TedfordTheGreat said:mbBear said:calumnus said:mbBear said:calumnus said:philly1121 said:sycasey said:TandemBear said:
The reason there are 18+ threads about dumping Wilcox is because of Cal's inability to get rid of this dead weight! Not only has Cal not fired him, they extended him with an absurdly onerous contract that may have doomed the program.
Quite true, but this goes back to the screwed-up administration (as described by Greg) that preceded the current Lyons/Rivera regime. It's fair to give them time to clean this up and to dig out of the hole Knowlton put them in.
I think the sunshine pumpers on this board would say, the problem with that is - the clock is ticking. Realignment is in 29/30.
I don't agree that we can magically improve to the extent that we would be invited to the B1G. I suspect most in Administration would think the same. I think its a matter of evaluating what things look like from the standpoint of a reduced ACC. And how to remain competitive from a budgetary and performance standpoint. But I think there are a great many college football programs that are doing this.
A culture shift - what Rivera was brought in to expedite - will take way too long for the time that is in front of us. I think the realization of that is what is driving alot of negativity on this board - some justified, some not. Its the price of middling around for too long.
In 2001 Holmoe went 0-10 until the makeup game against 2-8 Rutgers got our only win. Worse we were on NCAA sanctions.
People, especially the insiders and big donors, had been defending Holmoe on this board, saying our stadium and training facilities were terrible , our administration did not support football, the Bay Area is an NFL market….
Only three years later we were 1 play or a missed FG away from an 11-0 season and a berth in the National Championship Game.
The difference was only having a good coach. It helped that Gladstone was the temporary AD and could recognize good coaching, but that was it.
Since then we have spent more on our stadium and facilities than any other school (not arguing they are the best, but far better than under Tedford). We have a Cal alum and fan as our chancellor for the first time in our history. We have put a former Cal All American player and Super Bowl head coach in charge of the program. The Raiders (and A's) are gone. The East Bay market is ours for the taking. We are one of two West Coast teams ESPN owns exclusive rights to and wants to actively promote us. We have one of the easiest schedules on the country, one of the easiest in our history. We are still in the state that produces the most NFL talent and now regularly play in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania…. We are the nearest D1 school to Hawaii with the most, and cheapest air flights…. We have the wealthiest alumni collectively of any D1 program. We and our rival offer the top academics in D1 football. Our campus and stadium are beautiful. The Bay Area weather and culture are unique and a huge draw…
As in 2001, all it takes is firing the losing coach and hiring a good coach. If anything, everything else is FAR better now.
Not that it was all that important relative to your other fine points but: that's really a thing, that Cal is the "wealthiest alumni collectively?" I suspect that some of the groups that come to mind, like a Duke, could be higher per capita, but they are creating a lot less alums on a yearly basis.
Of course the activation and participation of the alumni group relative to sports is always going to be the key, so even if we want to brag about the alumni group relative to LSU, Penn St, Oregon et. al., what those schools are receiving in terms of season ticket holders (or, for that matter game by game purchases) contributions etc. is double and triple (conservatively) compared to Cal. But what you cite is still an important source.
OK, I used "wealth" as lazy shorthand for "gross earnings": Cal has far more alumni than the (all private) schools with similar per capita lifetime incomes, and Cal alumni collectively have the greatest gross earnings of any school. Part of that is the Bay Area has the highest earnings in the country and we dwarf Stanford grads in numbers.
A lot of wealth in this country is inherited and people with inherited wealth generally go to privates.
Here are the number of billionaire alumni per Forbes' World Billionaire List 2024;
1. Harvard 127
2. Stanford 93
3. Penn 62
4. Columbia 47
5. MIT 39
6. NYU 28
7. Yale 24
8. University of California, Berkeley 22
9. Cornell 21
10. Princeton 20
What is important to note about the above list is Cal and Stanford are the only two of the ten that play D1 sports, much less are in a P4 Conference.
Cal has 22 billionaires. Rivera just has to find 1 that wants to be our Mark Cuban. Or maybe someone with just $800,000 million? Or maybe each billionaire pledges $10 million (less than 1%) for $220 million total?
You are correct that our current athletics revenues from our wealthy alumni are relatively low, my post was more about our untapped potential.
I took it that way, about being untapped. Interesting list, thanks for posting.
Not going to say the "one billionaire" discovery wouldn't change a lot. But the cruel reality is that "quantity over quality" certainly rules the day here when you talk about the number of people engaged with supporting sports at other schools..
rumor has it that Brian Kelly's buyout ($50M+) was entirely funded by a singular donor. That could be the difference for a billionaire discovery that you mentioned. If someone funds $50M right now we can get a top tier coach for 5 years
The guy who owns Whattaburger…supposedly in the 40 billion dollar range.
