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commavegarage {l Wrote}:11k is either last year or assuming it stays the same this year. i bet it dips under 10k this year

dtwalrus {l Wrote}:

commavegarage {l Wrote}:11k is either last year or assuming it stays the same this year. i bet it dips under 10k this year

To be fair, this is uncharted waters for Bates. I can't think of another program that was almost professionally and intentionally destroyed the way BC was under Spaz, from the on the field product to the fan experience (or lack thereof) created by GDF. Add to that the complete disinterest by the president and BOT's, and we're really in uncharted waters here. Short of completely breaking the budget, both in terms of investing heavily in athletics and massively easing the cost to season ticket holders (bye bye DBS), there's no easy scritp for reviving a program like this.

It would be ironic if it was BC -- who due to the success in the Flutie years became the exemplar of how athletic success can benefit a school academically -- somehow becomes the cautionary example of how the death of athletics can harm a school academically. Or at least lead to some serious nerdification...

dtwalrus {l Wrote}:Blaud's dropping more bombs:

- BC and UMass in discussions to play an annual game at Gilette, to be played the Thursday night before Labor Day.
- Tickets to the game to be included on BOTH teams annual season ticket plans. This actually makes sense. If combined BC and UMass only have 20K season ticket holders, why not let both teams sell it as a home game. If if both schools attendance numbers take off, you could still probably get away with this setup for at least a decade.
- One holdup is cost of tickets, though I'm not sure I understand what Blaud's is saying here: " But people within the BC family are irritated at their own reps who were trying to get bargain basement prices at $10 a ticket for the lower level tickets and 30 dollars for tickets which in the 300 to 400 dollar per seat range for Patriot games. Faced with declining season ticket sales–estimates have the figure around 11,000 for next season–BC officials were concerned that BC fans would balk at paying an extra $30 to $50 on their season ticket package for premium seats at Gillette, which would also include free parking."
- Currently at approximately 11K season ticket holders. Was at 36K 10 years ago.

Oh, and he also recommends BC designate UConn it's Thanksgiving weekend rival. Open every year against UMass and end every year against UConn. At what point does the ACC drop us if we actually do this?

EDIT: Initial post said an annual Labor Day Thursday game at "Fenway." My bad. Total brain fart. Annual at Gillette, obviously.

DomingoOrtiz {l Wrote}:Only a BC hater (likes Blauds) would think that these are good moves for BC.

dtwalrus {l Wrote}:To bring the conversation back a bit, I think the annual Thursday night game against UMass at Gillette could actually be worthwhile. Catch the folks on their way out of town...

dtwalrus {l Wrote}:

commavegarage {l Wrote}:11k is either last year or assuming it stays the same this year. i bet it dips under 10k this year

To be fair, this is uncharted waters for Bates. I can't think of another program that was almost professionally and intentionally destroyed the way BC was under Spaz, from the on the field product to the fan experience (or lack thereof) created by GDF. Add to that the complete disinterest by the president and BOT's, and we're really in uncharted waters here. Short of completely breaking the budget, both in terms of investing heavily in athletics and massively easing the cost to season ticket holders (bye bye DBS), there's no easy scritp for reviving a program like this.

It would be ironic if it was BC -- who due to the success in the Flutie years became the exemplar of how athletic success can benefit a school academically -- somehow becomes the cautionary example of how the death of athletics can harm a school academically. Or at least lead to some serious nerdification...

commavegarage {l Wrote}:
First, Bates has done nothing well. But part of the problem with him is that he can't even be mediocre, he has to be better than other ADs and he appears to have a high end of average and this is because there are actual problems in the program that while may have been caused by the incompetence of one or two individuals now run with the programs.

1. plenty of programs get destroyed the way ours was with spaz. Duke sucked for YEARS. Made the right hire. Baylor sucked for YEARS. made the right hire. Stanford sucked for years. He doesn't get a cop out because spaz torpedoed the program.

These are all terrible examples, they prove stupid walruses point more than yours because AD's F'd up many hires in each instance before making the right hire, which if anything shows that its harder to get it right in these situations and frankly I don't understand how that's even remotely arguable.

