: 12,641 (#25)
Total home attendance: 240,182 (#19)

2012-2013 (Gott season #2)
Average home attendance: 16,299 (#12)
Total home attendance: 277,087 (#14)
Average attendance increase, year over year: 2,739 (#2)

2011-2012 (Gott season #1)
Average home attendance: 13,560 (#20)
Total home attendance: 257,638 (#16)

2010-2011 (Sid season #5)
Average home attendance: 13,779 (#19)
Total home attendance: 220,457 (#28)

2009-2010 (Sid season #4)
Average home attendance: 13,184 (#24)
Total home attendance: 224,131 (#23)

2008-2009 (Sid season #3)
Average home attendance: 13,456 (#21)
Total home attendance: 242,206 (#18)

2007-2008 (Sid season #2)
Average home attendance: 15,043 (#15)
Total home attendance: 240,682 (#21)

2006-2007 (Sid season #1)
Average home attendance: 13,952 (#18)
Total home attendance: 279,035 (#13)

2005-2006 (HWSNBN season #10)
Average home attendance: 14,472 (#17)
Total home attendance: 260,509 (#13)

2004-2005 (HWSNBN season #9)
Average home attendance: 14,464 (#13)
Total home attendance: 245,898 (#11)

I’ll leave it to others to determine if there is any meaningful trend data in there.

[Tau837]

It’s hard for me to put much stock in the Forbes ranking. It seems to simply equate to an annual revenue figure. Some of the components involved include:

Gate revenue, which obviously correlates to attendance and arena size
Parking and concession sales, also correlated to attendance and arena
Multimedia revenue
Apparel revenue
Licensing revenue
NCAA and conference distributions
Alumni contributions

Clearly, the majority of that revenue is generated by fans of the program, and that means fan attitudes toward the program will directly affect that revenue. But it is not solely about that.

The athletic department also plays an important role in negotiating many of those agreements. The conference negotiates deals that result in conference distributions. The performance of other ACC programs in the NCAA tournament may also influences the conference distribution, not sure about that. I assume gate revenue is shared with road teams, so total revenue is also influenced to some degree by the attendance at road games.

To me, it seems difficult to quantify the direct correlation of head coach performance to this revenue ranking. I mean, it’s obvious that better performance would generate more revenue. But I’m not sure what level/range should be expected and where we fall in comparison to that.

[ancsu87]

freshmanin83 wrote:

lol going all out with the whole pravda theme.

http://spectator.org/articles/62062/pretty-pravda

[Author]

Posts