What type of scheduling do you want? (Football)

ESPN is asking the fans what kind of scheduling people want, so I thought I'd bring it over here.

ESPN blog wrote:Take a look at your team, its realistic goals (that's the hard part), and what you would like to see out of the schedule. You are the athletic director, but you also must consider what works best for your fan base. 

Answer the following questions in your responses:

• How many Big Ten games would you like to see on the schedule: eight, nine, perhaps 10?
  
• How many nonleague games should your team play against other teams from Group of Five conferences? Which teams would you ideally like to see?
  
• Should your team schedule FCS opponents? Why or why not? And if yes, which ones?
  
• How would you approach neutral-site games? Would you avoid them completely? Would you schedule them every year or every other year? Which teams would you schedule and where would you play? Keep in mind that Big Ten athletic directors are warming up to these games more and more as they try to put together nonleague schedules after 2016.
  

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This was my answer.

I. The ideal schedule for MSU. Start with a 9 game conference schedule, protect Wisconsin and make sure that Iowa or Nebraska are part of it as well and the rotate between Minny, Northwestern, IU and Illini (hope I got that division right). The other 6 games are divisional.

II. 3 Non conference games. 1 game against a directional school in MI. One game with a home and home against a top tier team, maybe a team that is able to stay in the top half of their conference, Oregon is a great matchup, Stanford, LSU, Oklahoma or some other 'good' team. The last non conference should be against a middle of hte pack conference team, like OSU, Baylor or just some team that has a few good years, and maybe a few bad years.

III. FCS scheduling should be an automatic ban from post season, if you want a scrimmage, it shouldn't count towards your W/L column and teams that schedule FCS teams later than October should get a 2 year ban from post season.

IV. Neutral sites would be ok, especially if there is a year in which a filler is needed, but maybe only once every 5 or 6 years.

One Mi directional, one mid tier power 5, one big boy.

1 cupcake, 1 mid-level cupcake, and 1 top-25 team.

1 non-FCS non-major school
1 school from a power conference
1 Notre Dame
9 conference games against any conference team besides PSU who I wish we would never play again because they are sick bastards

With no pre-season, gotta have a game against one of the directionals. One upper tier power 5, could be neutral site but it would need to be a home and home of sorts like Jacksonville one year against UF and then in Detroit the following year. Third game, regional decent team like cinci or ND or Pitt. The BIG doesn't get much respect so we need a tougher than average Non-con.

The best scheduling was in the 90's...

1 cupcake
Oregon Ducks
Notre Dame
B10 conference

12 conference games. Screw the cupcakes and other conferences.

I have my own ideas, but I'll defer to whatever Guest thinks. There is no poster that I respect more on any subject. I know brilliance when I see it, and Guest is brilliant.

We will not get 7 home games every year with the schedules you guys are proposing. We'll get 7 one year and 6 the next. I'm not sure that's economically feasible in this day and age. You're thinking more like fans than ADs.

Izzo Court wrote:12 conference games.  Screw the cupcakes and other conferences.

When thinking of my answer, I considered this. It would be fair and better for everyone to play each team at least once. With 14 teams now and a 12 game schedule this won't happen, but playing the bulk of your conference teams would be better for everyone.

I hate this at the end of the year crap where people cry 'well they never played Ohio State' or 'Well you had a weak schedule you didn't play Wisconsin'.

It was better back in the 80's and 90's because every team faced almost all of the teams in the conference.

I. 9 game conference schedule - screw locked games. Just make them somewhat balanced
II. 3 Non conference games. 1 MAC (not always directional), 1 of ND or regional mid-tier (cincy-kentucky-louisville), 1 power conference team (preferably top 1/3 of conference)
III. FCS scheduling should be an automatic ban from post season, if you want a scrimmage, it shouldn't count towards your W/L column and teams that schedule FCS teams later than October should get a 2 year ban from post season. AGREE 100%
IV. Not a huge fan of neutral sites games, especially with 9 league games. Need to have 7 homes games, in the year that you have only 4 home conference games the non-conf games all need to be at Spartan Stadium. The 5 home game year can have 2 home and 1 away/neutral.

