Tag Archives: Eric Roedl

2/2/2021: No details on the deal til 4PM today. Maybe some wealthy UO donor finally decided to start paying for the students, like he pays for the coaches raises? While UO’s students pay the Ducks $1.7M a year for “free” tickets, at Maryland the athletic department pays the students to go to the games via a scholarship lottery, if they stay til the 4th quarter.

From the ASUO student government to the UO Senate:

The ASUO has been in discussion with the University of Oregon administration over the athletics agreement through which students pay for their student tickets. This year’s ASUO administration decided that the use of I Fee funds to purchase tickets was unfair due to the price we were paying, and the way tickets are allocated and distributed, therefore, on Saturday, January 30, the ASUO Legislative branch voted to discontinue the current athletics agreement.

University of Oregon administration approached the ASUO yesterday about this decision, and late last night, President Michael Schill and Senate President Claire O’Connor negotiated a new proposal of a restructured system to secure student tickets to athletic events. If you would like to ask questions or hear more details, the ASUO will be having an open public forum from 4-6 pm and all students are welcome to come learn more and voice their opinions before the ASUO Senate votes on the proposal during an open meeting from 6-6:30 pm. Please consider using this opportunity to learn more and voice your opinion.

This is the link to the public forum: https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/8311573647

1/25/2021: ASUO committee votes to end $1.7M payments to Duck Athletic Cartel for “free” tickets

The final decision seems to be up to President Schill, and since he firmly believes and restated in the Senate 2 weeks ago that the Ducks should not be subsidized, ending this particular subsidy should be an easy call for him. Student attendance has been dropping for years – and many leave early to get on with the partying – and those who do care about big-time college sports can of course still buy tickets. Presumably Duck financial director Eric Roedl will heavily discount these or hire ringers, since they’ll need a section of excited looking student-types with painted faces to focus the TV cameras on.

Reporter Leo Baudhuin has the story in the Emerald:

ASUO’s Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee voted against renewing its athletics ticketing agreement at a Jan. 19 budget hearing. This means the student ticket subsidy will not be funded for the 2021-22 academic year, with the money reallocated to a handful of new programs that ACFC believes will more equitably serve the University of Oregon student body. 

The UO athletics department declined to speak with the Daily Emerald for this story.

According to the 2020-21 contract, ACFC and athletics had mutually agreed upon this markdown rate beginning with Fiscal Year 2016-17. For the 2020-21 fiscal year, ACFC was paying over $1.7 million in student fees for the ticketing contract. The agreement stood at 50% of market value prior to the 2016 deal.

This price allowed I-fee paying members to attend any Ducks sporting event with a student ID — with the exception of football and men’s basketball, which were run through a lottery system that students had to register for.

In place of the athletics contract, ACFC is allocating the $1.7 million to seven new programs: menstrual product accessibility in the EMU, a tiered textbook subsidy program for students with financial need, a basic needs coordinator who will help students apply to programs like SNAP, a student advocacy coordinator for ASUO’s peer-to-peer advocacy work, an across-the-board 20% wage increase for students employed at UO, an emergency housing subsidy fund and a redistribution of roughly $400,000 to other finance committees — which will allow ASUO to decrease or maintain the current I-fee for the 2021-22 fiscal year.

“The reality is not everyone gets a football ticket,” ACFC chair Annika Mayne said, “and a football ticket is not going to pay your rent or help you with legal trouble or increase your wage.” …

… From the hearing, ACFC’s budget proposal will go to the ASUO senate, Mayne said. Pending the senate’s approval, it will make its way to ASUO President Isaiah Boyd before going to UO President Michael Schill. Both Boyd and ASUO Senate President Claire O’Connor voiced their support for the plan during the public comment section of the budget hearing.

“There are some populations of students that I’m sure aren’t going to be happy about this,” said Laus. “But by and large, it’s a university, it’s not a sports team.” …

Here’s a past post on this issue:

June 2017: Duck athletic cartel’s Eric Roedl shake down UO students for another 40 large:

Kenny Jacoby has the story in the Daily Emerald, here:

This year, athletics requested another 4-percent increase, even though prices for regular season-ticket holders are decreasing.

