'18 MA SG - A.J. Reeves (PC)

[RhowdyRam02]

If a video room is a mostly one time cost of less than 100K, can't see why they don't do it.....they are getting 2.4 million over 6 years for the NCAAT.....that money is a bonus.

It appears that money is being used to cover things already promised, namely the attendance bonuses that the URI Foundation loaned to the athletic department. The beauty of what Thorr was able to negotiate with all parties was giving Dan the necessary raise to keep him and enhance the program before we were successful. That kept things on the right track and gave us the necessary improvements to get to where we could make money. The downside is it was borrowed money against improved attendance. It really is up to the fans to start going to the games.

[Billyboy78]

AJ's thread is going to compete with Terrell for number of pages if this keeps up.

[ramster]

Forget it..... Not getting what I am saying ......Video Room ?.. Think Big ,Think Long Term ...A long term capital funding plan and vision needs to be put in place for sustained excellence. If you want to put on band aids ( throw a little bit of cash for coaches pay , charters etc ) then fine. Don't whine when the coach leaves for a gig with more resources and pay as Cooley keeps kicking our heads in ( 7 in a row and counting ) until he leaves for a huge dollar pro or college job......

Same old small minded chicken little inferiority complex thinking.....

I don 't want to be good for just next year but for 20 years....

Get More Resources ...dump Footballs. Thor has said he will not drop football. Has been debated countless times in the Football Section. Has been said Football costs URI $500,000 per year to support. Thor has said it football were to be dropped that the $500,000 would NOT go to Basketball.
Increase Funding Raising.. for sure agree. Question is how. Any specific ideas?
Have a vision..Have a Long term PLAN....I assume URI has a long term plan. Would be a good question to ask.
Plan to build a Practice Facility - completely agree 100% but most on this board will not. Articles have indicated this is not a priority for URI due to costs and funding
We have a better area...Hello Agree with it being a fantastic arena. I love it. But PC holds 13,000 and RC holds 7,500
Advertise ....sick of seeing Friar Town everywhere For sure PC has $4million per year from Fox Sports 1 to invest. Thor, Dooley and Hurley do not have the money that PC has, not even close
More Funding....Agree. That is the challenge. That is what is keeping the Practice Center from being built

I'm not going to debate dropping football again, but I will point out we have no idea what would happen to that money. Thorr has said it won't be reinvested in athletics, before when we were dropping conferences it was. Seems like Thorr is saying whatever suits his current plans the best, so let's stop acting like it's Gospel what would happen to that money because it's the last thing he said.

In regards to the practice facility, I don't think there's been a single person on this board who is completely against it. Everyone against it has seemed to believe that both basketball and the whole athletic department have bigger needs right now. If a person with deep pockets donated the money for the project I don't think anyone would chain themselves to the ground to keep it from getting built.

Also, it's a lot easier for PC to fund their practice facility considering they don't have debt payments for their arena. We could have a practice facility too if we were still playing in Providence. This is better.

As for Friartown fundraising, I think people are worried way too much. Great, they have murals in Green. What do you think the return on investment for those murals are? I'd say close to zero. There's no one from RI not affiliated with PC that's sitting there pissed off that they're still waiting for their bags that's like, "that's right, I live in Friartown, I should go out of my way to look up when they're playing and go." And I don't think a tourist or business traveler is like, "Wow, Friartown, that sounds awesome, I need to go while I'm here!" It's only purpose is to give PC fans a little chub while they're waiting for their bags and to get under the skin of URI fans. Not exactly a great investment.

I only go by what Thor said which was that the money saved from dropping football would not go to basketball. I believe he said the money would go to scholarships for other sports. As long as he is AD he has said football is staying. So a new AD you might get your way.

For practice facility you might be right that people are not completely against it, but certainly there is no groundswell of support here for it, unless I am misinterpreting what others are saying.

For sure the Dunk is pretty much free for PC. The Fox Sports 1 TV $4 million a year is huge too. That's the point, that PC has huge monetary advantages over URI. Far more money.

I don't care about the Banner in the Airport much either, but it does make URI fans pretty irate here. Again, PC has tons of money from the tax payer supported Dunk, TV, 13,000 seats to sell every home game, etc.

My point is the battlefield is unequal, that's all.

[eli#10]

Somebody should get (through the Freedom of Information Act or whatever it is called) a copy of the PC lease with the Dunk / Convention Center Authority and see if it is a market rent lease. Do they pay extra for a practice at the facility? What happens to the concession revenue? Who pays for security at the Dunk and for the police presence before and after games? Lots of questions about if the Lease is fair or not.
After all the Convention Center loses a lot of money each year so one would think whatever rent is paid is not enough and should be increased to reduce whatever loss is generated. Friartown has no where else to go to so the rent should be increased quite a bit. There is no need for the State to be subsidizing a private school.

[ghostofsly]

Okay ....not going to get into the dropping football thing ...$500k to run football does not make sense ???? Got to be more.. ( guess what... nobody cares about URI Football )

Need the the practice facility .... need it to keep up with the Jones's like it or not...

Long Term funding approach ...hire some full time people with experience to raise funds for the Basketball Program...Think outside the box.

13,000 capacity arena ....what did they avg. last year 8600-9000 per game ...they almost never hit 13,000 ( possibly a few games ?)

Guess you don't believe in marketing ( Building a brand ...) I live in Cranston. I see kids adults with PC gear all the time ...almost never see a URI hat ..shirt etc ). My son went to URI ...guess what ...he goes to the Big East games ...has Friar sweat shirts ...pisses me off.

Bottom line ...tired of being the second class citizen...I want to win every year.( it can happen in this conference) It will not happen with the current band aid approach ....

