Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

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Big R
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Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Big R »

MORE ON HOUSE AND THE PORTAL
Please bear with the initial question below. Although it doesn’t directly impact UD, it ultimately leads to an interesting discussion about the portal.

GH: I had always liked the idea of playing tournament games, but I’ve gotten over that, and I’m not sure that you can just stay in the FCS and maintain a status quo with all the changes that are occurring. A question I have, just because my son played a little bit of D3 football, there's as many kids that play D3 or D2 as playing at higher levels. What happens to those schools?

JS: So, below the FBS level, you can opt in or opt out of the House ruling. All the FBS schools have to opt into it based on the fact that their conferences are all saying they are. But a lot of FCS schools and all the other ones won't opt in, and they don't have to change what they're doing. They can still operate basically the same way that they are now. I think the biggest challenge for those schools is that it's going to be harder to convince student athletes so - I'll take myself as the example - I was choosing between three Division One schools and Brandeis University to play soccer in college, and I chose Brandeis because, at the end of the day, I wasn't going to be a professional soccer player. So I went to the place that can give me the best education. Those decisions might be harder for people to make if the revenue is there in a way that if they're that talented, they can make money. It's not going to happen for every sport though. We're talking about a pretty small subset of student athletes. So, most people playing D3 ball couldn't have played and made money at an FBS football institution.

GH: No, but they went because they wanted to continue play whatever that sport is and get a good education, right?

JS: I don't think that's going away and that won't change, because schools don't have to change their model if they don't want to, they don't have to opt in. And there'll be a lot of FCS schools that don't opt into it but, also, theoretically, you could opt in and then come back out if you don't want to stay. So, there could be an FCS school that chooses that. There won't be any at the FBS level because it's too competitive to keep up that you can't not do it. But for others, I don't think it'll make a big difference. The other stat I’ll give you right now is, I believe that there are 6,000 student athletes that went into the portal for football. 1,700 of them have found a place so far, which means that 4,300 have not. With the roster cap now at 105, there will be a lot of student athletes that are not going to find a place to go, and that will be really interesting as to where do they end up? Because, if the FCS schools don't opt in, they can carry a bigger roster still, so some of them might get some of these players that thought they were going to make money somewhere and aren't going to. That could be one of the trickle-down effects to it.

GH: I hadn’t thought about that.

JS: But some of these things will level out, right? At some point athletes are going to realize that the grass isn't always greener, and that if they just go in to explore what's out there, for some of them it's really not advantageous to do that. They won't find a home. And that, I think, will start to limit the number of people that go in at some point.

GH: In the case of Delaware - and you mentioned Melkart - would we ever have student athletes who talk to the coaching staff and say: “I know there's money out there (and to your point), I want to go into portal and see what's available, but if I don't get the opportunity to make a lot more money than I would here, will I have the opportunity to stay at, or come back to Delaware?” Or do we basically say, once somebody's in the portal we just assume that they're gone?

JS: So that's an institutional and individual decision. So. I think “it depends” is the best way to answer it. The majority of times, student athletes don't come back. So, we've seen that. There's enough data to show that. It doesn't mean it can't happen. You know it certainly happens with coaching changes pretty regularly, and we had a lot of student athletes going to the portal when we made a coaching change, and almost all of them decided to stay once Ryan was hired and he reached back out to them all. So, that was an example of when, institutionally, we were fine with that. But when you don't have coaching changes, it's complicated, because you can't wait around for someone to then do that, always. Because, if you wait, you might miss out on the talent that you need to attract to come in. So, it's individually based, and you know the coaches, and Patrick - they're going to have to have those conversations to understand how they would approach it for each individual athlete, and then determine with each one how they want to do that. And there are some that it might make sense to come back, and there are some that it won't, because if you wait around, you're going to miss out on the next available one to come. It’s not hard-and-fast.


SCHEDULING

GH: Did CUSA know that UTEP and maybe, New Mexico State, were looking to explore other conferences at the time that they brought in UD and Missouri State?

JS: I don't know that for a fact, but I would assume that that was something that they might have had an assumption about. I don't think that those schools were quiet about their potential aspirations to be in the Mountain West at some point, and it worked out.

