Bryan

February 12th, 2016 at 3:04 PM ^

I would be curious to see what each school spends in a FY on recruiting broken down into different categories. 

How long till the SEC seeks a cap on what a school can spend in travel each year?

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BoFan

February 12th, 2016 at 3:05 PM ^

Wow, 18 plane trips in 12 days. That's a mad schedule. Every minute is optimized by Harbaugh. No wonder he sleeps over 5 of those nights. He's probably disappointed he couldn't sleep over 6 more times and fit in a couple more flights. Of course he can't optimize the schedule without a private jet.

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BursleyHall82

February 12th, 2016 at 3:05 PM ^

It's hilarious that USA Today filed the FOIA for this, thinking there was some dirt there. USA Today, of course, is the big sister to the Freep in the Gannett newspaper chain, so they can all just bite me.

I'd like USA Today to also do some math and figure out how much James Harbaugh has directly and indirectly brought into the University of Michigan. Because I can guarantee you it's a hell of a lot more than $136,000.

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SamirCM

February 12th, 2016 at 3:06 PM ^

By Alabama, LSU, FSU, Clemson, and other top dog schools? 

 

I imagine their expenses would be less as the bulk of their recruits live closer, but I could be mistaken. 

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bleens ditch

February 12th, 2016 at 3:25 PM ^

Given that M has a huge fanbase, and making an assumption that a good portion of that fanbase reads this blog, wouldn't it make sense for a dying ESPN to develop a content-algorithm that maximizes clicks from this site?

If so, I am proud that we are the proverbial dog wagging the ESPN tail. Or maybe it is the wine I am drinking right now talking.



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nb

February 12th, 2016 at 3:26 PM ^

That might be the variable expense but that's not even close to the full cost. At Ross, we learn better managerial accounting than this. What about salaries of each recruiting coordinator? How about Harbaugh and staff's allocated salary on a time basis to recruiting activities? If Harbaugh spends 40% of his time recruiting, then that is >$2M right there! I am willing to guess that the real cost of recruiting 25-30 players is closer to $5M per year, and is primarily due to cost of coach salaries not flights. Furthermore, it's probably the same at every top 10 recruiting class school.

For a 'social' enterprise making 150M per year in revenue and at least 10-20M in profit after stadium debt, scholarships etc, it's reasonable to spend $4-5M in recruiting your talent that drives sufficient attendance and jersey sales to make the 10-20M in profit.

I really don't like thinking of college football as a business. It should be about scholar athletes defining excellence in all phases. That said, when you take that much money from fans/customers, you have a duty to be a reasonable custodian of the funds to advance those fans' interests over the long term. To do that, you need to manage and invest the funds well.

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MeanJoe07

February 12th, 2016 at 4:08 PM ^

Clemson never offers them money directly. It's through back channels and done in a way that would be hard to trace to the school. I was a bagman for a while. Basically the "school" calls me up from a secure line. Probably a cell phone they destroy. and gives me a phone number and an email. They don't give me a name. I create a wire transfer from my account and call the number and ask tell them they can accept 10% of the amount now and the additional payments from the secure account as long as he is attending Clemson. Often I'll give recruits cash before all this on visits to wet their appetite. Or maybe I just made all of this up.

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NRK

February 12th, 2016 at 3:48 PM ^

Horribly slopping of USA Today just dropping some data on me and giving zero context around it.

 

Is this a lot compared to current coaches around/near NSD? Is it a lot compared to new incoming coaches hired around/near NSD? I don't know. Why don't you tell me USA Today?

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M-Dog

February 12th, 2016 at 6:03 PM ^

They did not tell you because they don't know.  

They just know that Harbaugh is a hot topic so they wanted to jump in the fray with whatever limited info they have on hand to work with . . . partial numbers from last year about Harbaugh when he first showed up at Michigan.

We are lucky they had even that much to work with or we would have gotten an artcile about Harbaugh's khaki size.

They decided to put out a story on Harbaugh because that's a hot topic.  What it was about and how good it was were purely secondary considerations.

We were going to get a story on Harbaugh recruiting,   by damn.

 

 

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Perkis-Size Me

February 12th, 2016 at 4:00 PM ^

Got to spend money to make money. Better recruiting (typically) yields a better product. Better product means the fans showing up. More fans = more tickets sold, more merchandise sold, more everything.

$136K is a crap ton of money. Won't mince words on that, but the likely return on that investment over the next few years will make that $136K sound like a total bargain.



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Wolverine 73

February 12th, 2016 at 4:10 PM ^

Who matters gives a rat's ass about this story--and by no one who matters, I mean the recruits, the players, the administration, and the U of M community.  Presented in a vacuum as it is, the information is meaningless.

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MGoCombs

February 12th, 2016 at 4:32 PM ^

That does not seem like very much money. Many companies will drop twice that on biz dev opportunities and get nothing out of it. The fact that he was able to have such an impact on such a small budget is what's astounding to me.



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michelin

February 12th, 2016 at 4:46 PM ^

It shows that JH's spending after his first month on the job did not differ from Hoke's.  It clarifies that more spending in the B1G is needed to keep up with conferences like the SEC.  Also, Harbaugh showed the biggest rankings jump in ESPN history from his first to his second class. They conclude that the benefits justify the expenses.  At the same time, it's not been his travel expenses but his creativity that have produced such big results in a short period.

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Esterhaus

February 12th, 2016 at 5:57 PM ^

 

Probably spent that much on a single pair of cufflinks. Meyer that much on ... oh well .. Meyer probably doesn't spend money in Ohio, he's likely 100% comp'd and has a state animal and its natural territory as a state-authorized tax deduction. Meanwhile Jim eats at Cracker Barrel on discount nite.

Supposition President Schlissel: "WORTH EVERY PENNY." Hail.

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counter trey

February 12th, 2016 at 6:28 PM ^

There is no way that is all that is spent. I don't pretend to know how much, but that can't be all of it. Whatever the amount is, it's well spent in the free advertisement from the WWL, SEC, ACC and B1G. Harbawwwwww owns them all and it is awesome!



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