FCS Programs losing money for athletic departments

[Goldmember]

FBS, that is.

This list will double when stipends become reality...

http://mweb.cbssports.com/ncaaf/writer/jon-solomon/24839675/uab-football-isnt-alone-in-losing-money-for-athletic-departments

 

[GophersInIowa]

This is why it makes little sense when people say the universities are making so much money while the players don't make any.

 

[4four4]

This is why it makes little sense when people say the universities are making so much money while the players don't make any.

Which is why all schools should get out of the sport business. Bring on MJFL!

 

[GopherinPhilly]

This is why it makes little sense when people say the universities are making so much money while the players don't make any.

I don't see or hear these people saying any such thing. If your statement was about football programs and basketball programs at the top schools making huge sums of money then it would be accurate. But that money is used to supplement the other sports and title IX compliance.

The simple truth is that schools in the big 5 conferences for football are going to separate themselves because of money and tv and its ok with me. I think the full cost of going to school should be included in a scholarship and it should be for 4 years. And if that means we don't have baseball, rowing and cross country at the U or in the Big Ten, then I am OK with that too.

 

[disco]

I've often wondered about this, not only at the FCS level, but at the non P5 FBS levels as well. Most of those conferences have a pretty large geographic footprint. Travel costs are static regardless of the level you're playing at, but schools like NDSU or New Mexico State aren't bringing in BTN type TV revenue, or drawing 50-100k fans to games for gate receipts. How can they possibly not lose a ton of money?

Cost of scholarships is an interesting topic - this came up on Reusse's show last week. UMD is not renewing their women's hockey coach's contract because the program is hemmoraging money, despite being one of the top schools in the sport. A big reason for the success, and high cost of the program is that most of the players are from Canada or Europe. UMD has to value those scholarships on the books at the full cost of international student tuition which is a huge financial burden to the program. I didn't realize this, but it makes sense. Not sure if this is the case with all schools, but it would explain why NDSU recruits so heavily in Minnesota where there's a tuition reciprocity agreement. Smaller schools in states with little talent, like New Mexico are going to have to accept higher financial costs on the books for scholarship athletes and that too has to hurt.

I've thought for a long time that D2 football could be in trouble, or at least merge with or take on the non-scholarship model with D3. I have a hard time seeing where St. Cloud/Mankato/Moorhead etc. can justify keeping scholarship football when interest is low and costs are high. I think it would make a ton of sense for the biggest three NSIC schools (Mankato, St. Cloud and Duluth) to go the route of UN-Omaha and drop football and move to D1 for all other sports. You cut the the money drain that is football, and gain the possibility of payouts should you make it to the big dance every ten years or so.

 

[Great Plains Gopher]

When coordinators make more money than college presidents, you are in trouble. Greed is driving this, smashing conferences apart (W. Virginia in B12, Missouri in SEC, Rutgers in B10), stadium seats with premium fines that exceed the cost of the seat itself, etc. Harbough offered $6 to $8m to come to Michigan! It's an arms race, and many will fall back to a lower level of cost and competition or drop football completely.

 

[hungan1]

The uncontrolled arms race in ncaa football may be its downfall.

I would not be surprised if more colleges already in a tight financial rope drop their football programs.

 

[Dr.Don]

Bitch and moan.

It is what it is.

Norway rules!!!

 

[hungan1]

Bitch and moan.

It is what it is.

Norway rules!!!

Merry Christmas Dr. Don. Have some ludefisk & lefsa for me.

 

[Dr.Don]

Merry Christmas Dr. Don. Have some ludefisk & lefsa for me.

I shall. Love them both.

Lutefisk covered with butter and lightly salted.

Lefse rolled up with Norwegian meatballs and dunked in gravy. Ummmmmmmm!

Beats the crapolla out of crab legs.

 

[MGGopher]

It's an arms race, and many will fall back to a lower level of cost and competition or drop football completely.

I fear you're correct.

"Salary cap" in the form of budget restrictions, perhaps? See what scholarship limits did to even the playing field over the past 20 years...

 

[U2Gopher]

I shall. Love them both.

Lutefisk covered with butter and lightly salted.

Lefse rolled up with Norwegian meatballs and dunked in gravy. Ummmmmmmm!

Beats the crapolla out of crab legs.

Not according to Jamies Winston!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[station19]

I shall. Love them both.

Lutefisk covered with butter and lightly salted.

Lefse rolled up with Norwegian meatballs and dunked in gravy. Ummmmmmmm!

Beats the crapolla out of crab legs.

