JMU bid more than $200,000 for first-round FCS playoff game
Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 7:37 pm
3 day old article, but I haven't been on here.
"JMU bids more than $200,000 for first-round FCS playoff game
After seeing his football program sent on the road, to Eastern Kentucky, in the 2011 FCS playoffs, James Madison athletics director Jeff Bourne wasn’t going to let that happen again.
Instead, JMU bid aggressively to host a first-round playoff game this season, guaranteeing the NCAA $200,677.50. That game was a 26-21 loss to Liberty on Nov. 29.
“I was determined that we would not find ourselves in that situation again,” Bourne said in a letter to JMU fans posted on the school’s website Tuesday morning in advance of releasing the financial data to the media....
.....Bourne said other factors went into the bid as well, including the economic impact on the Harrisonburg area and the travel cost of taking the school’s marching band to a road game.
Before making the playoff bid, Bourne said JMU made sure it had accumulated enough private money, outside of the athletic department budget, to cover any potential gap between the bid and operating costs and the revenue the game generated.
The budget JMU submitted to the NCAA called for it to sell 23,520 tickets to the game, a target it knew it would be unlikely to reach the Saturday after Thanksgiving, when it’s difficult to draw large crowds.
That number of ticket sales would have generated an estimated $420,100 in revenue. JMU budgeted $152,330 for operating costs for the game, an additional expenditure on top of the $200,667.50 bid.
Instead, JMU announced a crowd of 13,040 for the Liberty game, including the student tickets the school paid for itself, creating a shortfall of more than $130,000.
“We had budgeted enough money privately to bid this way, knowing that it would be a challenging weekend, Thanksgiving weekend,” Bourne said. “We made sure that in our budgeting process, that we had adequate revenue set aside to cover whatever balance there was that wouldn’t be covered by the tickets and any other revenues.”
JMU will not have a complete revenue report from the game until after January, Bourne said.
The NCAA determines host institutions for FCS playoff games involving nonseeded teams based on bids. The minimum bid to host a first-round game is $30,000.
The actual pairings are done geographically, so the Dukes went into the process knowing there was a high likelihood they could face Liberty, a private school with the financial wherewithal to bid aggressively. Bourne, who served on the NCAA’s FCS selection committee from 2010-2013 and was the chairman his final year, said Liberty and Youngstown State were two schools he went into the process thinking JMU would have to potentially outbid to play at home.
First-year coach Everett Withers guided JMU to a 9-3 regular season, finishing with seven consecutive wins going into the playoff game against Liberty....."
“I think that says a lot for them to step up to the plate to almost ensure that we had a home game,” Withers said Tuesday. “I think they felt that that was important for JMU and the JMU community.”
Bourne would have preferred not to divulge JMU’s bid, for competitive reasons, but the state school was required to do so under the Virginia's Freedom of Information Act.
Liberty, a private school, does not plan to release the amount of its unsuccessful bid, a school spokesman said Tuesday. Athletics director Jeff Barber was out of town and not available for further comment....."
http://m.timesdispatch.com/sports/colle ... l?mode=jqm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Article also talks about UAB dropping football, The Carr report done at JMU, about JMU positioning itself to move up, and Liberty being a candidate as well for a move up..
"JMU bids more than $200,000 for first-round FCS playoff game
After seeing his football program sent on the road, to Eastern Kentucky, in the 2011 FCS playoffs, James Madison athletics director Jeff Bourne wasn’t going to let that happen again.
Instead, JMU bid aggressively to host a first-round playoff game this season, guaranteeing the NCAA $200,677.50. That game was a 26-21 loss to Liberty on Nov. 29.
“I was determined that we would not find ourselves in that situation again,” Bourne said in a letter to JMU fans posted on the school’s website Tuesday morning in advance of releasing the financial data to the media....
.....Bourne said other factors went into the bid as well, including the economic impact on the Harrisonburg area and the travel cost of taking the school’s marching band to a road game.
Before making the playoff bid, Bourne said JMU made sure it had accumulated enough private money, outside of the athletic department budget, to cover any potential gap between the bid and operating costs and the revenue the game generated.
The budget JMU submitted to the NCAA called for it to sell 23,520 tickets to the game, a target it knew it would be unlikely to reach the Saturday after Thanksgiving, when it’s difficult to draw large crowds.
That number of ticket sales would have generated an estimated $420,100 in revenue. JMU budgeted $152,330 for operating costs for the game, an additional expenditure on top of the $200,667.50 bid.
Instead, JMU announced a crowd of 13,040 for the Liberty game, including the student tickets the school paid for itself, creating a shortfall of more than $130,000.
“We had budgeted enough money privately to bid this way, knowing that it would be a challenging weekend, Thanksgiving weekend,” Bourne said. “We made sure that in our budgeting process, that we had adequate revenue set aside to cover whatever balance there was that wouldn’t be covered by the tickets and any other revenues.”
JMU will not have a complete revenue report from the game until after January, Bourne said.
The NCAA determines host institutions for FCS playoff games involving nonseeded teams based on bids. The minimum bid to host a first-round game is $30,000.
The actual pairings are done geographically, so the Dukes went into the process knowing there was a high likelihood they could face Liberty, a private school with the financial wherewithal to bid aggressively. Bourne, who served on the NCAA’s FCS selection committee from 2010-2013 and was the chairman his final year, said Liberty and Youngstown State were two schools he went into the process thinking JMU would have to potentially outbid to play at home.
First-year coach Everett Withers guided JMU to a 9-3 regular season, finishing with seven consecutive wins going into the playoff game against Liberty....."
“I think that says a lot for them to step up to the plate to almost ensure that we had a home game,” Withers said Tuesday. “I think they felt that that was important for JMU and the JMU community.”
Bourne would have preferred not to divulge JMU’s bid, for competitive reasons, but the state school was required to do so under the Virginia's Freedom of Information Act.
Liberty, a private school, does not plan to release the amount of its unsuccessful bid, a school spokesman said Tuesday. Athletics director Jeff Barber was out of town and not available for further comment....."
http://m.timesdispatch.com/sports/colle ... l?mode=jqm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Article also talks about UAB dropping football, The Carr report done at JMU, about JMU positioning itself to move up, and Liberty being a candidate as well for a move up..