Jackson State forced to pay $800K

[bonarae]

... because Coach Prime pulled his team out of an HBCU Classic in 2022; the managing company of the said Classic game sued the university but the university was left to settle the remaining $800K.

https://www.totalprosports.com/ncaa/jackson-state-pay-massive-800k-bill-because-deion-sanders-decision/

[Milktruck74]

While they want to blame him, he might have saved them in the long run. As mentioned, 7 busses for the band plus 4 for the team and admins...plus hotels and meals...replace the game with a home game, and now you are gaining revenue in ticket sales and concessions... so trade two games with probably $250k in expenses for two home games (even without Deion they are getting 30k to attend) at $10 a ticket...minus the $800k fine...they are still up about $300k.

[MSUBobcat]

While they want to blame him, he might have saved them in the long run. As mentioned, 7 busses for the band plus 4 for the team and admins...plus hotels and meals...replace the game with a home game, and now you are gaining revenue in ticket sales and concessions... so trade two games with probably $250k in expenses for two home games (even without Deion they are getting 30k to attend) at $10 a ticket...minus the $800k fine...they are still up about $300k.

I think there's a lot of assumptions and omissions here that I don't necessarily agree with. First, it completely neglects that each school receives $350k (https://hbcusports.com/2024/02/19/jackson-state-settles-southern-heritage-classic-lawsuit-at-a-hefty-price/)/yr. Next, $250k to travel 211miles by interstate?! That seems VERY extravagant and I'd like to see a calculation for that. My WAG - 500 people (300 band members, ~100 players/coaches, and ~100 more admin, which seems high, but I'm estimating on the high end). 400 people have to share 2 to a room, 100 admin get their own rooms = 300 hotel rooms. At $150/night, that's $45k (Fed GSA for hotels in Memphis last September was $123 excluding tax (https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates/per-diem-rates-results?action=perdiems_report&city=memphis&fiscal_year=2023&state=TN&zip=)). Let's give all 500 a day's per diem (doubt they all get a full day's per diem, but trying to run up the bill here). 500 @ $69 = $34,500. I'll use Prime's estimate of 11 buses, chartered at $5,000/each, which is higher than anything I found via Google search, that's another $55k. That comes to $134,500. Let's add another 25% cushion. New total ~$168k. That means they clear about $182k per year.

Now let's look at the replacement scenario. 30k attendance at $15 average price ($10 just seemed too low even with free band/student tickets) gives gross revenue of $450k. It costs money for support staff for a 30k person event and we could probably use UND's public playoff bid as a starting point and extrapolate, but for simplicity, I'm going to say net profit from concession sales covers parking staff, security, etc. So the game brings in a hefty $450k... BUT they just settled to pay $400k for each year of contract breached, so they only net $50k. That falls $132k of my calculated profit from playing in the Classic. Even if you add in the $700k revenue for the 2 years left on the contract not included in your estimates, they would be $400k in the red, not up $300k.

Sanders/JSU's AD obviously have more accurate numbers than me so they may have made the correct move, financially. This is also just spitballin' while at work so I may have also omitted something but I felt I was pretty generous in the travel costs to Memphis. I look forward to any others' opinions/estimates.

[GAD]

With fees GA tickets are $34.14 at Jackson State

[Milktruck74]

I think there's a lot of assumptions and omissions here that I don't necessarily agree with. First, it completely neglects that each school receives $350k (https://hbcusports.com/2024/02/19/jackson-state-settles-southern-heritage-classic-lawsuit-at-a-hefty-price/)/yr. Next, $250k to travel 211miles by interstate?! That seems VERY extravagant and I'd like to see a calculation for that. My WAG - 500 people (300 band members, ~100 players/coaches, and ~100 more admin, which seems high, but I'm estimating on the high end). 400 people have to share 2 to a room, 100 admin get their own rooms = 300 hotel rooms. At $150/night, that's $45k (Fed GSA for hotels in Memphis last September was $123 excluding tax (https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates/per-diem-rates-results?action=perdiems_report&city=memphis&fiscal_year=2023&state=TN&zip=)). Let's give all 500 a day's per diem (doubt they all get a full day's per diem, but trying to run up the bill here). 500 @ $69 = $34,500. I'll use Prime's estimate of 11 buses, chartered at $5,000/each, which is higher than anything I found via Google search, that's another $55k. That comes to $134,500. Let's add another 25% cushion. New total ~$168k. That means they clear about $182k per year.

Now let's look at the replacement scenario. 30k attendance at $15 average price ($10 just seemed too low even with free band/student tickets) gives gross revenue of $450k. It costs money for support staff for a 30k person event and we could probably use UND's public playoff bid as a starting point and extrapolate, but for simplicity, I'm going to say net profit from concession sales covers parking staff, security, etc. So the game brings in a hefty $450k... BUT they just settled to pay $400k for each year of contract breached, so they only net $50k. That falls $132k of my calculated profit from playing in the Classic. Even if you add in the $700k revenue for the 2 years left on the contract not included in your estimates, they would be $400k in the red, not up $300k.

