1. Go to FCS right off the bat. Saves 44 scholarships (22 football and 22 women's scholarships). Rough budget savings is $1.3 million and that doesn't include coaching staff slots that may go with women sports. I also assume a good chunk of the MAC is considering this as an option as we speak, so I cannot wait to see how this goes.
2. Outside of going to Buffalo, CMU, and NIU, everything would be bused the day of game. Forget getting a hotel the night before games, and that includes football and basketball. Sorry, the MAC is a bus league and the fact we even fly to places to me is absurd.
3. Look to see if I can get Solich and Boals to take significant paycuts. The days of coaches making over a half-million are gone in the MAC. If they refuse, well, I can always ramp up my compliance department to look for a reason to fire them and justify it and then proceed to go get a 100k head coach.
4. Tell Solich we're done with the horse crap home-and-homes with the Texas States of the world. Minimum 2 money games right off the bat and if needed do 3 money games. If he wants to keep Marshall, great. Get rid of your precious buy game for home.
5. Tell Boals we're going on the road a lot more. No offense, but Alabama A&M doesn't write checks at all.
6. Since we went FCS, that would also mean that opens the MAC TV deal and probably eliminate MACtion games. Good, move our games back to Saturday and get some revenue out of those games again. Even if it's over 12k in revenue, that's a heckuva lot more than the 3k we were getting. If the MAC moves as a whole, always willing to play chicken with ESPN and see if they still want it.
7. Figure out how to pair basketball weekends in November with football. And I mean as in make those league games right out of the gate so that I can capitalize off of the football team coming to town of our opponent. Tired of seeing too many schools
8. When it becomes "league season" in January, double-headers of men's/women's bb or wrestling (SAME SCHOOL TOO, MAC is stupid about two different schools traveling) become mandatory. I'm sorry, but for weekend games it is imperative to make a true day of these schools a requirement.
9. If needed to get road games, do neutral sites in Columbus every year. Ohio should stick its nose up at Ohio A&M and in particular take advantage of the recruiting territory that is Columbus. A lot of schools (especially Big Ten's that don't get Ohio State on the schedule for that year) would crave to have that game in Columbus. Take advantage of it. In addition, allows us to grow our base there. For those who gripe about taking games away from precious Athens, can it. Survival is the name of the game at this point and if we can take advantage of teams' desperation to be in Columbus for recruiting purposes, let's do it and spit at Ohio A&M too.
10. Everything goes out to bid and not through a stupid department on campus. I'm sorry, but printing services and other campus entities deserves to go the way of the do-do. To be frank, these departments are the greatest ponzi scheme ever concocted that rely on circular funding. Finding out how to slash costs here would be huge.
11. Go digital with everything. No reason to be mailing items or for that matter printing the living daylights out of everything. Printing costs alone would save a significant amount of money.
12. When the timing is right, ultimately have a department that almost relies exclusively on GAs from Ohio. We got a great program and with how cheap a GA is versus a full-time individual, costs could be slashed instantly and with minimal impact if set up correctly. Three year program that consists of their first two years of being GA's and then the final year being the "boss" of the department before moving on to find another job. Rather would treat this like the Oakland A's and when it comes time for them to get paid, they ain't getting it in Athens. Go find the Yankees.
13. Sell the damn stadiums out. It ain't rocket science. Lot of cracks have developed through the years and grassroots selling needs to happen again.
14. Get parking services to quit charging for parking rates that are stupid. If they do not, I literally threaten to move all my parking for events (even OHSAA events) over to the fairgrounds where they can legitimately tailgate and tell them to go pound sand. Goes back to point 11. I swear on everything holy that if they ran the tournament out of Athens they would never be forgiven. Along those lines, making a deal with the county specifically would be to my favor in terms of rates and everything else. Wouldn't have to pay parking services to use their lots for our gamedays which generate revenue.
15. Rent my buildings out as frequently as possible. Why aren't there business meetings in Peden Stadium or companies attempting to do pick-up basketball in the arena, let alone concerts. We don't sell our facilities hard enough, I think it's time to consider.
16. Raise funds for an indoor basketball/wrestling practice facility at some point in the near future AND HAVE IT BE RAN BY ATHLETICS. Sorry, personal vendetta for the football facility that the university runs Walter, which goes without saying figure out how to tell campus to buzz off finally in some way so we aren't paying them a "management fee."
1 and 6. Would take some getting used to for me as a fan, but I would come around. We would definitely need at least the majority of the MAC to do the same or travel costs would be a killer. Would ESPN still be interested in MACtion? The gamble is I think there is even more pressure to be a consistent winner in FCS, else you're going to see midweek attendance numbers on Saturdays with no ESPN money coming in.
2. I'm against ideas that put Ohio at a disadvantage in recruiting and unless most of our peer schools do the same, I'm not a fan of this idea. If I'm a mid major basketball prospect in Ohio, do I want to go to OU and do an eight hour round trip plus play a game all in under 24 hours or do I want to go to Wright State and get a hotel the night before? Logistically, I don't see how this idea is feasible in football with all the moving parts the operations staff has to do in game prep. I'd also want to see the conference move to later tip times in basketball, because I don't want to ask my athletes to get up at the ass crack of dawn to make it to the bus.
3. Again, not in favor of putting us at a disadvantage for recruiting talent and that goes for hiring new coaches too. Pay cuts are fine, however. Schaus was big on hiring experienced head coaches, which is a more expensive approach. Let's see the approach Cromer takes the next time a major hire is needed. We could cut costs by hiring promising major program assistants and butter up the contracts with incentive bonuses.
4. I'm good with getting rid of the FCS buy game in favor of going on the road for a second buy game. You do need to choose between this idea or point #1 though. Also note that this essentially sets you up for only five home games a season unless you're lucky like in 2013 where we had three non conference home games. Add in MACtion and you have only three Saturday home games - far from fan friendly and cheapens your season ticket packages.
5. Yep. Would much rather play a roadie at Notre Dame, Michigan State, Kentucky, etc than host Coppin State. The MAC would need to relax its non-conference home game mandate to make this work. Keep in mind too that bigger programs than us are also making cuts and may seek out these buy game opportunities for themselves. Less to go around.
7. Not sure I follow. Do you want basketball and football games on the same day? That's a bit much for me as a fan in one day.
8. Absolutely. The league does this a little bit now. I know it makes the women's game feel like the opening act to a men's game, but it gets more eyes on the women at the same time.
9. This could only work in men's basketball and as has been mentioned, Big Ten opponents would not do it. Interesting idea all the same, though.
10. Hell yes.
11. Hell yes. Or at least reduce printing some. I still notice it more when athletics sends me an envelope over sending me an e-mail.
12. This is tricky with customer-facing roles, like ticket sales. I've seen it mentioned on this board before that rotating staff every year frustrates season ticket buyers.
13. WIN! and they will come.
14. No opinion.
15. There was a comment on that "You Know You Went to OU if..." Facebook board this week asking what the last concert was at the Convo (Wiz Khalifa in 2012?) I'm struggling to think of many acts that would attract enough attention to warrant an arena show while also not costing the university or student body too much. The academic center seems like a good space for corporate events, OTOH.
16. Yeah, it's needed.
And I'll add #17 - sell the naming rights to the Convo and Peden Stadium already. Schaus wanted to do this and it never got done. I don't know what's in the way other than maybe companies aren't interested. As a fan, I have no problem watching games at the AEP Ohio Convocation Center.