Texas AD Actually Sounds Worse Than Brandon
http://www.scout.com/college/texas/story/1556266-hd-exclusive-ad-patter…
- Wanted to charge a class reunion at UT $25 per person to walk on the football field
- 10,000 football season tickets were not renewed for 2015
- Football ticket prices were raised an avg of 21% while ticket holders were told it would be only 6%
- No resale of tickets or you can lose them
- Baseball team taking 7 hour bus rides to away games
- Used golf recruiting funds to buy an ad congratulating alum Jordan Spieth for winning the Masters
- QC football coaches are lowest paid in Big 12
- Coaches have to pay out of pocket to visit athletes in athletic dining hall after so many free visits (wtf??)
- Has basically told varsity tennis to go to hell
- Band has to pay for own practice and travel gear
- Band is going to fewer and fewer road events
- Tens of thousands of $ spent to market the brand of Univ of Texas in Dubai
- Is insisting a UT football game be played in Mexico
- Basketball team playing in China and Bahamas around Thanksgiving a week apart, the China trip is a Pac 12 initiative to market their conference
- Renewed a catering company contract after insisting the company fire all the employees because he thought they leaked info
- Tried to circumvent UT President in splitting Longhorn Network $ with the university on an agreement btwn old AD and university
- AD bloated with employees for fundraising purposes because he lacks the skills to raise funds himself
- Asks coaches to go after donations and raise funds themselves if they want to succeed
- Fired long time SID and replaced him with a guy from, wait for it........the NBA!!
Fascinating article.
Good point, but if Patterson had described it that way—"I'm in Dubai offering oral sex for donations"—at least it would have had the virtue of being honest.
Calling the trip "fact-finding" to "increase UT's marketing profile" is naked marketing-speak bullshit.
This is the one that would grind my gears the most. They're my tickets. I bought them with my own money. Who this fuck is this guy to tell me I can't resell them?
Back in the '70s and even '80s, it was a pretty common rumor that if you had prime seats (near the 50) at Michigan Stadium, and an Ohio State fan ended up sitting in your seats for the M-OSU game, you would not find a renewal notice in the mail the next season.
I have absolutely no idea if this is true, but even if it is, I have no problem with it.
Of course, there was a huge list of big donors who wanted to upgrade their seats back then. It would be a pretty stupid business decision now, with demand much lower than it was used to be.
Notre Dame has done this for years
Their stadium was mostly red when Nebraska played there.
Notre Dame has done this for years
That's interesting.
State of Texas has no laws restricting resale of tickets, scalping, etc.
So how do they enforce that when usernames "EarlC", "BillBoyBryant" and "ToddDodge" sell their tickets on Ebay?
When I went to UT, my name was on my student ticket. So I really couldn't sell it to anybody, I don't think.
Then again, the tickets were in PDF, so my name wasn't exactly engraved on the ticket.
They're looking to play a football game there iirc.
I think they're playing a basketball in China this coming year as well.
I do think there are opportunities to extend American sports into international markets, and think there are benefits to this - getting more kids to play these games means level of competition increases, and the business case is it'll mean more fans and long term more money for the major competitions back home, as long as room for growth for more international competitions in American football, basketball, baseball and hockey. The British did a great job of using their empire to bring the world soccer and to a lesser extent cricket and rugby, and I think there are opportunities for North American business and sports fans to see the growth of baseball, basketball and hockey in international markets. And even if we do fail, it's important to try to get the world to care about American football too.
BUT there is something incredibly icky about using barely paid student athletes to push these games in these markets, especially around holidays that are traditionally spent with the family. The pros should be the ones doing it - not the colleges. And holding one-off "events" does no good too - their also needs to be a commitment to getting people excited at a grass roots level and being willing to wait a generation or two until the sports picks up momentum on is own in these international markets. Case study: soccer in America. Bring Pele, wait 20 years, hold a World Cup, wait another 20 years, profit. And more importantly, excite Americans and the world with the thrill of competition.
Dave screwed up the Football program pretty badly as well as alienating fans, but one thing he did do right was fundraising and giving the "non-revenue sports" the attention they deserve when it comes to facilities.
On the whole this is a damning list. But I'll defend three of his actions:
-Jordan Spieth is huge cap in the feather of UT Golf, so why not use recruiting dollars to give him more exposure, thereby giving UT Golf more exposure?
-Having employees for fundraising isn't necessarily a bad thing - yes that's his job, but his job is also to ensure those dollars are spent on his athletic programs. Delegating for fundraising isn't necessarily bad.
-Asking coaches to go after funds makes sense - they are usually some of the most visible people in their sports. Think of how much "HARBUAGH!" has done for Michigan - his presense at a fundrasider can raise a dozen scholarships, at least.