Sanders/JSU's AD obviously have more accurate numbers than me so they may have made the correct move, financially. This is also just spitballin' while at work so I may have also omitted something but I felt I was pretty generous in the travel costs to Memphis. I look forward to any others' opinions/estimates.

Well, you put quite a bit more thought into your spitball than I did... but anyone that has ever built a house or has a wife knows to estimate high!!! and I have built a house with my wife...So, DOUBLE HIGH!!! Anyway, the short article seems to be saying Deion cost the school $800k...I do not think that is completely accurate. It may still be a loss, but it is not an 800k loss. and as stated by GAD, they get over $30 a ticket for a game...so $30 x 30k butts...is more than $800k (and I realize many of those are comps, students, etc). Add to that the value of having an event of that size on campus. Just having 30k people walk around your campus on a saturday is a huge marketing boon...how much is that worth? I have one that graduated college in December, and a sophomore..and the money schools spent on marketing material for them....I wonder if it could have funded their tuition? Ha ha. My sophomore is still getting stuff from schools. That said, I think the "marketing" value of an on campus game far exceeds any fine paid.

- - - Updated - - -


I think there's a lot of assumptions and omissions here that I don't necessarily agree with. First, it completely neglects that each school receives $350k (https://hbcusports.com/2024/02/19/jackson-state-settles-southern-heritage-classic-lawsuit-at-a-hefty-price/)/yr. Next, $250k to travel 211miles by interstate?! That seems VERY extravagant and I'd like to see a calculation for that. My WAG - 500 people (300 band members, ~100 players/coaches, and ~100 more admin, which seems high, but I'm estimating on the high end). 400 people have to share 2 to a room, 100 admin get their own rooms = 300 hotel rooms. At $150/night, that's $45k (Fed GSA for hotels in Memphis last September was $123 excluding tax (https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates/per-diem-rates-results?action=perdiems_report&city=memphis&fiscal_year=2023&state=TN&zip=)). Let's give all 500 a day's per diem (doubt they all get a full day's per diem, but trying to run up the bill here). 500 @ $69 = $34,500. I'll use Prime's estimate of 11 buses, chartered at $5,000/each, which is higher than anything I found via Google search, that's another $55k. That comes to $134,500. Let's add another 25% cushion. New total ~$168k. That means they clear about $182k per year.

Now let's look at the replacement scenario. 30k attendance at $15 average price ($10 just seemed too low even with free band/student tickets) gives gross revenue of $450k. It costs money for support staff for a 30k person event and we could probably use UND's public playoff bid as a starting point and extrapolate, but for simplicity, I'm going to say net profit from concession sales covers parking staff, security, etc. So the game brings in a hefty $450k... BUT they just settled to pay $400k for each year of contract breached, so they only net $50k. That falls $132k of my calculated profit from playing in the Classic. Even if you add in the $700k revenue for the 2 years left on the contract not included in your estimates, they would be $400k in the red, not up $300k.

Sanders/JSU's AD obviously have more accurate numbers than me so they may have made the correct move, financially. This is also just spitballin' while at work so I may have also omitted something but I felt I was pretty generous in the travel costs to Memphis. I look forward to any others' opinions/estimates.

Well, you put quite a bit more thought into your spitball than I did... but anyone that has ever built a house or has a wife knows to estimate high!!! and I have built a house with my wife...So, DOUBLE HIGH!!! Anyway, the short article seems to be saying Deion cost the school $800k...I do not think that is completely accurate. It may still be a loss, but it is not an 800k loss. and as stated by GAD, they get over $30 a ticket for a game...so $30 x 30k butts...is more than $800k (and I realize many of those are comps, students, etc). Add to that the value of having an event of that size on campus. Just having 30k people walk around your campus on a saturday is a huge marketing boon...how much is that worth? I have one that graduated college in December, and a sophomore..and the money schools spent on marketing material for them....I wonder if it could have funded their tuition? Ha ha. My sophomore is still getting stuff from schools. That said, I think the "marketing" value of an on campus game far exceeds any fine paid.

[MSUBobcat]

With fees GA tickets are $34.14 at Jackson State

Thank you for that. Quite a bit more than I used. Does JSU get the fees? MSU uses TicketsWest, which I assume takes the lion's share of the fees.

I found their season ticket brochure. Looks like advance purchased GA is $40 for non-marquee games and $50 for marquee games. Even with season tickets bringing in $32/game and factoring the free tickets given out, it would seem to be hard to imagine a scenario where Prime didn't make the right decision financially. I'm guessing the weighted average cost per ticket is >$30, so they're pulling in $900k with attendance of 30k. Using 15k season tickets @ $32, 5k free tickets and 10k GA @ $40 yields $880k for a WAVG of just under $30, but I think the estimates of free tickets is probably high.