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uber hokie OP
Sep 18, 2024 at 02:40 PM ET
UThug announced a 10% “talent “ fee on ticket prices for ‘25. Wonder if
that covers bail bonds also ? Yet another sign of a college athletics being completely and totally out of control. Headed the way of NASCAR which priced itself out of popularity many years ago. ** Edited by uber hokie at 9/18/2024, 2:43:29 PM ** Edited by uber hokie at 9/18/2024, 2:43:52 PM

47 Replies

Gobbler Guru Gobbler Guru
Pat Forde provides a nice counterpoint (link)
I will forever be convinced that the issue for schools like VT is not trying to match $$$ with the big dogs... it's not spending the money they do have wisely.
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uber hokie OP
Agree but very few schools out side of the big 2 will succeed long term
unless some drastic changes are made and I don’t see that happening. Hope I’m wrong.
H
Happy Dog
Need to use some of that to paint the stadium
Was there for a swim meet last Spring, and the football stadium looks like it needs rust removal and paint very badly. Fun fact: you cannot take an aluminum water bottle or telescoping lens into the natatorium in fear that they will be used as weapons. At a swim meet. You can't make this up. What is going on in TN? Also could not believe the quality of the cars parked on campus: Wagoneers, high end pickups, Volvos.......far cry from the old days of parking behind Cowgill.
C
CMU Hokie
UF matches
With a “coach buyout” fee on every ticket. Paying for three at a time adds up….oh wait, make that four.
E
EDGEMAN
Just be glad VT students don't have to pay JMU level athletic fees
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ModerateHokie
Higher cost for an inferior product. Great business model
Will Stewart Will Stewart
Tennessee is ranked #6 in the nation right now. 😜
That said, calling it a "talent fee" is just bad optics and bad PR. Just raise your prices, but don't call it that. Dummies.
RichCat RichCat
Respectfully disagree. I think most fans would be more ok with a ticket
price hike if they felt it was going to contribute to the talent on the field that they are there to see. And being ranked in the top 10 the fans are less disgruntled and more willing to digest a slight bump in expenses. I think it's actually brilliant marketing and timing and I bet VT fans would be ok with this if we were a top 25 program scratching to keep up.
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uber hokie OP
WOW - YOU used “brilliant” in a post regarding Tennessee
The ultimate oxymoron !
C
crazylane
Yes
It's definitely not an inferior product right now. Winning big and fun to watch. Huepel(sp) is one of the very best.
proudhokie2001 proudhokie2001
Can we raise 8million and get Nico for 2025? Let Heupel train them and
Then NIL them away. Or 20mil for arch manning?
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ModerateHokie
College football overall is an inferior product today compared to 10 years
Ago. Team rankings are irrelevant. Players are less committed and transfer more freely. As a result teams are less experienced as a team, less polished, and even the motivation of kids to give effort is called into question (see FSU). College basketball is the same.
AnotherTechW AnotherTechW
Disagree - college way better and more parity than ever
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hok1eboy
Parity? Oh I get it... you're joking.
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ModerateHokie
Apparently we are watching different games
reestuart reestuart
Yeah, I don't think the games are remotely as entertaining these days.
In fact, college football overall is pretty boring to me.
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ModerateHokie
Agree 100%. Long and boring.
reestuart reestuart
Exactly.
reestuart reestuart
Yeah, I don’t understand the need.
Zanderhokie Zanderhokie
The money grab is already wearing thin
I mean, I love college football. Tons of people love college football. But at some point, there's a limit. Right? I wonder what's the price point at which people start checking out in droves and no longer attend games in person. It seems like the sport is on its way to that now.
F
fordham
The end will be when the students become employees
Enjoy the few years we have left of college sports
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NokieHokie
I look at that as a new beginning. A better beginning.
F
fordham
Problem less than 1% of college fball players get to the pros. 99.% of
Them need the degree. So you will have a small minor league fball league and no college sports. You can’t just pay the fball players and most colleges could not afford to pay the fball players anyways
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NokieHokie
That's not my problem. I don't care if they go to the league or not. Or if
they their degree or not.