GH: … and geographically, for them, it just kind of makes sense.

JS: Yes, but, as you can tell, the conference decisions aren't all based upon geography at the moment.

GH: So I'm going to ask that too - I mean ultimately, just from a cost perspective, and student time perspective, wouldn't it make sense (not so much for the P4 - I mean they can go wherever they want) but certainly cost control has got to be important at the G5 level. I mean, ultimately, wouldn't you think that that's gonna be a consideration?

JS: Yes, I think it certainly is. But I also think that, if you consider football for a moment, we were already flying to half of the schools in the CAA, so that part isn't actually that big of a difference from flying - whether it's to NC A&T, or to FIU. It's a little bit more expensive, but it's not a huge difference from that perspective. For other sports, there certainly will be more flights, but there's also the opportunity, as you think about our non-conference scheduling, to make sure that that's regional. So, we've still got the same number of teams that are within a 2-hour drive of here that we can play in the majority of our sports and drive to. And that was important as we were looking at football scheduling from our non-conference perspective, to have a lot of places that people could drive to, because we want to make it easy for fans to get to, and we think that that's a great opportunity to schedule some games in this footprint.
So, I know you asked about that too in your original list of questions. We'll bus to the places that make sense for us. You mentioned Wake Forest. We’ll fly to Wake because that becomes a little bit challenging depending on the time of the game, from a bus perspective, and you want to be fresh going into it. But the other ones, yeah, we will certainly still be taking a bus when it makes sense. You know we took a bus to Penn State previously. We'll take one to UConn when we play them in a few years, and we would certainly take one down to Virginia.

GH: So, is there like a time – like, if it's gonna be more than five hours or six hours, or how do you make that determination?

JS: Yes, it's mostly time. Usually, if it's above a 5-hour drive is when we would start to to consider that for sure. But it also could be a little bit dependent upon where you're going, and and how to get there. So, I don't know off the top my head how far Coastal Carolina is, but I assume we'll fly to that game - that’s a ’29 “away” game, I think. But, yeah, it's about that 5-hour bucket, and above that we want to start looking at it. 6-hour bus rides are a long time to be in there the day before a game.
And then I do think that there will be some level of conversation in the future around regional scheduling between conferences for other sports - probably not men's basketball or football, baseball, or softball, but it wouldn't surprise me to see in women's soccer, or some other examples where you could say: “What if we let everyone come to a conference tournament but you played a more regional schedule and you didn't have to fly to compete against every single opponent in the conference?”. I could see them doing that in the G5’s - getting together to look at that. There's just a lot of changes right now going on across the board, and I don't think everyone's spending as much time looking at that as they are how to make it work when the House settlement goes through.

GH: When does the CUSA schedule come out?

JS: February.

GH: And you don't know when in February?

JS: We don't know. So, we're waiting to see, like everyone else at the moment. We should get a draft here in January and and then they'll release it in February at some point.

GH: Let me see if I got this right - we can compete for the conference championship, but we can't go to a bowl game?

JS: We won't be eligible for the conference championship game. We could win a regular season championship, but we won't be eligible for the conference championship game this year. Also, we are not automatically able to go to a bowl game if we are .500 or better. We would be able to go to a bowl game if there are not enough teams that are 6 – 6, or better, that can fill up the bowls. So, this year, for example, when Marshall dropped out and there was an opening, they ended up with Louisiana Tech going, but it could have been a bunch of other teams because they just had enough to fill the rest of the bowls.

GH: Alright, so it's possible – it “just depends”, I guess, is the way to put it?

JS: Yeah, yeah. I mean we would hope that if we have a .500 or or better record, that you know luck would be in our favor and we'd end up in a bowl game, but it wouldn't be a guarantee.

GH: So, talking about schedules – regarding future schedules, who does that - do you do that – is it your responsibility?

JS: Yes. I work closely with Ryan on it to make sure that we're aligned in terms of what we're doing but ultimately, it's my job to go out and get the games.

GH: So, you've talked about some of the considerations. If it's a non-conference game, which many of those would be, you want them to be, hopefully, within traveling distance so that fans could go there, like Buffalo and Connecticut. I would assume that others that are in our geography would be Boston College and Army, and Navy. We've never played Army; but Navy, Marshall - schools like that are within that geography, right?