The 9 game conf schedule while adding more value as a fan (hopefully) does create a lot of scheduling challenges in terms # of home games and revenues.

steveschneider wrote:

When thinking of my answer, I considered this. It would be fair and better for everyone to play each team at least once. With 14 teams now and a 12 game schedule this won't happen, but playing the bulk of your conference teams would be better for everyone.

I hate this at the end of the year crap where people cry 'well they never played Ohio State' or 'Well you had a weak schedule you didn't play Wisconsin'.

It was better back in the 80's and 90's because every team faced almost all of the teams in the conference.

I have several reasons for becoming an isolationist conference.
#1 - The other conferences are littered with cheaters, especially the SEC who longer follows any rules and the NCAA turns their head the other way.
#2 - More conference games will result in conference records that better represent how well a team performed within the conference.
#3 - More conference games keeps more money in the B1G.
#4 - Bowl games are all the non-conference games the B1G needs.

steveschneider wrote:

When thinking of my answer, I considered this. It would be fair and better for everyone to play each team at least once. With 14 teams now and a 12 game schedule this won't happen, but playing the bulk of your conference teams would be better for everyone.

I hate this at the end of the year crap where people cry 'well they never played Ohio State' or 'Well you had a weak schedule you didn't play Wisconsin'.

It was better back in the 80's and 90's because every team faced almost all of the teams in the conference.

College football should go to a 14 game season and drop most of the bowl games.

1.  I would prefer 9 conference games. You'll usually get 2 top notch opponents, 5 mid-level opponents, and 2 garbage opponents in conference.

2.  I would prefer we play 3 non-con teams of from the "Big 5", one of which should be a big-time program.

3.  Only as a last resort. If the committee stays true to its word re: putting emphasis on strength of schedule, then scheduling FCS teams does more harm than good. At the very least, a team from the MAC should always be available to put on the schedule. However, playing an FCS team is better than not playing anyone.

Ideally, neutral site games would accompany home-and-home meetings. (I.E., we'd play Alabama in a neutral site game AS WELL as playing in Tuscaloosa and East Lansing). I would also prefer they only be scheduled in years where MSU already has 5 B1G home games as part of the 9-game conference schedule. A team like Notre Dame would be perfect for these scenarios. In addition to home-and-home deals, play neutral site games in Indy, Detroit, and/or Chicago. I'm not all that opposed to playing SEC teams in "neutral sites" such as Atlanta, Dallas or St. Louis, as I do believe it allows us to broaden our recruiting base. Again though, they'd have to accompany home-and-home match-ups.

Where's the option of having home games starting at 1:00pm?

On MAC school that is not from Michigan. I don't want to play EMU, WMU or CMU anymore. Notre Dame, and a team from a top 5 conference.

Rodeo Burger wrote:I have my own ideas, but I'll defer to whatever Guest thinks. There is no poster that I respect more on any subject. I know brilliance when I see it, and Guest is brilliant.

Hey, thanks for the kind words, brother.

Personally, I don't mind the 9-game conference slate. With that being said, I would like the other 3 scheduled as follows (in no particular order)- 1. Keep the Friday night opener and schedule someone good from a smaller conference or a team with old history (Army, Navy, SMU) or the best of the best if we HAVE to schedule a FCS squad (NDSU, Towson, Richmond, etc.). 2. A recently solid (Duke, Washington, Louisville, etc.) team or middle of the pack team from a major conference (Oregon State, Ole Miss, Iowa State, etc.) or a major "has been" (Tennessee, Clemson, Texas, etc.). 3. Of course, a top dog. (Florida State, Auburn, USC.)

Achtung Baby wrote:We will not get 7 home games every year with the schedules you guys are proposing. We'll get 7 one year and 6 the next. I'm not sure that's economically feasible in this day and age. You're thinking more like fans than ADs.

