Revenue is not $1B.

Worth is $1B and I'm not sure how they valued each school.

Thanks for the correction, my bad.

I'm pretty sure the Athletics Dept. wants to win. The 12th Man is one of the great traditions in CFB. The Seahawks pay us for the rights to use the name. Keep the tradition, keep attendance, and keep the faith.

Could it be sold for $1B?

vander54 said:

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Revenue is not $1B.

Worth is $1B and I'm not sure how they valued each school.

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That next leg on Butthole seems to be in process. Fartcoin already broke 1.5 billion. I think $1 billion Butthole coin is becoming more and more likely and it's ridiculous enough to grab viral mainstream attention. https://t.co/A7vjcrkEas pic.twitter.com/Obp2t09avy

— samdude.eth (@samdudeV1) January 17, 2025

Didn't we play Miami the week after App State? I feel like context matters

I see this alot: "fans are too loyal and so we will never succeed at a high level". I am open to the possibility, I suppose. But, I have never seen anyone support it with anything other than a hunch.

Anyone have anything to support this? Does regular season attendance/revenue slump at Bama, OSU (insert a team you want to emulate here) when they are 8-4 vs. when they have 1 or 2 losses? What changes are made and how does that get them back to elite record? If yes, can you tell which is the chicken and which is the egg? It seems unlikely that this holds water.

Just curious if anyone who stands on this notion has ever really looked at it and wants to share.

AgFan1974 said:

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I see this alot: "fans are too loyal and so we will never succeed at a high level". I am open to the possibility, I suppose. But, I have never seen anyone support it with anything other than a hunch.

Anyone have anything to support this? Does regular season attendance/revenue slump at Bama, OSU (insert a team you want to emulate here) when they are 8-4 vs. when they have 1 or 2 losses? What changes are made and how does that get them back to elite record? If yes, can you tell which is the chicken and which is the egg? It seems unlikely that this holds water.

Just curious if anyone who stands on this notion has ever really looked at it and wants to share.

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I agree. The only thing I could see slumping attendance helping is ticket/hotel/concession costs.

I'll try to gather data to make a more objective argument later today.

Quote:

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How do we get the athletics department to want to win?

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You think the Athletic Department doesn't want to win? Please provide an example and be specific.

I don't think there is any real concern that the fans displeasure isn't being heard. It comes across loud and clear through forums like these, social media, etc. All hear and see the same thing. That isn't the lever to pull to force the team to get better. That lever has already been pulled, and hard.

Classof25Battler said:

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The undying support that Aggies have for their football team means that regardless of the record on the field, Kyle will almost certainly have large numbers of attendees. Looking at the attendance record (https://12thman.com/facilities/kyle-field/1), the Miami game the weekend after the disappointing 2022 App State loss was #7 in all time attendance. The weekend after losing to a Sun Belt team at home, 107,000 people showed up.

Ultimately, the athletics department is a business. It serves to generate revenue and publicity for the university. When the football team is worth 1B (according to some estimates), is there really any pressure to change? What motivates the athletics department to win?

I am not advocating that we don't show up to games at Kyle. I think the 12th Man is an excellent tradition that gives us identity. But how do we communicate financially that we aren't satisfied with the product on the field? How do we get the athletics department to want to win?

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First, the idea that "we" could organize an effort to have any significant impact on the revenue of A&M's athletic department is just wrong. There aren't enough relevant people that would hop on board.

Second, I see these types of posts quite often, and I never understand how people can think that any action intended to reduce the revenue generated will somehow kick the athletic department into gear. Less money means less resources to establish the goal.

We haven't competed for anything significant on a consistent basis because we aren't good enough. We haven't aligned talented players with a scheme that maximizes that talent because ultimately we missed on coaching hires (TBD on Elko). It's that simple. To think that the answer to that is to boycott or deprive the program of funds is just lazy and ignorant.

I say all this as someone who donates $0 to the program, so maybe my opinion isn't relevant.

Classof25Battler said:

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I'll try to gather data to make a more objective argument later today.

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How's that data gathering going?

LOL!

The problem is the athletic department is totally satisfied with occasional success around lots of blah. We hold onto coaches way too long( bad extensions)when they only show a slight sign of greatness. We need to reward consistency not flashes in the pan. Look how long we held onto Fisher, Slocum, Childress, Mark Johnson, Barrone, Kennedy, G Guerrei, Jo Evans, Corbelli, etc.. We do a horrible job evaluating coaches while they are here. Looking into who we beat and how we beat them while examining our losses needs to been done in a much better way.

Correct evaluation, except that the target of our selective support needs to be the myriad business interests that *control* college football outcomes, not our own athletic department. Maybe several decades ago our own AD would've been the rightful target for this kind of "tough love," but those days are in the past now. Basically media consolidation and complicit bureaucracies (NCAA, myriad officiation oversight orgs, even conference head offices now) have concentrated practically all of the bargaining power into the hands of maybe three? organizations (cough Disney cough).