F
fordham
If reality was as simple as you think it is. Life would be so great
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NokieHokie
Nope. A better system is when the athletes are paid employees and you can
have contracts with them which can then keep them from being yearly rent-a-players... They can still get their degrees. They can be students and employees at the same time. ** Edited by NokieHokie at 9/19/2024, 11:55:08 AM
4
40ozDistrict
Knight Commission. I say it for the 100th time lol
Link: The Fix
MP4VT2004 MP4VT2004
I think we are there, particularly as teams with huge NIL budgets struggle.
Look at FSU...sure, I expect their fan base to continue to throw money into a hole for a while, and maybe after a while their program will bounce back up. But in general, only a handful of programs will stay near the top. I think most fan bases will quickly fatigue of the constant increase in costs and pressure to give more without seeing any real results. In my opinion, it's only a matter of time until most people reach the point that people like me did several years ago and say, "This is stupid. I'm out."
Casey Casey
When i was a student
Attending games was free. Perhaps there is an upside with not trying to compete with the SEC. Winning the Comonwealth Cup (something we have done repeatedly) is almost as sweet as winning the MNC (something we have never done and will never do. The Beamer era is over.) Maybe throwing money iinto a hole hoping for something that is never going to happen, isn't the best path forward. ** Edited by Casey at 9/18/2024, 5:23:34 PM
MP4VT2004 MP4VT2004
Should have read your post before making mine...
I didn't mean to steal your "throwing money into a hole" analogy, but clearly that is an image that many of us think of when observing the modern college football landscape.
Zanderhokie Zanderhokie
“Throwing good money after bad” would also apply here.
proudhokie2001 proudhokie2001
Think bigger, much bigger. Let’s try to compete at the highest level. what
Could go wrong?
wwhokie1 wwhokie1
Losing the Commonwealth cup is very painful, winning it barely registers.
Uva has fallen so far, we just expect to beat them. That rivalry is not what It once was. It's very painful to lose to them, but not nearly as enjoyable to beat them as in the past. Don't get me wrong, always fun to beat UVA. But not like it used to be
Zanderhokie Zanderhokie
Wins over UVA have definitely lost their luster compared to yesteryear
Stuff like beating them every single time since 1998 in Blacksburg has that effect.
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VT757to276
Seems more program-specific UNLESS there's an economic drop-down...UTenn
has been on a recent roll to elite-level play and I suspect ticket demand out-strips supply, so it's a good time to bump-up....Personally, I'm not gonna pay thousands to go to a game (travel, time, tickets, hotel), but happy that others will/do...I suspect teams like Vandy have a more challenging time demanding more and more...but UTenn/Ga/new Olemiss? are different VT's done really well filling the stadium and hopefully keeps-on...But unless VT delivers on the promise, there's probably some fatigue in pricing...especially as generations age-out...
dolph dolph
Ask NASCAR, Richmond raceway went from 110,000 to 51,000 capacity
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crazylane
And they don't come close to filling it
No matter how many comps are doled out.
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VT One
Bristol used to sellout, I think, 160,000 seats every race with a large
wait list- until the bubble burst. I’m not privy to their current situation but it is significantly different from when I waited for years to get tickets to the night cup race.
Pylons Pylons
It absolutely did. Used to be a tough ticket. Especially the night race.
Tuckahokie Tuckahokie
I used to do some contracting work around RIR about 15 years ago...it
seemed like every spring before the first race there would be a new section of seats taken out. It was down to about 75K before I stopped doing work there.
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hines495
And, lost one of their 2 cup races.
Pylons Pylons
There were 2 this year. 3/31 and 8/11
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HokiesACC2004
Next year
Pylons Pylons
Gotcha. Didn't realize that.
Zanderhokie Zanderhokie
Wow. That'd be akin to Lane Stadium going from 65K to around 30K
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seacain
Yikes. Just about the range for ODU & Wake Forest's stadiums. :O
** Edited by seacain at 9/18/2024, 9:15:58 PM
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uber hokie OP
100% agree