Tuesday, March 27, 2001
Xavier's big run could mean more money
On a clear day, Mike Bobinski can see women's basketball making money. The Xavier athletic director peers into the distance, makes his projections and perceives the vague outline of profitability.
It's out there, if you look closely, and Bobinski is accustomed to examining economic matters from the persnickety perspective of a certified public accountant.
“I think over 3-to-5 years we can get very near the break-even point,” Bobinski said Monday afternoon. “I think we can do significantly better immediately.”
The Musketeers' remarkable run through the NCAA Women's Tournament can not erase this season's deficit. Nor
will it mean a significant financial windfall. The Atlantic 10 Conference awards some modest prize money for Tournament success, but the NCAA makes no such distributions for the women's game. While Bobinski declines to offer specific figures, his ballpark estimate is that the women's program presently operates at a loss of between $500,000 and $1million.
The big return, if there is one, figures to be in the selling of next season. Xavier's expectation is that winning big will bring a greater urgency to ticket sales, a better return for advertisers, and make the women's team more attractive programming for local broadcast outlets.
Pitching the product
Xavier's marketing plan is to start pitching its product aggressively while tournament memories are still fresh; “To strike,” Bobinski says, “before the iron gets cools.”
“We captured all the names and addresses of people who bought tickets for the first and second round (of the tournament),” he said. “We want to reconnect with them for next year.”
Bobinski's hope is that some of the team's new customers will become repeat customers, and that others may be attracted by its unprecedented publicity.
In the last week, the Xavier women have achieved a higher profile than at any previous point in the 30-year history of the program. They have appeared on national television and attained more prominent positioning on local news outlets. This is the kind of free advertising no school could afford to buy.
“One of the things Xavier looks for in its athletic program is enhancing the image of the university,” said Dawn Rogers, the school's associate athletic director. “You turn on EPSN (this weekend) and every 15 minutes you're looking at Xavier, and Xavier women's basketball upsetting the No.1 team in the country. As an institution that prides itself on having a national reputation, that's very positive.”
Road attendance weak
By Bobinski's estimate, no more than four or five women's basketball programs are self-sufficient: Connecticut, Tennessee and — uh — well, maybe not that many. Xavier averaged 2,673 spectators at home this year, but only 924 on the road and just 549 at neutral sites. This would suggest there is a tangible return in putting a good team on the floor, but that the game still has problems with market penetration.
“Cincinnati,” Rogers said, “is still a town that has not fully embraced the concept of women's basketball.”
“Years ago, unless you were a Tennessee or Connecticut fan, it didn't get into the consciousness at all,” Bobinski said. “Maybe it takes something like this run to once and for all solidify it in people's minds.”
E-mail tsullivan@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/sullivan.
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Xavier's big run could mean more money