With all of these things balance is important, and the rest of this list makes it clear that the AD at UT doesn't have that sense of balance or he is skewed far away from "the athletic department is part of a university community where all of our student athletes matter and so do our students who aren't athletes." But those specific initiatives may be worth saving even after this AD is gone.
This would concern me as a UT fan. I'd prefer my AD try to promote my own conference rather than send the bball team abroad to promote the Pac12. It's gotta be ackward for Texas coaches to talk up UCLA and USC.
Basketball team playing in China and Bahamas around Thanksgiving a week apart, the China trip is a Pac 12 initiative to market their conference
The most mindblowing part of this article is the Pac-12 basketball game in fucking China. In November. When they're also playing in the fucking Bahamas. Also in November.
So you're telling me you're shipping out "student-athletes" on a glorified promotional journey across the world right around finals time?
Genius.
So Texas is becoming filthy rich and is also being obnoxiously frugal. Where's the money going? Is there AD staff getting massively inflated...so they can fundraise for more money?
I don't get what his endgame is here
With all their ticket non-renewals, they may not end up being so wealthy.
Yeesh, that was a bare-ass spanking OU put on them.
It has been well-established that the Texas AD is all kinds of terrible. I am amazed he is still in his current position, but I'm guessing the Texas fans are getting fired up sooner rather than later.
Dave Brandon took like 4 years to piss everyone off. Patterson's way ahead of his schedule.
Basketball team playing in China and Bahamas around Thanksgiving a week apart, the China trip is a Pac 12 initiative to market their conference
Did you mean Big 12? Or is UT actually flying halfway around the world to participate in another conference's showcase event?
It's a Pac 12 thing
That is amazing. It's like Texas is daring the Big 12 to kick them out, George Costanza-style.
Michigan will also be in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament field with Texas.
Texas A&M is gonna be in the field as well. We could see multiple rivalry games in that tournament with UConn-Cuse and UW-Gonzaga.
Does Patterson know that football means something different in Mexico?
The difference between Brandon and this guy is that Brandon was tone deaf and a bit clueless, whereas Patterson seems malicious.
This story put a smile on this guy's face....
Wow! It's deja vu all over again... Except for:
Baseball team taking 7 hour bus rides to away games
I don't see a problem here. By way of comparison, I needed to go to Albuquerque on business last year. The drive time direct from home compared to getting to the airport an hour early, having to change planes (no direct flight), and the best layover was a couple of hours meant the travel time was a wash whether I drove myself or flew. I got a rental car and drove it. Had more legroom than a CRJ that way too. If baseball doesn't have a charter available, and the total flying time vs a bus is close, that's an easy decision to make for just about any athletic department.
The problem with having non-revenue coaches as fund raisers is that pretty much the only ones they can go after are team alumni, and there are relatively few of those to draw from. There is no ticket list 50,000 to 100,000 deep to work off. Nobody knows who attends the games or who the fans are. In addition, not many of them are multimillionaire football or basketball players so any donations are going to be small. The amount of work going into it would probably not be in line with the result, and would take away from coaching and recriuting.
Patterson once threatened to fire a line of staffers because a trade proposal appeared in The Oregonian. He lined up the secretaries, demanding to know who leaked the deal.
What Patterson never knew is that the source of the leak was -- himself. He'd accidentally left the trade proposal in plain view on a fax machine tray at the practice facility.
OTOH, undercutting Strong by going cheap on his assistants is not such a good one.
In the early Canham as AD years the track team competed in the Kentucky Relays. We didn't even get a bus ride. The team used some of those 15 seat vans and they were driven to KY by senior team members who were over 21. We also drove to the Ohio Relays at OSU that way. And remember, Canham had been the track coach the year before.
I live In Houston and can say without a doubt that , Patterson is a world class a$$ hat. He started in the Houston Rockets organization in the 80's his dad was GM for a while and he ended up high in the management till his dad retired in 1990. He had the temerity to tell Hakeem Olajuwon that he was faking an injury and really pissed everyone off. He left and worked with the Texans and Houston Aeros, he eventually caused that team to be run out of town because of his desire to be the primary tennant in his own arena, despite the favorable terms that Rockets had given the team. Moved on to Portalnd and some how weasled his way to the GM position in 2006. Spent a year there pissing everyone off and left.
The one difference between Patterson and Brandon is the fact Patterson is a wantabe jock, never played sports, but always involved and sticking his nose in and opening his uninformed mouth. Not surprised he has done all those things. And I know a lot of Aggies in the Houston area who know about him and are loving the fact that he is there.