I am loathe to make new posts because I don't want to double post but I haven't seen this come up yet here. Bitter just mentioned in a comment on the athletic but I wanted to see it posted elsewhere before posting here because I know the athletic has some strict rules about posting stuff..
https://www.dailypress.com/sports/college/virginia-tech/vp-sp-hokies-ath...
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
thanks for sharing, bummer to see layoffs.
with regards to the CGs here: don't link or copy/paste paywalled content and you'll be fine. linking an alterantive and free source like you did is preferred, and linking/embedding a source for the community to read is always best practice
Bitter was tweeting it too, so you good
Did I miss something? I didn't see layoffs mentioned in the article.
Edit: Bitter's tweet, yeah.
See Bitter's tweet above ^
You hadn't posted that yet when I started my comment.
Here it is from the Athletic Department itself.
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/unirel_athletics-1203.html
This makes me wonder about paying Fuente's buyout. Sounds like pretty much the entire athletics staff is getting their pay cut and if we turn around and pay $10M to make Fuente go away (I know it's spread over several years), seems like that would create a fair amount of animosity between all the other staff in the department and Whit.
I mean, I can see that, but you have to think all the other staff knows their place in the pecking order too
Seems like it's more than the pecking order - hopefully they realize the move would/should improve revenue in future years. And if the administration didn't do it, it could hurt revenue in the future. I just don't know if there's that awareness or not. I would hope so. Then there's always the risk of getting someone who's not any better. Basically, if Whit makes the move, he pretty much needs a winner.
Any buyout would have to be money given from the fan base/ donors towards that of its really going to happen. ( I still have my doubts that it can)
It can. #Sauces said we had donors contact Whit last year after the LOLUVa streak was broken saying they would fund the bailout if Whit thought it was the right move. As of December 16th, it will be $2.5m cheaper than when they approached him last year. We're probably still good.
Might not even cost $10M by then.
It's $12.5M until December 16th, when it goes down to $10M. Or were you suggesting a reduction from something else?
Negotiated buyout. More common than folks realize.
Is that if someone else is trying to hire him?
Given how Fuente has handled criticisms in his press conferences after ugly games this year (i.e. placing the blame largely on things other than him & his staff), I would think that it would be unlikely for him to negotiate down his buyout. But...is there precedent in other separating of ways where an athletics department negotiated down the buyout in exchange for keeping the optics peaceful and positive? In other words, "accept a lower buyout or we'll drag you through the dirt and hamper your ability to get a job elsewhere"? Even if so, I would think that VT would steer clear of going down that road.
Jim McElwain and Will Muschamp did this year. The incentive is if you know you're probably out the door pending the buyout getting lowered its just harder to do your job right. There's less buy in, recruits know what's coming. Leave amicably and go get another job while your value is still a little high, especially in Fuente's case where the next 2-3 years look grim with recruiting trends.
...but Fuente's job couldn't possibly get any harder because, ya know, COVID-19, right? /s
Don't know how reliable @HunkerDownHokie on twitter is, but he seems to think it's been raised already
I am waffling back and forth on that point. On the one hand, 15m is almost exactly what is needed to make the buyout of Fuente and the entire staff. On the other hand, Whit has a direct quote stating how tough Covid has been financially and how thankful he is we have our full varsity program around. It seems, like you said, a bit odd to follow that up in a few weeks with buying out the football staff... But on the other hand, football and basketball are where the money is at. tl;dr i have no clue but figured this was newsworthy.
The buyout isn't $10m at once. Its usually split out over multiple years. More like $2.5m per year for the next 4 years.
That's why I said I know it's spread over several years.
i think the other staff salary reductions might be explained by telling them that if they want to keep their jobs at all in the future, then replacing fuente is needed. he's on a trajectory to run the program, and the department it supports, into the ground. if they don't do this now, it will be much worse later.
steal nick saban, get a few MNC's, and the revenue will be way up and staff will get their salaries back plus raises and bonuses for hanging in there!!
I would doubt anyone under an employment contract would be impacted by this cut - so most coaches would have guaranteed salaries. So what sucks is this hits every other employee within the department but the coaches would have to mutually agree to a cut (which they may have already done).