JS: Yes. So, the way it works is that you get four non-conference games to schedule a year. Our philosophy is, in an ideal world, we're playing an FCS game at home as one of them because you can play one game and count that as a win towards goal eligibility with an FCS opponent. So, right now we are planning to play an FCS team at home every single year. Then we would have a home game against a G5 opponent, an away game against a G5 opponent, and an away game against a P4 opponent. That's the ideal schedule for us. The first two years we had to do two P4 opponents from a dollar perspective because the “buy” games that we could get weren't as strong in those years because all the teams that were giving the most amount away had already booked those games out. So, we ended up booking games that made more sense for us from a a fan interest perspective, but we had to do two of those, basically, to get to the numbers. But we want to have six home games a year, and, so, in order to do that you’ve got to play an FCS game and a G5. There's gonna be very few games that any P4’s are going to be scheduling at G5 schools - they're just not going to do it. And it was a little bit of a trend where there were some games that will still be on the schedule, like ODU is going to have Virginia Tech come, and some of that is the in-state piece, where, you know, in Virginia they really prioritize that happening for those schools. And in North Carolina they do that a little bit, too. But in a lot of states, you won't see that happening very often any more. And then, what will happen as you move forward is, for us, those G5 games, you're setting up as home-and-homes. So, that's where we're really focused on - you named some of those schools - the Buffalo’s and UConn’s. You mentioned Army and Navy - so those are complicated. Navy was great. I scheduled that game like 7-8 years ago and we played it just three years ago. And they always played one FCS game a year - that's the only non-conference game that they scheduled. The other three non-conference games for them are Notre Dame, Air Force, and Army. They don't do home-and-homes with the G5’s, so you know we would love to play them again and and they would be open to it if their philosophy changed, but right now it'll be hard for them to do that. Army and UMass were independent, and so those schedules - for them, they're shedding teams off their schedule right now for the future years because Army joined the American, and UMass joined the MAC. Army's gonna be in the same position that Navy’s in, but UMass, we've talked to, and we will absolutely find a time to play them at some point, but they've got to “unwind” a lot of their schedules first to get teams off of it because they had to schedule 12 games a year previously.

GH: Right. So, when you're talking about other G5 schools, like maybe a Marshall, down the road, that's the kind of school that could be a home-and-home, right?

JS: Yeah, like you were saying. So, right now we have UConn, Coastal Carolina, Buffalo, JMU booked. We have another one that will be announced sometime in the next month or so, that's a little bit farther out, that's a regional opponent. And then the majority of our games will be booked. We have two games left to book in ’28, but we don't have a lot of other games to book between now and 2030.

GH: So, how far out do you like to work?

JS: Well, this is new for us too a little bit, so we tried to do as much as we could before we started playing games. We have two games left in in ’28; we're booked up in ’29. I would say this offseason we’ll probably book out some of 2031 and 2032, but we won't go a lot farther than that this cycle. But it's probably anywhere from 5 to 6 years out.

GH: Now with UTEP dropping out, but for this coming year, still in the conference, how many conference teams will we play?

JS: There are 12 teams, so that means that there's 11 opponents, so we won't play three of them. And then the year after that, unless there's anyone else added, we won't play two of them every single year.

GH: Kind of like the CAA.

JS: Well, better honestly than that, because the CAA has so many teams. And what you're seeing is, and this is a conversation happening at basically every conference right now, the issue with a lot of the imbalance and schedules isn't the non-conference scheduling, it's the conference scheduling.

GH: Yeah, because they’re so big now.

JS: Yeah, and you can debate all day if Indiana was worthy enough for the College Football Playoff, but they didn't make their conference schedule, right? Their conference schedule was given to them. So, they didn't have Oregon or Penn State on it because the conference is so big.

GH: The last thing is about KC going to Temple, which brought to mind that I'm glad that whatever fences were broken down were somewhat mended when KC was brought back this fall.

JS: Yeah. You know, we weren't here when KC was here, so you know the the ability for us to have a relationship there is important, and it was great to have him back and induct him into the Hall of Fame. And it worked out in a way that he should be celebrated here, and he is now.

GH: So, you guys were fine with it - he was the one who would have to decide that this is OK to do moving forward, right?

JS: Yeah. So, it's certainly good for him that he gets to come back this way, but he's our competition now so there's that too!

GH: So, we had always heard, and this may or may not have been accurate, that Temple was not going to play Delaware again. And our hope, I suppose, is now that he's there, he can bend some ears and get that resurrected.

JS: Yeah, I would tell you that they've been more open to playing us as we move to FBS. So, that conversation's been ongoing and it's just a timing issue now that we're trying to work through. That’s a great thing for us, if we can get them back on the schedule. It was certainly not something they wanted to do when we were FCS, but you know, FBS - that's different, because it's different when you're able to do home-and-homes.

GH: Yeah, that'd be great!


FACILITIES

GH: So, obviously, one of the things that you mentioned, and I'm not trying to get around asking you this directly, but one of the things you mentioned that makes Delaware attractive to student athletes is our facilities, and we've made huge investments there. I will just say that we're still moving forward trying to make investments in Phase Two, right?

JS: We are, yeah, and we've raised a lot of money for it. We are looking at potentially doing it in a way that is going to create some new revenue streams for us, in addition to philanthropy. And it's part of the reason that it's been “quiet”, still, is because we have continued to rethink what we needed to look like in order for us to maximize the project. So, I'll give you an example of that: when we first rolled out the project, it did not have a dedicated suite section to it. We're going to need suites as you move forward. So, those are examples of things that are allowing us time right now, as we're figuring out the House settlement, and what money we need for that, while also knowing what we need in order to do this project. That is still our top priority from a facility standpoint. If we’ve got to do both, how do we make sure that they are complementing one another, that it's providing us a new revenue stream, but also, we need to fund it so that we can get off the ground and get started with it.

GH: But what you just said, seems to me, when people are asking when are “they” going to tell us what's going on - that's kind of critical to this whole timing, right, is wait for the House decision, decide how we're going to move forward once that comes out, and then we'll know how to deploy our resources better, because those resources are going to include payments to athletes as well as what we spend on facilities. Is that kind of boiling it down?

JS: That's fair. And I would go one step further, Rich, because I think people will enjoy hearing this, potentially. I see the chatter around people on GoHens. Our coaches do not read GoHens. I read GoHens because it's our responsibility to know what our fans think. So, our internal team looks at it, maybe not daily, but we look at it enough to know that, as the dialogue around raising money is a constant conversation, we always need to raise more money - we always need to be better at that.
The ability for us to raise the $5 million that we needed to go FBS, is something that was real - we had to raise that in about 6 months. So, when we raised the Whitney Athletic Center, it was $64 million. $25 million came from the university, $39 million we raised in about two years. Then COVID hit. Then, as we've now been raising money for our next facility project, the $5 million was not something that we had expected. It was $5,000 to move, and that changed, suddenly, in October, 2023 and we announced in December. And I would do it all over again, to raise that money again, because it was that important, and we knew this was a long-term decision for us. But I would have really loved if that didn't happen, because we could have used that money towards this project. So, that was a real thing that happened, and it wouldn't be honest to say that that hasn't changed the timing a little bit. But, what it's done, is everything else that you just said that was kind of reiterating my points, which is - it's allowed us some time to kind of think through ‘how do we make sure that we are meeting the needs of all the areas that we need to with money?’. And what we know, is that we need this project to make revenue. It can't just be a building that houses teams, which is what the most important part of it is, but it also has to make money for us, because if we don't find new revenue streams as we move forward, it's going to be harder for us to meet the needs, and be competitive, and win, which is what everyone wants to see – is for us be successful.

GH: Are the components of the project still the same as they've always been? I mean, it was to build a new field house, have football move over there - all those things that originally were described as aspects that we were looking for - doing something with the North End zone and, in a general sense, all that was originally anticipated?

JS: Yes. I would say that the intent of the project, and the goals of the project, are the same. There will be differences to what we started with, and what it will end up as, because our thinking has evolved.

GH: You mentioned suites as an example that wasn't in the original thinking, and now that's a requirement, right?

