Louisiana athletics operated at $8 million deficit during 2023 fiscal year

[cajun4life]

I’ll say this again. Football is healthy when 1/3 of your available seating is sold in season tickets. Thriving when 50% of the seating is sold in season tickets. This goes for every major sport, but especially so in football and basketball.

Failing to reach those benchmarks is an utter failure by the athletic department and head coaches of those two programs.

[ManAboutTown]

We literally are staring at not having a program. Like, that's where we are. We've lost ~$12mm in 24 months. So our real athletic budget is somewhere around $28mm, which is FCS level. Can't pay the cost of attendance stipend, can't pay an NIL director, can't afford staff to support marketing and sales. Can't support media in this time because you won't hold them to a standard. Won't reach out and work with other platforms. Won't get in the community and sell your brand.

They knew these numbers a year ago. Should have been a 5 alarm fire going off last year. Just what the ____ have they been doing to remedy the issue?

[Jacob81]

So the money generated(33.2m) is the same as 2022. We spent 8 million more than that. So I get that the lost 500k in ticket sales is a problem but isn’t the extra spending the bigger issue? If we sold 35,000 tickets for 6 games at $30 average. Thats 6.3 million. So we’d still be in the red.

[Fais do-do]

Well, when you lose money every football game due to lack of attendance, you cannot go very far.

[ManAboutTown]

So the money generated(33.2m) is the same as 2022. We spent 8 million more than that. So I get that the lost 500k in ticket sales is a problem but isn’t the extra spending the bigger issue? If we sold 35,000 tickets for 6 games at $30 average. Thats 6.3 million. So we’d still be in the red.

How are you coming to this?

[jaxmc1023]

So the money generated(33.2m) is the same as 2022. We spent 8 million more than that. So I get that the lost 500k in ticket sales is a problem but isn’t the extra spending the bigger issue? If we sold 35,000 tickets for 6 games at $30 average. Thats 6.3 million. So we’d still be in the red.

Does this include concession sales? I'd like to see total ticket sale revenue vs total concession revenue..

[facelessjonmoon]

1.5 mill in ticket sales in 2021 900k in 2022 less than 500k in 2023

Sadly, this is not surprising based on game day attendance the last few years

[Jacob81]

How are you coming to this?

Coming to what? We spent 8mil more than we made. Selling out football alone wouldn’t even overcome that deficit

[Million$Mullet]

Coming to what? We spent 8mil more than we made. Selling out football alone wouldn’t even overcome that deficit

Ticket sales are not the lone producer of revenue on game days.

[cajun4life]

Coming to what? We spent 8mil more than we made. Selling out football alone wouldn’t even overcome that deficit

Basketball is a huge loss every year under Marlin.

[Jacob81]

35,000 attendance x 6 games =210,000 at $30 a ticket average = 6.3 million. If that’s what you’re asking.

[Million$Mullet]

35,000 attendance x 6 games =210,000 at $30 a ticket average = 6.3 million. If that’s what you’re asking.

25k more people spending an average of 20 bucks in concessions at a game is an extra $3 million a year.

Thats on concessions alone. Now add in apparel and merch. Parking, tailgating etc.

[facelessjonmoon]

Basketball is a huge loss every year under Marlin.

I'm sure those charter flights aren't helping

[Jacob81]

Ok so average person in attendance spends $50 8million%50=160,000%6= 26,667 people. So if we can average that many people at that price point we can get to the black.


Get rid of Marlin and you’ll see 1-1.5k increase in attendance almost instantly as well.

[cajun4life]

I'm sure those charter flights aren't helping

I’m not against the charter flights, but we have a 12k seat arena and we can’t sell 2k in season tickets.

It’s time to drastically reduce the base pay for football and basketball. Increase the incentive pay with attendance and season ticket sales.