Last Post

Well this is it. The final post of the blog. I recently finished my final reflection, so read that for a full recap of my project. In the end, I am very proud of my project and I think it came out very well. I have also finished my presentation for Thursday, and I look forward to explaining what I found to everyone. To cap of this final post, I have included the Georgia Tech article that I wrote last week. I had a very interesting conversation with GT Associate Athletic Director Rick Thorpe, and I got a lot of good material for my project.
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Last season, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets surprised a lot of people by having an incredibly successful season which lead to them playing in both the ACC championship game and the Orange Bowl. The Jackets were even able to knock off rival UGA with a surprising comeback.

Tech has a storied history in college football that includes four national titles, the most recent being in 1990. The team is also known for their use of the triple option, an offensive system that is not common in college football. Under current head coach paul johnson, the Jackets have been to three conference championship games, and won last years Orange Bowl against the favored Mississippi State Bulldogs.

I recently sat down with Georgia Tech Associate Athletic Director Rick Thorpe to discuss everything from how the Jackets work to have the football program make a profit, to the new college football playoff system.

The Gameday Experience

With 55,000 seats, Bobby Dodd stadium takes a lot of people to fill it up, one of the athletic department's challenges is to fill it up for every home game. Over the last couple of years the athletic department has implemented a number of strategies to sell more tickets. “We start with a small student population, and then have a small alumni base in the area as well,” Mr. Thorpe said. “So we have to find ways to engage the surrounding community and find ways to bring them to the games.”

One of the biggest ways to get the community to come to the games is by winning, and that's exactly what Tech has done the last couple of seasons. However fan’s experiences at those games matters a lot to Mr. Thorpe and the rest of the athletic department. “We, as an athletic department, have been trying to improve the game day experience for our fans,” Mr. Thorpe said.

Creating a perfect game day atmosphere is critical to the fans having a good experience. “Making sure their parking experience was good, and making sure they have places to tailgate are key,” Mr. Thorpe said. “We also will have a festival called recfest, where the band will play, there will be inflatables for kids, and many other activities.”

The athletic department also created a gameday app, where fans can do anything from getting live statistics from the game, to upgrading their seats in the middle of the game so they can get a better view. “So we are finding ways to customize fan’s experience because every fan wants a different experience,” Mr. Thorpe said. “It’s important for everyone to have a good experience so that fans come back regardless of the outcome of the game.”

Sponsorships

Corporate sponsorships are critical for a team like Tech. Each year, these sponsorships deliver millions of dollars to the athletic department to help fund all sports programs. “There is also the opportunity of promotional stuff with our sponsor so that we can build our brand in the community,” Mr. Thorpe said. “For example, Coca Cola is one of our major sponsors. So you might see a Coca Cola display in a grocery store that would show GT football, or basketball.”

Presenting their brand in the community and make people aware of the upcoming season or upcoming opponent is major benefit for the school, but sponsorships can also benefit the student athletes. “Some of our corporate partners end up hiring our student athletes after they graduate from Tech,” Mr. Thorpe said. “So it helps us provide our student athletes with an opportunity to be gainfully employed after school.”

The Money

When people hear about some of the major TV contracts schools are signing, and they look at the thousands in attendance at the games, they tend to assume that every school who has a football team is able to turn a huge profit. This is not the case as usually only the top twenty or so teams turn a profit annually.

Georgia Tech’s football program runs on a $72 million budget. While this may sound like a lot, the Texas Longhorns football program was valued at $131 million last year. A lot goes into funding a football program. “When you have every single team funding scholarships, and every single team traveling and staying in hotels, those cost don't go down,” Mr. Thorpe said. “They only ever go up.”

Generally speaking, schools that fully find scholarships for their student athletes end up in the “red”,  not in the “black”. In the red means you are not making a profit, the black means you are.

Most schools rely on getting conference money when trying to make a profit in addition to all the other pieces that provide revenue like ticket sales and sponsorships. “In your big five conferences, those have substantial television agreements and bowl alignments, which collectively provide dollars back to those conferences,” Mr. Thorpe said. “So if that money goes to the ACC, then the ACC distributes that money to the ACC conference members.”

In the NCAA basketball tournament which is commonly referred to as “March Madness,” the ACC basketball powerhouse Duke Blue Devils won the title. While Tech was not even in the tournament, they still benefited. “For each round that an ACC team goes in the tournament, thats a quarter million dollars going into the ACC,” Mr. Thorpe said. “So we all want to root for the teams in our conference to go far.”

The “power five” conference schools are usually the ones in the top twenty or so teams that make a profit. Those power five schools are usually the ones that have substantial television agreements and bowl alliances, which in the end help them profit a lot more than those teams who are not in the power five.

So with all that said, Mr. Thorpe says that a strong majority of the schools in the top five conferences have the best opportunity to end up in the black in terms of profit. However, “there is no guarantee that they will do that, because you have to have other sting sources of revenue which are ticket sales, sponsorships, donations, university funding for the programs,” he said.

“We’re talking about play-offs!?”

Last season, for the first time, the FBS postseason instituted a four team play-off consisting of teams selected by a committee who would all play for the national championships. Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, and Florida State all played to win it all.

Fans had been clamoring for years for a playoff to happen, and many were very pleased with the playoffs initial run. Some fans liked it so much that now they want eight teams. Some teams, like Baylor and TCU who felt they were cheated in last years selection, agree. Every other division of football other than division one FBS uses a full-playoff system instead of bowl games.

