Richmond has suddenly become the capital of the college basketball universe.
Although it’s too soon to quantify the windfall awaiting the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University thanks to their basketball teams’ unlikely runs to the Sweet Sixteen, the schools are working to make the most of their 15 minutes of fame.
“We are all in a good mood,” said Cynthia Schmidt, VCU’s director of university marketing. “We’re just talking about ways to capitalize on it.”
Administrators across town in Spider country are doing the same sort of thinking.
“Admissions are probably going to feel a bump. Alumni always develop an extra sense of pride during times like this, so there’s the opportunity for contributions to go up,” said Brian Eckert, UR’s director of media relations. “Overall it’s a great shot in the arm for the university.”
But calculating just how much money will trickle down to the two schools is harder than sinking a half-court shot.
First there’s the money that the NCAA pays to the individual athletic conferences based on their teams’ performances.
The Colonial Athletic Association, for example, had three teams this year make it to the NCCA tournament: Old Dominion University, George Mason University, and in case you haven’t heard, VCU.
According to Tom Yeager, commissioner of the CAA, the conference is issued one “unit” by the NCAA for each game a CAA team plays in. Those units are given a value and distributed over a six-year performance period according to how much revenue the NCAA generates.
“Right now we’re ahead, because we had three teams this year,” Yeager said.
The CAA has received seven units. The value presently attached to the units is $240,000 each, Yeager said. Accordingly, the CAA’s run in this year’s tournament thus far has been worth about $1.68 million.
The way the money is passed on to the teams in the conference is also a bit of a complex calculation.
The team that had the best performance — in this year’s case, it was VCU — gets a significantly larger share of the cut from the units. The rest is split among the remaining teams in the conference and goes toward helping pay for the CAA’s $5 million a year operating budget and non-revenue-generating sports.
Yeager said the systems vary from conference to conference.
Representatives from the Atlantic 10 Conference were not available to comment Monday on how its revenue sharing system works.
Jeff Cupps, VCU’s executive associate athletic director, said it is easy to get caught up in the money side of the game because it bleeds into so many aspects of the university.
The money from the conference goes into the school’s general fund. But Cupps said success like VCU is experiencing in the tournament this year will no doubt help the athletic department increase its fundraising efforts. That goes a long way toward covering VCU’s $20 million annual athletic budget.
The national attention is also good for ticket sales at VCU’s future regular season games.
“We are becoming a difficult ticket to get for the good games in our conference,” Cupps said. “That makes everything a little bit better, whether it’s tickets sales or donations.”
It also helps with recruiting and drawing better players to the school, another way one year’s success trickles down long term.
“Three times on national TV in five days,” Cupps said. “Wow, that’s tough to be beat.”
It’s also too soon to quantify the more indirect effects on the schools, such as the potential for increased applications, an uptick in donations, the solidification of school spirit and, don’t forget, Google hits.
All of sudden, people across the country want to find out where in the world VCU is, and even that has a value.
“Back when we beat Duke [in 2007], we had a glimpse at what the opportunity was,” said Schmidt. “But when that happened, there weren’t things like Twitter. You didn’t have the viral opportunities back then.”
The terms, “VCU,” “Shaka Smart” and “Joey Rodriguez” were the top trending topics on Twitter in the country on Sunday, Schmidt said.
“That’s beating out Justin Bieber. Beyond just the merchandise, you really can’t put a price tag on that top-of-mind awareness.”
UR is also reveling in the attention. It last made it to the Sweet Sixteen in 1988, before some of its current players were even born.
“What happens in these circumstances [is that] a lot of people learn about the college who didn’t know anything about us before,” said Eckert, UR’s director of media relations.
But sales of Sweet Sixteen T-shirts don’t hurt, either.
“We do suddenly get a lot more calls for UR merchandise,” Eckert said. “Those Sweet Sixteen shirts are supposed to arrive tomorrow.”
And as the cash registers at campus bookstores go “cha-ching,” the coaches of both schools likely won’t go home empty-handed.
It is common practice to have performance incentives built into coaching contracts.
For example, VCU coach Shaka Smart, who is paid an annual base salary of $325,000, has incentives in his contract for NCAA and NIT tournament bids and wins, national TV appearances and attendance milestones.
Although Cupps said schools aim high when creating these incentives, a VCU run to the national championship might bring in a little something extra.
“Should the performance be of the kind that you say, ‘This was extraordinary but wasn’t built into the contract,’ I think that discussion would take place,” Cupps said.
BizSense has a full slate of NCAA-related stories.
Read about the boost local bars expect here. And check out the travel angle as fans try and get to San Antonio here.
Michael Schwartz is a BizSense reporter. Please send news tips to [email protected].
Richmond has suddenly become the capital of the college basketball universe.
Although it’s too soon to quantify the windfall awaiting the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University thanks to their basketball teams’ unlikely runs to the Sweet Sixteen, the schools are working to make the most of their 15 minutes of fame.
“We are all in a good mood,” said Cynthia Schmidt, VCU’s director of university marketing. “We’re just talking about ways to capitalize on it.”
Administrators across town in Spider country are doing the same sort of thinking.
