Bradley - their main sport is basketball, they have a great tradition - been to Final Fours, draws well - ....8,000 to 10,000 average home attendance all the way from the 1980's thru 2010...great fan base, seemingly always have winning teams.
Partnered in May of 2013 with Nelligan Sports - now Learfield, to market Bradley better in hopes of boosting Bradley's profile and increasing attendance, donations, improved financial situation after a very, very successful 10-year drive for funds and improved on campus facilities...etc...
VCU - their main sport is basketball, they have a great tradition - been to Final Fours, draws well - ....8,000 to 10,000 average home attendance all the way from the 1980's thru 2010...great fan base, seemingly always have winning teams.
They have also partnered long term with Learfield Sports, to market VCU better in hopes of boosting VCU's profile and increasing attendance, donations, improved financial situation ...etc....
http://www.vcuathletics.com/sports/ramFund/2015-RAF-Recap
OK, you get the picture....two amazingly similar schools - both poised with every opportunity back in 2006-2007 to move up to the big time....
Two schools that up 'til just a few years ago - were very, very similar schools in every respect....however quite clearly Bradley was the BETTER school - AT THAT TIME - in a better conference, and poised to jump to the big time in a much stronger sense than VCU!
VCU spent most of the 80's & 90's with losing records - while Bradley did NOT. Bradley had the BIGGER fan base and MORE revenue!
But somewhere around a decade ago - BOTH schools started a stretch of 20-win seasons and doing exceptionally well on a national scene, going to the post-season, sending players to the NBA, and growing attendance, fan base, and getting record donations & revenue!!! Then the similarities ended and one school went up, up, up...while the other began a plummet that was historic and painful for the fans.
...VCU made the right decisions at that time and it is definitely debatable that Bradley did not.
The hirings Bradley made starting in 2007 when the Board chose Joanne Glasser as President, followed by coaching changes, and a new AD were disastrous. In the interval since 2007 Bradley has gone from winning 20 games per year regularly to losing 20+ and finishing at the bottom of the conference, while VCU has risen al most to the BCS-level in national prestige and prowess.
There's also an enormous difference in how things have gone campus-wide.
Bradley dropped to disastrous levels financially with waste and reckless overspending by the admin in charge...practically destroying BU athletics in the process - only the uprising of a few brave & vocal fans who finally got in the Board's ear and got them to take off their blinders and look at the facts rather than believe the crap being spewed by the admin, the one supporting Board member who had his reputation tied to Dr. Glasser, and the clueless media....saved Bradley athletics.
It was absolutely stunning to see how fast and how BROAD-SWEEPING the changes were once the Board members took off their blinders and read the letters and e mails the fans were sending.
I applaud those fans for their efforts - it has turned night into day!
Remember - the letter writing ONLY began in earnest in November & December of 2014.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24493
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24490
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24553
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24390
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=299611#post299611
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24837
Yup - these fans who got the ball rolling saved Bradley basketball - without them we'd be watching Geno Ford rounding up obscure, unknown juco kids who can't play at DI level and we'd be looking forward to another 25 loss season, another last place finish, and another year of Kirk Wessler & Mike Cross telling the fans they are uninformed and don't see how much better Bradley really is - "light years better"!! - LOL
And one more question - why if VCU goes with Learfield and it's a great relationship and boosts their following, their attendance, their revenue...etc...
then why are we doing so incredibly badly with the same deal with the same people.
The "Learfield position" at Bradley has been a revolving door - half the time they have NOBODY hired and the position is empty and the other half the time it is a frikking revolving door with one person after another there and nothing getting done. Information from inside sources says the whole thing has been nothing but ineptitude and bungling since Dr. Cross set this whole thing up...but then that's a different story since nothing Dr. Cross did in his five years at Bradley help on tiny bit - with his main bragging point being the development of a silly mascot and a bland looking "B" logo.
The important things like growth of the fan base, boosting revenue, improved athletic performance - especially in basketball, getting attendance and donations going upward, etc...
All those were unmitigated DISASTERS and the worst five-year interval at Bradley for sure - but even perhaps the worst five-year interval at just about any DI school ever - nearly driving Bradley down to Division III not to mention the loss of $20+ million in wasted spending, poor hires, and even misleading financial numbers that shocked the board.
Is it any wonder than within weeks of finally taking off those blinders - the Board fired the President, the Athletic Director, and the head basketball coach -
Has this ever happened anywhere ever in Division I??? Anywhere?? All the big dogs sent packing no matter what the cost because to keep them was even more costly - then the first public statement from the new AD was that basically we are reversing every decision and policy change of the last 5 years !!!
No more cramming fans into the ladies' gym, restart the ITOO, get the fans back and stop alienating them with insulting ego-centered policies...
well - Bradley is on the right track now with the right people - but I would sure love the chance to go back to 2007 when the bad hirings and bad decision had their origins...
had we NOT made that move - and then the subsequent ones og firing Ken Kavanagh and hiring Dr. Cross - things would surely be different.
Would they be VCU-level different?? Don't know - but sure would have loved to find out...now we have to start from literal scratch and dig our way out of a huge hole left to us by those who have been sent packing. Talk about leaving an empty cupboard...that gang left a cupboard filled with the most unimaginable waste and pestilence.....I'd rather it just have been empty.
One more laugh for you all.....
ran across the column that PJStar's Kirk Wessler wrote right after Bradley beat Jacksonville State to open the 2013-14 season. The prediction Wessler made was absolutely stunning...
Bradley had just squeaked by Jacksonville State, a team that ended up that year being TERRIBLE (even though some posters on the PJStar board claimed they were a very good team) -
and Wessler said this..."After back-to-back last-place MVC finishes, the first under Les and the second under Ford,
the Braves tied for seventh last season. A return to the solid middle this season is likely,
and a top-four finish is possible. Considering that BU has not finished above fourth since 2001,
that would be considered significant progress."
No comments:
Post a Comment