While Mr. Thorpe thought that the playoff system was a necessary addition, he does not think it should be expanded anytime soon. “I thought it went over incredibly well the first year,” he said. “I wouldn't expand it anytime soon because you will always have those teams just on the outside who will argue that they should have been in like TCU and Baylor this year.”

Mr. Thorpe is also a big fan of the bowl game system and that it means to college football. “We have so many bowl games that mean so much to our sport,” he said. “So if you keep adding playoff spots, then the importance of bowl games will keep getting lowered and you don't want to do that because that is part of the pageantry of collegiate athletics.”

The new playoff system not only created excitement among the fans of college football, but also brought lots of new attention to the sport. “I liked it because it brought so much interest in our game,” he said. “However there was much more media coverage on only those top few teams, which means that there was far less exposure for those other teams like us.”

Looking Ahead

The Yellow Jackets open up next season on September third against the Alcorn State Braves at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Justin Thomas, the Jackets quarterback and key contributor last year, will return for his junior season.

While the Jackets are lucky to have Thomas back, they will face the challenge of replacing other key players from last year like Synjyn Days, Zach Laskey, and DeAndre Smelter.  

The team will look to keep their performance on the field up, while the athletic department will keep trying to make fans game day experience as good as it can be. “Hopefully our fans have a really good time with family and friends and want to come back for another game,” Mr. Thorpe said. “We want them to want to come back regardless of the outcome of the game.

Day 24

Today I wrote the entire Georgia Tech article because I don't have a work period tomorrow. The article ended up being three pages in length. I will probably do a lttile bit of editing on it during my free period tomorrow if I have time. I forgot to say earlier that I finished the Berry article, so ill post that now. Over the weekend, I need to work on my presentation for next Thursday.
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In 2013, Berry College, a division three school located in Rome, Georgia, played their inaugural season of football. As a division three school, Berry faces the challenge of recruiting without being able to offer scholarships. Another challenge they faces is competing for a playoff spot against 252 other division three teams. I recently talked to Berry Football Coach Tony Kuczewski about these challenges and more.

Coach Kuczewski was not stranger to start-up programs, which made him an ideal candidate for Berry. At LaGrange College, another division three school, Kuczewski served as the team's Defensive Coordinator. “I got a front row seat on how to start a D3 college program,” he said. “That experience was invaluable. You understand the steps it takes to start a successful program.”

Recruiting for a start-up program is a challenge in and of itself. Recruiting for a division three start-up program just adds to the challenge. Due to NCAA rules, division three teams can not offer athletic scholarships, but can give academic scholarships to those who qualify. “It encourages us to find the best and the brightest academically because they get the academic scholarships,” Coach Kuczewski said. “Berry is an challenging school academically, and we  don't recruit anyone who doesn't fit Berry’s academic profile.

The coaching staff focus’ heavily on the south, particularly in Georgia for recruiting talent. “The academic profile here leads us to a lot of private schools,” Coach Kuczewski said. “Cobb [county] and North Fulton are big recruiting areas for us. We've also looked around Jacksonville, Nashville, and Birmingham.”

Coach Kuczewski said his recruiting network that he had gotten from previous coaching jobs, along with Berry’s strong academic reputation helped them overcome the recruiting challenges. He also explained what made players “fit” in Berry’s system. “We ask our recruits what is most important to them,” he said. “If guys really value their experience here, then those are the guys that will fit best in our program.”

In division three, the national champion is determined by a 32-team playoff system. Twenty-four of the spots are reserved for the winners of each conference. “I like our model because if you win your conference then you go to the playoffs for a chance to win it all,” Coach Kuczewski said.

Recently, division one teams changed their post-season system to look more like division three’s. “I think they're getting closer to our system,” Coach Kuczewski said. “What they've gone to now is better than what they had. I think an eight team playoff would be better.”

With 253 division three schools, Coach Kuczewski thinks there is an even a wider disparity between division three teams than division one teams because theres so many more factors. “It [division three] brings more academics into it than just athletic stuff like stadiums and facilities,” he said. “Berry's a hard school and not everyone can get into it.”

Helping the players off the field is one of Coach Kuczewski biggest goals. “You have to place a priority on having a good relationship with your players,” he said. “You try to hire a staff that values relationships with players.”

The restrictions on offseason contact with players in division three is much greater in division one. Coach Kuczewski said the restrictions on offseason contact with players in division three  is much greater in division one. That makes keeping track of the players during the offseason that much more important.

The Berry staff takes several precautions to make sure they keep up with their players in the offseason. A team meeting is held every week during the offseason. Each player has an academic coach who is also a football coach and sometimes is their position coach.  The players also see the strength and conditioning coach just about every day as they do offseason workouts.

Coach Kuczewski said that while coaching his players on the field is definitely important, it is also important to coach them off the field as well. “We help them with their academics, their nutrition, and help them to find jobs,” he said. “Some guys make mistakes and educating them through those choices is hard. Helping the players is the biggest challenge but just the biggest reward.”

The Vikings open their season this fall against Maryville College in Tennessee, followed by their home opener against LaGrange College, where Coach Kuczewski used to coach. Until then, the coach will continue to try and keep his team together and prepare for a successful third season.

Day 23

Toda I transcribed the entire Georgia Tech article, which was no easy task. Our interview lasted about thirty minutes, but unfortunately I cannot type as fast as people speak so I had to pause and play some things back a few times. Misquoting someone if one of the biggest mistakes a journalist can make, so it was very necessary to avoid all that. Tomorrow I will start wring the actual article and will have it all wrapped up by Friday, which is the last day for my Senior Project.

