RCAF: Harris unveils UL, RCAF priority points system

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, April 16, 2016

 

More than 100 of the Ragin’ Cajuns’ most-ardent backers were briefed Saturday morning on the details of UL’s new priority points system, which was presented to members of the Ragin’ Cajun Athletic Foundation (RCAF) as a means for fairly and transparently ranking supporters of the school’s athletic program for multiple purposes including reseating at three major venues that soon will be renovated and reconfigured.

The venues: the Cajundome for basketball for later this year, M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field for baseball in 2017 and Cajun Field football sometime after that.

Jim Harris unveiled the program at Angelle Hall on the UL campus, and did so after receiving lofty praise for his work in about seven months so far as executive director of the RCAF.

“I will tell you that Jim Harris has been a savior to RCAF,” RCAF chairman Robert Daigle told the audience on hand, adding that Harris has “exceeded” expectations from the time of his hiring to the new position.

Harris stressed that the goal of the system is to reward loyalty to and support of UL athletics over time, and not just how much money is contributed in a single year.

But he suggested points-based incentives will be provided as a means of encouraging higher donations for a program that has more than $2 million for its annual fund each of the last two years.

“We’re trying to be fair,” Harris said.

Harris said the program “is going to be a more fair and equitable system” than, for instance, the way seating was handled at UL’s four recent New Orleans Bowl appearances.

The detailed, nuanced system awards points for numerous categories on both an accumulative and non-accumulative basis.

Accumulative points on a sliding scale address everything from donations (one point per $100 donated to the RCAF Annual Fund since its inception in 2009, for instance), to excellence fund (essentially seat surcharge) donations, athletic facilities master plan donations, other athletic donations, non-athletic donations to the university, and previous and current season-ticket purchases.

Non-accumulative points are awarded as an added bonus by level on an annual basis, with a range of one point for a $100 to $250 donation to 300 points for a $20,000-plus donation.

The list of ways to earn points goes on and on.

The points have no tangible value, and instead serve simply as a way for the RCAF to rank individuals for ticket location/quantity and benefits, parking and tailgating space, and, essentially, anything that is likely to be "sold out."

Fans must belong to the RCAF, which requires a minimum $100 donation, to accumulate points, but points are not required to purchase seating tickets.

Harris did say, however, that some (but not all) seating areas at Cajun venues will in the future require a minimum donation amount before tickets can be bought for that area — and that points will come into play in that instance only if there are more donors wanting to sit in that area than the area can accommodate.

“Right now, it’s driven first and foremost by donation level,” he said after the meeting.

Another meeting — this one to unveil details of UL’s plan for reseating its renovated venues — will be held sometime this summer.

A website to review individual point totals — and explore ways to strategically boost those totals — will come online sometime in the summer as well.

Individual point totals have not been calculated.

Harris suggested it is his and the systems goals to help families and groups sit together, and he said he will work with legal counsel to set policy on issues liking passing points on to children and whether or not points stay with a company or its owner when the company is sold.

During a lengthy question-and-answer session, Harris also said he and RCAF board of directors would consider suggestions from the floor to add current and prior money paid for tailgating along with prior and future postseason ticket purchases and travel as ways to earn points.

He also was open to considering a suggestion that actual attendance, and not just ticket purchases, should also become a way to earn points.

The meeting was designed to unveil the points system, but, as expected, morphed into an early primer on venue reseating as well. The two matters are intricately tied, and Harris believes reseating could not be fairly implemented without a priority system in place.

Harris went to great lengths to make it known he and the RCAF are open to working with any and all donors to properly credit their support, both past and present — and that all claims for points not properly credited would be considered on a case-by-case basis.

A few other items of interest from Saturday’s RCAF meeting: