Thanks to both BC and StanUSwagU for the posts!
BC- I read your post (avoiding quoting bc of length) and largely concur with one major disagreement on "zero sum". Yes, definitionally win-loss records are zero sum but attendance, revenue, viewership is not. Quality gameday experience, marketing, fun talent/players etc result in increase ticket sales and TV viewership even if win-loss records marginally improve. Point taken on these items being relatively inconsequential towards revenue. Yet, these two items have both been explicitly called out as criteria for the next round of realignment (our GM Ron Rivera has noted these two as areas of explicit callout in his donor addresses for our chances at making it into the B1G/superconference/whatever exists after the next shuffle). Not to mention, there's a brobdingnagian benefit to attracting awesome high school students who are weighing the Farm vs MIT, Ivies, etc. Tldr; I agree with most of your premise but simply don't believe either Cal nor Stanford have hit the level of spend efficiency where it doesn't make sense yet. Thanks for the reply though
StanUSwagU, I think you raise an interesting point on widening the scope of the Stanford class. I will bring up an interesting note/question for the folks here which is: do you believe the classes of today are "nerdier" or less nerdy than 10, 20, 30 years ago? I use nerdy as a proxy for caring about sports / school spirit -- I know there's likely much better terms but I assume the meaning is conveyed. I'm just curious if Stanford classes have shown an aptitude for the big-time football in years & decades past. Would be curious to learn. I do think you all would benefit from a wider class range, particularly since such a large portion of your undergrad classes are athlete-admissions (and of course smart too...)
BC- I read your post (avoiding quoting bc of length) and largely concur with one major disagreement on "zero sum". Yes, definitionally win-loss records are zero sum but attendance, revenue, viewership is not. Quality gameday experience, marketing, fun talent/players etc result in increase ticket sales and TV viewership even if win-loss records marginally improve. Point taken on these items being relatively inconsequential towards revenue. Yet, these two items have both been explicitly called out as criteria for the next round of realignment (our GM Ron Rivera has noted these two as areas of explicit callout in his donor addresses for our chances at making it into the B1G/superconference/whatever exists after the next shuffle). Not to mention, there's a brobdingnagian benefit to attracting awesome high school students who are weighing the Farm vs MIT, Ivies, etc. Tldr; I agree with most of your premise but simply don't believe either Cal nor Stanford have hit the level of spend efficiency where it doesn't make sense yet. Thanks for the reply though
StanUSwagU, I think you raise an interesting point on widening the scope of the Stanford class. I will bring up an interesting note/question for the folks here which is: do you believe the classes of today are "nerdier" or less nerdy than 10, 20, 30 years ago? I use nerdy as a proxy for caring about sports / school spirit -- I know there's likely much better terms but I assume the meaning is conveyed. I'm just curious if Stanford classes have shown an aptitude for the big-time football in years & decades past. Would be curious to learn. I do think you all would benefit from a wider class range, particularly since such a large portion of your undergrad classes are athlete-admissions (and of course smart too...)