Chapter 4 Case Study Southwestern University’s Options
Question: Southwestern University (SWU), a large state college in Stephenville, Texas, enrolls close to 20,000
students. The school is a dominant force in the small city, with more students during fall and spring than permanent
residents.
Always a football powerhouse, SWU is usually in the top 20 in college football rankings. Since the legendary Phil
Flamm was hired as its head coach in 2006 (in hopes of reaching the elusive number 1 ranking), attendance at the five
Saturday home games each year increased. Prior to Flamm's arrival, attendance generally averaged 25,000 to 29,000
per game. Season ticket sales bumped up by 10,000 just with the announcement of the new coach's arrival. Stephenville
and SWU were ready to move to the big time!
The immediate issue facing SWU, however, was not NCAA ranking. It was capacity. The existing SWU stadium, built in
1953, has seating for 54,000 fans. The following table indicates attendance at each game for the past 6 years.
One of Flamm's demands upon joining SWU had been a stadium expansion, or possibly even a new stadium. With
attendance increasing, SWU administrators began to face the issue head-on. Flamm had wanted dormitories solely for
his athletes in the stadium as an additional feature of any expansion.
SWU's president, Dr. Joel Wisner, decided it was time for his vice president of development to forecast when the
existing stadium would "max out". The expansion was, in his mind, a given. But Wisner needed to know how long he
could wait. He also sought a revenue projection, assuming an average ticket price of $50 in 2013 and a 5% increase
each year in future prices.
Discuss the school’s options
Southwestern University has a number of strong options for constructing a new
stadium and meeting Coach Flamm’s demands, but time constraints will start to limit
some of them if they don’t act fast. In order to understand the schools options, one must
first understand what the future game attendances are forecasted to look like. They must
also understand what the schools projected revenues from ticket sales will be over the
next two years. Based on those attendance forecasts and revenue projections it’s clear that
SWU is in a strong financial position, and that it should therefore have a new stadium
built by the second game of 2014, to prevent having to turn away fans.
Attendance records show a general growing trend since Coach Framm took the
helm in 2006. The following charts were created using Microsoft Excel and the “LeastSquares method” to forecast how this trend would impact attendance in each of the games
in 2013 and 2014:
Game 1 Attendance Forecast
y = 2534.3x + 30713
R² = 0.9206
60000
Attendees
50000
40000
30000
Series1
20000
Linear (Series1)
10000
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Years Since 2006
7
8
9
Game 2 Attendance Forecast
60000
y = 2145.7x + 37640
R² = 0.8987
Attendees
50000
40000
30000
Series1
20000
Linear (Series1)
10000
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Years Since 2006
7
8
9
Game 3 Attendance Forecast
60000
y = 1560x + 36940
R² = 0.9108
Attendees
50000
40000
30000
Series1
20000
Linear (Series1)
10000
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Years Since 2006
7
8
9
Game 4 Attendance Forecast
45000
y = 2142.9x + 22567
R² = 0.8831
40000
Attendees
35000
30000
Series1
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Years Since 2006
7
8
9
Game 5 Attendance Forecast
60000
y = 3145.7x + 30440
R² = 0.9332
50000
Attendees
40000
30000
Series1
20000
10000
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Years Sicne 2006
7
8
9
A linear trend line was created and projected into 2013 and 2014 to forecast attendance.
We see that mean squared error or R2 value for each chart is close to 1, thus the forecasts
are strong and likely to be accurate. The charts show that attendance will exceed the
current stadium’s capacity in the second and fifth games of 2014. Naturally no fan wants
to be turned away, so SWU should aim to have the stadium completed by the 2nd game of
2014.
Based on the attendance forecasts (and future ticket prices) we see that SWU is
projected to take in 11.9 and 13.1 million dollars from ticket sales in 2013 and 2014
respectively. The following table summarizes SWU’s projected future revenues from
ticket sales.
Given the considerable sum of money that will be raised from future ticket sales, SWU is
justified in incurring a modest debt in order to construct a new stadium.
In conclusion, stadiums are fairly expensive, large scale, construction projects.
They tend to require a fair amount of time to secure financing, plan, and construct. Given
that SWU is in a strong financial position, and that no one wants to turn fans away for
lack of seating, the school should begin planning the stadium and securing its financing.