I don't give a shit about 7 home games. We make more from the btn than we do ticket sales

Also I'd personally like us to open every season against Indiana if for no other reason than to make that "rivalry" game mean much more and even get Natl coverage.


This would then allow us to play a late Oct early Nov game against a Mac team to let us heal and be more refreshed come big ten title run and game

Blanch32 wrote:

I don't give a shit about 7 home games.  We make more from the btn than we do ticket sales

Yor an ediot

How much does a home football game bring in? $80/ticket for premium and $50 for bleah. $6.16 million for 77k tickets sold to a premium game. That is fine, and I'm sure it is closer to $8 million when you figure in suites, donations and anything else associated with it. Lets not kid ourselves about our fanbase, last year people were threatening to not renew and walk away after 20+ years (why they put up with JLS and BW, but not MD I have no idea), mostly because the home slate sucked. Our fanbase isn't going to support the team to support the team if the home games are IU, Illini, Minny, CMU, NDSU, MD and/or Rutgers.  

I don't think you can assume that MSU is going to sell out or even sell 70k tickets if the competition is mediocre. Better competition should keep the stadium close to full, and for the years in which you don't have that extra game, it will have to be made up with BTN money. I hate to say that I agree with Blanch, but I think there is some merit to the extra BTN money.

Unfortunately it took me too long to write this and it is fragmented, as work got in the way of my thoughts.

You guys dismissing the importance of seven home games should take a listen to Mark Hollis.

It's about the local businesses/workers as well. Hotels, restaurants, parking attendants, concession workers, etc.

Blanch32 wrote:

I don't give a shit about 7 home games.  We make more from the btn than we do ticket sales

What ? MSU grosses over 2 million per home game on ticket sales alone.

CrazySparty wrote:You guys dismissing the importance of seven home games should take a listen to Mark Hollis.

It's about the local businesses/workers as well. Hotels, restaurants, parking attendants, concession workers, etc.

What are the numbers that are being assumed for the games? What if you only bring in 50k fans for a shitty game? Those are $50 tickets, you will gross around $2.5 million. Those teams that know they are fodder are asking for $.5 - $1 million to come play, so it goes down to $1.5 - $2 million. I don't know how much cost there is in opening the stadium up, so that game could end up being break even, so what does it matter if it was played at MSU or not?

What is going to be done to attract fans to come to the stadium, over staying home or at the bar? Especially in games that should be blowouts, or just don't seem to matter? If each game was a guarantee'd sell out, then yes, you push for 7 home games, but I just don't think that its that simple.

InTenSity wrote:
What are the numbers that are being assumed for the games? What if you only bring in 50k fans for a shitty game? Those are $50 tickets, you will gross around $2.5 million. Those teams that know they are fodder are asking for $.5 - $1 million to come play, so it goes down to $1.5 - $2 million. I don't know how much cost there is in opening the stadium up, so that game could end up being break even, so what does it matter if it was played at MSU or not?

What is going to be done to attract fans to come to the stadium, over staying home or at the bar? Especially in games that should be blowouts, or just don't seem to matter? If each game was a guarantee'd sell out, then yes, you push for 7 home games, but I just don't think that its that simple.

1) When did we ever only sell 50,000 tickets?

2) You do realize no AD worth a damn would operate under the mentality you're displaying, right?

3) As I said, and Hollis agrees with me, it's about more than just the athletic department.

4) Pushing for seven+ home games is why so many OOC rivalries are getting killed(ND-UM), or lessened(ND-MSU).

CrazySparty wrote:You guys dismissing the importance of seven home games should take a listen to Mark Hollis.

It's about the local businesses/workers as well. Hotels, restaurants, parking attendants, concession workers, etc.

I did a random search for a season 1998

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Michigan_State_Spartans_football_team

You have 6 home games for an 11 game season, and that's a pretty good schedule. My only complaint is it would have been nice to have one of the big programs as a home game (Mich, OSU, or Penn State).

