Oh another thing I would add is reworking how we handle parking for events and stand up to PATS if necessary.
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The fundraising issue is first and foremost #1, though there are many aspects to it.
For the younger alumni, we badly need an IPTAY organization, and it needs to actually engage everyone from current students up into their 30s. The easier you make it for alums to stay invested the more likely they will long term.
Someone asked about the $49 tickets - did anyone answer? I’m not aware if we do. I would probably work that heavily into an IPTAY membership too.
The corporate donors are the key to immediate impact though. We need the money and the engagement / support from the community. This is so overwhelmingly important that I’m not sure if anything else really matters for this hire. Hire someone else to handle compliance / day to day ops if necessary. We need a rainmaker that isn’t all smoke and mirrors and empty promises. It has to be someone that the Charlotte community will embrace. It’s a tall tall order, but you asked.
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Average giving rate to athletics is 7.7% according to US News. Maybe Fuller said 10%. Convo was a years ago.
I worry too about economic trends for this hire.
We are likely going to be emphasizing fundraising when a lot of bigger companies are announcing layoffs or hiring freezes. Candidates are not dumb - they’ll be hyper aware of the circumstances.
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A lot of the layoffs and freezes are based on AI though. A lot of companies are taking in profits and laying off at the same time.
We have to shoot our shot. Why can’t we land some whales?
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Theoretically being in the American with the increased TV exposure should have yielded some new sponsorships with an increase in revenue.
I’ve thought about this a lot over the last couple weeks. And I know I said after Mike got fired, that he’s happily retired and wouldn’t be interested. But we need to make a full on push to Danny Morrison. Whatever it takes. The Chancellor, the Chairman of the BOT, and whoever else need to go knock on his door and get on their knees and beg him to come save us. He’s the guy! We have to go and offer him whatever he wants. Give him the job and let him bring in the money from Corporate and then allow him to pick his successor in 3-4 years. I’m convinced he’s the guy that can come in and get this city engaged like we desperately need.
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Probably a long shot, but that would be a home run hire in my opinion. Even just bringing him in as an advisor would be a really big deal. If not Morrison, someone similiar to the USF CEO of athletics who has the same kind of background.
After reading his bio, I also really like the current Toledo athletic director. He seems to do a good job on the athletics and fundraising sides of the job. If Gaber can pry him away from her former school, I think he could also be a really good hire.
I really wish we had hired Morrison the last go round. I think he would have been what we needed. Our timing very often sucks.
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I’d be fine with Morrison but he is a UNC-CH and South Carolina grad. Former makes him persona non grata for some.
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Personally I don’t care where they went to school if they can turn things around.
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Get football people in the department!, we have to get football right even if it means de-emphasizing other sports till football is thriving…. Did Hill bring in football people?, didnt seem that Hill had a football background either (wanted to hire HC’s who were CEO’s, what is that idea even??) or were they people from our previous administration when bball was our highest level sport? Who was our football experienced leader?
Random sample size; just looking both AD of Ga state and Kennesaw st played P4 football for example.
When Hill came in from Florida and Fuller from Tennessee as #2 the thought was we brought in football guys.
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Ahh, makes sense. But a mistake to think he had anything to do with success of running or building football at florida, Spurrier or Urban Meyer were the guys 
.
I’d say the challenge is leaders from power schools like that don’t understand the challenges of raising funds at a G6 school.
Raise more money and neither Will nor Poggi get hired.
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Hill was the lead administrator for men’s basketball at UF when hired by Charlotte.
And GA State folks want Charlie Cobb, the AD, gone like 5 years ago…he came from Appy where he’d been the AD and folks there were happy to see him leave
My point is, just having the football background doesn’t create someone who understands what to do at a place like Charlotte.
In today’s athletics landscape, this job is not what it was ten years ago. It now seems like a two-person type job…athletics administrator (coaches, facilities, etc.) and financial guru (NIL, etc).
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I’d like to say this too. We do such a poor job of wrangling our captive audience. You can’t tell me our students don’t care. That student section is packed to the gills constantly for a pretty bad football program.
We absolutely must find a way to engage them, and at a minimum get a way to contact them upon graduation.
The core group of people, including myself, that I graduated with, went to games with, slept on bricks with, and even served on committees to help plan for football from a student perspective with ALL donated and had season tickets in the early years. I don’t know one of them that still does. Including yours truly. They don’t contact me anymore. I’m sure they are overwhelmed with cases like this, and my life circumstances have changed greatly. Fans aren’t always going to be happy, but I’ve never in my life encountered an organization that actively runs people off the way we have over the years. From Phil Dubois chirping at donors about their donations, and students about their GPA, then going on the Radio and essentially saying our entire fan base was stupid, to “The average fan doesn’t understand how good monmouth really is” to Poggi actively going after some of our donors and supporters with the most clout, we could really use some “protect the brand” style PR.
I would love for it to be an issue with my wife when we sit down and look at the budget about how much we could allocate for Charlotte. When the head coach literally calls me a moron, my wife gets a nice little giggle whenever it comes up. And she should. That is a completely normal response.
Quick Idea for the AD: Guarantee football tickets for a 25 dollar donation from students. Make them use a personal email when they sign up. That was the entire idea behind Niner Nation Gold. Get students that care in 104, and guarantee football seats. Phil Dubois rubbed his taint all over both those ideas, but it created demand, and we had a massive student booster club at that time for a school without football. I’m not even sure if we have a student booster club at this moment.
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I believe that’s the purpose of CLT Gold Mine:
More cowbell
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