Non Revenue Generating Sports

[Word]

This really has nothing to do with the original intent of the topic, probably the opposite intent actually, but I’d love to see Lacrosse added to both the Women’s and Men’s side.

No offense to the rowing community, but there is far more growing youth and high school interest in Lacrosse in this state. I don’t get what a rowing team does for a University in this area where club and HS rowing is basically non-existent.

With a daughter and multiple nieces who plays lacrosse, I’d love to see some real opportunities in this state.

My guess is rowing provides tons of scholarships and is a cheap sport to run, so it balances the title IX scholarships in the cheapest way possible.

I highly doubt the Gophers will be adding any sports. If anything they will be cutting them in the future as college sports become more money-driven.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

My guess is rowing provides tons of scholarships and is a cheap sport to run, so it balances the title IX scholarships in the cheapest way possible.

I highly doubt the Gophers will be adding any sports. If anything they will be cutting them in the future as college sports become more money-driven.

Rowing had $1.85M in expenses and ~180K in revenue in 2019. I am one that believes sports and more generally fitness is an important part of a well-rounded individual and very necessary part of education for young people but considering what will happen if/when schools have to start bidding/paying players.…A decision will need to be made by each school whether they wish to continue funding these huge money-losers or jump in feet-first to the market and the “competitive league”. Maybe at long last wiser heads will stick their necks out, step in to set a revenue sharing and salary cap model on a national level in an attempt to preserve the non-revs funding (and also regional competition) and the spirit of college athletics.

*Shakes fist at clouds

 

[disco]

If you did this it would be North Dakota and MAYBE MN, MN St. and St. Cloud. That's it. Literally hockey has much less interest nationally than womens bball, softball, etc.

Here's the top 15 in attendance from last year.
Edit - I see someone already posted this.
Columns are no. of games, total attendance, per game attendance, arena capacity, percent of capacity per game.

Full link is here:

Men's Division I Hockey 2022-2023 Attendance | Statistics - College Hockey | USCHO.com

Statistics Mens and Womens College Hockey Scoring, Goals, Assists, Goaltending Leaders, Player Stats, Conferences Stats, Team Stats, Rosters, Statistics

www.uscho.com

1	North Dakota	19	216,578	11,399	11,634	98
2	Minnesota	20	183,122	9,156	10,257	89.3
3	Wisconsin	20	157,108	7,855	15,359	51.1
4	Omaha	21	137,424	6,544	7,898	82.9
5	Denver	24	151,069	6,295	6,026	104.5
6	Penn State	20	123,004	6,150	5,782	106.4
7	Minnesota Duluth	19	113,895	5,994	6,756	88.7
8	Michigan State	17	98,033	5,767	6,114	94.3
9	Michigan	21	118,278	5,632	5,800	97.1
10	Boston College	15	75,624	5,042	7,884	63.9
11	Notre Dame	20	96,290	4,814	4,850	99.3
12	Arizona State	24	110,759	4,615	5,000	92.3
13	Minnesota State	21	95,189	4,533	4,832	93.8
14	New Hampshire	17	76,767	4,516	6,501	69.5
15	UMass Lowell	17	76,532	4,502	6,003	75

 

[disco]

Hugh McCutcheon was basically the Coach K / Saban of the Volleyball world. He coached the Men’s and Women’s National Team and consistently brought in top talent during his tenure just because of his name and connections.

Can't exactly say that because unlike Saban and K, he won zero titles here. Minnesota's best showing was first loser in 2004.

 

[MplsGopher]

I was in no way saying wrestling doesn't have to be a sport, but a Conference schedule could easily be cobbled together by having a 3-4 or Tri/Quads (with exclusively Big 10 teams) along with a few duals here or there.

Regardless accommodating the 4 new PAC 12 schools for wrestling is a moot point. None of the New 4 (USC/UCLA/Ore/Wash) sponsor wrestling anyway.

Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

Agree, it could be done that way, or any way. They could do it like track where almost the entire schedule, apparently, is like a non-conf schedule. But that's not how it is done in the sport, for whatever that's worth.

And you bring up the very valid point that none of those new four in the Big Ten even have wrestling.

On the PAC-ACC side, Stanford does have wrestling (three of the PAC schools did, plus three affiliates) and will be in the ACC for wrestling which does sponsor the sport (three North Carolina, two Virginia, and Pitt).


End of the day, track was a bad example for expressing what I wanted to express and wrestling wasn't a great example but still valid in my opinion. Sports like volleyball, soccer, softball, baseball, etc. are where to me it really gets absurd in doing all these trips, simply because that's what works best for football.