 

[GophersInIowa]

I don't see or hear these people saying any such thing. If your statement was about football programs and basketball programs at the top schools making huge sums of money then it would be accurate. But that money is used to supplement the other sports and title IX compliance.

The simple truth is that schools in the big 5 conferences for football are going to separate themselves because of money and tv and its ok with me. I think the full cost of going to school should be included in a scholarship and it should be for 4 years. And if that means we don't have baseball, rowing and cross country at the U or in the Big Ten, then I am OK with that too.

I hear or read it all the time. "It's unfair that the Universities are making all this money while the players don't." The reality is most schools and athletic programs don't make a lot of money because of the extra expenses of other sports. They tend to leave out the negative side of the players getting a piece of the pie, and that is many sports would have to be cut if this happens.

I'm not taking one side or the other on this argument, I just wish those that argue for the players getting paid would take this into account.

 

[Sparlimb]

I don't see or hear these people saying any such thing. If your statement was about football programs and basketball programs at the top schools making huge sums of money then it would be accurate. But that money is used to supplement the other sports and title IX compliance.

The simple truth is that schools in the big 5 conferences for football are going to separate themselves because of money and tv and its ok with me. I think the full cost of going to school should be included in a scholarship and it should be for 4 years. And if that means we don't have baseball, rowing and cross country at the U or in the Big Ten, then I am OK with that too.

Title IX isn't going away, whether you are okay with it or not. The big sold are welcome to be football only in sports, but then they'll need to live without any federal funding. That will never happen.

 

[LakerFan]

There is some fuzzy math floating around in this thread. Someone commented that the athletic department has to keep the full price of the out of state or international student on the books for cost accounting. That's true but the reality is that a kid from Kenya, Missouri, or Minnesota may pay different tuition but they all consume the same amount of resources at the college and have the same cost, so if you are going to B.S. their expense to the school then somewhere else they are B.Sing a higher profit to the school as well so it's really a wash. Overall it's about maintaining high attendance because regardless of how many students attend you have a lot of fixed costs that don't change that need to get paid for and if attendance drops your screwed. I don't think you can eliminate college sports from a campus and keep tuition and attendance high.

 

[station19]

I hear or read it all the time. "It's unfair that the Universities are making all this money while the players don't." The reality is most schools and athletic programs don't make a lot of money because of the extra expenses of other sports. They tend to leave out the negative side of the players getting a piece of the pie, and that is many sports would have to be cut if this happens.

I'm not taking one side or the other on this argument, I just wish those that argue for the players getting paid would take this into account.

Same here.

Title IX isn't going away, whether you are okay with it or not. The big sold are welcome to be football only in sports, but then they'll need to live without any federal funding. That will never happen.

There were non-revenue sports long before Title IX.

What's 'the big sold'?

 

[WAGopher]

There is some fuzzy math floating around in this thread. Someone commented that the athletic department has to keep the full price of the out of state or international student on the books for cost accounting. That's true but the reality is that a kid from Kenya, Missouri, or Minnesota may pay different tuition but they all consume the same amount of resources at the college and have the same cost, so if you are going to B.S. their expense to the school then somewhere else they are B.Sing a higher profit to the school as well so it's really a wash. Overall it's about maintaining high attendance because regardless of how many students attend you have a lot of fixed costs that don't change that need to get paid for and if attendance drops your screwed. I don't think you can eliminate college sports from a campus and keep tuition and attendance high.

What you may not be considering is that tuition for resident students from Minnesota and other reciprocity states is subsidized by the state and other income sources, including out of state tuition. So the true cost of tuition is somewhere between what residents and non-residents pay. While it's true that the cost to the university to educate each student is similar, the different income they receive from each type of student is part of their financial planning and shouldn't be portrayed as B.S.

 

[LakerFan]

What you may not be considering is that tuition for resident students from Minnesota and other reciprocity states is subsidized by the state and other income sources, including out of state tuition. So the true cost of tuition is somewhere between what residents and non-residents pay. While it's true that the cost to the university to educate each student is similar, the different income they receive from each type of student is part of their financial planning and shouldn't be portrayed as B.S.

The subsidy the school gets from the state for an in state student is nice but schools hurting for attendance (the U isn't one right now) waive those out of state up charges for academics, and in the case of SMSU in Marshall for everyone, because they flat out are desperate to add warm bodies to the attendance rolls. The reason is that the schools make money at in state rates for every kid with a pulse they add after they cover their fixed costs.

