Chapman_is_Gone said:

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I was unable to attend the game on Saturday as I was traveling, so I watched on TV. I distinctly recall at the 11:30 mark of the first quarter, I had already noticed that they chose to blast AC/DC at the beginning of a third down play, and then hearing Guns and Roses at the 11:30 mark is what focused my attention. At that point, I had not heard the band play one single time.

The entire situation is absurd. I love hard rock more than most people on this board, trust me, yet NOBODY in the crowd or watching on TV wants to hear AC/DC or Guns and Roses at that moment. If no one cares about this stuff in the athletic department, why should we care about the program as fans? This makes me so effing angry. I've already stopped donating -- what more can I do? Learfield can go to hell -- trust me, they are problem #1.

If the owners of this site wanted to write an interesting piece, instead of telling us how good our OL will be this year, they should do an investigative piece on Learfield, when they were hired and why, and the finances around the transaction. That would be very interesting. I would like to know what Learfield can do that the Cal athletic department can't do far better (and hadn't already been doing for 100+ years).

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We need to expand our athletic department, so more administrators can farm out as many things as possible to private businesses with no affiliation to the University.

I'd like to know Learfield's business model. How do they make money by blasting Guns n' Roses at a Cal game?

Chapman_is_Gone said:

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I was unable to attend the game on Saturday as I was traveling, so I watched on TV. I distinctly recall at the 11:30 mark of the first quarter, I had already noticed that they chose to blast AC/DC at the beginning of a third down play, and then hearing Guns and Roses at the 11:30 mark is what focused my attention. At that point, I had not heard the band play one single time.

The entire situation is absurd. I love hard rock more than most people on this board, trust me, yet NOBODY in the crowd or watching on TV wants to hear AC/DC or Guns and Roses at that moment. If no one cares about this stuff in the athletic department, why should we care about the program as fans? This makes me so effing angry. I've already stopped donating -- what more can I do? Learfield can go to hell -- trust me, they are problem #1.

If the owners of this site wanted to write an interesting piece, instead of telling us how good our OL will be this year, they should do an investigative piece on Learfield, when they were hired and why, and the finances around the transaction. That would be very interesting. I would like to know what Learfield can do that the Cal athletic department can't do far better (and hadn't already been doing for 100+ years).

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Excellent post. Waste of money as usual.

JSC 76 said:

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I'd like to know Learfield's business model. How do they make money by blasting Guns n' Roses at a Cal game?

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I am guessing they manage the entertainment and get paid directly by our sponsors. In turn, we get a cut of what should be our sponsors, so essentially Learfield pays us though we are actually giving up revenue.

The C-A-L spelling chant is the worst in college football (especially the first part -- C-A-L...what does that spell?). Everyone that I've gone to the games with from another school has said it's the worst chant ever.

So basically there is no way to stop the third down nonsense.

JSC 76 said:

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I'd like to know Learfield's business model. How do they make money by blasting Guns n' Roses at a Cal game?

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They make their money by "handling" the game day experience for us (and many others). In their infinite wisdom, they know they cannot blast ads during every stoppage in play (either that or they haven't yet sold enough ads to do so). So instead, they play music that they believe will appeal to a young target demographic.

It's a time-honored question here: Should Cal revenue sports appeal to their "base", or do what they think will attract fans outside the Cal community? (I would choose the former, obviously.)

Chapman_is_Gone said:

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I was unable to attend the game on Saturday as I was traveling, so I watched on TV. I distinctly recall at the 11:30 mark of the first quarter, I had already noticed that they chose to blast AC/DC at the beginning of a third down play, and then hearing Guns and Roses at the 11:30 mark is what focused my attention. At that point, I had not heard the band play one single time.

The entire situation is absurd. I love hard rock more than most people on this board, trust me, yet NOBODY in the crowd or watching on TV wants to hear AC/DC or Guns and Roses at that moment. If no one cares about this stuff in the athletic department, why should we care about the program as fans? This makes me so effing angry. I've already stopped donating -- what more can I do? Learfield can go to hell -- trust me, they are problem #1.

If the owners of this site wanted to write an interesting piece, instead of telling us how good our OL will be this year, they should do an investigative piece on Learfield, when they were hired and why, and the finances around the transaction. That would be very interesting. I would like to know what Learfield can do that the Cal athletic department can't do far better (and hadn't already been doing for 100+ years).

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Learfield = the-search-firm-that-came-up-with-Fox = not "Cal enough" or serving Cal's true interests (according to you or me)

(for you Math majors, yes I misused the equals sign to mean "same general idea as"... apologies if you take offense)

I don't think Learfield is necessarily the problem. My understanding is they sell sponsorships etc in a bundle and Cal gets added with other schools. Right now Cal is not adding the value.

The issue as I see it - coming up as I can from Fresno - is that we don't have the institutional employees at Cal Athletics that intrinsically know about why the football (or basketball etc) game day experience has been the way it has been. In short - we don't have Cal people running the ship. We have administrators, advisors, and a whole host of support staff working in the Athletic realm that either didn't go to Cal, or if they did, weren't really privy to the how and why.

As far as the generic game day experience, I believe that the homogenization of the game days experience going after a base that frankly does not exist for the Golden Bears, works against our own self interest. But then again, if you go back to my first comment, they can't do better because of the people laying out the marching orders.

I haven't been able to attend anything since 2019, and my 6 year old is talking incessantly about going to the "Cal Bears Stadium" to watch "our Bears beat mommy's Buffalos". If half of what I'm hearing is true (and I can't even get KGO this year to listen to (translate) Starkey) then my verbose child may force me to write a nasty letter.