As an Athletic Director wanna-be, I like to write up little trip reports of game visits that gave me ideas of what Vandy could do. But first...
It was family day at the Penn-Yale game and during the announcements, they mentioned that the Heisman Trophy was on display and folks could come over to look at it. I asked my husband, Ed, why it would be at Penn and he didn't have a clue. I googled Trophy winners to see if anyone from Penn had won it, but nope. So I went over to look at it and take a picture of it (with it's security detail). And I asked, why? Answer: it lives here. Me: ok. but why? Heisman played football at Penn before he became football, basketball, baseball coach ["one of the fathers of southern football"] and before he was athletic director at the Downtown Athletic Club. I guess they only display it for the family event, because I've been to a bunch of games there and never heard that it was there to see. Pretty cool.
next cool part was where it was displayed. At the field side bar! Yeah, get a drink, watch the game, and spill a drink on the Trophy. just kidding. It stays open through the 3rd quarter. Interestingly, they didn't do much business whereas at Vandy, we'd have the place packed.
Diagonally across the field, they have field side dining and drinks. Ed thought that it was for parents of players, but I think that comes with another level of their version of the NCC. It's right by where the team runs in and out, so it's probably pretty nice. I'd guess there were about 100 folks there and they seemed to stay there for the entire game. Franklin Field (home of the Penn Relays) has a track, so with that extra real estate, they can fit the bar and dining areas at the field level without any problems. If Vandy were to do that, we'd have to go up above the hill seating area. None of these things required permanent facilities so there would be minimal upfront money to set that up. Basically, it was like the NCC tailgate but inside and all game long. Lets go for it.
Game experience: The game itself was exciting with several lead changes. Penn has an outstanding WR who set a new Ivy League record on Saturday for most number of games over 100 yards. He will play on Sundays. Ludwig's brother must be calling plays though because they kept doing the run up the middle instead of hitting the WR. Best game I've watched live or on TV this year.
Walked over to look at the student section. Small but they were having fun. didn't leave. The Mascot walks around in the stands at various times and gets things rocking. Large pep band was great and crazy. (ex. martini glass formation with the level going down during the song.)
3rd quarter stretch: the band plays several special songs at different times during the 3rd quarter. They throw thousands of pieces of toast during the Highball song. (named 3rd best football tradition in the nation in 2013 - must have been a limited poll!) Later there is another song that requires some lame hand and arm motions, but they all do it. Even my husband, Ed, was fully involved. Like what JMU does at their games throwing crape paper streamers that are supplied by the school, it's simply fun. This is something that Vandy should incorporate into the game experience. They also have a place where you can make your own posters; don't recommend this for the SEC environment and live TV!
Attendance: you think we have problems? reported attendance was 6408. In a stadium that has been downsized from about 80K to 52,958. Yale couldn't have had more than 250 folks. But, it was fun. Everyone was yelling and seemed to enjoy it. I used to think playing in a larger pro style stadium all the time would suck, but it wasn't bad. Of course, since the entire league has that type of attendance, they don't care.
Money: boy, we make a lot more from game receipts than they do. Ticket prices are $15 at Penn and $25 for the chair back seats. We sat in the $25 section which was half empty.(probably cause those folks were all down eating and drinking on the field!) If Vandy puts in that type of seating, please test them out. The seats were extremely uncomfortable and I would have been happier on a bench. Also with tight leg room, any chair back seating should have fold up seat bottoms. They sell their programs for $3. So I"m guessing without concession sales, they make about 100K versus almost 2 million for one of our $55 games. But that is ok because:
$ giving: it is amazing how much info you can get from buying a program! their version of the NCC raised $23.3 million from 6,200 donors last year. Endowment gifts for sports was $8.3 million, and sport specific was $5.6 million. Not sure if these additional types of gifts are included in the 23 Million. They have approx.1000 student athletes, i.e., 3 times what we have. The most recent Vandy athletics money I found was for 2015: NCC raised $11.1 million total from 6336 members. Actually our NCC membership numbers look good. So they get more $ and have less expenses (no million dollar coaches and no tuition costs for players). They have a new AD, (female fwiw) and she has been breaking fundraising records since she arrive 3 years ago. Let's hire her!
Facilities: the program highlights all the upgrades to facilities. Looks nice, but from photos, ours is on another level.