Sucks for the day-to-day team but I don't think this applies to Fuente's current salary or any contractual buy-out (not just Fuente but all coaches).
Disappointing to see Andy Bitter already start to push an "optics" narrative before Fuente is even fired. If he is even fired.
It's extremely unfortunate that cuts have to happen but you don't allow the ongoing destruction of your core asset to continue just because lower priority requirements were cut for completely unrelated reasons. Our athletic department doesn't work with COVID and it doesn't work with Justin Fuente turning VT football into a pile of ashes. Action has to happen on both fronts, sadly.
I've seen people saying the "optics" from this and the timing of it will be used as reasons to keep Fuente another year.
If anything, I could see this being announced at this specific time so that the upcoming Clemson beatdown (and maybe even UVA as well) will be fresher in people's minds than this when the buyout does happen.
Babcock and the university have to be prepared to immediately and forcefully push back on the "optics" stuff the media will create and run with.
COVID is a huge problem but the solutions for COVID don't fix our primary revenue driver in athletics, which appears to be hopelessly broken. VT has to be brave and hammer away at both problems even if it presents an irresistible opportunity for people to drive clicks to "controversy"...
Andy's not 'pushing' a 'narrative.' It's a legitimate moral question to grapple with. It's completely legitimate to ask why an educational institution is prioritizing amateur sports over the well being of their employees.
I'm not suggesting that we should or should not fire Fuente; just pointing out that Andy doesn't have a secret agenda here, and he's not spinning this in an unreasonable way.
In my understanding the buyout is not funded by the university or even the general operating funds of the athletic department. So you raise $10 million to buyout Fuente and do layoffs or you raise $0 and do layoffs. Highly unlikely that someone will be presented with a pot of money with the choice of saving jobs or buying out the football coaching staff.
It's unreasonable because it's not telling people the whole story. How could heartless VT use money on a buyout that is only available for a buyout? Is that the question we're asking?
Yeah, I guess in a perfect world these donors would be willing and able to buyout Fuente and save all of those jobs but lots of things would be better in a perfect world.
The optics Andy is mentioning is the perception of 90% of the people that do not know the money comes from different pots. Most people just see VT and money and connect the dots as a stupid financial decision. We forget that most of the fanbase is not locked into TKP to have these facts. Andy is right. The optics may be bad. That doesnt mean the decision to part ways with Fuente is bad though. That said, everybody says keeping Fuente will cost more than the buyout, but I have not seen any reputable evidence that it is true.
Agreed. One of the reasons I read a lot of Andy's articles is because he isn't a VT fan or "homer". He gives a fairly objective perspective.
Besides, Andy's job might be easier with a more open access coach so it's not like it's in his best interests for Fuente to be kept.
Yes, it would be much easier.
These parody accounts are getting ridiculous. /s
"that's a name I haven't seen in a long, long, time..."
Great to see the post!
Andy Bitter,
I enjoy your work! We love it when you come to visit!
Well-played. I actually went back and looked for how many times his name had been said leading up to it.
These employees affected all work for the athletics department, which has a primary revenue driving enterprise known as VT Football. Covid has put everyone in a financial crunch this year, but you can't keep employees and programs funded if you continue to let Justin Fuente completely destroy the VT Football program either (which if we have a losing regular season and don't make a Bowl, will be pretty much complete by the time he's fired). The damage to our cash cow cannot continue. Tough decisions are difficult to make, but sometimes they need to be made for the overall benefit of the organization.
You don't want reporters to report things? this makes no sense at all. And reporters are allowed to give their perspective on things as well. sometimes they have good takes, other times they have bad takes.
Am I wrong in thinking this makes the firing of Fuente less likely in December? I get that he may cause more damage if not fired but given those cuts it seems less likely.
I can see an argument for the opposite being true. Sort of like what PhantomJB93 mentioned above, separating these cuts and layoffs from an announcement of letting Fuente go on 12/16 would help soften the backlash of hearing it all at once, or closer together.
There is always going to be a large portion of the public who assume the money that VT has is one huge bank account and that these cuts are directly a cause of (potentially) firing Fuente. But I can see this as a way to try to not pile on to the big financial blow that firing Fuente would cause.