I expressed my "solution" (doubt it ever happens ... but I'm hardly the only one saying such things) in post #74 and that's what I'm sticking with.

You certainly did not waste anyone's time, any more than we all voluntarily waste our own time by choosing to come to this message board in the first place, and most certainly don't have to apologize.

 

[MplsGopher]

This is so just not true. Travel, coaching salaries, trainers, strength and conditioning, etc. It costs plenty to run any college program.
Do you think track brings in any revenue? I would guess they bring in under 10k per year. Probably even less.

You're correct on all those things, though I'm certain that the school simply has something like a strength person for "olympic sports", so that's a "shared" expense. Track probably has a lot of specialized strength & conditioning drills that the coaching staff know about and spend a lot of time with their athletes directly, in the first place.

Anyway, I was only trying to say relatively inexpensive, compared to even basketball (let alone football). I wasn't trying to say it breaks even or anything like that. You're right, I doubt it does.

 

[MplsGopher]

Baseball and softball also have tons of travel. They are on a plane every weekend until at least April.

But Stanford baseball will most certainly be having a lot more travel being in the ACC conference now.

Because of football ...

 

[MplsGopher]

Non-revenue sports lost ~$29M in 2019. That is an amazing number. This may be a dumb question but why is the volleyball coach earning ~675K. The two assistants split ~250k . Is there a hot/competitive market for volleyball coaches? I don’t know **** about **** here, genuinely curious what drives these numbers given the generally comparatively low academic professor salaries. Thats market rate? Football pays the bills, certainly defensible to spend there.

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/gophersports.com/documents/2020/1/21/NCAA_Online_Report_Submitted_1_14_20_FINAL.pdf?timestamp=20200121025934

Volleyball average attendance is probably in the 4-5k range, which should easily put the U in the top 10 in the nation. Not sure if top 5, probably ebbs each year. The very top are Neb at around 8k and Wisc at around 7k. Texas probably could get 10k now, if they started putting vball matches in their main arena.

While not a "profitable" sport, it certainly produces revenue. Perhaps even more than women's basketball at this point in time, but that depends on ticket prices and what people are willing to pay.

If they put volleyball in Williams, possibly it could make even more money. But the vball snobs won't allow it. The Pav is a great facility for the sport, one of the best in the nation in terms of atmosphere.

 

[MplsGopher]

This really has nothing to do with the original intent of the topic, probably the opposite intent actually, but I’d love to see Lacrosse added to both the Women’s and Men’s side.

No offense to the rowing community, but there is far more growing youth and high school interest in Lacrosse in this state. I don’t get what a rowing team does for a University in this area where club and HS rowing is basically non-existent.

With a daughter and multiple nieces who plays lacrosse, I’d love to see some real opportunities in this state.

If I was just given a magic genie, I would add:

Lax M/W, M soccer, and M volleyball.

The latter seems like a weird add and there aren't many schools with it, but it is a rapidly growing high school boys sport in this state and we already have a built-in fanbase for the women's side that would eat it up. With the few number of programs (tiny schools you've never heard of play up to DI on the men's side and are powerhouses), we should be competitive nationally.

Wisc and ILL should be adding it too, as they have robust boys high school participation in their states.


Anyway, doubt any of those happen soon.

 

[MplsGopher]

Rowing had $1.85M in expenses and ~180K in revenue in 2019. I am one that believes sports and more generally fitness is an important part of a well-rounded individual and very necessary part of education for young people but considering what will happen if/when schools have to start bidding/paying players.…A decision will need to be made by each school whether they wish to continue funding these huge money-losers or jump in feet-first to the market and the “competitive league”. Maybe at long last wiser heads will stick their necks out, step in to set a revenue sharing and salary cap model on a national level in an attempt to preserve the non-revs funding (and also regional competition) and the spirit of college athletics.

*Shakes fist at clouds

Title IX

That's the only reason almost every school who has women's rowing/crew at a varsity level, does so.

Otherwise it would be a club sport. In my opinion, that would be just fine! They could have their own national body that runs a national championship meet, just as well as the NCAA does. They don't "need" to be an NCAA sport, just to satisfy the participation opportunity desires of our female student body (talking in Title IX lingo, there).

That kind of thing needs to get ironed out and agreed upon, before it can really go like you're describing.

 

[MplsGopher]

Can't exactly say that because unlike Saban and K, he won zero titles here. Minnesota's best showing was first loser in 2004.

He got some incredible talent here, not the least of which was local MN talent, but also some very good out-of-state talent.

But never won it all.