“Really the reason behind the 4-percent ask is that we’ve been frozen for so long and we’re trying to just catch up a little bit with the [incidental fee],” [the very well paid AAD Eric Roedl] said.

Dunn said each year Roedl and other athletic department officials “come to the table very frustrated that the conversation is the same.” Students want to pay less, but athletic department officials wants them to pay more, so the end result remains unchanged.

“They don’t think about how any sort of change in these fees or tuition will actually impact the students here on our campus,” Dunn said. “Asking students to pay more for their student athletic tickets in a year where tuition is supposed to go up almost 11 percent is a little ridiculous.”

In the end ASUO gave them only $10K, so now Roedl is threatening to take away the students tickets – or go directly to the TFAB, for a new student fee devoted solely to the athletic department.

Henry Houston has the report in the Eugene Weekly:

UO spent more than any other Pac-12 college team this year for its nonconference schedule — sometimes scornfully called “body-bag” games because of the mismatch between teams. Bowling Green received $900,000, Portland State received $500,000 and San José State received $1.6 million, according to contracts obtained by Eugene Weekly. …

The high cost was an aberration of scheduling, says Eric Roedl, deputy athletic director at UO.

Originally, the UO was planning on playing Texas A&M instead of San José State, but a clause in that agreement allowed Texas A&M to back out if it left its football conference. In 2011, Texas A&M announced it would leave the Big 12 conference for Southeastern Conference. The university voided its contract with UO in 2016, Roedl says.

Other contracts obtained by EW have a penalty clause if the game is canceled. Texas A&M didn’t have one.

“It was a unique agreement,” Roedl adds. …

Whoops. Sounds like it’s going to be a while before the academic side can stop subsidizing them. I wonder if Roedl is going to hit up ASUO for another increase?

3/7/2016:  And another raise. Mediation starts April 27, meanwhile the legal bills pile up. All paid from the academic budget, of course.

2/07/2016: What’s it about this time? Duck bowl games.

Back in 2012 Duck Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director for Finance and Administration Eric Roedl got a call from some insurance salesman, and ended up buying a policy that would pay the Duck football coaches in the event their unpaid student-athletes won enough bowl games to trigger the lucrative bonus clauses in the coaches’ contracts. These bonuses topped out at about $1M. UO paid Lloyd’s of London $489,940 for the policy.

Unfortunately, it seems that Roedl didn’t read the fine print on the contract. Hey, it’s not like he was spending his own money, as Milton Friedman would have put it. It turns out Lloyd’s was only obligated to pay the coaches if the Ducks won the BCS. If they topped out at some intermediate lesser bowl, then the bonuses were UO’s problem. Which, of course, is what happened, meaning UO was out $687,965.74 in bonuses, *and* the $489,940 insurance premium. Clever salesman.

So UO promptly sued Roedl for spending UO money without exercising due diligence.

Just kidding. Roedl works for the Ducks. How bad would that look? Instead UO sued the insurance salesman. And, from the looks of the lengthy docket here, I’m guessing UO’s HLGR lawyers are doing pretty well off this.

Then UO gave Roedl a raise. Then another raise. He’s now at $225K – up $55K from his starting salary three years before, and up $81K from what Jamie Moffitt was getting in 2010 to do the same job:

So it’s win, win, win for Roedl, Lloyds, and HLGR. Not so good for UO, of course. Originally HLGR wanted to take this case to a jury, but that hasn’t been working out too well for them lately, and so now the plan is to try for mediation:

MINUTES of Proceedings: Status Conference. Parties are to schedule mediation. All court deadlines are stayed pending the completion of mediation. Telephone Status Conference is set for 4/27/2016 at 09:00AM by telephone before Chief Judge Ann L. Aiken. Court will send call-in instructions prior to the call. C. Robert Steringer present as counsel for plaintiff. John E. Zehnder, Jr. present as counsel for defendants. James T. McDermott and Gabriel Weaver for Third Party Defendants. Court Reporter: Kristi Anderson. Chief Judge Ann L. Aiken presiding. (rh) (Entered: 12/15/2015)