boredom said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
DaveT said:
Ron isn't the problem, it's the buyout money. We don't have it.
You'd hope a school like Cal could figure out a way to move on from Wilcox at this point (and I'm sure they're trying), but if it was easy it would have already happened.
Having said that, the damage being done to our program by letting Wilcox continue as HC is immeasurable and we may look back some day and wish we'd made firing him a higher budgetary priority.
The problem is that you are looking at it with a football heart instead of a finance head.
Yeah, if we don't spend $15M now, we will almost certainly suck.
But from a finance perspective, looking at Cal's history, looking at the other resources at our disposal, If we do spend $15M the overwhelming chances are we will suck. I'd put the odds at 90% that Cal will not make up that $15M financially in the next 5 years if it pays the buyout.
We do not spend nearly what successful schools spend. We do not bring in nearly what successful schools bring in revenue. Cal can't just invest $15M one time and turn things around. Cal needs to invest a one time $15M plus increase its annual investment by about $50M to have any reasonable hope of building a good program and that is not a guarantee by a long shot. This when Cal athletics are already losing $50M-$60M a year.
If this were a purely financial decision, you would say your company is going bankrupt and you can invest $15M to slow down that process, but you don't have the resources to actually turn that process around, you would cut your losses.
That is the problem with making financial arguments here. They do not work. If you look at what Cal has made in winning seasons vs. the usual, it does not make this a good business bet.
You have to make this argument based on the intrinsic value of football and to be honest, as the numbers get bigger, that is a harder argument to make.
Cal can't engage in stupid financial decisions at this point. So it is up to alums to put the money up if they are willing to make a bad financial bet because they are willing to pay $15M (and frankly a lot more) because they want a good football team. At any point an alum or group of alums can walk into Rivera's office and say "we've had it. Here is $15M". I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened yet. Otherwise, we as a fan base cannot look at Cal and say - chuck $15M that you won't get back into this because I want it.
Cal is responsible for the dumbass contract. (to be clear, nobody there now did that) We are responsible for bailing them out if that is what we want.
the buyout money is a sunk cost. We owe it to him whether he's the coach (and he gets it as salary) or unemployed (and he gets it as buyout).
The actual cost is whatever a new coach would cost. That amount is unknown.
The ROI calculation I think is different than it historically has been. In years past Cal could sit back and collect PAC money and get the exposure or student experience or whatever else they wanted. You may be right that the incremental $ from selling 20K extra tickets a game, etc that Tedford drove may not be worth it financially in that case. The current situation is different. Cal is facing major sports extinction. A successful football program is the single best way to avoid that. It's possible that the economics still don't work but I do think the ROI on a high performing football program is higher than it's ever been for Cal.
We need to get serious on the financials here.
As of the fiscal year that ended June 2023, Cal footballs operating expenses were higher than operating revenue. As of the fiscal year that ended June 2024, the last financial statement that has been released, Cal football was $10M in the hole on operating revenue. That is before joining the ACC.
The operating expenses for the Athletic Department were negative $67M. There is no universe where Cal football makes enough money to pay for that. You guys keep saying that football is the only way out. It isn't a way out. Our ticket sales are $8.4M. The most ticket sales have ever been is $12M. If Cal were to increase its ticket sales by 100,000 a year at $100 profit (both numbers being unrealistically high), you get $10M a year. Cal football cannot ever, will not ever, balance the athletic department budget. Ever....Ever. You guys keep using an old argument that has long since passed relevance. There is zero chance football will ever make up a $67M deficit. You might as well say we should put all the money on lotto tickets or a roulette wheel because while they are unlikely to hit, if they do, they'll pay for everything. Cal football needs to learn to pay for itself again.
Cal needs to either decide that it is willing to spend $100M on sports (because that is where they are going) or they need to substantially cut sports and administration supporting them.
Yes, Wilcox's salary is sunk, but if they fire him they need to pay it all now. And yeah, the new coach's salary is technically unknown, but given that Wilcox is already one of the lowest paid coaches in the conference, we can assume that it is going to be around $5M (and if it isn't people here are going to scream).
So I'm back to the financial question is what is the likelihood that if we spend $15M now we will get that money back? Not high. That doesn't mean not to do it. That means don't think that it is a money maker to do it.