2018 was supposed to be our year. Had the playoff bracket entirely at home, with the Final Four in the Target Center. It's quite debatable if we would've been able to beat Stanford, but in any case that was the year. And we s__ the bed in the regional semi-final against Oregon, who then promptly got blown out by a Nebraska team that we would've handled no problem in the final. Sad

 

[Out State Gopher]

Sad colleges look for women's sports that are the least money losing programs for Title IX compliance.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Volleyball average attendance is probably in the 4-5k range, which should easily put the U in the top 10 in the nation. Not sure if top 5, probably ebbs each year. The very top are Neb at around 8k and Wisc at around 7k. Texas probably could get 10k now, if they started putting vball matches in their main arena.

While not a "profitable" sport, it certainly produces revenue. Perhaps even more than women's basketball at this point in time, but that depends on ticket prices and what people are willing to pay.

If they put volleyball in Williams, possibly it could make even more money. But the vball snobs won't allow it. The Pav is a great facility for the sport, one of the best in the nation in terms of atmosphere.

In 2019 women’s basketball lost about 3.5M, volleyball 3M.

Pages 38 and 66 on the MN pdf.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

Title IX

That's the only reason almost every school who has women's rowing/crew at a varsity level, does so.

Otherwise it would be a club sport. In my opinion, that would be just fine! They could have their own national body that runs a national championship meet, just as well as the NCAA does. They don't "need" to be an NCAA sport, just to satisfy the participation opportunity desires of our female student body (talking in Title IX lingo, there).

That kind of thing needs to get ironed out and agreed upon, before it can really go like you're describing.

The “gymnastics” around Title IX should the doomsday scenario come to pass will be interesting. Many competing interests.

 

[Word]

Rowing had $1.85M in expenses and ~180K in revenue in 2019. I am one that believes sports and more generally fitness is an important part of a well-rounded individual and very necessary part of education for young people but considering what will happen if/when schools have to start bidding/paying players.…A decision will need to be made by each school whether they wish to continue funding these huge money-losers or jump in feet-first to the market and the “competitive league”. Maybe at long last wiser heads will stick their necks out, step in to set a revenue sharing and salary cap model on a national level in an attempt to preserve the non-revs funding (and also regional competition) and the spirit of college athletics.

*Shakes fist at clouds

I feel like this is all headed toward a school like MN having men's football, basketball, and hockey and no other men's sports (to maximize revenue). Then whatever minimum # of women's sports to meet title IX.

 

[Ope3]

I feel like this is all headed toward a school like MN having men's football, basketball, and hockey and no other men's sports (to maximize revenue). Then whatever minimum # of women's sports to meet title IX.

Doesn't the Big 10 require a minimum amount of sports for schools to compete in to maintain membership?

 

[short ornery norwegian]

Doesn't the Big 10 require a minimum amount of sports for schools to compete in to maintain membership?

Yup. FWIW - the B1G officially sponsors 28 sports - 14 for men and 14 for women. All D1 schools must sponsor at least 7 sports for men and 7 for women with two team sports for each gender. for any conference to qualify for a bid to NCAA tournaments, at least 6 schools in the conference must play the sport.

of the current 14 B1G schools - for Men: all 14 schools participate in basketball, football, golf and wrestling. sports with fewest participants - gymnastics with 5, Lacrosse 6, ice hockey 7. Michigan, OSU and PSU are the only schools that participate in all 14 men's sports. Iowa, Maryland and Northwestern participate in 8 men's sports.

for Women, all 14 participate in hoops, cross-country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball. fewest participants - Lacrosse 7, rowing 8, Field hockey 9. Michigan, OSU and Rutgers participate in all 14 women's sports. Northwestern participates in 10 women's sports - the lowest of the current 14 schools.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

other thoughts - it's tricky to compare one sport to another.

different sports operate differently. (duh). sports like Track, cross-country, golf and wrestling have a combination of smaller meets and duals along with bigger regional meets and events. that's just the way those sports operate in order to provide teams and individuals with a higher level of competition. in general, the olympic sports are a little less-structured than the major team sports.

it's a question of cost versus value. what is the value for a school like MN in providing a variety of athletic opportunities? how do you balance that value versus the cost of each sport? If you dropped a sport, how many students (and their tuition) would you lose? would you also lose donations to the school if you dropped certain sports?

it's a more complex situation than just saying "let's dump the sports that lose the most money."

 

[disco]

for Women, all 14 participate in hoops, cross-country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball. fewest participants - Lacrosse 7, rowing 8, Field hockey 9. Michigan, OSU and Rutgers participate in all 14 women's sports. Northwestern participates in 10 women's sports - the lowest of the current 14 schools.