“Admissions are probably going to feel a bump. Alumni always develop an extra sense of pride during times like this, so there’s the opportunity for contributions to go up,” said Brian Eckert, UR’s director of media relations. “Overall it’s a great shot in the arm for the university.”
But calculating just how much money will trickle down to the two schools is harder than sinking a half-court shot.
First there’s the money that the NCAA pays to the individual athletic conferences based on their teams’ performances.
The Colonial Athletic Association, for example, had three teams this year make it to the NCCA tournament: Old Dominion University, George Mason University, and in case you haven’t heard, VCU.
According to Tom Yeager, commissioner of the CAA, the conference is issued one “unit” by the NCAA for each game a CAA team plays in. Those units are given a value and distributed over a six-year performance period according to how much revenue the NCAA generates.
“Right now we’re ahead, because we had three teams this year,” Yeager said.
The CAA has received seven units. The value presently attached to the units is $240,000 each, Yeager said. Accordingly, the CAA’s run in this year’s tournament thus far has been worth about $1.68 million.
The way the money is passed on to the teams in the conference is also a bit of a complex calculation.
The team that had the best performance — in this year’s case, it was VCU — gets a significantly larger share of the cut from the units. The rest is split among the remaining teams in the conference and goes toward helping pay for the CAA’s $5 million a year operating budget and non-revenue-generating sports.
Yeager said the systems vary from conference to conference.
Representatives from the Atlantic 10 Conference were not available to comment Monday on how its revenue sharing system works.
Jeff Cupps, VCU’s executive associate athletic director, said it is easy to get caught up in the money side of the game because it bleeds into so many aspects of the university.
The money from the conference goes into the school’s general fund. But Cupps said success like VCU is experiencing in the tournament this year will no doubt help the athletic department increase its fundraising efforts. That goes a long way toward covering VCU’s $20 million annual athletic budget.
The national attention is also good for ticket sales at VCU’s future regular season games.
“We are becoming a difficult ticket to get for the good games in our conference,” Cupps said. “That makes everything a little bit better, whether it’s tickets sales or donations.”
It also helps with recruiting and drawing better players to the school, another way one year’s success trickles down long term.
“Three times on national TV in five days,” Cupps said. “Wow, that’s tough to be beat.”
It’s also too soon to quantify the more indirect effects on the schools, such as the potential for increased applications, an uptick in donations, the solidification of school spirit and, don’t forget, Google hits.
All of sudden, people across the country want to find out where in the world VCU is, and even that has a value.
“Back when we beat Duke [in 2007], we had a glimpse at what the opportunity was,” said Schmidt. “But when that happened, there weren’t things like Twitter. You didn’t have the viral opportunities back then.”
The terms, “VCU,” “Shaka Smart” and “Joey Rodriguez” were the top trending topics on Twitter in the country on Sunday, Schmidt said.
“That’s beating out Justin Bieber. Beyond just the merchandise, you really can’t put a price tag on that top-of-mind awareness.”
UR is also reveling in the attention. It last made it to the Sweet Sixteen in 1988, before some of its current players were even born.
“What happens in these circumstances [is that] a lot of people learn about the college who didn’t know anything about us before,” said Eckert, UR’s director of media relations.
But sales of Sweet Sixteen T-shirts don’t hurt, either.
“We do suddenly get a lot more calls for UR merchandise,” Eckert said. “Those Sweet Sixteen shirts are supposed to arrive tomorrow.”
And as the cash registers at campus bookstores go “cha-ching,” the coaches of both schools likely won’t go home empty-handed.
It is common practice to have performance incentives built into coaching contracts.
For example, VCU coach Shaka Smart, who is paid an annual base salary of $325,000, has incentives in his contract for NCAA and NIT tournament bids and wins, national TV appearances and attendance milestones.
Although Cupps said schools aim high when creating these incentives, a VCU run to the national championship might bring in a little something extra.
“Should the performance be of the kind that you say, ‘This was extraordinary but wasn’t built into the contract,’ I think that discussion would take place,” Cupps said.
BizSense has a full slate of NCAA-related stories.
Read about the boost local bars expect here. And check out the travel angle as fans try and get to San Antonio here.
Michael Schwartz is a BizSense reporter. Please send news tips to [email protected].
To paraphrase what one of the basketball pundits recently said: The Big East has two teams left in the tournament, the same number as the City of Richmond !
I don’t want to throw cold water on the party but I would like to know the graduation rates for the UR and VCU basketball teams. That’s another measure of “winning.”
Multi-year APR for 2008-2009 A score of under 925 brings scholarship reductions. State of Virginia- University of Richmond VA 2008 – 2009 967 Virginia Commonwealth University VA 2008 – 2009 975 George Mason University VA 2008 – 2009 995 Old Dominion University VA 2008 – 2009 947 James Madison University VA 2008 – 2009 941 College of William and Mary VA 2008 – 2009 961 Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University VA 2008 – 2009 970 University of Virginia VA 2008 – 2009 952 Hampton University VA 2008 – 2009 948 Longwood University VA 2008 – 2009 930 Liberty University… Read more »