SMSU calls it World Wide Reciprocity. Take away all the "costs" of athletics, and the athletes, from the U of M and they would find out in short order what athletics were costing them in terms of enrollment. First thing you would lose is the majority of athletes that aren't on full or even partial scholarship that pay full price for the chance to go to school here and participate at a collegiate level in sports.

 

[IAGopherfan]

Another factor that will come into play is subtracting non-con games from the schedule. These teams rely on the big boys to pay them big money to come get beat up at their stadium. With the CFP and expanding conference schedules, these teams won't have the same opportunity to play a power 5 school in the future.

 

[station19]

Another factor that will come into play is subtracting non-con games from the schedule. These teams rely on the big boys to pay them big money to come get beat up at their stadium. With the CFP and expanding conference schedules, these teams won't have the same opportunity to play a power 5 school in the future.

True. The big boys beating up on the cupcakes is financially beneficial to both parties.

 

[GopherinPhilly]

Title IX isn't going away, whether you are okay with it or not. The big sold are welcome to be football only in sports, but then they'll need to live without any federal funding. That will never happen.

Where anywhere did I state or otherwise imply that title ix was going awayin any capacity? Maybe you should read what you quoted. I said that the profits from football go to pay for sports required under title ix, which is one of the reasons that schools aren't making huge profits in athletics, as was stated by the guy from Iowa.

 

[Herd]

I've often wondered about this, not only at the FCS level, but at the non P5 FBS levels as well. Most of those conferences have a pretty large geographic footprint. Travel costs are static regardless of the level you're playing at, but schools like NDSU or New Mexico State aren't bringing in BTN type TV revenue, or drawing 50-100k fans to games for gate receipts. How can they possibly not lose a ton of money?

Cost of scholarships is an interesting topic - this came up on Reusse's show last week. UMD is not renewing their women's hockey coach's contract because the program is hemmoraging money, despite being one of the top schools in the sport. A big reason for the success, and high cost of the program is that most of the players are from Canada or Europe. UMD has to value those scholarships on the books at the full cost of international student tuition which is a huge financial burden to the program. I didn't realize this, but it makes sense. Not sure if this is the case with all schools, but it would explain why NDSU recruits so heavily in Minnesota where there's a tuition reciprocity agreement. Smaller schools in states with little talent, like New Mexico are going to have to accept higher financial costs on the books for scholarship athletes and that too has to hurt.

I've thought for a long time that D2 football could be in trouble, or at least merge with or take on the non-scholarship model with D3. I have a hard time seeing where St. Cloud/Mankato/Moorhead etc. can justify keeping scholarship football when interest is low and costs are high. I think it would make a ton of sense for the biggest three NSIC schools (Mankato, St. Cloud and Duluth) to go the route of UN-Omaha and drop football and move to D1 for all other sports. You cut the the money drain that is football, and gain the possibility of payouts should you make it to the big dance every ten years or so.

DII football scholarship levels have dwindled over the years. Pre1990 the max was 45, then was reduced to 36 in the NCC (the primary reason the rest of the ncc started to catch NDSU in the 90s). The Max today I believe is 28, but most of the norther sun is closer to 20. DII and DII schollies ain't what they used to be. 1980's NDSU teams would have won some games vs DI teams. Today DII schollies half of what they used to be.

 

[disco]

DII football scholarship levels have dwindled over the years. Pre1990 the max was 45, then was reduced to 36 in the NCC (the primary reason the rest of the ncc started to catch NDSU in the 90s). The Max today I believe is 28, but most of the norther sun is closer to 20. DII and DII schollies ain't what they used to be. 1980's NDSU teams would have won some games vs DI teams. Today DII schollies half of what they used to be.

The NCC always allowed the max scholarships that D2 permitted, but the NSIC (formerly the NIC) did not and I believe today does not, so there was almost a separate level of D2 there. This was a bit of an issue when the NCC collapsed when the Dakota schools and Northern Colorado left to go D1. The remaining NCC schools (Duluth, St. Cloud, Mankato, Augustana) had to reduce scholarships when they went to the NSIC. Even so, I think some NSIC schools like Moorhead don't even grant the max that the NSIC allows, because they can't afford it (I'm not positive on that). As I said before, a number of these schools would be better off dropping football entirely, or in the case of the larger ones like St. Cloud and Mankato, going D1 across the board and if they want to keep football, join the Pioneer League for football and play non-scholarship FCS.

 

[Ski U Mah Gopher]

Slate Magazine just posted an interesting column from Inside Higher Ed:

Universities with middling football teams decide how to balance athletic budgets with student needs.