You can't possibly think that, you're smarter than that. When most people post that it's because they're trolling. If oscar has another season like this one next year, he's obviously going to get fired. We can't have what OSU has had throughout the Ford era. We cannot afford to be playing conference games in front of 4000 people.
I'll bet every dollar I have that two years from today either Weber or Currie will be gone, odds are heavily in my favor.
I agree. Currie may be stubborn because this is his hire, but he's not that stupid.
I've said, many times, that Currie is first and foremost a CFO. His gift, and what's gotten him the vast majority of his goodwill here is how well he handles the department, financially.
I went and looked at the available Equity in Athletics reports that are out on the KSU site. We are consistently running a profit of about $2.2-2.6 million the majority of years, even going back to Frank. I'm not sure what made Frank's last year so much different (maybe BTF funds getting put into this number...), but regardless of how we monkey with the prices, the margin is roughly the same.
2014-2015: ~$2.36 million
2013-2014: ~$2.65 million
2012-2013: ~$2.22 million
2011-2012: ~$4.76 million
2010-2011: ~$2.59 million
It's been two years since oscar has been extended, so he has three years left on his deal. The last copy of the contract that I saw said we had to pay him $2.5 million to terminate his deal, or if the sum total of his remaining contract is less, that's what we owe. Since he'll make around $2.2 million there at the end of his deal, we're out $2+ million, regardless.
Considering that the margins have mostly been static, even going back to Pullen's last year, to make sense, financially, we'd have to see a $500k per year increase in margin for five years before it made financial sense to get rid of oscar. And, historically, we just haven't seen that kind of positive YOY growth outside that one year, which is kind of an anomaly.
This is why Currie can stubbornly hold onto him, especially if we're "right there". It will be enough to keep the fans buying tickets at the point where he can realistically sit behind the financial justification. In fact, even if a number of donors want to come to him and complain, he can just say that the $2.5 million is a big set back to the East Side renovations, or a redesign of the Bramlage concourse, etc.
Now, as I said, if the big donors that are writing those multi-million dollar checks get together and say THAT pool of funds is going to get impacted if he doesn't make a move on oscar, he will have to move. But historically, we've found ways to have a consistent profit margin in basketball, and manipulating ticket prices to inflate attendance will allow Currie to stand behind his coach as long as he keeps expenses in check.