Day 22

Yesterday I did not have a work period for my project. I was still able to do an hour of reading. Today my foal is to get most of the GT interview transcribed so I can start writing the article. I am also almost finished with reading "The System."

Reading Notes
-Alabama makes about $90 million in revenue, this helps them build their top of the line facilities
-Alabama's football expenses per year are around $37 million
-Alabama has the oat expensive coaching staff in the country
-Alabama's total cost are about $10 million more than rial Auburn
-In 2012, there were 93 season ending knee injuries, making it the most common injury
-Also in 2012, the SEC lead the nation in season ending injuries with 46

Day 21

Today I worked a lot on the Berry article, and I am very close to wrapping that up. I also read some more of "The System," and met with Mr. Randolph to discuss my plans for the week. Tomorrow I do not have any project work periods, but I will probably get some work done in my free period. I have a lot to transcribe from the Georgia Tech interview. I know my blog post have gotten shorter, but i've been letting my articles do most of the talking. I hope you all are enjoying them. I will add some of my reading notes tomorrow if I can The most recent chapters I read are about the process of searching for a new head coach, walk-on players, and a profile on Nick Saban, Alabama's Head Coach.

Weekend (Day 19-20)

Over the weekend I finished the Wofford Article, and received permission to post it online. I also read some more of "The System," and started on the Berry Article. This will be a very busy and important week for my project, as I have to finish the Berry and Georgia Tech articles, as well as prepare a defense for my project, and a presentation to present to my teachers and classmates. I hope everyone enjoys my Wofford article, which covered lots of different parts of the Wofford program from recruiting to sport popularity statistics. Special thanks to Brent Williamson from Wofford for helping to make it happen.
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The Wofford Terriers are a small division one FCS school located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, about thirty minutes north of Greenville. The school, which is home to just over 2,000 students, has become more well known for its basketball team, who recently made the NCAA tournament as a twelve seed and almost upset fifth seeded Arkansas.

The Terriers also play some football on Saturdays in the fall, playing in a stadium that can seat 13,000. The program has been around for a long time, as their inaugural season was in 1889. Furman, the school's biggest rival, is located just 30 minutes away in Greenville.

Despite their storied history, the team has been struggling to get wins recently.  After five appearances in the FCS playoffs in six seasons, the Terriers did not made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2006. “Getting back to the playoffs is one of the biggest challenges are team has faced,” said Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations Brent Williamson. “We had a very young team in 2014, but will have 20 of 22 starters returning for the 2015 season as we hope to return to the playoffs.”

With the current mediocrity of the football program came the rise of the basketball program who has made the NCAA tournament three times in the last five years. They also made an appearance in the CBI in 2012. “In the past couple of years, football has been passed by our men’s basketball program in terms of popularity,” Mr. Williamson said. “We have won the Southern Conference Championship in 4 of the last 6 years and advanced to the NCAA Tournament, which has been great exposure for the school.”

However, attendance for home football games (last year, 5 for 38,820) is still greater than home basketball games (last year, 14 for 33,357).

Even with footballs higher attendance numbers, basketball has drawn more attention to the school as a whole. “In the past several years, we have discovered that the impact of reaching the NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball does more in terms of recognition for the school than any other sport could,” Mr. Williamson said. “While football does draw attention to the school, nothing can compare to the numbers we draw for basketball (website visits, media mentions, etc.)”

There is a big spread between the Power 5 conferences and the mid-major conferences in football that Mr. Williamson says does not exist in basketball. “The differences between the FCS and FBS schools is quite large in terms of budgets and scholarships provided,” Mr. Williamson said. “In basketball, all schools at the Division I level have the same scholarship numbers, which makes a much more level playing field.”

Recruiting is also different on this FCS level with there being less resources and scholarships at FCS schools. For that reason, schools like Wofford usually don’t try to compete with the bigger FBS schools in recruiting. “The schools we generally compete with are also FCS schools, such as Furman, Mercer, and The Citadel,” Mr. Williamson said. “We also recruit with schools such as Army and Navy, as our academic standards play a big role in the type of player we can recruit.”

Like most schools, Wofford does not make a profit from football. “Football costs us far more than it bring in from revenue,” Mr. Williamson said. “While it still is our largest revenue sport (from ticket sales, sponsorships, guarantee games, etc.), men’s basketball is not too far behind.” Interestingly enough,  no sports at Wofford make a profit.

Mr. Williamson said that revenue is important in terms of competing with other schools, but “While revenue is important, the way the economics work we will never make a profit from athletics,” he said. “It is important when competing with other schools, but only in the ability to provide for student-athletes and their experience.”

In the end, fans will always want to see a winning team regardless of the fan “experience” at the game. “You can run all the promos, specials, gimmicks, that you want, but people really want to see a winning team,” Mr. Williamson said.

Getting a winning team and making it back to the play-offs is a challenge that the Terriers will look to solve in the near future. The team opens up against nearby division one powerhouse Clemson and also plays the FBS level Idaho Vandals before going into conference play.

Day 18

Today I had a good interview at Georgia Tech with Associate Athletic Director Rick Thorpe. It was cool to see there stadium right next to their offices on campus. We talked a lot about how athletic departments make money as well as how Tech football impacts the community, and also a little bit about the new playoff system. I was also able to make good progress on the Wofford Article. Next week is the last week of my project, and I plan on finishing the Tech, Wofford, and Berry Articles.