2. people who can't make gasson level threats make massive assumptions about the interest/disinterest the board has in the athletics program. sgt isn't bottom of the barrel paid. jimmy mac & his staff make decent coin. assclown doesn't get a pass because the hires sucked. thats on him.

Addazio gets paid OK - taking out the Temple buyout, not all that great, Christian is below market. Since the jobs are now both bottom of the barrel P5 jobs, career killer type jobs, the market is limited (I'd argue based on the quality of candidates that the market was limited in 2007, which is crazy) and if anything require a premium. We're certainly not paying a premium currently, Wright nonsense aside. If the BOT is trying its hardest to make revenue sports relevant, that is more embarrassing than the going line that they don't care.

3. you blame the lack of fan experience on gene...the guy's had YEARS to improve that. how long does he get a free pass?

There is no gimmick to fix fan experience (other than booze if that is a gimmick), so the real question is how long for him to get teams winning and so it conflates back in to the general question. Personally, I never want to see this guy make another hire. I still think Addazio is redeemable in the return to stability role. I think he seems like a good self preservation guy and his self preservation works to the programs benefit, since it means he will not just put his foot down and keep doing the same stupid shit which he might otherwise do, but Christian and the process to get to Christian bother me tremendously even if he somehow pulls it off.

31southst {l Wrote}:It bothers me when people call BC a career killer type job. I don't think people fully appreciate what it means that there are only 60-whatever P5 jobs. I am not naive about our perception, but it's not like BC is a bottom 10 P5 job (I would argue below it are Wazzu, ISU, KU, KSU, Purdue, Indiana, Oregon St., Vandy, Kentucky, and WF, with schools like Cuse, Miss St., Illinois, TT, and Rutgers arguably worse too). ISU just hired Matt Campbell, a guy widely viewed as an up and coming coach and a great hire. Cuse getting Dino Babers was well regarded too. Don't mistake who we have hired for who we could hire.

commavegarage {l Wrote}:^^ actually Harbaugh was the Stanford guy's first hire. And I'm sure I could find plenty others who made a hit with their first hire. Obviously it's not a sure thing, but it's by no means impossible. you dont get a pass for a sucky hire just because the guy before was sucky. you don't get paid as much as he does to get free passes.

twballgame9 {l Wrote}:The concept that BC is a career killer job or that the problem is anything other than crappy decisions is laugh out loud funny. It wasn't so long ago that people were bitching about long time coaches because they were "only" getting their teams to regular bowls and tourney appearances. And one of those guys was replaced with a coach that went to back to back ACCCGs.

Simply stated, if BC can't find a good coach, the problem is the guy looking.

twballgame9 {l Wrote}:Those issues have always been there. BC always won in spite of them with the right coaches.

eagle9903 {l Wrote}:

31southst {l Wrote}:It bothers me when people call BC a career killer type job. I don't think people fully appreciate what it means that there are only 60-whatever P5 jobs. I am not naive about our perception, but it's not like BC is a bottom 10 P5 job (I would argue below it are Wazzu, ISU, KU, KSU, Purdue, Indiana, Oregon St., Vandy, Kentucky, and WF, with schools like Cuse, Miss St., Illinois, TT, and Rutgers arguably worse too). ISU just hired Matt Campbell, a guy widely viewed as an up and coming coach and a great hire. Cuse getting Dino Babers was well regarded too. Don't mistake who we have hired for who we could hire.

I'm sorry you are bothered by reality, but a bottomed out rebuild is a career killer type job, that doesn't mean its not an opportunity but it's a much harder row to sow than a stable situation. I assure you that I know how many P5 jobs there are, I further assure you that somewhere there is or someday will be a poster on a Wazzu, ISU, KU, KSU, Purdue, Indiana, Oregon St., Vandy, Kentucky, and WF listing BC in place of their school on your bottom 10 list, I think any one of them could make the argument.

As to Matt Campbell and Dino Barber, those guys are complete wildcards. They have only had success in the MAC (MAC LEVEL HIREZZ1!) Matt Campbell is 14. If you're saying that you would prefer them to Addazio, I would agree since they have a lot more upside, but they are nothing more than more attractive bruised apples. I'd argue that in theory Addazio had a higher floor.