JS: Right. And the field house location may not change, but we still need renovations to it and so those are things that we're looking at as examples. I think the easiest way to say it is that the intent and the goals of the project are still the same, but there will be different pieces to it as we get ready to publicize it when we're ready to.

GH: When you say the Fieldhouse location may not change, do you mean from where it is now, or from what the original concepts were that we saw?

JS: From where the concepts were.

GH: OK, and then, is there still a way-down-the-road Phase 3, like renovating the East stands to be more like the West stands - that sort of thing?

JS: So, when you probably look at this, there's going to be a lot of different components to the project that we'll think about in terms of short-term and long-term, and what we need to do then. The East side is certainly something that we will consider as a part of all this. The East side looking like the West side for us is not even a question. We can't reduce capacity anymore - we would need to increase. So, we can't have the East side look like the West side because it would reduce capacity too much. Now, we do need more premium seats, and we do want to update amenities. So, that's why it's important that, as you think about what we need to do next, all that's on the table for us to consider. And then it's about prioritizing it based upon what we need in this moment, and what we need to continue to invest in our student athlete experiences, but we also need revenue generation. And those are going to be the two things that really drive a lot of the decision-making process, along with the fan experience. Those are the same three things that we really looked at with the Whitney and the West side renovations, but they might be different components of that because you can't decrease the capacity, so you can't just put in the premium seats on the East side in the same way that we did on the West side.

GH: Right, and you really couldn't modify the West side anymore because you know that reduces the seating on on the West side.

JS: Yeah. So, the North and the East are the two places that we'll really look at. The South has been a great spot for our students, and we feel like that makes a lot of sense – it allows them to see the video board and they've got a great spot next to the band. But the East and the North are the things that we have to look at to really consider what the future looks like, and how do we make sure, again, that our student athletes have a great experience, our fans have great experience, but that we can also generate the revenue we need to do all the things that we're going to need to do as we move forward.

GH: From a timing perspective though, East and North are not tied together?

JS: Not necessarily, but they could be. Yeah - timing perspective is that we needed all that to happen yesterday and the faster we can go the better (laughs), but we also are going to use it as a moment, as we've had a lot of things that have changed, to make sure that we are including the right components to this and prioritizing in the right way. But we're still raising money for it, and that's going well, and there's a lot of people that have invested into it and continue to do that. And we're really grateful for that, because, what I believe to be true, is that, among a lot of our donors that have invested into the North End Zone, and the ones that invested into the Whitney Athletic Center, there's a lot of belief and trust as they see what we're able to do, that we're going to make sure that this is going to be done the right way for Delaware and then it's going to help us win and be successful. And I can tell you that the last project has done that in spades for us, and we expect nothing less for what this next one would do.

GH: So, different than the Whitney project, as I recall about that project, and I could be wrong on this, but I think I was told that Delaware wanted to have 60% of the money in hand or committed before they were going to make any kind of public announcement. There is an added component now, and that's what you talked about about - whether it's signage, or whatever - there has to be this third source of revenue that's going to continue to generate revenue moving forward. And, if I'm not mistaken, that was not part of the consideration with the Whitney center, right?

JS: It was - that's what the premium seats have done for us. So, we created variety within the stadium. Before, on the West side, the biggest variety you had was the box seats compared to the bleacher seats. Now we have box seats, bleacher seats, Club seats, chair back seats and general admission seats in the North end zone. So, the price points are really a big variety, which is important because we want to make it affordable - I mean, you can still get a season ticket for under $100, which is a great deal. But you can also pay a lot more than that if you want Club access and Gold parking, and whatever. So, we created all these different options and, for us, when we got here and everyone was really upset about the required donations, it was because they didn't have an option. They felt like they were forced into it and most people didn't feel like it was communicated well and that it wasn't done appropriately, and, so, what we heard was, not that they weren't willing to pay more, they just wanted it to be a choice.

GH: Yeah, I go back to the old saying: “It's not what you do, it's how you do it”, and it wasn't done well.

