http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/sports/117314970965630.xml&coll=7
Vikings ride wave created by Glanville
PSU hasn't figured out yet how much to charge for football season tickets and already there's a line
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
NORM MAVES JR.
The proof of the power of personality -- and a sign that Portland State is about to enter a whole new financial world -- came last Saturday night at the Peter W. Stott Center.
In the wake of Jerry Glanville's hiring as the Vikings' new football coach, Scott Herrin thought he might be able to peddle a few football tickets in the foyer before Portland State's Big Sky Conference basketball playoff game with Montana State.
Herrin, PSU's assistant athletic director for marketing and corporate sales, set up a table decorated with a 15-inch cutout of Glanville's face
He sold 32 season tickets before the basketball crowd settled into its seats. This in spite of the fact that the prices haven't been set. That will come sometime this week.
Yet through Saturday, the athletic department had accepted more than 500 deposits for season tickets at $50 apiece. In March. For a season that is six months away. For a team that had fewer than 1,000 season ticket holders in 2006.
And the Vikings haven't even started dealing with their regular customers yet. In a normal year, that usually comes in late March or early April.
But this is about as far from a normal year as Portland State might ever get.
"What this is doing," said Teri Mariani, who executed Glanville's hiring as interim athletic director, "is that it's forcing us to speed up things. Everybody wants us to do that right now."
There are other things happening, too. The department also has received calls about luxury suites and from various entities wanting to do business.
To accommodate Glanville's plans for the program, Portland State is increasing the football budget by $250,000. That number will double to meet Title IX regulations, so PSU's athletic budget will grow by half a million in the fall. This year's budget was $8.1 million.
There has been much speculation about just what Mariani did promise Glanville last Tuesday night at Jake's Grill, when the two hashed out a deal on the paper tablecloths.
"We've increased the recruiting dollars," Mariani said. "It will be phased in -- about $30,000 the first year.
"There's some more money for assistant coaches. The amount is still to be determined, but he'll see what his options are on his staff, and we'll give him a top amount of $55,000 to $60,000."
The rest of the $250,000 is in the form of scholarship money.
Mariani said the school's $11 million plan to refurbish locker rooms and offices was in place before Glanville came on the scene.
"That's the remodeling of the Stott Center," she said. "It's the same study that has been going on for a year. When the rec building gets built (on Sixth Avenue, scheduled to start this summer) -- I imagine it could take a couple of years -- the $11 million goes for the locker rooms and office upgrades (at the Stott Center).
"That had nothing to do with the hire. It was already in the works."
Herrin and Mariani are of a like mind when it comes to pricing football season tickets. They're not ready to raise prices through the roof, but they're toying with the idea of raising single-game ticket prices.
"Season tickets may cost a little bit more this year," Herrin said, "but that's because there's one more game on the schedule than there was last year."
Mariani said she didn't want to drive season ticket buyers away with a big price hike.
"I'd really like to pack the place this year," she said. "That's my philosophy. We've sold so few in the past, I'd love to sell 6,000 to 7,000 this year in season tickets, then get another 5,000 or 6,000 on your walk-up."
Regardless of sales, the athletic department must come up with the $500,000 budget increase it has planned.
"We're making phone calls," Mariani said. "President (Daniel) Bernstine's making phone calls. People have said, 'If you hire this person, we'll step up.'
"There are people coming forward who knew we had to make these kind of commitments to get him."
One of them is Joe Spanish, who played for the Vikings in the early 1990s. He promised Mariani he would buy Glanville's plane ticket if she interviewed him, and Spanish walked into the athletic department offices with a check late last week.
Other doors are opening. Mariani said she is hearing from radio stations who wouldn't talk to the Vikings last year. She's grateful that the hire is paying off for KTRO, the station that signed on last year on the hunch that good things could happen in the South Park Blocks.
Glanville's end in all of this is to do what he does best: Sell himself and his program.
"He has to help us raise the money," Mariani said. "The understanding was that he'd help us raise that $250,000."
Mariani said Glanville also will raise his own money for other football needs -- equipment, uniforms, things she asks other coaches to do.
"He's just able to do it a bit better," Mariani said.
Last Saturday night, while Glanville was in Hawaii packing for his new home, his face was on a table selling football tickets -- 32 season packages to be exact -- at a basketball game in early March.
Norm Maves Jr.: 503-221-8204; [email protected]
-SciFi
Vikings ride wave created by Glanville
PSU hasn't figured out yet how much to charge for football season tickets and already there's a line
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
NORM MAVES JR.
The proof of the power of personality -- and a sign that Portland State is about to enter a whole new financial world -- came last Saturday night at the Peter W. Stott Center.
In the wake of Jerry Glanville's hiring as the Vikings' new football coach, Scott Herrin thought he might be able to peddle a few football tickets in the foyer before Portland State's Big Sky Conference basketball playoff game with Montana State.
Herrin, PSU's assistant athletic director for marketing and corporate sales, set up a table decorated with a 15-inch cutout of Glanville's face
He sold 32 season tickets before the basketball crowd settled into its seats. This in spite of the fact that the prices haven't been set. That will come sometime this week.
Yet through Saturday, the athletic department had accepted more than 500 deposits for season tickets at $50 apiece. In March. For a season that is six months away. For a team that had fewer than 1,000 season ticket holders in 2006.
And the Vikings haven't even started dealing with their regular customers yet. In a normal year, that usually comes in late March or early April.
But this is about as far from a normal year as Portland State might ever get.
"What this is doing," said Teri Mariani, who executed Glanville's hiring as interim athletic director, "is that it's forcing us to speed up things. Everybody wants us to do that right now."
There are other things happening, too. The department also has received calls about luxury suites and from various entities wanting to do business.
To accommodate Glanville's plans for the program, Portland State is increasing the football budget by $250,000. That number will double to meet Title IX regulations, so PSU's athletic budget will grow by half a million in the fall. This year's budget was $8.1 million.
There has been much speculation about just what Mariani did promise Glanville last Tuesday night at Jake's Grill, when the two hashed out a deal on the paper tablecloths.
"We've increased the recruiting dollars," Mariani said. "It will be phased in -- about $30,000 the first year.
"There's some more money for assistant coaches. The amount is still to be determined, but he'll see what his options are on his staff, and we'll give him a top amount of $55,000 to $60,000."
The rest of the $250,000 is in the form of scholarship money.
Mariani said the school's $11 million plan to refurbish locker rooms and offices was in place before Glanville came on the scene.
"That's the remodeling of the Stott Center," she said. "It's the same study that has been going on for a year. When the rec building gets built (on Sixth Avenue, scheduled to start this summer) -- I imagine it could take a couple of years -- the $11 million goes for the locker rooms and office upgrades (at the Stott Center).
"That had nothing to do with the hire. It was already in the works."
Herrin and Mariani are of a like mind when it comes to pricing football season tickets. They're not ready to raise prices through the roof, but they're toying with the idea of raising single-game ticket prices.
"Season tickets may cost a little bit more this year," Herrin said, "but that's because there's one more game on the schedule than there was last year."
Mariani said she didn't want to drive season ticket buyers away with a big price hike.
"I'd really like to pack the place this year," she said. "That's my philosophy. We've sold so few in the past, I'd love to sell 6,000 to 7,000 this year in season tickets, then get another 5,000 or 6,000 on your walk-up."
Regardless of sales, the athletic department must come up with the $500,000 budget increase it has planned.
"We're making phone calls," Mariani said. "President (Daniel) Bernstine's making phone calls. People have said, 'If you hire this person, we'll step up.'
"There are people coming forward who knew we had to make these kind of commitments to get him."
One of them is Joe Spanish, who played for the Vikings in the early 1990s. He promised Mariani he would buy Glanville's plane ticket if she interviewed him, and Spanish walked into the athletic department offices with a check late last week.
Other doors are opening. Mariani said she is hearing from radio stations who wouldn't talk to the Vikings last year. She's grateful that the hire is paying off for KTRO, the station that signed on last year on the hunch that good things could happen in the South Park Blocks.
Glanville's end in all of this is to do what he does best: Sell himself and his program.
"He has to help us raise the money," Mariani said. "The understanding was that he'd help us raise that $250,000."
Mariani said Glanville also will raise his own money for other football needs -- equipment, uniforms, things she asks other coaches to do.
"He's just able to do it a bit better," Mariani said.
Last Saturday night, while Glanville was in Hawaii packing for his new home, his face was on a table selling football tickets -- 32 season packages to be exact -- at a basketball game in early March.
Norm Maves Jr.: 503-221-8204; [email protected]
-SciFi