I don't think it makes it more or less likely. Whit has said that coaches salaries come from contributions from bigger donors. The kind that make stipulations about how money is spent and when. I know everybody says money is money but not exactly. Some people could be like "You get this money if you fire Fuente and none if you don't." It is hard to say without knowing what is going on behind closed doors.
This should have been an announcement (in 13 days) of just one job cut from the athletics department, but you know how in the business world it is hard to publicly say "We are spending $10 million to save dozens of millions". So, Whit had to go with the "we're trimming some fat" announcement.
/s
yes, not /s at all, we may have to renegotiate the buyout prior to termination. He may have already taken a pay cut that hasn't been announced yet.
What possible reason does Fuente have to negotiate his buyout? No offsets, so he is getting that money unless he pulls a Galen Scott over holiday break. Why would a recently fired coach "take one for the team?"
The one possibility is VT pays up a larger sum upfront (5-7 mil?) this year, instead of the installments. I don't see how that's better optics or for the VT budget, when the Covid financial crisis is happening this year.
Well, we know now that Fuente is not the best decision maker. Maybe he'll continue that streak and make a poor buyout decision.
So Fuente's salary will be reduced by 10% which means the buyout is 10% lower which means we save $1 million, am I doing this right?
/sssss
Sucks for the people involved, but totally support the move as something that has to be done. Organizations that cannot print their own money or directly tax people cannot continue to bleed money indefinitely.
Sucks to see but hard to feel sorry for people making $115k or more in Blacksburg having to take a pay cut. That is not exactly the highest cost of living area...
And these people?
I think forced pay cuts suck no matter what tax bracket you fall in.
Yep we went through that the first quarter this year with my wife. 30/60% cut per week depending on patient load each week.
Freaking stinks man. Hope they were able to right the ship a bit.
Base guarantee is back to before but no performance or other bonuses which is a major part of her yearly salary.
Blacksburg isn't a cheap place to live or raise a family. I recently tried to hire someone away from a company in Blacksburg. One of the selling points was cost of living. Essentially, you can make 25% less in Lynchburg while maintaining your Blacksburg standard of living. $115,000 is still a lot of money, but context matters.
It felt cheap to me, then again most other places will feel cheap when you live near DC
Saw you mention Lynchburg - had to check the profile and proceeded to crack up at the description of Evington. Thought I was the only Hokie here, but apparently there are dozens of us; dozens!!!
I have very fond memories of hunting with my dad in Evington many, many years ago.
Yep moved from Blacksburg to Forest a few years back and was surprised to learn we could afford to own instead of rent. Then we had another kid and outgrew the house and started looking around. Went from .4 acres, 1500 sq ft, and 10 minute commute down Timberlake to 10 wooded acres, 2800 sq ft, and a creek. Only bumped drive time by 10 minutes (yay for going 80 mph up 29!) and roughly the same price.
Were you close enough to hear that big ass tannerite explosion last week?
That's Lynchburg though. To say it bluntly, Lynchburg is not a hot destination. Blacksburg may be more expensive than many other rural towns, but any major, or even medium sized city is going to be way more expensive.
Blacksburg is reasonably expensive if you dont want to live like a broke college student
It's all about perspective. After living just outside of NYC and in Denver, Blacksburg may be the cheapest place I've lived by far.
In town? Sure. Surrounding area is pretty cheap tho.
That's why alot of retirees move to Newport from Blacksburg. It's alot cheaper over here
I am kind of the opinion the people making more than 250,000 should probably be looking at a minimum of 33% cut on a sliding scale going up with your income. 4 mil a year, a 50% pay reduction for the year.
It's a good thing you're not our AD. Good luck hiring and keeping football and basketball coaches. Our head coach would make as much as some coordinators, and our coordinators would make as much as position coaches, and well, everyone else wouldn't be remotely competitive either for what we want to get out of our football program. And considering football is our number 1 revenue sport, getting the kind of coach you'd be looking at would probably mean our revenues would decrease and you'd have to keep either cutting salaries, people, or teams. No thanks.
$250,000 today is not uber rich or close to it. That salary is not outrageous at all in DC, SF, LA, NY, Houston, Denver, etc. You aren't talking surgeons or CEO's or Architects with that money. You are talking mid-upper management. Real people with real bills, etc. Not independently wealthy. 1/3 of their salary? come on.
