He offered up a million to Sumlin’s buyout, I didn’t see him offering squat to jettison DH, he’s an Aggy.
Lame is our new reality?
Maybe Tilman is tired of being the biggest donor by far. He’s already Board Chair and isn’t seeing football results. Men’s hoops is another thing entirely.
A&M paid for the #1 recruiting class about three years ago and it got them a losing season. Then again, it hyped things up and people buy tickets. They can make money on their tickets this year with LSU, UT and ND on the home schedule. Future years will be tougher with just two of the big names but still better than UH having no big names and gets LSU at NRG. Chicken/egg.
Tailgating and in game experience are a great investment. For many, there’s no draw to buy tickets and not sit with anyone you know. Many just start up going to games when their kid enrolls.
This doesn’t fly in this situation.
Normally I would be right there with you……but when the 10B dollar man forces a drunk with no work ethic on every fan, alumni, etc. ……and then says he isn’t paying any of the buyout?!
Then I have no issue with spending this man’s money to help jumpstart the program in Big 12 play……he’s the man that pulled all the strings behind the scenes to get us in the conference….but now he’s cool with us being a bottom dweller?
I’m with Jo on this one.
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I see what you’re saying here but Tilman has already dropped big money here on our facilities (20 million for basketball), donation for the medical school, and other areas. Like 3 million for a QB is nothing compared to what he’s already done. Plus when the football facility is completed then UH can put all their resources into NIL. We’re tied since we have to commit to facilities, NIL, and Holgersons buyout.
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Every school, including A&M and UT, have small donor bases that donate the majority of money.
The problem is, we don’t have enough of those.
The donors you’re referring to, are the people that donate small amounts here and there, which we do lack, yes, largely because of who this university has catered to over the past 3-4 decades.
The reason that there is a lack of family connection to Houston’s university, is due to reasons outside of UH’s control. In fact, a lot of has to do with both conference affiliation over the years, but also because of how Houston has developed outwardly alongside the University of Houston, which is within one of the most crime-filled neighborhoods.
You want UH to have more line of sight to the city of Houston? Then you need to get people to live closer to the school. It’s nearly impossible for graduates to live anywhere BUT the outer suburbs. That NEEDS to change.
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The ones who will have to change the culture are millennials and… Gen Z… it is in my generation’s hands. But I know of many Gen Z who (at this moment at least) don’t plan on having kids so you may not get that generational pipeline.
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And those like my former colleague who pays $5K+ per season ticket at A&M to sit second deck first row.
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Other schools have a HUGE amount of T-Shirt fans. which are actually huge revenue sources
Think of LSU…they are inferior to us in every measurable except culture which bleeds into the athletic support
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If 100k of our alumni donated say… $100, that would be enough to get CKS the plane lol
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LSU has benefited from being in a power conferences their entire existence. It takes multiple generations to develop a brand with t-shirt fans.
UH does not have this history. We are only able to get t-shirt fans when we are good.
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Disagree. They’re in the SEC. They will sell out.
There was a time when the SWC was even with the SEC…and we were IN the SWC during that time.
We didn’t have CULTURE then and we are still struggling to build one.
But we can do something about it. It’ll start with Millennials and Gen Z
They didn’t even “sell out” every game this year. 92345 for McNeese and just under 100K for Bowling Green. Incredible results in a year with three boom-time home games that will draw big bucks in resale.
SMU meanwhile is selling FSU tickets for $50 and up on secondary market. They priced the tickets really well at first (all $125+). When the secondary market pops, people are incentivized to buy more season tickets to lock in. Last year for UT is an example. UH men’s hoops is an example.
We were in the SWC for 24 years…
UH was irrelevant before the SWC, and we became irrelevant again AFTER the SWC. As I just said above, a single generation isn’t going to establish longterm t shirt fans when we get kicked to the curb.
LSU is a FOUNDING member of the SEC since the 30s.
If you want UH to improve it’s brand, then it has to start where it’s located.
UH Basketball is killing it right now. The same needs to happen with football.
At the same time, UH has been essentially ignored by its own city for decades. We lost any relevance in sports before the Big 12 outside of a few pockets of success, and people continued to sprawl outwards and never had to think about UH.
Improve Third Ward. Get someone to invest in Greek Life housing. Improve HISD so that more grads can live closer to campus instead of having to commute all the way from the exurbs
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BTW, the UNLV QB beat us and he was only looking for $100K per year, not $3M.
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Cheaper to live outside the loop
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As CKS has emphasized many times before, other programs care about their respective flagship sports.
And by that, I take it that he’s also alluding to Alumni.
In our case, not many Alums/Honorary Alums (Dennis Quaid, the actor from the Big Bang Theory, Lizzo, Lil Wayne, the UFO fighter pilot Commander David Fravor, etc.) seem to care enough or feel connected to Athletics enough to $tep in.
But we do? We don’t have the fan base other schools have to make us competitive in NIL. Not right now.