Basketball Economics

[Miggins]

Anyone know how "real" sell-outs impact the revenue for RU?
It is a totally random guess, but I would roughly estimate for a sell-out, the average revenue per seat is ~$50, considering free student tickts, but also adding parkting and concessions. This would be ~$400,000 per game?

Are these numbers in the ballpark? Anyone have insight?

 

[RUfinal4]

not sure the avg ticket price but figure

9000 attendees at a game
2000 students paying nothing or getting inexpensive student seats. They use meal plan cards for snacks.
2000 cars at about $20-30 a car ($40-50k)
7000 non-student fans average spend of $8 each ($56k)

Guessing top line revenue is more like $250-300k a game not including expenses (security, campus / Piscataway police, concessions workers, ticket takers, parking attendants, trash attendants, cleaning crew)

Basketball is also a 2hr event vs about 3.5 hours for football so fans may be able to go longer without spending on drinks / snacks (for example some fans may just buy a bottle of water to last the entire game)

my guess is that selling out 9000 seats vs a bad team selling 3500 seats may only be a difference of $50-150k a game of net income)

the key to a good team would be merchandise sales with more NJ folks and RU alums taking greater pride to wear RU gear.

and ... good sports teams lead to more applications from HS students since the school
s profile is raised in the media

 

[Miggins]

Hard to guesstimate the average value of the ~7000 tickets. Such a wide range of ticket prices between 100, 200 and 300 levels

 

[bwrlaw]

not sure the avg ticket price but figure

9000 attendees at a game
2000 students paying nothing or getting inexpensive student seats. They use meal plan cards for snacks.
2000 cars at about $20-30 a car ($40-50k)
7000 non-student fans average spend of $8 each ($56k)

Guessing top line revenue is more like $250-300k a game not including expenses (security, campus / Piscataway police, concessions workers, ticket takers, parking attendants, trash attendants, cleaning crew)

Basketball is also a 2hr event vs about 3.5 hours for football so fans may be able to go longer without spending on drinks / snacks (for example some fans may just buy a bottle of water to last the entire game)

my guess is that selling out 9000 seats vs a bad team selling 3500 seats may only be a difference of $50-150k a game of net income)

the key to a good team would be merchandise sales with more NJ folks and RU alums taking greater pride to wear RU gear.

and ... good sports teams lead to more applications from HS students since the school
s profile is raised in the media

Parking is only 10/car. And some have season parking passes,which work out to 9/car.

 

[DHajekRC84]

Parking is only 10/car. And some have season parking passes,which work out to 9/car.

that and we do we get 9k fans? MAYBE 8.2 stuffed in. regardless. Not as much as one would think. BUT TAKE IT!

 

[theRU]

Bottom line- some of these sell outs are unexpected and nothing but upside to our budget planning - CAN WE PLEASE POWER WASH THE EXTERIOR?!?!

 

[Big boy stan]

Keep in mind that some percentage of the BIG money (~$54M) is due to basketball TV revenue (if we ever get to 100%). Even if you guess it to be 80% due to football, $10M will likely more then cover the operating costs running the RAC. If you look at it that way, every ticket or parking dollar is profit.

 

[BigRnj]

Bottom line- some of these sell outs are unexpected and nothing but upside to our budget planning - CAN WE PLEASE POWER WASH THE EXTERIOR?!?!

NO! It might fall apart :Wink:

 

[Lawboy]

There are 2000 students at no additional fee beside student activity fee. There are 6000 plus others. Tickets range is very wide and often depends on promotions. B10 And SHU ( quad one games) are a total of 22 games 11 of which are at the RAC. Ticket price range is huge. There are very few club seats. I would say averaging all the seat quantities and locations the average is about 30-35 dollars or roughly $180,000.00 per game plus plus. Remember there are a lot of 100-200 level seats. The plus plus is the parking of 2000 or so cars at ten dollars each, merchandise sales and pre game events. Additionally donations to hoops specifically should increase. What I am saying is revenue for home games should be between 2-3 million minimum plus an increase in donations.

 

[RUich]

Although basketball will never financially compete with a successful football program, it pays back by putting the university in a positive light.
Think about the number of schools with so-so academics that are held in high regard by the general population because they are champions on the field and courts.

 

[Degaz-RU]

The capacity is only 8,300 as proven by the SHU attendance. There are only 1,500 seats in the student section. Add to that a few hundred “comps” and you’re left with about 6,000 paying customers, roughly split 2,000 EACH in the 100s, 200s, and 300s.

Not sure of ticket prices, but let’s say $75, $50 and $20. That’s $150,000, $100,000, and $40,000 in revenue, respectively, let’s round off total ticket revenue to $290,000 in a sellout. This doesn’t account for seat licenses/premiums, just talking about ticket revenue.

Then you have parking. Let’s say 2,500 cars x $10 equals $25,000.

Then concessions. Let’s say each person (6,500 since students swipe) spends an average of $10.00. That’s another $65,000.

So gross revenue in a sellout would be around $380,000. Who knows what the “net” would be after considering the expense side of the ledger.

 

[RUKen]

The capacity is only 8,300 as proven by the SHU attendance. There are only 1,500 seats in the student section. Add to that a few hundred “comps” and you’re left with about 6,000 paying customers, roughly split 2,000 EACH in the 100s, 200s, and 300s.

Not sure of ticket prices, but let’s say $75, $50 and $20. That’s $150,000, $100,000, and $40,000 in revenue, respectively, let’s round off total ticket revenue to $290,000 in a sellout. This doesn’t account for seat licenses/premiums, just talking about ticket revenue.

Then you have parking. Let’s say 2,500 cars x $10 equals $25,000.

Then concessions. Let’s say each person (6,500 since students swipe) spends an average of $10.00. That’s another $65,000.

So gross revenue in a sellout would be around $380,000. Who knows what the “net” would be after considering the expense side of the ledger.

That certainly would help with subsidy if we keep it going. Every little bit helps