Cupcake scheduling question

[Dawson Rental]

It's been well discussed that MU has to schedule buy games to pump up revenue despite the negative RPI impact of the resulting poor SOS.

My question is are the teams that MU gets for these games so completely bottom of the barrel because those are the only teams that will accept buy games without a return game or are there better teams available for buy games if MU were willing to put a few more shekels into the pot?  If that were true, it seems to me that an argument could be made that increased fan interest in better opponents could make season tickets more valuable while playing even a slightly better SOS could improve finances by improving both the likelihood of an NCAA invite and the seeding therein.  I'm guessing that can only be answered by someone with experience with athletic administration.

[Nukem2]

The number of cupcakes this year is higher due to the desire to provide this young MU squad with more opportunities to develop without getting their psyches damaged with too many losses.  Hopefully, the number of cupcakes is less next season.

[warriorstrack]

Article from a few years ago in USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2013/12/18/college-basketball-scheduling-rpi-strength-selection-committee-march-madness-ncaa-tournament/4114629/

[Marquette_g]

The number of cupcakes this year is higher due to the desire to provide this young MU squad with more opportunities to develop without getting their psyches damaged with too many losses.  Hopefully, the number of cupcakes is less next season.

This is certainly true and confirmed by those that made the schedule, however the irony might lie in the fact that the very schedule designed to pad the record could now require us to beat even better teams in order to offset a piss poor SOS.  I'm not the KenPom/RPI expert, but I'd throw out a guess that if we had played more teams in the RPI 200-250 range vs. >300, we might buy ourselves one or maybe two extra losses in the Big East portion of the schedule.

[Nukem2]

This is certainly true and confirmed by those that made the schedule, however the irony might lie in the fact that the very schedule designed to pad the record could now require us to beat even better teams in order to offset a piss poor SOS.  I'm not the KenPom/RPI expert, but I'd throw out a guess that if we had played more teams in the RPI 200-250 range vs. >300, we might buy ourselves one or maybe two extra losses in the Big East portion of the schedule.

That's the unfortunate flip side of the story.  But, I suspect its far too early to worry about SOS in terms of post-season play.  Worry about that potential later.

[bilsu]

You could schedule tougher buy games, but that would have very little or no effect on attendance. There would not likely be anymore fans in the arena tonight, if we were playing the 200 ranked team vs. a 300 plus ranked team. The only attendance effect would be if the team we were playing had a player from WI on it, which result in some of his family members and friends showing up.

[chapman]

or are there better teams available for buy games if MU were willing to put a few more shekels into the pot? 

Of course.  This is just where they choose to be cheap.  Nobody buys the excuse of the Gregorian calendar presenting limited available dates, to the point that only the SWAC teams no one else wants to play are available to us.  And it's not like our team would be completely crippled and unable to improve due to the strength of competition if they had to play a middling Horizon or MAAC team.  Projected to have the worst non-conference SOS of any high major team and 334th in the country.

[jsglow]

Of course.  This is just where they choose to be cheap.  Nobody buys the excuse of the Gregorian calendar presenting limited available dates, to the point that only the SWAC teams no one else wants to play are available to us.  And it's not like our team would be completely crippled and unable to improve due to the strength of competition if they had to play a middling Horizon or MAAC team.  Projected to have the worst non-conference SOS of any high major team and 334th in the country.

A middling Horizon league team isn't doing a buy game at Marquette.  Maybe a 3-1, something like that.  Right now we don't have any of those types of deals.  No doubt this year was a conscious decision.  Ground already covered.  Personally I'd love a 3-1 with Loyola or Valpo.  Perhaps again down the road.

[Benny B]

You could schedule tougher buy games, but that would have very little or no effect on attendance. There would not likely be anymore fans in the arena tonight, if we were playing the 200 ranked team vs. a 300 plus ranked team. The only attendance effect would be if the team we were playing had a player from WI on it, which result in some of his family members and friends showing up.

The fact that Broeker (or anyone else, for that matter) has not come out and laid all of the cards on the table tell me that it is partially influenced by economics or other "non-basketball" factors.  But let's not lose sight of the fact that the difference between a buy game with a 300+ RPI team and a buy game with a 250-300 RPI team is around a few thousand maybe upwards of $10,000, at most.

Everyone wants home-and-homes until you get into the low to mid 100s, and the next level down (150-250s) wants 2-for or 3-for-1's.  Then there's the TV rights... producers want content, and you're not going to make your business partners happy when you're playing a few games every year on the road (home team typically has the broadcast rights).