Day 17

Today I read more from "The System," and started writing the Wofford article based off of the responses their Media Relations Director emailed me. Tomorrow I go down to Georgia Tech's athletic offices for an interview with an Assistant AD. That should be a very interesting interview. It will probably be my last interview for this project as well, at least the last face-to-face one. I still have to finish the Wofford article, along with the Berry article, plus now the Georgia Tech one. That should be enough to keep me busy through next week, which is the last week of the project.

Day 16

Today I had no Senior project work periods but still did an interview with Berry College's head football coach Tony Kunczewski. The interview went very well and it was interesting to hear a coaches perspective on not just the sport but also on what its like recruiting for a division three program who is not allowed to offer athletic scholarships. Life for a division three school is defiantly different from life at a division one school. I still hope to do an interview at Georgia Tech on Friday but still have not heard back from them. If that does not work out then I will just work on the Berry article. Wofford also sent me responses to their questions so I can eventually write an article on them to.

Day 15

Today I finished the Kennesaw State article which ended up being much shorter than the GSU article. I am still trying to coordinate and time to speak with the Berry coach, and Wofford has not responded to my email yet. I got some good news today as Georgia Tech expressed interest in helping with my project today. I want to try and meet with them on Friday. I might have to play a little bit of the waiting game as I try to get in touch with these schools. In the meantime I will continue to read "The System."
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Kennesaw State University is the largest school in the state of Georgia. It is now making itself like many other large schools and is getting a football program. As a member of the Big South conference, the Owls will play their inaugural game September 3rd vs. East Tennessee State, a team who is resurrecting its football program after it discontinued in 2003.

The program was built relatively fast. After a student survey revealed that 77% of students would approve of having a football program, the athletics administration, along with school President Dan Papp, started raising funds, and eventually hired coach Brian Bohannon.

The team also recently had its inaugural spring game where 3,800 fans turned out. This was almost as important as the teams performance on the field. Coach Bohannon was quoted in a AJC article saying they wanted to “make the conditions as game-like as possible.” The high number of fans was also important to the school as they try to sell tickets for this upcoming season.

I was able to conduct an interview with KSU Associate Athletic Director Scott Whitlock through email. Mr. Whitlock says he thinks football will definitely have a positive impact on the schools image. “The presence of college football, in most cases, helps a college/university be seen (by the public) as being more complete or more dynamic,” he said. “If that theory holds true, then football should have a positive effect on KSU's image.”

In my last article about Georgia State’s football program, sources close to the program mentioned that one of the main goals in starting a football team was to raise the profile of the school nationally and to become more well known. It is the same case at KSU. “In our geographic region college football is extremely important,” Mr. Whitlock said. “It is a sport that is covered by the media both locally and nationally. The sport will expand a Kennesaw State's brand.”

The “brand” that is Kennesaw State football is run like a business according to Mr. Whitlock. “A positive revenue flow is extremely important to any successful business, and operating a

collegiate football program is a business,” he said.

Like any business, the program needs to make money, especially when you have to pay millions for new facilities, fulfilling scholarships, and team travel. Making money for the program can be achieved by everything from ticket sales to donations to playing in guarantee games.

Kennesaw will not have to play in a guarantee game until the 2018 season, so they will certainly be relying heavily on donations, ticket sales, and sponsorships and advertising.

There are many challenges to starting up a football program including cost. “Theres always unexpected challenges like finding good opponents to what do you do if you lose and people stop showing up,” said Doug Roberson, who covers the temam for the AJC. “They solved the problem of getting in a conference which is good. They also have some sponsorships in place which is good.”

The Owls also will have many good things going for them as they enter into their first season including not having to build a stadium specifically for football and simply being in the state of Georgia. “You have to add in the game day expense of running the games but since they already have experience doing that in soccer games which is good,” Doug said.

Kennesaw is surprisingly one of only two FCS teams in the state of Georgia as Georgia Southern, who used to be in the FCS transitioned to FBS play last season. “Theres more than enough talent to recruit from in Georgia,” Doug said. “There one of just a few FCS teams to have to compete with recruiting wise in the state of Georgia.”

Doug said that KSU was similar to Georgia State in terms of their motives for starting a football team and in terms of where most of their fanbase lives. “To get the name of the school out there is really the motive for any school to start a football program,” Doug said. “A lot of both schools alumni live near campus. The difference is that KSU’s radius does not have nearly as many attractions to offer as alternatives to going to the game as Georgia State does being downtown.”

KSU plays a fairly easily schedule in its first year as they adjust to running on a college football schedule. After ETSU they have lots of home games including one against Shorter College, who is also in Georgia.

Only time will tell if KSU is able to accomplish what they set out to do by creating a football program, and with the largest student population in the state of Georgia, expectations will be high among the thousands of eager students. Especially among those students whose tuition was raised in order to put the team together.

Day 14

Today was a good day as I scheduled two interviews tomorrow with AJC writer Doug Roberson and Berry College football coach Tony Kunczekwi. It should be interesting to get a coaches perspective on this project. I cannot proceed with the Kennesaw article without another interview so i'm glad that i'm getting it done tomorrow. I will miss most of my period four interview as I will be at a job interview. To counteract this, I plan on working during my free period tomorrow morning. The biggest struggle i've had so far doing this project is having athletic department officials not contacting me back after they show interest in the project. It is frustrating because I have tot plan my work periods to what they may or may not be able to do. Another challenge is the lack of interest to do interviews face to face, which I believe is the best and most effective way to conduct an interview. Shoutout to GSU for always responding and being open to a face-to-face interview. Overall though I think the project is going well and has kept me busy.

