Southwestern University’s Location Decision
With the steady growth in attendance at Saturday home football games, Southwestern University’s president, Dr. Joel Wisner, had reached a decision. The existing stadium, with seating capacity of 54,000, simply would not suffice. Forecasts showed increasing interest in the program [see Southwestern University: (B) in Chapter 4], and complaints by loyal fans and big-money athletic club boosters revealed the need for premium-class seating and luxury amenities not found in a 1950s-era stadium [see Southwestern University: (C) in Chapter 6].
But the choice of what to do was anything but clear to President Wisner. His vice president of development, Leslie Gardner, had presented three options: (1) expand the existing stadium to 75,000 seats, adding numerous luxury skyboxes and upgrading most of the yardline seats to include comfortable backings; (2) build a brand-new stadium three miles from campus on land, worth about $3 million, donated by a team booster; and (3) signing a 10-year contract with the Dallas Cowboys football team to rent their stadium, 28 miles away, for a fee of $200,000 per game.
Each of these options had clear benefits–yet each had at least one very strong negative as well. Expanding the current facility carried a $12 million price tag, with an annual fixed cost of about $1 million and with a variable cost of about $1 per attendee. If the job were not completed in the nine-month off-period between seasons, the team would be left without a home field on which to play in 2004. This meant reneging on contract dates with powerhouse teams that were signed some 3 to 4 years earlier. Contract violations are not a matter taken lightly in the NCAA or the Big Eleven Football Conference.
Building a brand-new stadium off-campus would yield a plush, state-of-the-art facility, but it had to be named after the donor of the land. It also meant a huge fundraising drive on the order of $40 million by President Wisner, plus likely bond insurance placing a 20-year debt burden on the college’s balance sheet. He tentatively concluded that fixed cost would be in the neighborhood of $5 million per year and variable cost about $2 per attendee.
The third option had definite advantages from the perspective of many, if not most, of the fans who attended the games. A large number already lived in the Dallas—Fort Worth area and would be spared the long commute and horrible traffic jams that always seemed to occur in Stephenville on game days. Clearly, however, students would not unhappy and buses would have to be provided by SWU, for free, to bring students from Stephenville to Dallas. While the actual noted price of $200,000 per game seemed high on the surface, the $1 million per season (there are five home games a year) was a drop in the bucket compared to the other options. However, the Dean of Students said the school should expect the bus transportation to be about $10 for each of the 15,000 student tickets sold for each game.
Prior to asking the VP of finance to do the detailed analysis, President Wisner asked Gardner to survey three groups that held personal stakes in the project: students, booster club members, and college faculty/staff. Selecting 50 people at random in each of these groups, Gardner asked them to “grade” each possible location on five factors. Using letter grades, the results are shown in the table below.
Factors
Existing Sites
New Site 3 Miles from Campus
Dallas Cowboys Facility
Students’ Ratings of Locations
Convenience
A
B
F
Guaranteed Availability
for Next Season
C
D
A
Comfort
B
A
A
Cost
A
D
B
National Image
D
B
B
Boosters’ Ratings of Locations
Convenience
D
D
A
Guaranteed Availability
for Next Season
B
C
A
Comfort
C
B
A
Cost
A
C
A
National Image
C
C
B
College Faculty/Staff Ratings of Locations
Convenience
B
C
D
Guaranteed Availability for Next Season
A
C
A
Comfort
C
A
B
Cost
A
D
B
National Image
B
B
C
Gardner decided to give equal weight to the grading of each of these groups. But the administration did not equally weigh the five factors. “Cost” and “guaranteed availability” were rated twice as important as “convenience,” which in turn was ranked twice as important as “comfort” and “national image.”
Discussion
Based first on your analysis of the survey data and the facts provided in the case, use any of the tools you have studied in the course to help Gardner make an informed decision. Do not limit yourself to one tool just because Gardner used a decision matrix. Provide a complete list of reasons for selecting each of the three sites. Which location do you recommend, and why? Are the factors Gardner selected for evaluation reasonable and complete? What other factors might be included that you think are missing from his criteria list? What do you think about Gardner’s alphabetic style ratings? Can you come up with an improved quantitative method to rate each location? What other quantitative methods can you think of that will help with analysis before making this decision? Can you setup a comparative analysis based on the available information and your own estimates of any data that might not be available? Hint: Consider costs, location of customers, etc.
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