Scott Stricklin is still listening

[engie]

http://www.hailstate.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=16800&ATCLID=207731464#.UZqx5PpJtdA.twitter


Wetherbee will be charged with overseeing the athletic department's marketing and media relations staffs as well as managing the department's relationships with Learfield and adidas. Wethersbee will also coordinate athletic department branding and oversee video production.

That's the big one for me...

[War Machine Dawg]

If we could just get the damn radio broadcasts back to the game on time for all major sports, he'd be an improvement. I've never heard a school broadcast that repeatedly misses more action than ours does.

And seven hells, can we ditch Adidas instead of getting deeper in bed with them?

[FlabLoser]

He is responsible for a lot of stuff and oh yeah video production too.

I am skeptical. I'd prefer not to have a "and video too" guy. I think marketing smarts wasn't the problem behind our declining game atmosphere. I can see a marketing guy making it worse - commercials!

[Political Hack]

the atmosphere sucks compared to 2009 and 2010. too many ads. the $ is nice I'm sure, but the people paying for the game are there for an event, not to be told which orthopedic surgeon to visit in the golden triangle. they killed the impact of dawgzillatron with too many commercials. they should jam that crap in before the game and at half time.

[Homedawg]

If we could just get the damn radio broadcasts back to the game on time for all major sports, he'd be an improvement. I've never heard a school broadcast that repeatedly misses more action than ours does.

And seven hells, can we ditch Adidas instead of getting deeper in bed with them?
We have two years left on our Adidas deal. Odds are extremely high that we re-sign w them. I'd say the odds of that happening are about the same as the odds of John Cohen getting an extension. So 99%. So I'm saying there's a least chance we go elsewhere! So you can hold out hope:)

[FlabLoser]

I like Adidas. The new football unis are the first thing I have not liked.

[Ronny]

If we could just get the damn radio broadcasts back to the game on time for all major sports, he'd be an improvement. I've never heard a school broadcast that repeatedly misses more action than ours does.

And seven hells, can we ditch Adidas instead of getting deeper in bed with them?

...about the radio upgrade.

It's needed badly.

The night MSU played Oral Roberts, that game was not on any Jackson, MS radio stations.

Meanwhile, that same night, I listened to the Ole Miss vs. USM game on 620am (it was a USM broadcast). And the irony is 620am is not even a sports station anymore...it's now a right wing political station.

Add that to the fact the FM station in Jackson that carries MSU baseball has such a weak signal, you almost have to place tin foil on your radio antenna to hear the damn game.

Meanwhile, the Ole Miss radio signal is so strong, you have to keep your radio volume on 1 to keep Kellum from bursting your eardrums.

MSU needs to seriously address their subpar business model when it comes to their approach to radio.

One of the main reasons I am a MSU fan is because as a kid I would listen to Jack Cristil on the radio.

So even with the invention of the internet, radio remains a major force in growing our fanbase.

[TentDawgs]

the atmosphere sucks compared to 2009 and 2010. too many ads. the $ is nice I'm sure, but the people paying for the game are there for an event, not to be told which orthopedic surgeon to visit in the golden triangle. they killed the impact of dawgzillatron with too many commercials. they should jam that crap in before the game and at half time.

Learfield Sports is in charge of commercials & therefore gameday atmosphere.

[Todd4State]

the atmosphere sucks compared to 2009 and 2010. too many ads. the $ is nice I'm sure, but the people paying for the game are there for an event, not to be told which orthopedic surgeon to visit in the golden triangle. they killed the impact of dawgzillatron with too many commercials. they should jam that crap in before the game and at half time.

I'm tired of watching Megan Mullen hock jewelry. Also, the only people in the world that have a chance of winning that pick up truck are Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, and Aaron Rodgers.

[engie]

He is responsible for a lot of stuff and oh yeah video production too.

I am skeptical. I'd prefer not to have a "and video too" guy. I think marketing smarts wasn't the problem behind our declining game atmosphere. I can see a marketing guy making it worse - commercials!

New guy at the top is a good thing. It's a new athletics department position, I believe -- meaning that Stricklin realized he needed help managing some aspects and hired someone to oversee those aspects.

Fresh eyes will be in charge of that department = much more likely to hear us when we say OM kills us on video production quality. Then, he will have the power to fix these issues.

[Drewbowski]

I like Adidas. The new football unis are the first thing I have not liked.

total agreement here. Our football uni's would be 1000x better if they took out that dumb wide stripe.