CrazySparty wrote:4) Pushing for seven+ home games is why so many OOC rivalries are getting killed(ND-UM), or lessened(ND-MSU).

Agreed. So I really do think we need more games. A 14-game schedule with 10 conference games and 4 non-conference games would be one solution. Also with larger conferences, it doesn't make sense that there are only 8 or in some cases 9 conference games.

Hell, some schools could even schedule conference games in the non-conference if they wanted. Like when Wisconsin went off our schedule for a long period, I wouldn't mind seeing us add them as a home-and-home, and we have a crazy enough AD that he would be willing to consider stuff like that.

CrazySparty wrote:

1) When did we ever only sell 50,000 tickets?

2) You do realize no AD worth a damn would operate under the mentality you're displaying, right?

3) As I said, and Hollis agrees with me, it's about more than just the athletic department.

4) Pushing for seven+ home games is why so many OOC rivalries are getting killed(ND-UM), or lessened(ND-MSU).

1) I'm not sure, and looking over the last couple of years attendance is counted around 70k. I'm not sure how many season tickets are sold, I know that the stadium looks empty a lot of times. Actual ticket sales may not be how many show up, that being said, they are sold.
2) I'd hope they don't operate like me, I'm not an AD, but I sure as hell hope they are looking for ways to attract people to the stadium.
3) I worked in a restaurant in E. Lansing while going to school. Any football Saturday was busy, home or away.
4) Watering down the product is what everyone in the US is trying to do now. Lower quality will mean an eventual loss of customers. It might not happen in the next 5 years, but it will happen. Better competition should mean a better product, and that will bring in more money in the long run. I forgot though, we live in the US, everything is based on what did you do for me lately and what do your numbers look like for this quarter.

InTenSity wrote:
What are the numbers that are being assumed for the games? What if you only bring in 50k fans for a shitty game? Those are $50 tickets, you will gross around $2.5 million. Those teams that know they are fodder are asking for $.5 - $1 million to come play, so it goes down to $1.5 - $2 million. I don't know how much cost there is in opening the stadium up, so that game could end up being break even, so what does it matter if it was played at MSU or not?

What is going to be done to attract fans to come to the stadium, over staying home or at the bar? Especially in games that should be blowouts, or just don't seem to matter? If each game was a guarantee'd sell out, then yes, you push for 7 home games, but I just don't think that its that simple.

Right off the bat you're ignoring concessions and parking.

Achtung Baby wrote:
Right off the bat you're ignoring concessions and parking.

How much of a cut of that do athletics get? Sometimes with MSU, I am surprised that the university itself gets money that I would think that athletics would.

The question going forward...will we give up a cupcake home game to play in neutral site games (against a big name opponent)?

ND was a perfect fit to the 7 home game issue. Play them at home when we have 4 conference home games. Play them on the road when we have 5 conference home games. But, they're not going to play us, UM, and USC every year with their new ACC alliance.

Michigan directional school (keep the money in-state)
Middling AQ school (but in fertile recruiting territory...like an Ole Miss or Texas Tech)
Powerhouse AQ school

Tough question considering everything has just changed. New playoff where SOS is supposed to count, new division with Rutgers and Maryland, no ND, 9 game conference.

duffy munn wrote:

What ? MSU grosses over 2 million per home game on ticket sales alone.

No wonder you were forced to sell the fratshark. You suck at business

NigelUno wrote:The question going forward...will we give up a cupcake home game to play in neutral site games (against a big name opponent)?

ND was a perfect fit to the 7 home game issue.  Play them at home when we have 4 conference home games.  Play them on the road when we have 5 conference home games.  But, they're not going to play us, UM, and USC every year with their new ACC alliance.  

This makes sense.  With the 9 conference games, a "good" home game needs to get in the mix when MSU plays 5 away conference games.  ND was a near perfect match for that.

1 big OOC game per year.