Franklin Field: What can I say. fabulous. wonderful. (they even brightened the medieval dungeon look of the concourse.) And thanks to the $3 program I bought, I can overwhelm you (as I did my husband, who didn't know any of this) with fun facts.
-oldest college stadium in nation. 1895
-first scoreboard 1895
-first permanent college horseshoe stadium 1903
- first 2-tiered stadium 1925
- first over 78,000 capacity 1925
- first neutral Army-Navy game 1899 (and most played at neutral site - 18)
- first game radio broadcast 1922
- first game telecast 1940
-first episode of ABC Wide World of Sports 1961
- over 100K attendance for Penn Relays
- Philadephia Eagles last NFL championship in 1960
- featured in movies; 'Invincible" and "Unbreakable"
- first ESPN gameday from FCS school 2002
- Penn has played more football games than anyone else in nation and has 7 national championships.
So when I suggested we play up the historical aspect of our stadium - first in the south - maybe I got way ahead of myself.
Bottom line: we don't have to sell out the stadium to have fun. I don't know why Nashville isn't supporting Vandy football more, but it's not ALL on us. Must increase marketing and tie in with Preds but after that it's on Nashville. Most games on TV now have obvious empty areas, we just take it too personally.
We can and should add some in game fun, rocking songs, streamers, etc. create some new fan traditions unlike anything the rest of the SEC has. Love the idea of the 3rd qtr stretch.
If Franklin Field can be in the movies, get Dudley in music videos.
Another reason why fundraising is so important is if we had gifts like Penn, tickets sale $ from our opponents wouldn't be so critical. We could get creative on how to keep opponents out. How about we remove x 'seats' per row since many of us are wider now. If the same VU fans show up, the opponents will have less seats to take. Or analyze seat ticket sales for the 'every other year' buyers. They would be buying for their year in Nashville and then selling the rest to the other visiting fan bases. Add a huge fee for 'reregistering' for nonconsecutive year sales to discourage the sale.
We need someone with amazing fundraising skills like the Penn AD. There is money out there, and Vandy is completely missing the boat.
If you are near the Philly area: go to a Penn football game in November if it lines up with a basketball game and see both Franklin Field and the Palestra 'cathedral of basketball'. please note the Palestra will be empty for OOC games. If it's the same deal as we had before, for $15 you can get a ticket to see both games plus a hot dog and coke.
sorry for another novel.
It was family day at the Penn-Yale game and during the announcements, they mentioned that the Heisman Trophy was on display and folks could come over to look at it. I asked my husband, Ed, why it would be at Penn and he didn't have a clue. I googled Trophy winners to see if anyone from Penn had won it, but nope. So I went over to look at it and take a picture of it (with it's security detail). And I asked, why? Answer: it lives here. Me: ok. but why? Heisman played football at Penn before he became football, basketball, baseball coach ["one of the fathers of southern football"] and before he was athletic director at the Downtown Athletic Club. I guess they only display it for the family event, because I've been to a bunch of games there and never heard that it was there to see. Pretty cool.
next cool part was where it was displayed. At the field side bar! Yeah, get a drink, watch the game, and spill a drink on the Trophy. just kidding. It stays open through the 3rd quarter. Interestingly, they didn't do much business whereas at Vandy, we'd have the place packed.
Diagonally across the field, they have field side dining and drinks. Ed thought that it was for parents of players, but I think that comes with another level of their version of the NCC. It's right by where the team runs in and out, so it's probably pretty nice. I'd guess there were about 100 folks there and they seemed to stay there for the entire game. Franklin Field (home of the Penn Relays) has a track, so with that extra real estate, they can fit the bar and dining areas at the field level without any problems. If Vandy were to do that, we'd have to go up above the hill seating area. None of these things required permanent facilities so there would be minimal upfront money to set that up. Basically, it was like the NCC tailgate but inside and all game long. Lets go for it.
Game experience: The game itself was exciting with several lead changes. Penn has an outstanding WR who set a new Ivy League record on Saturday for most number of games over 100 yards. He will play on Sundays. Ludwig's brother must be calling plays though because they kept doing the run up the middle instead of hitting the WR. Best game I've watched live or on TV this year.
Walked over to look at the student section. Small but they were having fun. didn't leave. The Mascot walks around in the stands at various times and gets things rocking. Large pep band was great and crazy. (ex. martini glass formation with the level going down during the song.)