Don't forget four schools sponsor womens ice hockey too. MN, WI, OSU, PSU. I'm really surprised Michigan doesn't.

 

[Word]

Doesn't the Big 10 require a minimum amount of sports for schools to compete in to maintain membership?

Wonder if that will change as the big ten just gears toward making money?

 

[short ornery norwegian]

Don't forget four schools sponsor womens ice hockey too. MN, WI, OSU, PSU. I'm really surprised Michigan doesn't.

didn't look at that because they play in a different conference.

but that has me remembering Sid on the Sports Huddle proclaiming over the years that.....
"one day there will be a Big Ten for Hockey....." well, he was finally correct.

 

[disco]

didn't look at that because they play in a different conference.

but that has me remembering Sid on the Sports Huddle proclaiming over the years that.....
"one day there will be a Big Ten for Hockey....." well, he was finally correct.

I know, but it still counts as athletes for IX purposes.

 

[Out State Gopher]

Will the NCAA add a game or games to the football schedule increasing revenue for colleges? Will the B1G replace a non conference game with a conference game because of the added West Coast teams? Better games greater interest. We went from 4 non conference games to 3 because BTN wanted better competition for viewership.

 

[SHGopher]

I am all for making decisions based on economics. That's one reason USA is prosperous and North Korea is not (and workers tore down the Berlin Wall). Good economics creates jobs, the best social program.

At the same time, sports first should be about the CURRENT STUDENT BODY. Not me as an alumnus, well maybe a little.

I live in a city where parents are super involved in their kids' lives, including sports. And then some of those kids continue their growth in college, some playing sports.

Yes, revenues and fans (as consumers) matter. And yet sports are first for the CURRENT students.

How the details are decided is not my fight. That's just a high-level view.

 

[SeaBee_Gopher]

My guess is rowing provides tons of scholarships and is a cheap sport to run, so it balances the title IX scholarships in the cheapest way possible.

I highly doubt the Gophers will be adding any sports. If anything they will be cutting them in the future as college sports become more money-driven.

I agree we see less sports in the future, not more. The country is running a huge deficit and is running out of money for the basics and we're subsidizing athletic scholarships at colleges? I'll admit, I never understood this. I'm all for academic scholarships, but could care less about athletic scholarships. Can you guess if I was ever a great athlete that got one? OK, I'll spare you the suspense, I was not and my two boys likely will not either. I worked my entire time through the U undergrad and grad school and took out loans. I would have welcomed a little bit lower tuition for myself and not paying athletic scholarships if given the choice. I'm sure many of you on this board did get athletic scholarships and certainly don't begrudge you that. Take the money that's available!

I'm all for college sports that can support themselves financially like football, basketball and hockey (up north). I might be game for supporting sports that can get close like maybe wrestling, etc., especially if they can keep the costs down by being regional. It doesn't bother me if the rest become club sports and we make college slightly less expensive for the average student.

I may not understand the economics around all this so feel free to enlighten me.

 

[Crosby]

I agree we see less sports in the future, not more. The country is running a huge deficit and is running out of money for the basics and we're subsidizing athletic scholarships at colleges? I'll admit, I never understood this. I'm all for academic scholarships, but could care less about athletic scholarships. Can you guess if I was ever a great athlete that got one? OK, I'll spare you the suspense, I was not and my two boys likely will not either. I worked my entire time through the U undergrad and grad school and took out loans. I would have welcomed a little bit lower tuition for myself and not paying athletic scholarships if given the choice. I'm sure many of you on this board did get athletic scholarships and certainly don't begrudge you that. Take the money that's available!

I'm all for college sports that can support themselves financially like football, basketball and hockey (up north). I might be game for supporting sports that can get close like maybe wrestling, etc., especially if they can keep the costs down by being regional. It doesn't bother me if the rest become club sports and we make college slightly less expensive for the average student.

I may not understand the economics around all this so feel free to enlighten me.

I may not have this right, but I think that the athletic department has to "buy" the scholarships from the school, meaning the $ for the tuition has to be covered by the athletic department budget. An athletic scholarship is basically the athletic department offering to pay a kid's tuition (rather than the school saying that this kid gets to be here for free). So in that sense the school is not subsidizing anything.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

I am all for making decisions based on economics. That's one reason USA is prosperous and North Korea is not (and workers tore down the Berlin Wall). Good economics creates jobs, the best social program.

At the same time, sports first should be about the CURRENT STUDENT BODY. Not me as an alumnus, well maybe a little.

