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AAD Eric Roedl’s falling football ticket revenue can’t keep up with coaches bonuses, so he wants to squeeze the students

Last updated on 11/22/2019

11/21/2019: I’m sitting at the meeting in the EMU now – four athletic department administrators and several very skeptical ASUO students.

Here’s the data for revenue from tickets sold to non-students. It’s fallen by about $4M in 5 years.  So he’s trying to increase what students have to pay to athletics from the mandatory student i-fee.

2014:

2019:

On the cost driver side, Roedl’s salary was about $225K in 2016. Up 18% in 3 years:

11/19/2019: UO students just not that into Duck football, even at $0.00 a ticket

ASUO – UO’s student government – pays Rob Mullens’s Athletic Department about $2M a year for student tickets, which they then distribute “for free” to students. They get the money from a mandatory fee they charge all students every term. A previous post about how Assoc Athletic Director Eric Roedl runs this shakedown operation is here.

But apparently $0.00 is too high a price. As this photo of the student section from the interesting fan blog GoDucks.net shows, our students don’t really care much about big-time college sports:

 

13 Comments

  1. Meh 11/20/2019

    Ticket funding schemes aside – 9 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter when Oregon is up 34-6 on a Saturday? And this was taken when, around 10:30pm I’m guessing? Not terribly surprising.

    I honestly would have left around that time too just to make it to the shuttles before everyone else.

  2. thedude 11/20/2019

    The stadium was fully packed. This is because with 5 min left and the game won, everybody is trying to leave because if you stay until the end you face a one and half wait to get out. I know because I was there, and ran out of gas, and had to take a bike taxi to a gas station to get a gallon before they closed at midnight (and there was still traffic at that point).

    • uomatters Post author | 11/20/2019

      So why were the sections on either side of the students still packed? In any case I’m guessing the students walk across the river, not drive.

  3. It's classified. 11/20/2019

    $2 million in tuition/fees goes to Athletics? That’s a freaking sham. So all students are paying for something that probably 10% of the student body uses? …. Oh I know, lets blame the budget crisis on the unions.

  4. honest Uncle Bernie 11/20/2019

    Seems to me if the ASUO thinks they are not getting a good deal for the students they represent, they are free to ask for a different deal. And withold their money if they are not satisfied with what is offered. How is that a “shakedown”?

    • uomatters Post author | 11/20/2019

      Reidl threatened to cut the ASUO off from tickets altogether, and go to the Board of Trustees (via the TFAB) and have them add a new student fee for his money. I wish the ASUO had taken him up on that, as it would have made the subsidy more transparent.

      • honest Uncle Bernie 11/20/2019

        Yes, that would certainly be an enlightening exercise! The AD would be very stupid to have a fight like this with the students, where they tried to muscle the money out of an unwilling ASUO.

        Hey, maybe they should try to muscle the faculty union into making a similar “contribution” for tickets. That would make for boffo box office, I’m sure.

        • uomatters Post author | 11/20/2019

          I’m no union treasurer, but like it. Instead of hiding the subsidies for the jock box, pres skybox, Matt Court land etc in the E&G fund, take them as a straight deduction from faculty pay. Probably work out to about 2%.

    • Frequent reader, rare commenter 11/20/2019

      Hey, student senate VP here back from 13-14 and ASUO Senator from 11-14. We tried to scale back or negotiate on some of the subsidies, either through Marching Band (through the Department Finance Committee if I remember correctly) or ticket sales, but the Athletics Dept. is able to mobilize relatively large numbers of students at a moment’s notice by telling them “the student government hates what you do and they’re going to vote to cancel it”.

      In retrospect, we didn’t have a big enough organized base of students to really take them on and help the rest of the ASUO to stay the course, but yeah. Athletics dishonestly deploys students they have contact with the keep the subsidies in place.

      • uomatters Post author | 11/20/2019

        Thanks, I remember this well. I’ll see if I can turn out some anti-cartel economists again.

  5. pac8 og 11/20/2019

    You are missing the real story here, which is that over the last several years more and more Oregon home games have been forced into 7:30 start times. NOBODY wants to go to a night game at Autzen in November, not the players, coaches, fans driving from Portland, and especially not the students. Obviously, they all need to go home on Saturday night and STUDY. Once Shout has been played, they are all hitting the books. Nobody on the east coast wants to watch a college football game that starts at 10:30 either.

    The incompetence and greed of Larry Scott and the rest of the Pac12 organization leadership is absolutely phenomenal.

    • Richard Bohloff 11/22/2019

      Graduation day for the entire University was permanently moved to accommodate one athletic event. Schill has been made well aware of his gameday priorities.

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