Link Roundup: Fall Camp 2011 Edition

Dan McCarney, the intrepid beat writer for the San Antonio Express News has an update for us. 

Most interesting part (to me):

DEFENSE
Marlon Smith, E; Dominique Henderson, T; Ferrington Macon, T; William Ritter, E; Steven Kurfehs, LB; Brandon Reeves, LB; Darrien Starling, CB; Crosby Adams, CB; Nic Johnston, S; Mark Waters, S; Shane Jones, S.
OFFENSE
Drew Phillips, LT; Scott Inskeep, LG; Nate Leonard, C; Mike Sanchez, RG; Cody Harris, RT.
Skill positions shuffled around too much to identify a particular group, but Eric Soza (obviously) was at quarterback.

Early Fearless Prediction: I think the defense will be pretty decent and may win some games. Soza is impressing people with his poise and now has two years preparation. If Travis Bush can mold the offensive squad into something that can muster up 17-21 points per game I think that is a recipe for 4-6 wins.

I really have no basis for this. Just call it a gut feeling. I may be spectacularly wrong.

The defensive starters will no doubt change as camp and the season moves along. There you have the initial camp starting squad, however. Mark it down. Tell your kids when UTSA brings home a bowl victory or two.

UTSA Tailgaters has their predictions in SA Scene.

Post practice from Dan McCarney:

Just to hammer home another point I’ve been trying to make recently, another big theme to watch during camp – and the entire season, really — will be who the Roadrunners keep on the sideline with redshirts. It’s going to be critical that they preserve enough of this year’s class to prevent them from graduating half the team when their eligibility expires in four years.

This really will be interesting. If one of those sophomores are redshirted --which undoubtedly one or two will be -- then that will be two straight years of gamelessness. That has to be tough and may be cause to leave for some.

One other thing of note: the lack of JUCOs. Without having any firsthand knowledge of the reason they didn't choose to come, I have to think they just didn't want to be part of a growing program with a limited number of years remaining. It would be "wasted" on a most-certain losing campaign. These are the problems you face when you build a program.

Coker Chronicles:

Helpful post on the Scout Board correcting our information about the school's lease at the Dome. Interesting stuff. Biggest surprise? UTSA will get no money from concessions or parking. Depending on the school's take during the next five years that may be something that comes up in negotiations. More likely is that if these games are heavily attended, we just might see a rise in ticket prices. That is all just future talk, though.

9,101 and Counting... A Look at UTSA Season Ticket Sales **Updated**

Photo courtesy of Flickr user atomictroy

Color me shocked. We find ourselves four weeks away from UTSA's first down of football and the University has already sold 9,101 season tickets. That's already 700 more than Southern Alabama's inaugural season in 2009 and 4,000 more than Georgia State's inaugural season last year. For comparison's sake, Colorado St., a Mountain West Conference program on the possible verge of evolving into an Automatically Qualifying conference, has yet to break the 7,000 mark. Furthermore, UTSA is on pace to out sell every program in the Sunbelt Conference (that one's for you, WAC Scout board).

What really has me fascinated is that coach Coker reported nearly 8,000 tickets sold just one week ago at the WAC media day. I'm not sure if 1,100+ tickets sold per week is sustainable, but if it is then we're looking at 13,501 season ticket sales in 2011. That is absolutely mind-numbing for an FCS team whom's marquee home games include two fellow young start up programs in Southern Alabama and Georgia St. To make the math a little easier, I estimated a baseline price of $120 per seat (tickets range from $1,250 to $70 in price) which puts us at $1,092,120 in the athletics department's pockets. UTSA has already sold at least 32 of 36 available luxury suits-- that brings in an additional $512,000 (estimated baseline price of $16,000 [does not include additional suite passes at $120 a pop]) to put us at $1,604,120 in revenue with four more weeks of sales to go. 80% of the luxury suites revenue and arbitrary amounts from season ticket sales go in to the Roadrunner Athletic fund (more information on all of that here). The previous high for the annual Roadrunner Athletic Fund was... $176,000 in 2009-2010. Also we have to keep in mind that UTSA has an extremely favorable "sweetheart" deal with the city for leasing the facility. While the terms for the deal were never publicly released (that I know of)  (see update below) it's safe to say that UTSA is taking home a very high percentage of its revenue as straight profit. I'm no accountant but I'm fairly certain that $1,604,120 + an approximate $14,000,000 in student athletic fees and X amount of single-game tickets sales, as well as an increase of merchandise sales will easily pay off player scholarships, coaches' salaries, and equipment expenses. If my postulation is accurate, that means a lot of money is going to be available for non-revenue sports, which is always a great thing to see.

In summation, the UTSA athletic department is cashing some huge checks right now. Can't wait to see what these numbers are going to look like when UTSA is competing in the FBS with out of conference games against Arizona St., Baylor, Houston, etc.

30 days 'till kick off.

Edit: Our friend Darrell over at utsafootball.wordpress.com just compared UTSA's ticket sales numbers to those of some other local FBS teams, very interesting.


**UPDATE**

Fyatuk from the Scout board and the Spurs talk forum pointed out that the lease was released and posted the details.

The city gets $1.00 per ticket sold past 20K, all the concessions, and revenue from 10 of the luxury boxes (city gets two at no cost), and all the parking money.

Even after UTSA reimburses the city the agreed upon amount for staff and rent it still seems like a pretty good deal.  Now you know, if you want to support the school while at the game, don't just buy your beer and snacks. Get a t-shirt, foam finger, hat and other gear. That goes straight to the university.

-aztecskin.