[War Machine Dawg]

It wasn't just the unnecessary design change to the unis for me. That is something easily correctable. Hell, the maroon jersey actually looks ok with the white stripe, as far as I'm concerned. It was that they gave us and aTm the SAME damn uni. And we've had several posters talk about how our players only get a very limited amount of apparel & shoes when compared to other SEC (and Adidas) schools. Wish I could go drag those posts back up, because I don't remember the details. They abuse us and most of you are happy about it, apparently. I'd much rather switch to Under Armour, since we clearly will never go back to Nike.

[CadaverDawg]

It wasn't just the unnecessary design change to the unis for me. That is something easily correctable. Hell, the maroon jersey actually looks ok with the white stripe, as far as I'm concerned. It was that they gave us and aTm the SAME damn uni. And we've had several posters talk about how our players only get a very limited amount of apparel & shoes when compared to other SEC (and Adidas) schools. Wish I could go drag those posts back up, because I don't remember the details. They abuse us and most of you are happy about it, apparently. I'd much rather switch to Under Armour, since we clearly will never go back to Nike.

This^^

I agree. Give me Under Armour or Nike any day over Adidas. They tell Stricklin they are treating us great, but then there is proof that other schools are getting far better treatment from them. Screw Adidas and our A&M knock offs.

[War Machine Dawg]

...about the radio upgrade.

It's needed badly.

The night MSU played Oral Roberts, that game was not on any Jackson, MS radio stations.

Meanwhile, that same night, I listened to the Ole Miss vs. USM game on 620am (it was a USM broadcast). And the irony is 620am is not even a sports station anymore...it's now a right wing political station.

Add that to the fact the FM station in Jackson that carries MSU baseball has such a weak signal, you almost have to place tin foil on your radio antenna to hear the damn game.

Meanwhile, the Ole Miss radio signal is so strong, you have to keep your radio volume on 1 to keep Kellum from bursting your eardrums.

MSU needs to seriously address their subpar business model when it comes to their approach to radio.

One of the main reasons I am a MSU fan is because as a kid I would listen to Jack Cristil on the radio.

So even with the invention of the internet, radio remains a major force in growing our fanbase.

Our baseball network has really degraded to the point of ridiculousness, Ronny. Honestly, someone should lose their job for letting it get so bad. We lost 100.5 FM out of Batesville, so there is no longer a single reliable radio station in all of Northwest MS. 730 AM out of (West) Memphis sucks. I live in Desoto County and can listen to the game in my truck, but can't get the station to pick up inside the house. I usually wind up trying to stream the game on a station out of either Jackson or Hattiesburg.

It isn't just baseball, either. Our football network is fine in terms of coverage, although it could be better too. The biggest issue to me is all the missed snaps, pitches, etc. How the hell are we the only school in the SEC that can't get back from a break on time? The school ought to be embarrassed we routinely come back to 1 out and a 2-1 count or 2nd and 10. Hell, we've missed scoring plays in football. It's completely unacceptable and needs to be fixed. Period. And don't get me started on neutering all radio streams outside of HSTV. That's even worse.

[War Machine Dawg]

This^^

I agree. Give me Under Armour or Nike any day over Adidas. They tell Stricklin they are treating us great, but then there is proof that other schools are getting far better treatment from them. Screw Adidas and our A&M knock offs.

Glad to see I'm not alone on this. We're an SEC school. There's no reason to let them shit on us. Engie & Co. want MSU fans to stop having the inferiority complex, then demand we be treated like the rest of our peers with our contracts. And don't get me started on the availability of Black Bear merch versus MSU merch. We've improved in that area, but we're still very much behind there, too.

[engie]

And we've had several posters talk about how our players only get a very limited amount of apparel & shoes when compared to other SEC (and Adidas) schools. Wish I could go drag those posts back up, because I don't remember the details. They abuse us and most of you are happy about it, apparently. I'd much rather switch to Under Armour, since we clearly will never go back to Nike.

The background is that Byrne was forced to make a quick and bad(in hindsight) deal on this in 2008 -- while he was dealing with the football and baseball clusters and "stretched too thin". That deal runs through the end of this season I believe. Needless to say, our "value" to Adidas was at an all-time low at that point -- and I don't blame them one damn bit for lowballing us. Everyone realizes that our value has skyrocketed since then -- and OM's new deal showed how bad our old one was.