Weekend Work (Days 11-13)

It was a G-day on Friday so I did not have any class periods to work on the project. However I did get a good amount of work done on sunday. I read two more chapters of "The System," which gave interesting insight to what it takes to take over a struggling program (given through the eyes of BYU's Bronco Medenhall), as well as a chapter on program "boosters." The boosters article was particularly interesting because it specifically talked about how much money it takes for a program to be successful and chronicled the donation practices of Oklahoma State's biggest booster, T. Boone Pickens (who now has a stadium named after him). Also over the weekend, I created some questions for Wofford's athletic department as they requested I email them questions instead of doing an actual interview.

Reading Notes
-In the 1980's SMU received a one year ban from competition due to improper giving by boosters
-The book classifies boosters into four category (Power Brokers, Jock Sniffers, Builders, and Turbo Boosters)
-T. Boone Pickens is an example of a "Turbo Booster"
-Pickens realized "The best facilities get the best talent"
- OSU football was very bad until Pickens started donating; they then proceeded to the top of the conference
-Pickens was largely responsible for the hiring of OSU athletic director Mike Holder who was formally the golf coach at OSU
-student enrollment jumped 44% in the four years following OSU's new stadium being built
-One OSU dean said he believed that if giving to athletics increases than giving to academics will increase as well
-After Pickens made his record $165 million donation, many others started giving to OSU athletics as well

Day 10

Well I finally finished my first article on the Georgia State football program, and I think it came out really well. In total it's five pages and covers a wide range of topics that affect not just GSU, but also college football as a whole. I can't that Mr. Doung Justice and Mr. Doug Roberson enough because I defiantly could not have gotten such an in deptha article without their input. In other news, I started working on the Kennesaw State article today and scheduled another interview with Mr. Roberson for next Tuesday to talk about KSU football. I also got Wofford to join my project, so look for an article involving them in the future. I was very excited to get that third school today. So without further adiu, I present to you my first article. (Please excuse the text color change, I could not fix it)

Players celebrate after a victory over Abilene Christian

Credit: http://www.scoreatl.com/stories/gsu-football-snaps-16-game-losing-streak/

On April 17th 2008, Georgia State University launched it’s football program. The team signed their first recruiting class in 2009, and had their inaugural season in 2010. The team had a decently successful first year as they finished 6-6 under Head Coach Bill Curry who was a coach with a very successful coaching resume.

As the teams schedule grew harder, the team suffered from the inevitable growing pains that come with starting a team which included suspensions, injuries, and a punter starting at quarterback to start the 2011 season. The Panthers finished 3-8 that second season followed up by an abysmal 1-11 record and the retirement of Head Coach Bill Curry.

To replace Curry, GSU hired Trent Miles, who was formerly the coach at Indiana State University. The team has struggled under Miles the past two seasons as the team has compiled a 1-24 record. The team is facing the challenge of adjusting to life as a Division I FBS school, and transitioning to the Sun Belt Conference, which they will be playing their second season in next year.

I recently sat down with Georgia State Associate Athletic Director Doug Justice and AJC beat writer Doug Robertson to discuss the current state of the GSU football, as well as many other issues surrounding college football including financial issues and how teams interact with their surrounding community and fans.

Put us on the map

The first thing I talked to Mr. Justice about was how football puts a school on the map. Sports have long been know to get schools recognized, especially smaller, little known local schools that can suddenly be thrown onto the map by something like an upset in a march madness basketball game, something GSU now knows very well.

Mr. Justice spoke about how historically most large institutions have had a football team, and how those teams have been something that unites entire campuses. “I think there is an aspect of americana that is football like friday night lights or tailgating on saturday then going to the games,” he said. “The pageantry of going to a football game is always great, and there is an aspect of trying to create that here with just starting football.”

When talking with Mr. Robertson, we discussed the goals GSU had when starting their program. One of those goals was putting the school on the map. “One of the things that the school made a point of is that it would raise the schools profile regionally and nationally,” Mr. robertson said. “Playing in different places around the country has gained them notoriety, so I think they have been accomplishing that goal so far.”

Using football to put a university on the map can mean putting a university back on the map for students and alumni. “We ask ourselves how do we create the environment to make people want to come down here?” Mr. Justice said. “We are able to get people to come back to campus for basketball game from time to time, but there is something special about being able to go outside on a beautiful saturday afternoon and spend all day tailgating, getting back with friends, and connecting with old friends.”

If football can put a school on the map, then that means it can also affect the schools image. The notoriety gained from a big win can generate buzz on twitter and social media. It can also lead to people looking up the school on Wikipedia, or visiting their website.

On the heels of discussing how schools can gain this notoriety, I ask Mr Justice if he thought there was a relation to the schools admissions. Does a team doing well increase the applicant pool? The answer is yes, it does. “ I worked at Appalachian State when they beat Michigan in football in 2007,” Mr. Justice said. The school had a record in applications after that. The quality of applicants also increased a bit too. As Mr. Justice put it, “It was using athletics as an icebreaker of sorts to get people to come to the school.”

Show me the money

The one thing a team needs more than wins and top-notch recruits is money. Generally in college football, only the top 25 or so teams are able to turn a profit. For GSU, only about 10% of their total athletic revenue came from football.

