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.
They're selling beer at games now too
http://www.burntorangenation.com/2015/6/17/8799355/texas-longhorns-football-beer-wine-sales
finds a nut once in a while.
Night game against Michigan! I'll be there with my 12 year old son.
What could possibly go wrong?
I thought that one made sense as well.
That one year is quite valuable to the UT golf brand, of course, but it's interesting that UT emphasizes him going there and there's a huge story in today's NY Times "Golf's Golden Droout".
titled http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/sports/golf/jordan-spieth-golfs-golden-dropout.html
I scoff at the idea that a 7-hour bus ride is excessive for road baseball games, especially if it's for a weekend series. That's a pleasant little trip.
Some of those negatives are reaching a bit, but some of them must be infuriating for Texas fans. We can certainly feel their pain.
It sounds like he's basically the same as Brandon, except he doesn't know how to buy loyalty from strategic groups of stakeholders (I.E. current student athletes, etc).
He sounds even worse. One thing you could give Brandon is that he'd pay his coaches well. Apparently, Strong is having to fight Patterson to increase the salaries of his quality-control coaches (who are the lowest-paid in the conference) - and he's losing the battle. I'm amazed that Patterson would be like that even in the flagship sport.
Their recruiting class is currently ranked #48. They'll move up but the other Texas schools are killing them. Just noticed Notre Dame is only #47. Any chance Kelly is on the hot seat?
TA&M, TCU, Baylor, TTech, Houston, and SMU all have higher ranked classes than Texas right now.
Allededly running backs get up to 5 hookers at their disposal...
CJK5H
*Allegedly
Good lord.
So there's that.
You know if U-T is doing that poorly in a talent-loaded state and a place where Texas should be the strongest brand-name, something is wrong. Of course, some of it could be the way Charlie Strong is recruiting, but that's hard to say.
almost every year. Mack Brown would lock down a lot of top local players. I know it's early and there's a lot of disparity in class size, but this shows either a change in recruiting strategy or prowess.
He's taken his discipline to another level. I like the idea, but running your program like Gunny Highway isn't the best way to get players down there.
Kelly on the hot seat you say, maybe that is what gives him that special glow....
without looking at their class, I'm sure most of that has to do with the number of commits, which is not a legitimate concern in June. If they still have this problem come November or December, then it'll be time to worry.
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He's going to drive them away too, unless he's fired first. Which should have happened yesterday.
This week, Patterson fired longtime sports information director John Bianco, who had been at Texas 23 years and was trusted by football coach Charlie Strong – without consulting Strong, sources said.
See, if I am Charlie Strong, this pisses me off, especially when it is in a vital area for the department like that. You do begin to wonder how many incidents like that have to happene before you actively wonder if you've made a horrible mistake in going to a department run under those conditions.
"Has basically told varsity tennis to go to hell"
I don't know why, but I laughed so hard at this.
I just picture him driving by tennis practice in a golf cart yelling "FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOU!!" out of a megaphone. Just nice and drawn out so its nice and Doppler-effecty.
telling the tennis team. No Nets for you! Imagine the net.
What is so funny, a lot of people go to Hell on a regular basis and some even choose to live there and are quite happy, but there are many cold days in Hell though.
this guy is quite the baffoon. Sounds like a horrible person on top of a horrible AD. I mean, renew a contract with a catering service while also suggesting they fire all their employees over 'leaking info'. Get outta there!
And "leaking info" about maybe, potentially, selling beer at games. Christ, man. You force out ten dudes in middle management at a food company with families and such because one of them maybe, might have been associated with leaking an inconsequential news story? Hope this guy gets shitcanned harder than Brandon.
Just when you thought it wasnt possible to find a worse AD than Brandon...
Coca. Cola.
It's kinda dumb but I would think the game in Mexico seems like a cool idea. You can corner the market on fans down there.
Other than that, seems moronic.
If the game is scheduled in Mexico City, they need to be very mindful of the elevation. Or just think to themselves that people down there don't really care about American football unless it's the Dallas Cowboys because apparently they were good 23 years ago.
I was going to ask if Mexico City was higher than Boulder but then remembered a. CU's in the Pac-12 now and b. the second meaning of that.
The fans will love it!
I think it's stupid for the same reasons Brandon's focus on expanding the brand was stupid. The marginal gain from cornering the market on college football fans in Mexico City is going to be more than offset by upsetting long time season ticket holders who don't get marquee out-of-conference games with their season tickets. This is an example of taking the main revenue sources for granted while chasing people who are never going to buy Texas tickets, and that was what started the ball rolling on getting Brandon driven out of town. Any expanding the brand that occurs won't matter if your main fan base doesn't want to buy tickets any more.
That's fair, but if you could use it to replace an away nonconference game, or do it as a neutral site, that's not so bad.
I think every big time team should have at least seven home games, but if they want to move the eighth and it isn't a marquee opponent, fine by me.
Who does Texas schedule home and homes with? Schools that aren't going to give up a home game to play in Mexico is my answer.
A neutral site game is possible, but unless it's a big time opponent, you're still basically replacing a home game. I wonder what big time opponents are willing to help Texas in their Mexican marketing attempt.
But what real upside is there to having a fanbase in Mexico? They'd be too far to attend games in Austin and the Longhorn Network isn't likely to expand there. Maybe they'd buy some merchandise, but probably not all that much (one game isn't going to instantly create legions of diehards.) Compare that to the downside of alienating your own home fanbase (which is already being asked to foot higher ticket prices) by denying them a home game, and it seems like a very bad idea.
Band has to pay for own practice and travel gear
Band is going to fewer and fewer road events
I mean, I don't think I ever had any travel or practice gear paid for by the MMB. Shit, we had to buy the t-shirts! And "fewer and fewer road events..." That shouldn't just be on Athletics, but the band, too.
Don't get me wrong, though, the rest of this is pretty awful.
what "practice" gear was the band getting purchased for it? We had to pay for all of our own practice gear.
"Sources said Scott has struggled to find a Pac-12 school to agree to play in Mexico, in part, because of the security risk in taking student-athletes and fans into a country plagued with drug cartel violence... Patterson, however, said last month there’s a better chance of Texas playing a football game in Mexico by 2020 than the Longhorns facing Texas A&M."
"...there have been tens of thousands of dollars spent by Patterson on fact-finding trips to places such as Shanghai, China, and Dubai to increase UT’s marketing profile..."
What in God's name does Dubai have to do with UT athletics?
This guy makes Brandon look like Don Canham and Fritz Crisler. Holy hell.
There's a lot of oil money in Dubai. Probably more than a few UT grads working there too. He's whoring for donations.