Barry Alvarez lets another Big Ten cat out of the bag.
According to Alvarez, Big Ten officials recently agreed to stop scheduling nonconference games against FCS programs.
“The nonconference schedule in our league is ridiculous,” Alvarez said on WIBA-AM. “It’s not very appealing…
“So we’ve made an agreement that our future games will all be Division I schools. It will not be FCS schools.”
It’s not exactly a cupcake-free diet. More like cupcake-lite. But, still, it’s a step in the right direction. Combine that with the almost given proposition that the conference will go to at least a nine-game conference schedule and it’s pretty clear that the Big Ten Network demands for more product are driving Jim Delany’s scheduling train.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
But it does make you wonder what might be in store for SEC schedules if Slive follows suit by creating his conference’s own network, which seems likely. My guess is that if the TV money’s there, suddenly the coaches’ concerns about schedules being too tough and ADs’ concerns about that seventh home game will vanish into the mist.
And judging from this story about Georgia’s move to cut the student ticket allotment and create a new class of young alumni season ticket holders, don’t think it’ll take that much to move Slive. Don’t get me wrong; I think what McGarity has come up with is a good idea. But here’s the funny part of the tale:
Outgoing school president Michael Adams told the executive board that he had lunch on Monday with SEC commissioner Mike Slive, and that when Adams told Slive about the plan, the commissioner’s “eyes lit up.”
Sure they did. In Mike Slive’s world, you can never have enough wallets to vacuum.
Get The Picture 
I don’t have a problem with cutting back the student ticket allotment if said students haven’t been showing up. Give the tickets to people who will put their asses in the seats and make noise, I don’t care if they’re students, alums, townies, professors or immigrants fresh off the boat from East Timor.
I’m also for anything that stifles the D-IAA scheduling trend. Thought it was a bad move when the NCAA relaxed its rules on D-IAAs counting toward bowl eligibility, though they probably saw the glut of upstart bowls on the horizon, realized there wouldn’t be enough eligible teams to fill all the slots, and decided the bowl games were more important than competitive regular-season matchups. (I’m sure they came to that conclusion with the helpful guidance of the ADs and conference presidents, though.)
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The student attendance issue only emerged when the school went to electronic tickets tied to student IDs. This made it where students couldn’t sell their tickets to other students or someone else if they ended up not being able to attend a game.
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Dammit, Big Ten, stop trying to make me like you.
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Yes, between this and the limits on oversigning make the BigWhatever look like grown men, even if their football is suspect. As bad a character as Delany is, Slive is even weaker at times.
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Am I missing something here? I have season tix and my required donation is $250 per seat, based on the section where my tickets are located (sec. 301.) Why would they have a required $500 donation after 2 years? Is that based on the location of the seats? My friend in sec. 129 has a minimum donation of $400 per seat.
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I think they were describing what it would cost to buy a pair of tickets (which most people do). You’d pay half of the normal required donation in the second year and then be paying the full thing three years after you graduate.
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I think Emerson is missing somethng here or he’s mistakenly connecting the fact that for 2012 the min donation to get seats was $500 … Weiszer provides these details:
“Young Alumni — including those who were undergraduates, masters, doctoral or professional students — will pay $40 per ticket, but won’t have to foot over a minimum donation in the first year like other season ticket holders. The second year, the minimum donation will be $250. The third year, they will be required to contribute the base amount for their seats.”
Earlier he notes the young alum seats will be in 317 … the seat fee for those is $250 too.
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What took Alvarez so long? Wisky has had one of the most disgraceful OOC schedules in the country since 2000. The Badgers have played 13 BCS level opponents in that time frame, and only 5 times have they gone on the road. In that same time frame the Dawgs have played 21 such games and 10 of those were on the road…and that doesn’t even count the two games against Boise State. Even Alabama’ woeful OOC scheduling shows 12 OOC games against BCS opponents, 4 of which were true road games.
I am glad to see the B1G drop the FCS games. Hopefully the SEC will follow suit and go to 9 conference games.
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…and every AD in the MAC just peed his pants a little.
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When I graduated they had the young alumni program. It isnt a new concept and definitely lead to me getting, keeping, and expanding my season tickets. It worked then, I think it will work now. Great idea and I applaud the decision.
Just a few extra dollars that we can put towards outsourcing hand written letters to high school students to china or something. I lets out West the West.
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How long will it take the FCS schools to holler if the big boys drop them? They claim to need these money games just to survive. Perhaps one FCS game every other year or every third year would be a reasonable compromise.
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After his Rose Bowl loss, no one could have predicted that Barry even knew what the final, heaven-like stage of history was or how to bring it about
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Does Mike Slive have to get Nick Saban’s approval before proposing a 9 game conference schedule?
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Yes. Nick already pre-approved that during the 2012 SEC Media Daze
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New group of season ticket holders, Richt needs a raise…hmmmm
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Assuming all 2,000 season tickets get bought by young alumni, this change in ticket policy will result in an extra $480,000 this year. Then, assuming all 2K of them renew next year, it will result in an additional $810K next year (the jump from 480K to 810K is b/c of an additional home game and the 1/2 donations). Then, assuming all 2K of them renew the following year, it will result in an additional $1.06 million the following year (the jump from 810K to 1.06 mil is b/c of the full donations – it also assumes another 7 home game schedule). And then the same $1.06 million every year after that (again, assuming 7 home games).
No wonder Slive got a chubby.
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They say that the highest recorded student turnout was 2011 Auburn. Really? How far back did they go? I can think of some pretty big games prior to 2009 that I’m sure had greater turnout than that game. Are they saying the student section wasn’t more than 86% full for the Alabama blackout game? B/c 86% is how full it was for the 2011 Auburn game if their numbers are correct.
I’m looking forward to hearing all the complaining that will come after the first home game that has more than 15,856 students show up. I think this is a decent idea but it’s certainly not flawless.
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