Much of a teams ability to keep the money flowing comes from donations, especially for teams that are unable to make a profit off football. “Our athletic club is constantly trying to get people to contribute for large projects like the new weight room at the practice facility,” Mr. Justice said. “We also are trying to offset our cost of providing scholarships.”

There are many cost that go along with paying for one player. When GSU jumped from FCS to FBS, so did their number of scholarships. Instead of paying for 63 players, they began paying for 85. “We find out things like, how much does it cost to outfit a player, or how much do that players books cost,” Mr. Justice said. “Housing is also something that we have to pay for which is pretty expensive living in downtown Atlanta.”

Another potential cost that looms on the horizon is the possibility of having to pay for a new stadium. Mr. Justice said that while the school dreams of a smaller, more intimate playing facility, they know it comes with a big cost. “There is definitely a desire to have something more intimate,” Mr. Justice said. “However we have to get to a point where we’re somewhat successful, we can't just throw money out there. With the Braves moving up north, maybe we could end up using that space, but we also have to decide Do we want to spend money on that?”

One of the main ways a team that is just starting up like GSU can make money is by playing in “guarantee games.” A guarantee game is a game where a large “power five conference” school will pay a smaller, non power five school to come play them at their stadium and likely get beat by a ton.

GSU has played in a couple guarantee games, most notably against Tennessee in 2012, and against Clemson this past season. Mr. Justice says there are many positives to playing in those games. “For our team to play in from of 100k people, its an experience for them,” he said. “You remember those experiences many years from now.”

He also sees these games as a learning opportunity for the team and athletic department. “When you look at what some of the bigger schools have, you can look at that and say how do we do something like this?” he said. “So there is the opportunity to learn from these games as well.”

However the biggest pro is still the payout that comes with playing in the game. “I think its a win if you can drive to a game and get paid 900k to play and say it cost 100k for travel and team amenities, because theres the ability to profit off of that,” Mr. Justice said. “That guarantee game kind of offsets the cost of travel for other sports too, because the money we make from that game goes into the athletic budget. It helps with other teams that aren’t making money.”

GSU does guarantee game’s in baseball, softball, and other sports as well. Some games will offer to pay for teams meals or hotel rooms, which is another sort of guarantee. However there are still cons, as Mr. Justice explained, “ The cons are that you are playing a program that has more resources and talent than you,” he said. “Injuries are also always a concern.”

For that reason Mr. Justice said that GSU usually like to only play in one guarantee game each year. “You could lose a key player and then not have the depth to replace that player like the bigger teams have, which can affect you in conference play which are games you need to win,” Mr. Justice said. “If you go into conference play with already two losses, then lose maybe three or four conference games, than you’re already at six losses. You don't want to stack the deck against yourself.”

Life as a “mid major.”

The SEC, ACC, Big 10, Pac-12, and Big 12 have been known throughout history as the “power-five” conferences. Everyone else has fallen into the category of being a “non-power five” team. GSU is a non-power five team that plays in the Sun Belt Conference. The difference between the power five and non power five is largely financial. “You know you have the Texas’ and teams like that who have a 60 million dollar budget, then you have everyone else,” Mr. Justice said.

Lots of times there can be a large disparity just between teams in the power five, and even between teams in same conference. “You know from say Wake Forest to Alabama, there's a disparity of maybe 20 million dollars and thats a lot of money when you’re trying to compete,” Mr. Justice said. “You look at us in our own conference, we’re better off than some teams in our own conferences, so there disparity even between our own conference.”

Another non-power five team was the University of Alabama-Birmingham Blazers. The Blazers made national news when the school announced it would be shutting down its football program due to a lack of funds to pay for the team. This decision was met with angry backlash from fans, students, and donors who said they had not even been contacted about helping save the team.

I spoke with both Mr. Justice and Mr. Robertson about this event, and if they thought it could potentially be a situation that GSU would have to face. Both could not see a scenario in the near future where something like that would happen. “President Becker is very supportive of of our athletic association, very supportive of football. He wants to make football work, which is huge,” Mr. Justice said. “I think we have some growing pains, I think we have to continue to grow in a way that shows we are serious about football, but don't go crazy spending.”

Mr. Robertson said he thought it would take a major change in either the school or athletic administration before GSU shut football down, which confirmed Mr. Justice’s point about having a supportive administration. It would take a lot,” Mr. Robertson said. “They would have to only win like one game a year, and I think there would have to be a change in leadership for that to happen.”

The road ahead

GSU coach Trent Miles has a tough task ahead

Credit: http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/college/georgia-state-fills-coaching-staff/nkPNb/

GSU is a young program that faces many challenges ahead. In order to win games, GSU needs to recruit good players, which can be impacted by the strength of the facilities and the amount of fans the school gets at their games.

Mr. Robertson sees facilities as one of the biggest challenges facing GSU football. Mr. Justice did mention that having nice facilities is helpful in recruiting, and they are currently looking to upgrade their facilities by building a new strength center adjacent to their practice fields. The facility is scheduled to open this fall, but they have not even broken ground yet.

According to a recent article written by Mr. Robertson, the university recently selected a firm to build this new facility. Now they need to agree on a price with the firm.

The Georgia Dome as the home field for the Panthers was another area where Mr. Robertson expressed concern. “The dome is nice when you get 30-40k people in it, but they obviously don't get that,” he said. “They will probably play in the new Falcons stadium for the first couple seasons it opens after the dome closes, which might help them attendance wise because they could get walk-in traffic of people who just want to see the new the new stadium without having to pay for Falcons tickets.”