This upcoming year is huge....( Need to get the NCAA's again and get some players )

[RhowdyRam02]

The $500,000 is what the university loses each year by sponsoring the program. The costs are much higher, but obviously there's revenue that offsets that.

[ramster]

Okay ....not going to get into the dropping football thing ...$500k to run football does not make sense ???? Got to be more.. ( guess what... nobody cares about URI Football ) Here s the article. There is a thread devoted to this subject, and titles as such, in the URI Athletics Section. The $500,000 is what is lost, not the total cost of the program. Remember that there are big payouts for playing at Kansas, etc.
http://ripr.org/post/after-disastrous-s ... t#stream/0

Need the the practice facility .... need it to keep up with the Jones's like it or not...I am all in


Long Term funding approach ...hire some full time people with experience to raise funds for the Basketball Program...Think outside the box. Send a note to Thor and suggest it. Or call him. He will be happy to talk.

13,000 capacity arena ....what did they avg. last year 8600-9000 per game ...they almost never hit 13,000 ( possibly a few games ?) Simply pointing out that the size of the Dunk is considerably larger than the Ryan Center. Simply pointing out difference between the 2 programs.

Guess you don't believe in marketing ( Building a brand ...) I live in Cranston. I see kids adults with PC gear all the time ...almost never see a URI hat ..shirt etc ). My son went to URI ...guess what ...he goes to the Big East games ...has Friar sweat shirts ...pisses me off. Agree, far more PC fans in this state than URI fans, especially in the Northern part of the State and in Providence

Bottom line ...tired of being the second class citizen...I want to win every year.( it can happen in this conference) It will not happen with the current band aid approach ....

This upcoming year is huge....( Need to get the NCAA's again and get some players )

GO RHODY!!!

[ramster]

Here is the Football Article that describes the $500,000

http://ripr.org/post/after-disastrous-s ... t#stream/0

[rjsuperfly66]

Somebody should get (through the Freedom of Information Act or whatever it is called) a copy of the PC lease with the Dunk / Convention Center Authority and see if it is a market rent lease. Do they pay extra for a practice at the facility? What happens to the concession revenue? Who pays for security at the Dunk and for the police presence before and after games? Lots of questions about if the Lease is fair or not.
After all the Convention Center loses a lot of money each year so one would think whatever rent is paid is not enough and should be increased to reduce whatever loss is generated. Friartown has no where else to go to so the rent should be increased quite a bit. There is no need for the State to be subsidizing a private school.

PC paid around $1 million for their 18 game schedule last season.
PC pays the DDC $32,000 per game plus $2 on every paid ticket.
It doesn't lead for easy math unfortunately, since not every ticket (especially OOC) is paid, but also all the season ticket holders who don't attend those games still count towards that figure.
I believe DDC keeps all concession revenues (although not positive on that) and the RICC keeps all parking revenue (positive on that).

[RF1]

PC paid around $1 million for their 18 game schedule last season.
PC pays the DDC $32,000 per game plus $2 on every paid ticket.

Unlike Depaul with the public arena under construction in Chicago, PC never had to make a big infrastructure investment. The Blue Demons paid 70M toward the new WinTrust Arena while PC paid ZERO toward the purchase and renovation of the DDC. Paying rent and fees on current operating funds is no substitute for putting up tens of millions up front. Having RI taxpayers subsidize the main PC athletics revenue producing facility has allowed it to make capital improvements on other campus sports venues at the school. PC, a school which draws 90% of its students from out of state, has certainly benefited from the State of RI and its taxpayers.

[rjsuperfly66]

Well, one thing to know about the DePaul situation, they were offered 10-years rent free if they committed to keep playing at the AllState Arena in 2012, and they were the ones who kept pushing to try to get a new arena done. It'll be home to Depaul men's and women's basketball, as well as other DePaul related events.

The Dunkin Donuts Center (or formerly Providence Civic Center) is completely different, PC is simply renting it's usage for 3-4 hours, 18 times per year. Any other events at Providence College are hosted on-campus, not at the Dunk. I'm not going to say they haven't benefited, but if you are going to create that comparison, at least do it with a venue that is comparable.

[ramster]

So PC pays $1 million a year for the use of the Dunkin Donuts Center and gets $4 million a year from FS1. Sweet deal for PC, not so sweet for RI Tax Payers.

[Seawrightspostgame]

Providence as a city was always going to an event space like the civic center. As a citizen it is a help and probably welcome that PC creates some dollars.

It is more unfair to the URI basketball fan that PC has the sweet heart deal. Really I would believe URI could have gotten the same deal.

Not geographically reasonable tho to the Kingston Rams.

[rjsuperfly66]

But statements like that are just speculation --- you don't know how much it costs to operate the DDC, do you?
There are plenty of other X's and O's ... how much does the DDC make on concessions? How much does the city make with their various parking lots? How about the city during a big Saturday game, with the city bringing in over 12,000 fans, many of whom will visit the local bars, restaurants, mall, etc.?
And you act like any arena improvements just benefit PC ... What about the P-Bruins? Or what about the fact that since the DDC was redone, the DDC has hosted 2 (soon to be 3) NCAA Tournaments, the hockey NCAA Tournament, etc.?
It was estimated that two days of NCAA Tournament games brings a $3.5 million boost to the Providence economy ... Think about that for a second ...
So is the PC's arrangement really a drain on the RI Tax Payer?
Not saying PC would have just dropped money on an on-campus arena (heck where's the space for it), but did you ever think there is a benefit to keeping those 16-18 games in the Dunk for the venue and the city?

[ramster]

There is a thread on the Dunk better suited than the AJ Reeves thread
Thread and stories in it are 2 years old but the Dunk was losing a lot of money then and I doubt things have changed.

http://keaneyblue.com/viewtopic.php?f=2 ... 9&start=50