8/17/2014: While UO’s focus on big-time college football has made millionaires of coaches and administrators like junket queen Lorraine Davis, it’s created some tradeoffs for fans. John Tapogna, president of the ECONorthwest economic consulting firm, gives his personal cost-benefit analysis of going to a Duck football game in this RG Op-Ed:
But success comes with price. The 2012 Rose Bowl victory triggered a spike in what had been gradually rising ticket prices. Next, the Pac-12 TV deal ended predictable kickoff times and ushered in additional evening and Thursday night contests.
We tried to hold on. Autzen was our tradition, and our loyalty runs deep. But as Portlanders, the long string of taillights on the late-night returns and the occasional motel bills ground us down. We let the season ticket deadline pass last spring.
Also see this Bob Welch piece. Meanwhile you can get a ticket to the $525,000 Duck-Coyote game on stubhub.com for $13.70:
8/5/2014: Ducks to pay Coyotes $525,000 for August 30 football beatdown
[Editor’s note: This post originally confused the University of South Dakota Coyotes and the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. My sincere apologies.]
UO’s academic budget pays the jocks $467,538 a year towards the bonds for the Matthew Knight Arena land, and another ~$2.2M for athlete-only tutoring. The Senate has voted many times to ask the administration to end these subsidies. Here’s video of Provost Scott Coltrane in April, lecturing the faculty on how unreasonable a request this is. “I don’t know how to say this delicately, but what is going on here? What is the goal of this legislation?”:
At the time we didn’t know of AD Rob Mullens’s latest extravagance: Paying $525,000 to the South Dakota Coyotes (plus 400 tickets) to travel to Eugene and serve as the Ducks sacrificial warm-up team:
Last year Mullens paid Nicholls State $450K for the same job, Sam Stites report in the RG here. Presumably the extra $75K is for the players’s concussion insurance.
The vote to end the subsidies was delayed when the Senate had to start dealing with the basketball rape allegations, but it will be back on the Senate agenda in October – as legislation, which will be a little harder for Gottfredson Coltrane to ignore than the previous resolutions.
It’s a win/win in that the Ducks make money by selling tickets to the game and U. SD makes money to support its athletic program dreams. The only losers are the suckers that buy tickets to see a lame game and the players for risking their health on a meaningless game that brings in a few more million dollars for the coaches to gorge on.
The only question on the minds of the admins is if it’s going to be a sellout. All of the yapping that went on when they didn’t sell out the Nicholls State game, damn, what a bunch of yutzzes….
There will be pain and anguish in Vermillion.
So need we ask why student loans have ballooned into the trillions…yes that’s with a T not a M or a B. University Administrators no longer hold Education as a primary goal in our society. There goal is to pad their own pockets and bulk up their retirement accounts. Their only physical action is to swoosh themselves quickly with a bow to kiss the back side of the athletic departments at the bidding of their owner., Sad state of affairs when self promotion bids out education.
I haven’t done the math but how much is each student paying for the promotion of the administration and athletics? 2.2 million for tutoring….maybe they should recruit smarter athletes….just saying. Paying close to another million for travel and bonds???? What part of providing education does that meet????
Tickets now down to $12.53. It’s going to be like a game against South Eugene High School. Bound to be a few concussions, I just hope the Ducks don’t kill anyone on the field.
This is the “tailgate game” where you offer tickets to those dupe friends who said they’d pay for a game ticket if you were ever out of town on a game weekend. *Real duck fans* are calculating their travel miles for the championship game. (pr suckers!)