It's not easy, but I still think there's more to the story than what's been discussed, i.e. maybe a lot of these middle-tier teams who otherwise are happy to play a buy game simply don't want to travel to Milwaukee in winter (not everyone flies charter).  Maybe Broeker's on a couple blacklists.  Maybe there's simply not as many "buy" opponents out there as one would think.

[jsglow]

Hadn't considered the TV issue. Perhaps FS1 has something to do with it this year.  Perhaps MU had things 'splained to it this year by the 'bosses'.

[bilsu]

As attendance falls I wonder what the breaking point profitability wise would be scheduling home and homes with Notre Dame and Louisville would be? Those teams would bring in more fans and thus more money. You would be giving up a home game for a much more desirable game. You would also get more people across the country watching MU on TV playing at Louisville or Notre Dame. I think it would even make more sense to add 4 home and homes. Pick up two more old Big East rivals.
Adding Louisville, Notre Dame, UConn and Syracuse (two home & two away) would result in dropping four bunnies and two home games from the schedule. I would hope this would reverse the attendance decline.

[MU82]

You could schedule tougher buy games, but that would have very little or no effect on attendance. There would not likely be anymore fans in the arena tonight, if we were playing the 200 ranked team vs. a 300 plus ranked team. The only attendance effect would be if the team we were playing had a player from WI on it, which result in some of his family members and friends showing up.

I totally agree with this.

If we had S.F. Austin (RPI 220) coming in Sunday instead of Presby (RPI 349), are there folks who actually believe fans would say: "I wasn't going to go to the game, but now that I see we're playing S.F. Austin, I'm there!"

Come on.

[Litehouse]

I think if MU had the opportunity to schedule a home-and-home with ND, Louisville, UConn or Syracuse they would jump at it.  I'm guessing the reason we're not scheduling those games lies more with the other side, not MU.

[Marquette_g]

I totally agree with this.

If we had S.F. Austin (RPI 220) coming in Sunday instead of Presby (RPI 349), are there folks who actually believe fans would say: "I wasn't going to go to the game, but now that I see we're playing S.F. Austin, I'm there!"

Come on.

In and of itself, no, this would make no difference.  However, if playing S.F. Austin improved the SOS and increased the likelihood of a tournament bid, there would exist the possibility that attendance near the end of the season could be impacted.  I recognize this extrapolation is a reach, but playing the worst schedule I can recall in my 20 years as a fan does suck.  Staggering the 3-1 with three different opponents such that you only have one unfortunate road game a year would at least feel like there was some consideration given to the season ticket holders viewing experience.

[Litehouse]

But let's not lose sight of the fact that the difference between a buy game with a 300+ RPI team and a buy game with a 250-300 RPI team is around a few thousand maybe upwards of $10,000, at most.

From what I recall seeing in the past, I thought the difference could be more significant.  These 300+ teams like Grambling or Chicago State probably cost in the ballpark of $100,000, while better teams (200-250ish) might demand around $200,000.  I don't have any inside info though.

[Litehouse]

Staggering the 3-1 with three different opponents such that you only have one unfortunate road game a year would at least feel like there was some consideration given to the season ticket holders viewing experience.

But a 3-1 still costs you a home game that could have been used on a better home-and-home.  As a hypothetical, would you rather have a 3-1 with Loyola, or a home-and-home with ND and 2 scrub buy games?  Because that would theoretically be the trade-off.

[Marquette_g]

http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/sports/college/ul/2015/12/20/scheduling-ul-basketball-home-games-no-easy-chore/77667278/

According to this article, the cost to get Louisiana Lafayette (RPI 250) is ~$92,000

[Marquette_g]

But a 3-1 still costs you a home game that could have been used on a better home-and-home.  As a hypothetical, would you rather have a 3-1 with Loyola, or a home-and-home with ND and 2 scrub buy games?  Because that would theoretically be the trade-off.

Either would be preferable to the dumpster fire we have been subjected to this season.  Although I would be curious how each of those would impact RPI.  Is it better to play 1 Top 50 and 2 >300 or 3 175-250?  I don't know the answer.

I also think there is the sense that by doing the 3-1, your chances of beating those teams year in and out, is better than the home and home, which helps to accomplish one of the secondary (or primary as its been sold this year) of helping to secure wins.

[Litehouse]

One factor I thought of recently was if MU was trying to schedule some of these cupcake games on nights before prominent MU alum in the NBA were in town to play the Bucks.  We saw it recently with Doc and the Clippers.  Jae showed up at a game when the Celtics were in town.  Stetson on 1/27 is before the Heat come into town on 1/29, with the Heat's previous game on 1/26 so DWade might have some time for an appearance.  MU might have had some dates in mind to help leverage the NBA connections, and these were the only teams available to play.