Getting fans to come to the games is another challenge the team and the athletic department face. Last season, GSU’’s attendance at football games was ranked 119th out of the 129 FBS teams. “They didn't play a lot of quality teams at first so people didn’t go to games because of that,” Mr. Robertson said. “Now that they're in a league that people know about, the Sun Belt, which being in helps, but the results have still just been so poor that people are just not encouraged to come to the games.”

While the team has underperformed the last few seasons, they are still young, and early reports from their spring practices indicate significant improvement from last season. Mr. Justice believes that the team improving will go along well with the already exciting game day atmosphere they already have. “Its a good game day experience and we want people to come experience that,” he said. “We want to engage the whole downtown community even if you are not a GSU fan. I think we priced in a way that games are not that expensive to come to, and you're going to have a good seat”

Next season GSU opens up against the Charlotte 49ers, who are embarking on their first season as an FBS school, a situation the Panthers know all too well. They will travel out to Oregon to play in another guarantee game midway through the season, before wrapping up the season with rival Georgia Southern.

Until then, the team will try to continue to improve and continue their quest to truly become “Atlanta’s team.”

Day 9

Today was a productive day as I came very close to finishing the GSU article. All that is left is a closing along with some pictures. I will probably start the Kennesaw State article tomorrow. My search for a third school is ongoing, but got some good news today as Mr. Jewell said he would help me get in touch with someone in the Berry College athletic office, while Mr. Franks put me in touch with someone at Georgia Tech. Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon. I will continue to read "The System," and will share my notes on the blog. I met with Mr. Randolph today, and we discussed my plans for the rest of the week. My GSU article stands at nine pages. I also saw that my blog has gotten 340 page views, so i'm glad people are interested in my project.

Reading notes
-The Director of Football Operations has one of the toughest and most important jobs in college football arranging everything from team travel to summer schedules.
-A program called Teamworks, notably used by the University of Texas that helps a program keep track of all its personal was estimated to save programs who use it more than 8,800 man hours, or around $224,000.
-There was a chapter on the firing of Jim Tressel at Ohio State and the investigation into his program that preceded it
-One of the repercussions of the NCAA's investigation was that OSU had to forfeit $380,000 in revenue.
-The entire scandal at OSU involving Tressel, former QB Terelle Pryor, and other top players revived around one man, a tattoo parlor owner who was also a suspected drug dealer (and happened to be a huge OSU fan)

Day 8

Today was a very successful day for the project, as I was able to get a lot accomplished. I started the Georgia State article, and got two full pages written, which took a lot of work as I had to try a few different things in laying out the story so that it made sense. I started working on the article after I had finished transcribing the last few quotes from the Doug Justice interview. While working on the article, I read an email I had received from Kennesaw State Sports Information Director Alvin Barba whom I have been working with to try and get an interview set up with someone over there. Mr. Barba informed me that they would not be able to do an interview, but that Associate Athletic Director Scott Whitlock would respond to my questions via email. I have received a few responses from him and am awaiting more. After I finish the GSU article which will hopefully be tomorrow, I will get started on the Kennesaw State article. A few people have told me they would like to see the transcript from my interview with Mr. Justice, so I have decided to publish a small portion of it here. I hope you all enjoy it. Many of his quotes will be used in my article as well, which is why the entire interview is not published.

Interview with Doug Justice, Associate Athletic Director, Georgia State University

How does a team affect financial contributions to a school? 
Our scholarship number is around $4 million dollars. Our athletic club is constantly trying to get people to contribute for large projects like the new weight room at the practice facility. We also want to offset cost of scholarships. We are now allowed to provide snacks to the athletes so now we need money for that. We’re going on a sling tour next week to try and raise funds. We find out things like, hope much os it to outfit a player, or how much do that players books cost. Housing is also something that we have to pay for which is pretty expensive living in downtown Atlanta.

How does college football affect a schools image? Is there a relation to admissions?
I think there an aspect of that. I think ams people might look us up on wikipedia to find out who we are and where we are. Some might check out our twitter handle which could give us some new followers and fans. I think that when some people read about our school they might see that we have lots of good academic programs in law in nursing and that we have an urban campus, which might appeal to some people. I was at Appalachian State when they beat Michigan in football, and they had a record in applications after that. The quality of applicants also increased a bit too. It was using athletics as an icebreaker of sorts to get people to come.

How much of departments revenue is based on football? 
A little less than 10% of revenue comes from football this year.

Does updating facilities help revenue/team performance?
I think theres two things. I think if you have better facilities you might be able to recruit better athletes. we like to say kids come for the education, but people want nice stuff. So if you have nice facilities than thats more intriguing to an athlete. I think it might be able to recruit better talent. I also think coaching has a hand in that because good coaches and good people keep the athletes around. People want to play for a good coach. I think that you can do trade-offs financially like taking a bus instead of a plane to games in order to help put aside money for facility upgrades. 

Do you think there are football mid majors? Are you one?
I would say power five and then the other five conferences. With football we’re just starting, so we’re in the non-power five. I think within the non-power five there are a few teams that are really really good, and then there are a few that are like us and just starting and trying to get to that point here were competitive. I would say the finacetials of a mid-major program are mid-tier. You know you have the Texas’ band teams like that who have a 60 million dollar budget, then you have everyone else. I hate tot use the term lower tier, because its all so heavily based on finacetials. The non power five are trying to do a lot with a little money. In the power five, you are trying to do a lot with a lot. There even disparity among the power five. You know from say Wake Forest to Alabama, theres a disparity of maybe 20 million dollars and thats a lot of money when you’re trying to compete. You look at us in our own conference, we’re better off than some teams in our own conferences, so there disparity even between our own conference.

