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Monday, March 05, 2007

Show me the money

I know it's fashionable for Louisiana Tech fans to bash athletic director Jim Oakes and some of the Bulldogs coaches. But a glance at the numbers show some of those criticisms to be off base.

Sports Illustrated listed the five poorest athletic programs in Division I. Three of those programs can be found in Louisiana.

Louisiana-Monroe is the poorest in the state - and second poorest in the nation - with just $7.2 million in revenue. Louisiana-Lafayette is second poorest in the state at $8, third poorest in the nation. Then comes Louisiana Tech at $10.1 million in revenue, the same as Arkansas State. (VMI is the poorest at $5.5 million).

Those revenue figures reflect as much on the fan base as they do the administration.

And to be honest, with that little revenue coming in, Tech hasn't done that poorly. The football team had a losing season this year, but a winning season last year.Ditto men's basketball. Baseball has made improvements.

The reality of the situation is for Tech to reach some of its athletic aspirations the fan base is going to have to step up along with the athletic programs.

2 Comments:

Blogger JAB said...

The alumni really need to get off their rear ends and support their Alma Mater. I challenge all alumni to spend more on Louisiana Tech athletics than you do on lsu athletics. (And you know many of you spend way too much on a school that you have no connection to) Think of it as reinvesting in your education. See, if athletics is the window through which your university is seen and you are not trying to improve the athletics of your alma mater (yet helping another) then you are basically lowering the value of your own accomplishments.
So until Louisiana Tech decides they need an athletic director that knows how to sell the programs to sponsors and knows how to market the programs to the fan base, we, the alumni, need to get off our rear ends and start supporting our Alma Mater.
Unless you are buying tickets, unless your butt is in the seats, unless you are buying the clothing, unless you are demanding more coverage,
YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!

9:15 AM  
Blogger BigWheelChamp said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

1:33 PM  

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