Cal-Berkeley Takes a Tip from the Pros to Finance Athletics
Stuart Nachbar
January 30, 2009
The January 23 Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting story about the University of California-Berkeley and its plan to boost its athletic department endowment to more than $1 billion by 2030, in part by selling the rights to 3,000 premium seats in its renovated football stadium at a cost of $225,000 per seat. Fans who purchase these seats may purchase these seats up-front and hold onto them for a period of 30 to 50 years, or they may make annual payments with interest.
This is a huge risk for Cal-Berkeley, but give them credit for trying to keep the funding for their endowment private. Publicly funded sports facilities, college or pro, are as unpopular as they are popular, and in this economy the idea of public money for a privileged few to watch football is not going to fly in California. Or anyplace else for that matter.
Berkeley is unique among large public universities in that it has the location, the alumni base and some recent success in football to pull this off. They also have other places to play while their stadium would be renovated. They can share the Forty Niners stadium for a season or two, or share with the Raiders if the baseball A's get the stadium they want in Santa Clara.
Berkeley has over 430,000 living alumni, a large contact base for sure, as well as connections into the Northern California (including Silicon Valley) business community. This is a high-income, high quality of life area that graduates do not want to leave after they finish college. But the big question is: do they want to invest in a football team?
This is the pig-chicken conflict. The pig and the chicken are asked to give up something for the alumni breakfast. The chicken is asked to give up some eggs. No problem: there's plenty more where her donation comes from. The pig is asked to, well, put his life on the line. That's not a contribution; that's a serious commitment. And $225,000 or more, in exchange for football tickets for life is quite a commitment indeed.
As I said before, Cal has has recent success on the gridiron, but it is not bowl championship success. Cal last won a national championship in 1937; it is doubtful many well-to-do alumni from that team, or their fans, are still living. Cal has not played in a Rose Bowl, the traditional game for the conference champion, for 50 years. During the 1960s, the time of turmoil in the campus community, the football team had only one winning season.
But in the past seven years of the Jeff Tedford era, Cal has won 59 games, including four consecutive bowl victories. So, no one can blame the athletic department fundraisers for being optimistic. If Cal manages to beat USC every now and then, you're likely to see alumni come out of the woodwork. Maybe they'll ante up for premium seating. There's always a chance those well-to-do fans will want access to the coach (quite possible), but also some say in the make-up of the team (though NCAA rules are quite strict about that).
Cal's Memorial Stadium seats approximately 74,000 fans, and I have seen televised games where fans sit in a tree grove overlooking the field to cheer on a winning team. From this perspective, covering the costs of stadium renovations and the athletic endowment from the sale of 3,000 seats seems fair, except to those who pay far less to sit in those seats now. But someone has to sacrifice.
Consider this. Cal could have taken the lessons from the NFL and ask each and every non-student fan to make a large per-seat contribution to the stadium fund, in addition to higher ticket prices. Passing the burden onto every fan is much worse. Soon you start to hear comments like: "I'm paying two hundred bucks to see a team that played in the Emerald Bowl? What the bleep is an Emerald Bowl?" And those flippant comments, from the so-called average fan, will make the news and they would hurt Cal's image and reputation more than the sale of premium seating.
Beginning this spring, when the campaign to sell premium seats begins, other schools will be watching Cal's progress. But they should be cautious to emulate this effort unless they have the regional economy, the alumni base and the athletic success to make it work. For instance, Northwestern and Stanford have the economic base and alumni base to increase their athletic endowments. But these two schools have played in a combined six bowl games since 2000 and they have lost every single one of them.
It also comes down to the words of Al Davis (who, ironically, worked for Wayne Valley, the late former Raiders owner and home builder who became a major contributor to Berkeley): Just Win Baby.
Stuart Nachbar blogs on thought and fiction in education and politics at www.EducatedQuest.com.
This is a huge risk for Cal-Berkeley, but give them credit for trying to keep the funding for their endowment private. Publicly funded sports facilities, college or pro, are as unpopular as they are popular, and in this economy the idea of public money for a privileged few to watch football is not going to fly in California. Or anyplace else for that matter.
Berkeley is unique among large public universities in that it has the location, the alumni base and some recent success in football to pull this off. They also have other places to play while their stadium would be renovated. They can share the Forty Niners stadium for a season or two, or share with the Raiders if the baseball A's get the stadium they want in Santa Clara.
Berkeley has over 430,000 living alumni, a large contact base for sure, as well as connections into the Northern California (including Silicon Valley) business community. This is a high-income, high quality of life area that graduates do not want to leave after they finish college. But the big question is: do they want to invest in a football team?
This is the pig-chicken conflict. The pig and the chicken are asked to give up something for the alumni breakfast. The chicken is asked to give up some eggs. No problem: there's plenty more where her donation comes from. The pig is asked to, well, put his life on the line. That's not a contribution; that's a serious commitment. And $225,000 or more, in exchange for football tickets for life is quite a commitment indeed.
As I said before, Cal has has recent success on the gridiron, but it is not bowl championship success. Cal last won a national championship in 1937; it is doubtful many well-to-do alumni from that team, or their fans, are still living. Cal has not played in a Rose Bowl, the traditional game for the conference champion, for 50 years. During the 1960s, the time of turmoil in the campus community, the football team had only one winning season.
But in the past seven years of the Jeff Tedford era, Cal has won 59 games, including four consecutive bowl victories. So, no one can blame the athletic department fundraisers for being optimistic. If Cal manages to beat USC every now and then, you're likely to see alumni come out of the woodwork. Maybe they'll ante up for premium seating. There's always a chance those well-to-do fans will want access to the coach (quite possible), but also some say in the make-up of the team (though NCAA rules are quite strict about that).
Cal's Memorial Stadium seats approximately 74,000 fans, and I have seen televised games where fans sit in a tree grove overlooking the field to cheer on a winning team. From this perspective, covering the costs of stadium renovations and the athletic endowment from the sale of 3,000 seats seems fair, except to those who pay far less to sit in those seats now. But someone has to sacrifice.
Consider this. Cal could have taken the lessons from the NFL and ask each and every non-student fan to make a large per-seat contribution to the stadium fund, in addition to higher ticket prices. Passing the burden onto every fan is much worse. Soon you start to hear comments like: "I'm paying two hundred bucks to see a team that played in the Emerald Bowl? What the bleep is an Emerald Bowl?" And those flippant comments, from the so-called average fan, will make the news and they would hurt Cal's image and reputation more than the sale of premium seating.
Beginning this spring, when the campaign to sell premium seats begins, other schools will be watching Cal's progress. But they should be cautious to emulate this effort unless they have the regional economy, the alumni base and the athletic success to make it work. For instance, Northwestern and Stanford have the economic base and alumni base to increase their athletic endowments. But these two schools have played in a combined six bowl games since 2000 and they have lost every single one of them.
It also comes down to the words of Al Davis (who, ironically, worked for Wayne Valley, the late former Raiders owner and home builder who became a major contributor to Berkeley): Just Win Baby.
Stuart Nachbar blogs on thought and fiction in education and politics at www.EducatedQuest.com.
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