3rd quarter stretch: the band plays several special songs at different times during the 3rd quarter. They throw thousands of pieces of toast during the Highball song. (named 3rd best football tradition in the nation in 2013 - must have been a limited poll!) Later there is another song that requires some lame hand and arm motions, but they all do it. Even my husband, Ed, was fully involved. Like what JMU does at their games throwing crape paper streamers that are supplied by the school, it's simply fun. This is something that Vandy should incorporate into the game experience. They also have a place where you can make your own posters; don't recommend this for the SEC environment and live TV!
Attendance: you think we have problems? reported attendance was 6408. In a stadium that has been downsized from about 80K to 52,958. Yale couldn't have had more than 250 folks. But, it was fun. Everyone was yelling and seemed to enjoy it. I used to think playing in a larger pro style stadium all the time would suck, but it wasn't bad. Of course, since the entire league has that type of attendance, they don't care.
Money: boy, we make a lot more from game receipts than they do. Ticket prices are $15 at Penn and $25 for the chair back seats. We sat in the $25 section which was half empty.(probably cause those folks were all down eating and drinking on the field!) If Vandy puts in that type of seating, please test them out. The seats were extremely uncomfortable and I would have been happier on a bench. Also with tight leg room, any chair back seating should have fold up seat bottoms. They sell their programs for $3. So I"m guessing without concession sales, they make about 100K versus almost 2 million for one of our $55 games. But that is ok because:
$ giving: it is amazing how much info you can get from buying a program! their version of the NCC raised $23.3 million from 6,200 donors last year. Endowment gifts for sports was $8.3 million, and sport specific was $5.6 million. Not sure if these additional types of gifts are included in the 23 Million. They have approx.1000 student athletes, i.e., 3 times what we have. The most recent Vandy athletics money I found was for 2015: NCC raised $11.1 million total from 6336 members. Actually our NCC membership numbers look good. So they get more $ and have less expenses (no million dollar coaches and no tuition costs for players). They have a new AD, (female fwiw) and she has been breaking fundraising records since she arrive 3 years ago. Let's hire her!
Facilities: the program highlights all the upgrades to facilities. Looks nice, but from photos, ours is on another level.
Franklin Field: What can I say. fabulous. wonderful. (they even brightened the medieval dungeon look of the concourse.) And thanks to the $3 program I bought, I can overwhelm you (as I did my husband, who didn't know any of this) with fun facts.
-oldest college stadium in nation. 1895
-first scoreboard 1895
-first permanent college horseshoe stadium 1903
- first 2-tiered stadium 1925
- first over 78,000 capacity 1925
- first neutral Army-Navy game 1899 (and most played at neutral site - 18)
- first game radio broadcast 1922
- first game telecast 1940
-first episode of ABC Wide World of Sports 1961
- over 100K attendance for Penn Relays
- Philadephia Eagles last NFL championship in 1960
- featured in movies; 'Invincible" and "Unbreakable"
- first ESPN gameday from FCS school 2002
- Penn has played more football games than anyone else in nation and has 7 national championships.
So when I suggested we play up the historical aspect of our stadium - first in the south - maybe I got way ahead of myself.
Bottom line: we don't have to sell out the stadium to have fun. I don't know why Nashville isn't supporting Vandy football more, but it's not ALL on us. Must increase marketing and tie in with Preds but after that it's on Nashville. Most games on TV now have obvious empty areas, we just take it too personally.
We can and should add some in game fun, rocking songs, streamers, etc. create some new fan traditions unlike anything the rest of the SEC has. Love the idea of the 3rd qtr stretch.
If Franklin Field can be in the movies, get Dudley in music videos.
Another reason why fundraising is so important is if we had gifts like Penn, tickets sale $ from our opponents wouldn't be so critical. We could get creative on how to keep opponents out. How about we remove x 'seats' per row since many of us are wider now. If the same VU fans show up, the opponents will have less seats to take. Or analyze seat ticket sales for the 'every other year' buyers. They would be buying for their year in Nashville and then selling the rest to the other visiting fan bases. Add a huge fee for 'reregistering' for nonconsecutive year sales to discourage the sale.
We need someone with amazing fundraising skills like the Penn AD. There is money out there, and Vandy is completely missing the boat.
If you are near the Philly area: go to a Penn football game in November if it lines up with a basketball game and see both Franklin Field and the Palestra 'cathedral of basketball'. please note the Palestra will be empty for OOC games. If it's the same deal as we had before, for $15 you can get a ticket to see both games plus a hot dog and coke.
sorry for another novel.