That said, I'll be SHOCKED if we don't at least match OM's nike deal in every way in this ongoing renegotiation(adidas reps have been to Starkville several times already working on details) -- which is ongoing right now. If it doesn't, I'd expect the contract to expire and our deal to hit the free market, at which point we really could end up with Under Armour. There has been some internal discussion about it already -- but from ALL appearances, Adidas is going to be willing to do whatever it takes to make us and keep us happy at this point. And why wouldn't they? They got FILTHY rich off us these past 4-5 years with that deal.

[War Machine Dawg]

The background is that Byrne was forced to make a quick and bad(in hindsight) deal on this in 2008 -- while he was dealing with the football and baseball clusters and "stretched too thin". That deal runs through the end of this season I believe. Needless to say, our "value" to Adidas was at an all-time low at that point -- and I don't blame them one damn bit for lowballing us. Everyone realizes that our value has skyrocketed since then -- and OM's new deal showed how bad our old one was.

That said, I'll be SHOCKED if we don't at least match OM's nike deal in every way in this ongoing renegotiation(adidas reps have been to Starkville several times already working on details) -- which is ongoing right now. If it doesn't, I'd expect the contract to expire and our deal to hit the free market, at which point we really could end up with Under Armour. There has been some internal discussion about it already -- but from ALL appearances, Adidas is going to be willing to do whatever it takes to make us and keep us happy at this point. And why wouldn't they? They got FILTHY rich off us these past 4-5 years with that deal.

I hope you're right, engie. But I'm still pissed they gave us the same unis as aTm and apparently have no intention of changing it for the upcoming season. Seems to me if they were so intent on keeping us as a client and making us happy, then they'd do something about that at the very least. Hell, if our value was supposedly so much better to them now, then why shit on us like that in the first place? Bottom line, I don't see Adidas treating us seriously, regardless of what they may be saying. Their actions tell me a whole different story, though.

The LT years have me in a "believe it when I see it" approach to our administration getting the job done. We're light years ahead of where we were, but we've still got a long way to go in closing the gap. I really like Stricklin, but it has become clear to me he's learning on the job. He needed some seasoning as an AD at a smaller school before making the jump to SEC AD.

[engie]

I hope you're right, engie. But I'm still pissed they gave us the same unis as aTm and apparently have no intention of changing it for the upcoming season. Seems to me if they were so intent on keeping us as a client and making us happy, then they'd do something about that at the very least. Hell, if our value was supposedly so much better to them now, then why shit on us like that in the first place? Bottom line, I don't see Adidas treating us seriously, regardless of what they may be saying. Their actions tell me a whole different story, though.

The LT years have me in a "believe it when I see it" approach to our administration getting the job done. We're light years ahead of where we were, but we've still got a long way to go in closing the gap. I really like Stricklin, but it has become clear to me he's learning on the job. He needed some seasoning as an AD at a smaller school before making the jump to SEC AD.

I disagree. I think they've taken pretty dang good care of us uniform-wise -- with special baseball, softball, basketball, and football uniforms(at least) last year. I didn't like the similarities between us and aTm in FOOTBALL only -- but I don't see it as a big deal -- and I'm fully expecting modifications to be made to one or both this year to alleviate any branding issues. If they "shit" on us, what did they do to aTm? After all -- THEY underwent bigger design changes than we did. How do we know that Adidas didn't simply ALLOW both of us to design our own uniforms -- and them simply ending up looking similar? We don't. In fact -- seeing how they used Chillbilly's concept in the Snow Bowl uni -- it's safe to assume we played a HUGE role in the design process from beginning to end.

I don't get the "learning on the job" statement about Stricklin? And "believe it when you see it" when that's all this administration has ever shown you? They've done everything they said they were going to do -- and some of it was pretty lofty goal-wise. Seems to me that you are just going with the "woe is us" MSU mentality expecting that we somehow got screwed when I've seen no actual evidence of that being the case -- at least in terms of the uniforms and apparel itself.

[Drewbowski]

I think aidas has treated us very well since the basketball uniform redesign in 2003(i think) those were sharp. The new ones have grown on me. The "Mississippi banner-State" is our best looking logo. Love seeing Mississippi written out. Keep that miss shit in Oxford and Hattiesburg.

[FlabLoser]

I think aidas has treated us very well since the basketball uniform redesign in 2003(i think) those were sharp. The new ones have grown on me. The "Mississippi banner-State" is our best looking logo. Love seeing Mississippi written out. Keep that miss shit in Oxford and Hattiesburg.

This.

[Political Hack]

Don't "Miss" State?