The beautiful part is that we can still directly support our AD and our players while still modulating our support (in reality, our tithing to...) these media organizations at the top, in accordance with how fairly or unfairly we get treated. If you want to apply some pressure to our AD, simply shutting your checkbook in response to unfavorable outcomes is not the answer. But, it is 100% fair, and urgent, to shut your checkbook in response to our AD not publicly demonstrating that they are actively working to correct the unfair treatment we've received over the past decades. 'The complacency that needs to be obliterated is upstream of our AD, and they only deserve the blame if they willingly "assume the position."

2024 might've not been the year for us, but 2020 could've been. Was it 2022 MBB got totally hosed out of the Big Dance? What did Bjork do? Nothing. Appropriate to shut your checkbook then? Abso-friggin-lutely.

Your idea sounds right but would have the opposite effect, as players want to play in front of big crowds.
Remove 50,000 fans at Kyle and you hurt your recruiting and damage home field advantage.

Boycotting is not a tool for college sports.

SunrayAg said:

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Classof25Battler said:

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The undying support that Aggies have for their football team means that regardless of the record on the field, Kyle will almost certainly have large numbers of attendees. Looking at the attendance record (https://12thman.com/facilities/kyle-field/1), the Miami game the weekend after the disappointing 2022 App State loss was #7 in all time attendance. The weekend after losing to a Sun Belt team at home, 107,000 people showed up.

Ultimately, the athletics department is a business. It serves to generate revenue and publicity for the university. When the football team is worth 1B (according to some estimates), is there really any pressure to change? What motivates the athletics department to win?

I am not advocating that we don't show up to games at Kyle. I think the 12th Man is an excellent tradition that gives us identity. But how do we communicate financially that we aren't satisfied with the product on the field? How do we get the athletics department to want to win?

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I watched my kids play sports on undefeated teams, and on winless teams.

But I was always there cheering them on.

If you can't understand why, then I probably can't explain it to you.

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I have loved Aggie football for a long time. NIL and the transfer portal are a stress test for me. I don't see rooting for professional mercenary free agents as similar to supporting your own kids when they play.

As stated, it's about having the right coach. Does anyone really think if Saban or Smart were coaching they'd not be successful?

Fatboy Thaddeus said:

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Correct evaluation, except that the target of our selective support needs to be the myriad business interests that *control* college football outcomes, not our own athletic department. Maybe several decades ago our own AD would've been the rightful target for this kind of "tough love," but those days are in the past now. Basically media consolidation and complicit bureaucracies (NCAA, myriad officiation oversight orgs, even conference head offices now) have concentrated practically all of the bargaining power into the hands of maybe three? organizations (cough Disney cough).

The beautiful part is that we can still directly support our AD and our players while still modulating our support (in reality, our tithing to...) these media organizations at the top, in accordance with how fairly or unfairly we get treated. If you want to apply some pressure to our AD, simply shutting your checkbook in response to unfavorable outcomes is not the answer. But, it is 100% fair, and urgent, to shut your checkbook in response to our AD not publicly demonstrating that they are actively working to correct the unfair treatment we've received over the past decades. 'The complacency that needs to be obliterated is upstream of our AD, and they only deserve the blame if they willingly "assume the position."

2024 might've not been the year for us, but 2020 could've been. Was it 2022 MBB got totally hosed out of the Big Dance? What did Bjork do? Nothing. Appropriate to shut your checkbook then? Abso-friggin-lutely.

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What should we have done when we got left out (be specific, please)?
This is like the people *****ing about tu coming to the SEC - I'd like to specifically hear how you would have liked to see it handled. 99% of the specific responses I've seen basically undercut A&M's ability to generate income or interest from recruits to somehow try to make a statement. I've yet to see anyone with a response that doesn't result in far more damage to our program for spite's sake.

The over reaction of our fan base to perceived grievances is exactly why we catch so much hell. We're easy targets. Yeah, let's make stupid rash decisions because we felt like we should have been an "inside the cut" fringe team vs an "outside the cut" fringe team in a 68 team tournament. Yes, let's switch conferences and throw a fit and look super insecure because conference consolidation is happening and tu/ou were never going to be left out. By all means, let's embarrass ourselves and tank our situation (which is pretty damn good, despite our inability to capitalize on it) simply because we're upset.

I don't think that is a thing anymore. They call themselves the Twelves now. I believe that is intentionally to get away from the 12th man issue.

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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What should we have done when we got left out (be specific, please)?

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I agree that the specifics are important. It's the process between getting wronged & finalizing a plan of specifics that takes leadership & resources. In general you'll need 3 things:

• intelligence on why things fell against us,
• experts who are well dialed in to the parties & forces at play, and
• specialists on putting together an optimized plan of action.

Regarding "throwing a fit and leaving a conference," (paraphrasing) that is the kind of thing I'd expect to be actually executed a last resort, but threatening to do so may be a brilliant gambit. I think that's the kind of subtlety that goes into the process above, and something we've never seen.

From our point of view all we see are the many transgressions against us and never any action coming out the other end of the process. And yet we're surprised when the transgressions continue and, lo and behold, all the other programs in our tier zoom right past us, amidst snickers & jeers from CFP selection committees and review booths the whole way.

Are we spending enough money on players in order to compete with Ohio State and others?