Playing in the dome? Turner field?
Our contact with the dome is for two more years until the stadium gets built. We alas have the ability to play in the new stadium once it gets built. The Dome is too big, I think you could fit an airplane in it. Do we want to create our own space? Yeah, What will that look like? We don’t know because we’re landlocked downtown. So theres defiantly a desire to have something more intimate. However we have to get to a point where we’re somewhat successful, we cant just throw money out there. With the Braves moving up north, maybe we could end up using that space, but we also have to decide Do we want to spend money on that?

Easter Break (Days 4-7)

We did not have school Friday-Monday because of Easter break. I also did not have either of my work periods on Thursday because it was a G day. Over break, I did some reading from "The System," where there was a particularly interesting chapter about Michigan Football, who recorded the second highest profit of any FBS school last year. Another interesting stat was that only 22 FBS teams recorded a profit on football last year. The chapter started with the Wolverines 2012 loss to Alabama, a game which they were paid $10 million to play in at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. The chapter has numerous quotes from now former Michigan Athletic director Dave Brandon who discussed the financial benefits to playing in that game, as well as what the athletic department's marketing team is doing to bring more fans to the games and therefore increase revenue. The other chapters I read focused on non-financial issues like athlete benefits and a short profile on Washington State coach Mike Leach and his long road to being a head coach. This week in my project I plan on finishing up the GSU article, and staring the Kennesaw State one. I am continuing my hunt to find a third school to profile. The communication has been lacking from several of the schools that I have contacted, but I remain optimistic that I will lock up a third interview soon. I also sent email to more school representatives over break in hopes of accomplishing this goal.

Some notes I took on the reading
-only 22 teams recorded a profit on football
-former athletic director Dave Brandon was also once the chairman and CEO of Domino's
-Mike Leach's first coaching job was in Division II where he earned paycheck of $3,000, a far less amount than the millions he earned as a Division I coach
-The 2012 game of Michigan vs. Alabama in Dallas paid $10 million to each school
-When this book was written, the University of Texas recorded the highest profit of any Division I school at $76 million, with a revenue of $136 million. Michigan was second with a profit that was around $20 million less than Texas

Day 3

Today I had another good interview, this time with AJC sports writer Doug Robertson. Doug covers Georgia State and Kennesaw State football for the AJC. I wanted to talk with him because I thought he could give an ousters perspective on the current state of the program. His responses to my questions were actually very similar to the responses I got from talking to Doug Justice yesterday. I talked to Doug about why he thought GSU got a football team and if he thinks their goals have been met so far. I also ask him what he thought the biggest challenges facing the program were and how GSU might solve them. He talked a lot about how the teams poor performance in the last few seasons has hurt them attendance wise, and talked about their future options for a new stadium. After I finished that interview, I had to transcribe it which took some time. I then had to get in touch with some other people who are helping with my project. After lunch, I spent my entire time transcribing yesterdays interview which was recorded. I hope to have that process finished up by tomorrow. Tomorrow I plan on finishing that and starting to work on the article now that I have all the interviews done. I may have some time tonight to read a little bit of, "The System."

Day 2

Today I had a very successful interview with Georgia State University Associate Athletic Director Doug Justice. I conducted the interview at the GSU Athletics offices downtown. I talked with Mr. Justice about many different areas of athletics, but stayed focused on football. I tried to tie in financials with most of the questions I ask, but some of the questions were more based on the non-monetary acts of running a program like gaining fans and a good reputation. We talked about how playing on a big stage can gain notoriety for your school, and how playing in "guarantee games" can help and hurt your program. On the topic of gaining notoriety we talked a little about GSU's recent basketball win against Baylor, and what that meant to the school which was interesting. Overall, our interview was about 40-45 minutes long as we covered a wide range of topics. This first interview was encouraging because I walked away from it knowing I would have plenty to write about for my first article. my next task transcribing the whole interview which will take a while, and then starting to layout the article. I have two class periods at the end of the day tomorrow to work on this, so hopefully I will get a lot done. I also need to get in touch will Kennesaw State and Tennessee to set up interviews, as well as possibly Berry College who is a small division three school who probably runs there program fairly differently than the division one school that I am talking to. I hope to start reading a little bit of the book "The System" as well tomorrow, which is one of my project objectives.

Day 1

Today I did not have the two periods that I dropped for my project, but with my first interview tomorrow, I still had a meeting with Mr. Randolph to discuss idea and potential interview questions. Because colleges will probably not mention specific financial figures in their answers to my questions, I have to figure out a way to form my questions so that they don't have to do that and I can still get my question answered. Mr. Randolph suggested to me that I look at how a school getting national media attention in something like March Madness, can have implications on their admissions pool. Some of my other questions revolve round how having a football team affects a schools reputation and image, along with questions specific to each school. Georgia State for example, will be ask about their stadium, along with some questions about "guarantee games." I have also contacted a journalist who covers Georgia State and Kennesaw State football about weighing in on my project from an outside perspective, which he agreed to do. Tomorrow's interview should be interesting.

Pre-Project

Blogger is how I will keep everyone updated with my progress on this project. My project will be kicked off this week with an interview Tuesday from Georgia State University Associate Athletic Director Doug Justice.