JS: And we're not perfect, so, people could argue that when we did the West side renovations, we could have done things differently, and that's fine - everyone's entitled to their opinion. But what we did do, was we created options for everybody. So, if you didn't want to pay that amount then you didn't have to, if you still wanted to be at the game, but it's in different place. So, that was part of the trade-offs that we gave to people, and we tried to do it in a way that created options. And I think what we would continue to think about, and with the Whitney what was also different was, I think to your point, we actually announced it when there was 80% in the door. We announced $47 million raised and it was a $60 million project when we announced it. There isn't a hard-and-fast rule for that, for ourselves, but what we know is that we want to be really clear on the amounts, and how much we still have left to go, because we aren't going to publicly do it unless it's really clear that, if you give, what that does towards the final number. So, we're not going to talk about it publicly until we have enough towards what that final number would look like to feel really good about it. And we want to make sure that the concept is exactly what we want it to be before going public about it.

GH: So, I’m not suggesting UD do this, but many capital campaigns use a thermometer or some other sort of graphic display to show progress. But you don't want to show where donations are on the thermometer until you can also show a relatively accurate artist’s rendering, blueprint, or other representation that depicts what the project is going to look like when completed. Then, once you can show people what the campaign is going to accomplish, you can show them where the monetary progress is, and this is what your contribution can do to help close the gap and reach the goal.

JS: That's correct. And we have to go through the proper board approvals and everything else for all of it, so there is that component of it too, so that we've got the sign-offs on it. But, yes, our philosophy is that we want to show “this is what you're giving towards, this is what it's going to do for us, and this is how close we are”. But, in individual conversations, we're talking to people about whether they want to make a contribution to it that's going to make a big difference for us now. And we're able to be transparent about that, in private conversations, because we're asking people to still hold that information confidentially until we land, because there is a chance that things could change. And, again, that's where the trust comes in, that we're asking people to trust the fact that we're going to deliver a first-class facility and plan when it's ready to go. And, fortunately, people believe in that because we've demonstrated it. And you got to hear that directly from athletes when they talked to you about the Whitney facility being one of the deciding factors in why they came to UD. That's real. That's happened.

GH: And occasionally, you've let out little pieces of information to let people know - whether it's a donation from Rich Gannon, or Nasir Adderley, or whatever - but let people know that, “Yes, there are people making a commitment, and there is money coming in - we're not ready to tell you where we are yet, but understand that this is happening”, which feeds people's desire to know that things are moving forward.

JS: That's right.

GH: So, that's been a good thing, but bottom line, we shouldn’t expect any kind of announcement until after the House decision comes down and we know how much money we have to provide for athletes, and then we can look at how much we still need for facilities.

JS: That's fair. In the meantime, if anyone reading this wants to to give to any of those things, then they know how to get a hold of us, and I'll answer anyone’s e-mail or call that reaches out. So, we'll never stop being appreciative for anyone that wants to help.


CLOSING

GH: Well, I took so much of your time - I really appreciate it! It's gonna take me quite a while to transcribe this and figure out how to organize it. It most likely won't be in the order in which we went through it, but man that was really educational and informative, and I appreciate it. And hopefully I can structure this in a way that the readership really gets some good insight into the way things are happening behind the scenes moving forward, so, again, I appreciate it.

JS: Glad to have done it, and just don't wait too long because if you wait too long, everything I say will be outdated you know it'll change in a week from now!

GH: I know. Thank you.

JS: Well, thanks for reaching out appreciate it.

GH: Alright - thank you. Take care.
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Info Hound »

Very interesting and greatly appreciated. Thank you, Rich.

I think Jordan is just great, and if that is "waving the pom-poms", deal with it. LOL
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Udforever1 »

Good stuff Big R. Lots of good talk regarding the facilities.

