Seems like a ton of work to put it up and take it down every year. I guess someone ran the numbers on that and decided it was less cash than building a permanent facility? You’d think with their endowment they could cover that with a rounding error…
1 Like
Meh, I think the difference between us and the pretentious bunch that are alumni of that school in Austin, is we didn’t try to hold Rice back from succeeding, and then mock them later for it. The current state of their football program is their own choice (just like this bounce house). What if I told you they have the same resources as us, but maybe more? We are not UTA or the P5 chest thumpers; we’re Coogs poking a little fun at a rival that has the means to improve.
Our IPF cost 17 million more than the inflatable one Rice is going to put up. I think they said it costs $30k to deflate/inflate every year so it will be awhile before it would break even.
Interest/investment income from Rice’s endowment funds the school’s operating expenses. I’m pretty sure they can’t just pull out twenty million to build an IPF. Harvard also does a bubble thing over their football stadium in the offseason. They have a nearly $40 billion endowment and I believe their bubble came from private donations.
I thought it was like a bouncy house, just turn off the blower motor…
2 Likes
Ooooo . . . Ahhhh
1 Like
I thought it was funny that the students are concerned about safety in the Greenbriar parking lot. Maybe they should just bubble the whole campus.
1 Like
Ha then thank god we literally just finally opened one ourselves.
So basically no different. Except Rice fans don’t wear tinfoil hats.
You’re just doing the exact same thing. I mean we’re not that far removed from doing the same type of things. Voted to get rid of athletics. Bleacher gate. Winless season. Brutal attendance. Rotting stadium. It wasn’t that long ago.
And it’s not like the program is just cranking out money now either like Texas does. We leverage our large student body and student fees to write a large portion of the checks. Good for Rice.
Correct, but their administration clearly does.
Not sure how much this will help them…I use to think Rice had potential to be a baskeball school but now not so much.
1 Like
They probably do, but they’d probably be better off dropping football down to FCS level and concentrating on their other sports in order to focus more on being a basketball/baseball school.
2 Likes
Totally agree Patrick!! Would be awesome to have two great baskketball schools in the same city. Kinda like Xavier/Cincinatti or Temple/Villanova.
2 Likes
Agreed, especially since it looks like we are trying to rekindle that rivalry in football and basketball.
2 Likes
There is absolutely no reason Rice can’t be a poor…ok it’s Rice…rich man’s Gonzaga. Not that they will be AP Top 25 year in and year out. But they could easily be the team CUSA sends to the tournament every single year and make a run from time to time. You just don’t need the facilities and staff that football demands to have a high class basketball program. You also don’t need 50,000 people to show up to make your stadium semi-full.
1 Like
Those bounce houses blow away in high wind as did the one the Texans (or was it Dallas?) did. They can be quite dangerous . Go Coogs !
The money is there for Rice to be as big as they want. They could go Gonzaga, they could even go Stanford. The will is not, not among the admin, nor the faculty, nor among alums going back to at least the Ken Hatfield days. It’s like where we were 20 years ago with deemphasizing athletics, except instead of turning back before it was too late they’ve gone full steam ahead.
This IPF is a sign of that same indecision - it’s a cheap and slapdash option that placates their remaining donors that care about football but goes absolutely no further than that. They could have spent more and had one equal to ours, or to A&M’s or even Clemson’s, but that would look like long-term commitment.
1 Like