Ha, you think architects make that kind of money.
That's lovely.
DC's comment had some real Art Vandelay vibes.
Hard to feel sorry for the mortgage company, and auto finance company, and electric company that will also be receiving less money for goods and services that were agreed upon during full salary times....
/S
So if he gets bought out it's all from donors based off of everyone taking pay cuts
Imagine if we had an apparel deal like ummm any other P5 school. That money would help a ton
For reference the average P5 deal provides roughly $1.3 million in cash.
Give the fans a choice of optics - keeping a deeply unpopular coach, or crowd-sourcing his buyout - and I'm pretty confident which option they are going to prefer.
On an unrelated note, I don't recall much of a marketing/fundraising push when Fuente was first hired, in terms of Hokie Club donations and appeal for new members. I'd like to hope that might be different this time around.
Drive for 25 doesn't ring a bell? It was/is huge effort to grow the Hokie Club. His first year here it grew faster than ever before and the Scholarship bill was fully funded for first time ever.
I recall that less so as a marketing push specifically aligned with the Fuente hire. Then again, I have two kids and don't remember what happened last week.
Some Googling shows me that it started in December 2016. Close, but not entirely aligned with Fuente's start. I imagine it could have a lot of impact if it's announced more or less hand in hand with a coaching change. Difference to me in a coach taking over for another (legendary) coach, versus an unpopular coach getting booted, in terms of what will motivate fans to give.
I don't think that's what OP is looking for though. I would definitely like to see a huge push for donations led by the new head coach should we hire one. Drive for 25 was, for all intents and purposes, a success. But we could stand to benefit from a fresh drive that's tied to a new beginning. I remember when Buzz came. The energy surrounding the basketball program was unbelievable. Gotta harness that for football should it come down to a new coach.
Not going to lie - when I initially saw the Drive for 25 logo/shield printed on the field before I knew what it was, which looks sort of like a road sign, I thought it was going to be some campaign with Beamer emphasizing driving the speed limit in school zones or something.
This "new hire energy" is the other thing that makes me not want to switch this year. So many people aren't in a position to donate more money, likely won't be able to attend in person pressers/fundraisers until months after the new coach is announced (best case), and there won't be any in person recruiting for months (best case). So VT pulls the trigger, tries to pull a coach where resumes are weird AF for the last season, and 100% will not be the biggest story in sports news no matter how hard you push.
So what's the rush? How is keeping the coach another year more damaging than throwing all that new coach energy directly into the brick wall of 2020?
Anyone that is donating enough money to move the needle isn't hurting because of the current environment.
Just say you want Fuente to stay, no need for these straw men.
...I thought the whole point of "new coach comes in and invigorates the fans" is that normal, non millionaires, like me, get off the sidelines and actually donate. Like Clemsons IPTAY.
I fully made peace with no football back during the summer, and I've found it extremely difficult to get invested the way I was in previous years. I think a lot of people have had to re-examine priorities this year and college football will take a back seat until our personal/work lives are more "normal"
If they announced a "Get Rid of his Ass 2020" fundraising venture today, I think they'd get a pretty good return
Long-time Tech employee, he was basketball SID for many years.
:(
Sadly, he's not the only name you may recognize from these layoffs. Really sucks that this had to happen.
Yes and it's very unfortunate and I'm not sure it really makes sense.
So, the working level takes a cut or get fired, but no mention of Coach FU or any of the other high priced people offering up a percentage. Leadership starts at the top and both Whit and FU should be giving back 10%.
Of course, I will get another request for more money when in the last 5 yrs, my wife and I have doubled our annual donation, paid higher ticket prices, and have had the gameday experience turn to crap in terms of getting into the stadium; terrible lines for concessions, elimination of Tech traditions in lieu of the terrible 4th quarter pep talk, and a poorer product on the field. Lastly, we no longer get coaches doing local talks and insights to the NOVA Hokie club like we used to get. Even with COVID, you can do it via Zoom and raise funds, but this coaching staff is not engaging with the fan base. Time for some changes, starting at the top.
How do you get that the highly paid staff aren't getting docked?