I donât think heel fans are remotely worried about us right now. When you canât win a conference tournament game in a bad conference you arent a threat. Most heels fans when asked about us probably respond with: âwho?â They donât have to troll us when Ron is doing a great job of that on his own.
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If they donât care what the few fans left think, then the situation is even worse than it looks right now. I guess when you force students to pay $1000 each, per year to finance your department & your salary you donât really have to worry about the fans. If thatâs the plan I hope that safety net gets jerked out from under them real soon.
DOBA about the AD giving two shits about what we think.
But, it still sucks that weâve sucked for 20 years. And yes we suck, weâre not mediocre. I want to be back where we were when we were going to the NCAA tourney. Not .500 in a shitty league. That sucks to me, itâs not average
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Yeah itâs pretty clear the AD doesnât care what we think. They donât care about empty Halton, they donât care about lack of social media engagement, they donât care about being invisible in our own city. They donât care, and thatâs not something to be proud of.
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You could probably give $50000 a year and they would care more what you think. Money gets you access, not just here but at any school. The average fan who makes âsmallâ contributions every year opinion matters a lot less than the guy who walks in and says here is more money than that guy gave the past twenty years combined.
Not just a Charlotte thing but all over college sportsâŚ
If it werenât for the student fees, there would be no football.
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I donât want access, I want accountability and excellence. I want to actually compete for championships, real ones.
Or as said back in Pilot Mtn back in the day. Money talks, bullshit walks
It it werenât for fees there would be a very small AD, itâs not just football. At some point those students deserve a better product in return for the fees they are forced to pay.
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Iâll push back on the not being visible. There is rarely a large event that happens that Mike isnât at. He has a seat at the table with many of the city and business leaders. Our advertising and SM outreach is solid. Mike and the AD came out for St Paticks parade and other city events. I mean he personally came to the parade the day after getting home from frisco, along with a lot of the AD but where was everyone else that complains about visibility all the time? On football game days he is meeting with tailgates and actually has minimized his time with high donors to spend more time with lower and mid level donors. It helps he actually lives in uptown not lake norman.
The challenge is if you are losing, that penetration on SM and advertising isnât going to get you the bang you want to see. The general public in a large city just isnt going to care if your brand is a losing brand in the two sports that move the needle for most people. I like that we have made headway to making baseball and soccer closer to break even sports, but football or basketball has to show up performance wise regardless of Mike does from a visibility point of view.
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Iâm sorry, I mean visibility in that people not only see us, but know who and what we are. My neighbor across the street, huge sports fan, NC State grad asked me the other day what our logo is. Thatâs being invisible in your own city.
Unfortunately, I think you are a little too insulated by your status with the AD to be able to fairly evaluate the visibility of the program in the city. Losing is a huge part of it, but itâs bigger than that. Five years in, we are still âLil ole UNCCâ and our athletic director is doing everything in his power with basketball to play the part.
I was in UCity yesterday for the afternoon, saw very little brand penetration. One hat at Top Golf, one shirt at dinner.
I donât personally know how visible MIke individually is, Iâll take your word for it, but when it comes to being a presence in our own city, brand recognition, top of mind awareness of the program, we are still not much better than my high school. Thatâs a pretty big failure.
Some of us enjoy being pissed
I get that - but I would put most of that on the losing. You cant buy the visibility that winning brings. I donât think we are in a different place on this topic - win and the visibility improves. I think there is little the AD can do to build visibility beside fix the main sports and then capitalize. So basically they need to do their job and win. I am actually always fairly surprised at our market penetration given our lack of performance in football and basketball.
Perhaps surprisingly I am not that connected to the AD. I am def on better terms with them than with Judy and I def hear stuff early and have a little access but if I was in lock step with them I would be walking a different line with Ron. The irony is the visibility of the ambulance is what creates the dynamic. I would say my relationship with them has been very neutral. They have obviously helped out tailgate location and run stuff by me and few others, but its generally because they know we will tell them our true feelings - because we are more concerned with winning and performance than if I can come watch practice - it also helps i am not an ass most of the time. The tailgate location has driven over $100k in annual donation to the club - so thatâs been a win/win.
What I have built is some relationships with some of the really large donors. That has actually been more impactful that the connections I have in the AD.
Outside of basketball I have been pretty happy with where things are as whole, but that is because I actually think that, not because of AD relationship. Other sports are doing well mostly, club growth is up, football bowled them stumbled and fired, brand change, facilities plan, changed development staff structure, changed our marketing leader, etc. Evergreen was delayed, but that was Gaber and the state not, Mike. I didnât have an issue with the hiring of Ron.
Basketball and lack of known new large donor(s) are my only two real issues and large donor may be tied up in Evergreen.
If Ron can land Jaelyn Withers - who has entered the portal, then I call for a moratorium on firing Ron. Not because of Ron, but to see Brice and Jaelyn in green together - who knowsâŚ
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Is he going to depart one dumpster fire for another? Sure it would be nice for us.
Calling our program, a dumpster fire will certainly help recruiting
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Getting Jaelyn and a reliable 2G that can get buckets and play D would open me to one more season for Sanchez.
I would really love to see these 2 play together.
I wonder if they know / like each other?
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Agree with NWA on market AwarenessâŚ
We simply have to win some meaningful games for things to improve.
Not many people are exicited to walk around with a losers shirt or hat.
Simply have to start winning for things to improve.
On the issue of student fees supporting the AD⌠I think we are going to
see this become an issue going forward with the Whole NIL stuff.
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You are absolutely right about that. Nothing wrong with using student fees to get things started. But you also need to attempt to put a product on the field and court that will attract fans and get people to buy tickets. If the AD doesnât care about what fans think then they have evidently decided to just get fat and happy off of students paying fees unwillingly and doing nothing to supplement that income by actually being successful. At our level we will always depend on student fees to some extent but surviving off of them indefinitely is a shitty business model.
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I spoke to some one in our AD about NIL and they said across the nation what schools are seeing is on average NIL isnât new money its money redirected from sponsorships or donors. That means the funding model for some schools is going to under go some stress.