[GGGG]

Of course.  This is just where they choose to be cheap.  Nobody buys the excuse of the Gregorian calendar presenting limited available dates, to the point that only the SWAC teams no one else wants to play are available to us.  And it's not like our team would be completely crippled and unable to improve due to the strength of competition if they had to play a middling Horizon or MAAC team.  Projected to have the worst non-conference SOS of any high major team and 334th in the country.

If Marquette truly put this schedule together for financial reasons, and these were the cheapest options available and that's why they went this way, Marquette athletics might be in worse shape financially than we think.

[Litehouse]

http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/sports/college/ul/2015/12/20/scheduling-ul-basketball-home-games-no-easy-chore/77667278/
According to this article, the cost to get Louisiana Lafayette (RPI 250) is ~$92,000

That's an interesting article.  That was $92,000 to play at UCLA though, and UCLA might get better deals than us because they're UCLA.  I'd be curious to know if that amount included travel expenses.  If they got paid $92,000 plus an all expense paid trip to LA, then its tough to say we could get the same deal.

[Marquette_g]

It sounds like they got about $92k to also play @ Miami, FL and @Alabama. 

[MUMountin]

The flip side of all of this is that we have also been commenting in a separate thread at how Georgetown lost to Monmouth, St. John's lost to Incarnate Word, etc.  JTIII's comments in the article is that they try to schedule buy games against teams that will compete for their conference (and consequently have a higher RPI). 

The problem with playing higher RPI teams for your cupcakes, though, is that they might occasionally actually win the game.  As bad of an effect as all these cupcakes have on our RPI, it'd be even worse if we were losing to them. 

So, with that in mind, I can understand--to a certain extent--the need to make sure that a young team is facing a schedule that will allow them to get some wins and not worry about getting knocked off at home like G'Town and SJU just did to inferior opponents.

Now, it does seem like they overreached in that area this year, and some factors may have been out of control (the timing of the Belmont and Iowa games), so I hope that in the future they will be more mindful of the need to upgrade some of these buy games, especially later in the non-conference season. 

[Badgerhater]

Going to my first MU game tonight since the 2013 season opener when they unfurled the BIG EAST champs banner.

I'm going because MU now doesn't suck and has a team worth seeing.  Last year was not that team.  The quality of the opponent is only a minor factor for me.

[Benny B]

For the sake of discussion, let's look at this from a business perspective.

Assume the following (bolded parts are known facts):

1) Average ticket price at BC is $30 in the lower bowl & $15 upstairs.
2) 18 home games/yr
3) 7,783 seats in lower bowl, 10,917 upstairs
4) 98% of lower bowl tickets are purchased for the season (either season tickets or individual games), 55% upstairs -- this is consistent with MU's average attendance last year (13,657/game).
5) Ticket revenues: approx. $318,885/gm on average (.98*7783*30+.55*10917*15)
6) FS1 contract of $500M over 12 years amounts to $41.67M/yr on average based on an average of 15 home games per team (i.e. producible content) + BE Tourney is 159 games (round to 160), i.e. the individual value of a home game with TV rights is ~$260,000 on average.
7) Bradley Center lease is $27,000/gm.
8) Revenue from suite sales and merchandise/concessions is negligible.
9) Marginal expenses (i.e. out-of-pocket to MU) for each game estimated to be roughly $10,000.
10) Average fee to buy opponents is $90,000.

In short, ticket revenue + TV revenue averages about $580,000 per home game to MU.

Sure, the numbers will fluctuate, but the bottom line is that a "buy" game is worth approx. $443,000 to MU.  In other words, foregoing a buy opponent for a home-and-home is going to be worth $221,500 (average per year over two years), a 2-for-1 is worth $295,000, and a 3-for-1 is worth $332,000.  This is strictly revenue... it does not take into account the expenses of travel for the "for-1" games.

Even allowing for some error/fluctuation in the numbers, even a 3-for-1 hits MU's bottom line by about $100,000/yr.  Even if the game was a guaranteed sell-out (i.e. the remaining 45% in the upper bowl & 2% in the lower bowl or $78k), that's still a $22,000 hit that MU has to take.

Sure, this is a grossly oversimplified and highly estimated hypothetical, but you can see that it's not as easy as saying "hey, let's just play a tougher schedule and cut out a couple home games.  At the end of the day, you're playing tougher competition, and a couple losses to teams with an upper 100s RPI at home may have a more detrimental impact on your RPI than playing a bunch of RPI 300s against whom a W can nearly be taken for granted (from a business standpoint, not a basketball perspective... never take a W for granted on the court).