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10 years 2 months
# | Virginia Tech Overhauls Hokie Club to Boost Donations, Meet Growing Scholarship Expenses 
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Great start for 2017 recruiting!
Maryland fans were certain he was a lock until he visited VT. Buzz is a mastermind. Welcome to Hokie Nation, Nickeil!
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10 years 2 months
# | Virginia Tech Overhauls Hokie Club to Boost Donations, Meet Growing Scholarship Expenses First, let me say that I have the utmost confidence in Whit and I'm sure he has run the numbers. I have been thrilled with every decision he has made. I have no doubt that long term this is a necessary move and change was sorely needed. Having said that, this worries me a bit.
One thing that worries me with the map is the small number of seats available for the mid tier donors. 3700 of the 9900 hokie club members are Bronze or lower and there aren't many seats in the $500 or less range which means these donors will be pushed up the stands or reduce the number of tickets they are buying. We cannot afford for ticket sales to drop further. In my situation-Im a high bronze giving 500 year consecutively since 2002. My seats are in the $350/per range and I have 4. I either have to go from 500 to 1400 a year, or go up to 700 and drop 2 of them, or move higher. I will certainly drop from 4 tickets to 2.
The other thing I see happening is a lot of empty seats in the prime sections going empty which isn't a good look. There are only 3,584 Goldens or higher and golden level starts at just $2,000/year which would only get you 2 seats in the prime sections.
What the emphasis should be on IMHO is getting more donors overall-regardless of giving level. I have watched the Hokie Club dwindle from almost 12k at the high point down to 9,897 currently. That is way too low. Why aren't people giving? Well, for the longest time the only perk was the "right" to buy tickets, because every game was a sellout. We can't sell out most games right now. It has to be more than that. Recently, that has improved. There is the magazine, golf tournaments, special behind the scenes events, store discounts,etc.
I am in the Raleigh area, and as Alum07 referenced above, there are a ton of alumni here. Every year I play in the Orange/Maroon tour golf event which is at a fabulous golf course, with tons of booze, good speakers, raffles, food. Every year the SAME 30-40 people attend. I may be the youngest dude there most years and I am 36!! I personally recruited 3 new guys who joined the hokie club to complete my foursome last year. They were amazed at the event, and now its a must do. I wonder if the Hokie Club even gets the flyer out to all of the members herein the triangle. Surely there are a few under 40 dudes who are hokie club members that would pay $110 to play one of the nicest courses in the NC and get to hear Frank Beamer speak, get tons of booze, and a great meal!!!
I think there is a sizable number of friends who pool there money to be golden hokies and get 4 tickets and therefore the number of donors is lower.
Buying season tickets is not a good financial decision. I spend 500 on donation and then buy 4 season tickets. I may go to 4 games max. I've always been able to sell my extras, but I could take that $2,000 and buy scalped 50 yard line seats for all 4 games I wanted for less money. I do it because I am damn proud to be a HOKIE, and I want to support VT, and have teams I can be proud of.
GO HOKIES!!
I did sling for a while but switched to PlayStation Vue. $35, 70 channels, all ESPNS, NBCSports, BEin sports & FSNs for soccer, Disney for the kids, only downside is that it has E & Bravo so housewives & Kardashians have once again invaded my life.
Also not sure the 757 could pull the corporate money for sponsorships and luxury boxes that is driving stadium profitability. In addition large, transient military population that may not immediately embrace a team as it relates to psl's and season tickets.
If the VB arena is built, that may open the chance for an NBA team that may disprove these hunches still a hope and a prayer.
I'm not too sure about his having a long coaching career.
When he was here and I saw how good a recruiter he was, along with the love that was shown to him by his players and by us, I thought he had a long career in front of him. Future Head Coach was written all over him. I don't see that now. What I actually see for him now is NFL.
Yo, Kung Fu Panda is awesome, you hatin'.
Not but actually, I wonder what it is. Good recruits go all over the place, to programs that are struggling even, and the amount of trouble A&M is having with QBs is absurd. And they had a QB win the Heisman within the last 5 years! You would think that a player would want to go to that school.
That can be done spectacularly with no information -- or better yet, with completely inaccurate information.
And generally is...
Yeah there was one (1995). I didn't think the Nationals were as good of a comparison. I don't think (until maybe this year) they've been as dominate in the regular season as the Caps have been. The Nats didn't even make the playoffs last year.
How can a guy talk about loyalty when he hasn't even added the schools mascot to his phone dictionary!? Mine will autocorrect things to "Hokies"
Then don't be loyal
Thought they nabbed at least 1-2 WS?
The Atlanta Braves from the 90s through early 2000s were the baseball equivalent to what the Caps have been. Dominating the regular season, only to fall flat. #sauce: I'm a Braves fan.
The New is fishing well also. My friend and river guide Jim Richmond had a couple of clients on this past Tuesday that caught 7 smallmouth over 18", with four citations. Caught them in Giles County, all on spinnerbaits.
Have fun storming the castle!
That video was posted by some guy named "Steven." Your name is Low Brau.
Someone left these box o kittens out in the woods in NE DC. I picked them up to save them, they have long since been adopted.
This, freakin absolutely this
He takes to twitter to lambast kids who aren't sticking to their word, but wasn't it only 16 months ago he bailed on us to take that job? Yeah, where was the loyalty there?
This seems like an unnecessary overhaul to appease angry fans/coaches on occasion.
you got money?
It's for a noble cause!
You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles!
Offers should be as solid as commitments. No offers should be allowed until signing period starts. Then there's NO ambiguity or verbal commitments.
Growing the Hokie Club is a long term project. I wish I had enough quotable #sauced information to write a article on this, but most of my info is not verifiable. But until recently the Hokie Club and the Alumni Association did NOT share information. This the only way the Hokie Club got new members was someone was referred by a current member or they called the Hokie Club themselves. Many areas with large amounts of alumni with active alumni groups have almost no Hokie Club members; LA, Charleston. Looking at the Hokie Club chapter list ( which I can no longer find online), there are no chapters West of the Mississippi, South of Atlanta, none in SC, FL, NY (outside of NYC) there are Hokie Club individual members but no chapters because of the amount of work required to run it and the money A club must send in.