I live in a city where parents are super involved in their kids' lives, including sports. And then some of those kids continue their growth in college, some playing sports.

Yes, revenues and fans (as consumers) matter. And yet sports are first for the CURRENT students.

How the details are decided is not my fight. That's just a high-level view.

Yes and no. Sometimes communities decide it is desirable to have public services, amenities, and facilities.

If youth sports or athletics were eliminated from public funding certainly there are entities that would be happy to provide those services at a price. A common scenario in {insert industry here} with private capital/private equity is investment and eventual consolidation in a community, regional, state footprint. If say, every baseball diamond, swimming pool, football field in a community were bought by BlackHeart Partners LLC they would charge what the market would bear for use of their facility. Fine. Employee wages, benefits would be cut to the amount the market would bear. Ok, sounds rational. Maintenance would be deferred, equipment allowed to fail. Hmm. Some kids and families would be increasingly priced out. Kids would find other uses for their time. Breaking things, fighting, substances. Crime rises. Prison time, broken families, increased public costs (maybe the prisons are owned by BlackHeart’s fellow PE outfit Swindle Capital (an inside joke vis-a-vis clueless equity holders).

 

[SHGopher]

Yes and no. Sometimes communities decide it is desirable to have public services, amenities, and facilities.

If youth sports or athletics were eliminated from public funding certainly there are entities that would be happy to provide those services at a price. A common scenario in {insert industry here} with private capital/private equity is investment and eventual consolidation in a community, regional, state footprint. If say, every baseball diamond, swimming pool, football field in a community were bought by BlackHeart Partners LLC they would charge what the market would bear for use of their facility. Fine. Employee wages, benefits would be cut to the amount the market would bear. Ok, sounds rational. Maintenance would be deferred, equipment allowed to fail. Hmm. Some kids and families would be increasingly priced out. Kids would find other uses for their time. Breaking things, fighting, substances. Crime rises. Prison time, broken families, increased public costs (maybe the prisons are owned by BlackHeart’s fellow PE outfit Swindle Capital (an inside joke vis-a-vis clueless equity holders).

You are completely right to a point. Nobody wants unfettered capitalism where mafia thugs call the shots -- which is what communism is. Just ask the people enslaved behind the Iron Curtain.

The government also must provide what the free market will not, such as a safety net, infrastructure investments, education, security, other investments. But then let free enterprise actually do the work, in most cases. Obviously not for fire departments and stuff like that.

There is a common sense middle ground.

Example, construction companies bid to build highway projects, not government activists picking which cronies get the job, which is what communism is.

Another example, government made a well-intended blunder years ago by building government-owned housing projects that turned into crime traps. Moderate Republicans came along and said they agree with the goal -- liberals won the argument -- but instead Section 8 housing owned by landlords is much better, and it is. Again, private enterprise is better in most cases, but not always.

I prefer to buy my mobile device from Samsung. You are free to let the government create your phone if you like.

As a consumer I like to choose what kind of apples I will buy and what kind of music I listen -- and which streaming service. Competitors then innovate to create better products and win consumers. In USSR, you get in a bread line and maybe you will get one apple this month, don't ask what kind. And you get government issued clothes.

----

Great Chinese Famine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Tens of millions died in China because of the misguided government intrusion into the economy.

Now that China has switched to heavily-regulated free market economy, the size of the middle class is measured by how many people own cell phones.

Despite it's weakness, free market economics are by far the best. It has pulled billions of people out of poverty.

Capitalism is not perfect and does need oversight so thugs do not rig the game, which is what communism is.

Holodomor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0]

so WVU Rifle brings in a profit of $2.67MM. is that what this list says?

I wonder if the object of Rifle is to hit a pocket of bubbling crude. Maybe that's why it's so profitable.

 

[MplsGopher]

In 2019 women’s basketball lost about 3.5M, volleyball 3M.

Pages 38 and 66 on the MN pdf.

On page 57 we see that Volleyball was saddled with $1.23M for "Direct Overhead and Admin Expenses", which was double the next lowest women's sport (women's hockey).

Hmmmmmm ..... something fishy there. You're telling me it costs double to administer volleyball than it does hockey? Triple than it does basketball??

No chance in hell.

That category includes things like facilities maintenance. I bet The Pav had some big expenses that had to be split amongst sports that just use that.

I can't remember when that new training center was built into the "wall" between the Pav and Williams, mainly for volleyball, but it might have been related to costs for that? Thought that was covered by donors.


So anyway, I all but guarantee that was a very unusual line for vball in 2019.


EDIT: CC @Ope3