I finally got around to listening. The numbers he threw out were 11,000 and 15,000. He never said 9,000. Awful either way but just wanted to clarify.
In early April we went through the figures:
In 2015, Rutgers sold 31,168 season tickets.
In 2016, Rutgers sold 28,478 season ticket.
-8.6%
In 2017, Rutgers sold 23,812 season tickets.
-16.4%
In 2018, Rutgers sold 22,337 season tickets.
-6.2% (-28.3% from 2015)
2019 Projection- sell 16,752 season tickets.
-25% (-46.3% from 2015)
Calculation:
2015: 31,168 * $400 = $12,467,200
2016: 28,478 * $400 = $11,391,200 (loss of $1.08 million)
2017: 23,812 * $400 = $9,524,800 (loss of $2.94 million from baseline 2015 number; cumulative loss of $4.02 million)
2018: 22,337 * $400 = $8,934,800 (loss of $3.66 million from baseline 2015; cumulative loss of $7.68 million)
2019:
projected 16,752 * $400 = $6,700,800 (loss of $5.77 million from baseline 2015;
cumulative loss of $13.45 million)
Another way of looking at it is that since Hobbs kept Ash at end of 2018 season, approx $2.2 million in additional revenue has been lost, and $5.7 million will be lost this year alone as compared to before Ash was hired.
*****
Financial figures were later released indicating the ticket revenue numbers were pretty close to accurate. If we use 13,000 for 2019 instead of 16,752, which was already a projected 25% decrease, the numbers are:
2015: 31,168 * $400 = $12,467,200
2016: 28,478 * $400 = $11,391,200 (loss of $1.08 million)
2017: 23,812 * $400 = $9,524,800 (loss of $2.94 million from baseline 2015 number; cumulative loss of $4.02 million)
2018: 22,337 * $400 = $8,934,800 (loss of $3.66 million from baseline 2015; cumulative loss of $7.68 million)
2019: projected 13,000 * $400 = $5,200,000
This will be a loss of more than $3.7 million in football ticket revenue from last year's already depressed number. At the same time, Rutgers will receive an additional $2.2 million from the Big Ten next year.
Rutgers can only break even on a revenue basis this coming season if it increases revenue from other sources by $1.5 million. Perhaps basketball sales will make up for some of this difference.
The sum total of this is that Ash was retained in order to avoid the bad publicity and expenditure of political capital from his buyout and/or because Hobbs feels that he can make a better hire in December 2019 than he could have made in December 2018.