31southst {l Wrote}:

eagle9903 {l Wrote}:

31southst {l Wrote}:It bothers me when people call BC a career killer type job. I don't think people fully appreciate what it means that there are only 60-whatever P5 jobs. I am not naive about our perception, but it's not like BC is a bottom 10 P5 job (I would argue below it are Wazzu, ISU, KU, KSU, Purdue, Indiana, Oregon St., Vandy, Kentucky, and WF, with schools like Cuse, Miss St., Illinois, TT, and Rutgers arguably worse too). ISU just hired Matt Campbell, a guy widely viewed as an up and coming coach and a great hire. Cuse getting Dino Babers was well regarded too. Don't mistake who we have hired for who we could hire.

I'm sorry you are bothered by reality, but a bottomed out rebuild is a career killer type job, that doesn't mean its not an opportunity but it's a much harder row to sow than a stable situation. I assure you that I know how many P5 jobs there are, I further assure you that somewhere there is or someday will be a poster on a Wazzu, ISU, KU, KSU, Purdue, Indiana, Oregon St., Vandy, Kentucky, and WF listing BC in place of their school on your bottom 10 list, I think any one of them could make the argument.

As to Matt Campbell and Dino Barber, those guys are complete wildcards. They have only had success in the MAC (MAC LEVEL HIREZZ1!) Matt Campbell is 14. If you're saying that you would prefer them to Addazio, I would agree since they have a lot more upside, but they are nothing more than more attractive bruised apples. I'd argue that in theory Addazio had a higher floor.

Is your point that of the ~65 P5 jobs, a full fifth of them are not worth taking as they are career killers? Inherently most jobs that turn over are at some point on the rebuild timeline.

I'm also not arguing that Campbell and Babers aren't wildcards, just that they are well-regarded coaches who were generally applauded good hires. You know, the type of hire a career killing program wouldn't be expected to make.

dtwalrus {l Wrote}:A few thoughts:

1) Fenway wants BC to play an annual game at Fenway Park.
2) Blaud's is suggesting there are talks to play an annual UMass game at Gillette.
3) There is obviously 0% chance BC plays an annual "home" game at both Fenway and Gillette every year, leaving only 4 or 5 Alumni Stadium games.
4) Bates might be trying to set up a little bidding war between Gillette and Fenway for an annual BC game. Or at the very least improve the terms of one-off or limitted series.
5) Most likely nothing will come of this.
6) Of the two, I'd probably prefer the annual Gillette game. If it did work out to some kind of double-home-game situation, it would add an extra BC "home" game every 2 years. And tailgating at Gillette beats the Fenway option.

eepstein0 {l Wrote}:I can get behind an annual BC game at Gilette.

eagle33 {l Wrote}:

eepstein0 {l Wrote}:I can get behind an annual BC game at Gilette.

Not me. Bates shouldn't be moving games off campus for games at Gillette or Fenway in a sad attempt to build interest. Build a program that competes at the highest level and competes for championships. That should be his priority. Do that then selling ticket wouldn't be an issue. But, BC.

TobaccoRoadEagle {l Wrote}:If you're going to play games at Fenway or Gillette then just blow up alumni and let the academic or residence buildings have the space. Schedule the rest of the games at Nickerson or Newton high

hansen {l Wrote}:

TobaccoRoadEagle {l Wrote}:If you're going to play games at Fenway or Gillette then just blow up alumni and let the academic or residence buildings have the space. Schedule the rest of the games at Nickerson or Newton high

North or south?

eepstein0 {l Wrote}:

eagle33 {l Wrote}:

eepstein0 {l Wrote}:I can get behind an annual BC game at Gilette.

Not me. Bates shouldn't be moving games off campus for games at Gillette or Fenway in a sad attempt to build interest. Build a program that competes at the highest level and competes for championships. That should be his priority. Do that then selling ticket wouldn't be an issue. But, BC.

Fenway is stupid, and I go to 15 Sox games a year.

Gillette is convenient, free parking, tailgating, etc.