Now you have me wondering who this next regional opponent is going to be that’ll be announced over the next month. If it’s in regards to 2028, we need both an FCS game and G5 home game. Won’t be Temple, as they are booked for 28. East Carolina also booked as well as Marshall and Umass that you brought up. Some “regional” teams that have openings are Charlotte, Old Dominion, App State, Georgia Southern and Georgia State. Not sure if this is regional but who knows these days, and we are certainly recruiting in the state a lot, but Florida Atlantic has an opening as well.
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Caldwell Chicken
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Caldwell Chicken »

Excellent info! Thank you!
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by finpxz1 »

Thanks again, Rich…great stuff. Loved the gohens shoutout by Jordan, too!!! As part of your stadium discussion, did Jordan give a sense of what they would like to see capacity get to after the north and east stands have been updated? Based on his comments about losing seating capacity as part of the west renovation, it almost feels like the east side would have to move to a second tier in order to increase capacity to the level they would like. I’d love to see us get to 27k to 30k capacity eventually. I, for one, would prioritize the new indoor practice facility as phase 3 after we complete the north and east stands as part of phase 2. We can get another 5 to 7 years out of the field house now that we have the Whitney Center.
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Big R
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Big R »

You know what i know. I’m sure some of the major donors have been shown updated plans, but as Jordan said, they want to wait until the House ruling is announced so they know more about the impact of rev-share et al, before they finalize the plans.
Mickey to Rocky about SPEED - https://youtu.be/N0GdQyIm7DU
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by RalphD58 »

Thanks for the hard work on the interview Rich. I'm glad to hear Jordan talk about the importance of a proper club level and upgraded amenities. The athletic department is juggling a lot right now, and after reading this interview, it definitely sounds like Delaware Athletics is in good hands.
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Bluewyn Gold »

By far, the most comprehensive description of the school's philosophy and mindset about these topics. It's important that supporters know this stuff, so thank you Mr. R for conducting and transcribing the interview and Mr. Skolnick for his honest words. Very encouraging stuff.
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by DaveB »

Big R wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2025 12:00 am You know what i know. I’m sure some of the major donors have been shown updated plans, but as Jordan said, they want to wait until the House ruling is announced so they know more about the impact of rev-share et al, before they finalize the plans.
Has the university looked at naming rights for the stadium? Have to imagine the move to FBS is much more attractive than FCS and could be a revenue source
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Hens79 »

Bluewyn Gold wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2025 10:47 am By far, the most comprehensive description of the school's philosophy and mindset about these topics. It's important that supporters know this stuff, so thank you Mr. R for conducting and transcribing the interview and Mr. Skolnick for his honest words. Very encouraging stuff.
I agree. Great job with the interview and getting the word out and for UD taking the time. It sure beats the “we have no plans … “ and “we are happy where we are” (FCS)from the past. But as always, going from words to deeds is easier said than done. The sooner the better for at least the NEZ/football infrastructure project.
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Cluck U »

Nice job (again), Big R!

Good info.

Lost revenue opportunity…due to the short sighted rebuild. Happy UD is taking the time to make better changes on Re-Do 2.
All I want for Christmas is a 2025 Bowl game for our Hens.
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by pikecreekbill »

Great information - thank you! IMO just by Mr. Skolnick mentioning the need for increased seating capacity could be the reason for refurbishing the field house instead of constructing a new building not to mention the cost savings. The new building would have a large footprint and limit the expansion of the NEZ. My only question would be then - what do you do with the new scoreboard?
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Bluewyn Gold »

I've wondered that as well, Mr. PKBill. My initial thought was that they've already taken the eventual north side stadium project into consideration and will build in the structural flexibility to move and incorporate the scoreboard into the new design.
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by mpwerrell »

The field house was built in the sixties. It is difficult to maintain from an efficiency perspective. The field is only 70 yards long with little room on the “sidelines”. The offices, and I use that word generously, for the baseball, lacrosse and soccer and other teams are tiny cinderblock rooms with few if any conference rooms.
To “refurbish” the facility will take far more than a coat of paint to bring it up to today’s standards for recruiting, etc., and make it a sustainable facility for the future.

…and my kudos to you Rich for the interviews, great questions and a lot of work! Also thanks to Jordan for his straightforward and transparent answers and discussion. As someone else posted UD Athletics has great folks leading the way.
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Re: Jordan Skolnick Interview - Part 3

Post by Chicken of War »

Saved the best for last. Great insight on scheduling and facilities. I think many of us surmised much of what was said, but it was nice to have someone from inside the castle share it. There's a ton that hasn't been formaly announced so I understand there being limits on exactly how much detail Jordan could share, but I thought he was very forthright. Great job Rich & Jordan.
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