Reusse: Budget cuts for Gophers? Start with football

[BleedGopher]

per Pat:

The guess here is that’s too optimistic, even with a full football season. And guess what? The first $10 million cut in expenses should not come in low-revenue sports; it should come from football.

Football pays the bills, you scream. So what?

This is a university that exists through the residents of Minnesota. Those residents are men and women, football families and gymnastics families. There’s an obligation to continue to present valid sports opportunities for a wide spectrum of students.

It’s absurd FBS teams can offer 85 scholarships — with another 25 walk-ons for Power Five programs. That scholarship number should be 70 (or fewer), and with 90 bodies total.

It’s absurd P.J. Fleck came here making $1 million (with incentives) and, in his fourth season, he will be kicking off a new contract at $4.6 million.

Also absurd: The ever-growing football support staff; a $170 million athletic facility devoted largely to football, and a drain to the university’s more vital fundraising; and colleges footing the bill as the developmental arm of the NFL, the most profitable sports league in U.S. history.

The first post-virus gouge in athletic budgets should come in football — at Minnesota, and across the Power Five landscape.

Budget cuts for Gophers? Start with football

www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!

 

[dlw4gophers]

And the long overdue cutting of the staff at the red star should start today with Fat Pat finding the door.

 

[PoockItInfor6]

This dude’s troll game is off the charts. Truly next level ish.
I won’t miss him whenever he’s put to pasture.

 

[West Fargo Gopher Fan]

I forgot about that guy. Hes not even trying anymore

 

[hello-world]

lol; I came to Gopherhole after I first saw this article and was pleasantly surprised to see none of y'all were feeding the troll. Guess you took the bait.

 

[Tredwell]

Hard to argue with the article. The spending is ridiculous. The seat donations are ridiculous. The salaries are ridiculous. The waste is ridiculous. The buyouts are ridiculous.

Alabama football spends over 600,000 on interns....3 of those interns are Butch Jones, Mike Stoops and Major Applewhite (Saban calls them interns and analysts).

If there's no 2020 season, here's hoping all of that changes.

 

[hello-world]

Hard to argue with the article. The spending is ridiculous. The seat donations are ridiculous. The salaries are ridiculous. The waste is ridiculous. The buyouts are ridiculous.

Alabama football spends over 600,000 on interns....3 of those interns are Butch Jones, Mike Stoops and Major Applewhite (Saban calls them interns and analysts).

If there's no 2020 season, here's hoping all of that changes.

Football is the last sport that will face budget cuts. Hockey (which loses a ton of money) would get the axe long before PJ would take a pay cut. B1G football generates just a stupid amount of revenue that gets redistributed to all of the other sports. It creates opportunities for everyone else.

 

[#2Gopher]

Well Pat you got me thinking. Perhaps I'll eliminate the Minneapolis Paper subscription to make things easier here.

 

[Deckergopher]

Fat Pat gets under the thin skinned Gopher fans. He’s got an opinion so do me and you. It’s not like Gophers administration looks to him for answers.

 

[#2Gopher]

Fat Pat gets under the thin skinned Gopher fans. He’s got an opinion so do me and you. It’s not like Gophers administration looks to him for answers.

I rarely read his articles any more. Simply not interested in all his town hall baseball stories. Not for me, perhaps for you. We all have different interests.

 

[Deleted_User]

I love football. I love Fleck and his staff. I enjoy the team. I bleed Maroon and Gold. I matriculated at the U and have my degree from there.

If I look honestly at the change of landscape, culture, the economy, I have to think beyond yesterday and conclude that with a budget disparity in the billions for the state and its people, we have larger issues to think about. When we get those more concerning budgets back in line with general prosperity, I will only then contemplate a life where football matters. Even then, it will be much diminished in my list of priorities. That saddens me. But, I will get over it.

 

[Go4]

disagree with pat, gotta feed the beast, and football is the money maker. defund town ball, that won’t make pat happy.

 

[hungan1]

 

[Mitu]

Man, this guy seems to live rent-free in Gopher fan heads. This is why I just avoid reading his articles.

 

[GophersWin!]

And the long overdue cutting of the staff at the red star should start today with Fat Pat finding the door.

I have been thinking the same. Zero sports to report on. Fire the slob now

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Hard to argue with the article. The spending is ridiculous. The seat donations are ridiculous. The salaries are ridiculous. The waste is ridiculous. The buyouts are ridiculous.

Alabama football spends over 600,000 on interns....3 of those interns are Butch Jones, Mike Stoops and Major Applewhite (Saban calls them interns and analysts).

If there's no 2020 season, here's hoping all of that changes.

You really need to look up the word "waste". What you have written out is incredibly stupid. BTN brought in over $800 million dollars in 2019. That money was brought in, entirely, from football and basketball. That does not include the games on ESPN. It does not include the games on ABC or Fox Spots. This does not take into account the gate revenue. All of this money was brought in from football and basketball. Investing money into something that generates all of the revenue for the entire department is not a waste, it's an investment. They literally call them revenue-generating sports. LOL.

This type of mindset is one of the most annoying things with NCAA football and basketball. I love them, I love and support U of MN, but holy sh!t things tied to academia do not exist in the real world. Opinions like this can only come from things tied to the public sector.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Man, this guy seems to live rent-free in Gopher fan heads. This is why I just avoid reading his articles.

Fat Pat wrote an article about the Gophers. You would properly be using that phrase if, out of the blue, Gophers fans started ripping on Fat Pat. He is trolling us. That means he woke up this morning and decided to write an article to annoy Gopher fans.

The whole "live rent free in someone's head" line would be better used if there wasn't an article and the thread devolved into ripping on Pat.

 

[Ope3]

The headline was misleading, as Reusse was advocating all P5 teams make cuts, not just the Gophers.

Teams could easily survive with the proposal to reduce scholarships to 70. Why do coaches need to redshirt virtually entire freshmen classes every year? In fact that would help the Gophers as the established power houses wouldn't be able corner the top talent as much and would promote more parity.

 

[noamfromm]

Football is the last sport that will face budget cuts. Hockey (which loses a ton of money) would get the axe long before PJ would take a pay cut. B1G football generates just a stupid amount of revenue that gets redistributed to all of the other sports. It creates opportunities for everyone else.

Last time I checked hockey (at least at Minnesota and few select other schools) was in the black --- please source your claim to the contrary.

 

[hello-world]

Last time I checked hockey (at least at Minnesota and few select other schools) was in the black --- please source your claim to the contrary.

Minnesota cannot cut one sport at a time due to scholarship numbers. They have to cut a men's sport and a women's sport to keep the numbers balanced. Men's hockey made about $289,000 last year. Women's hockey lost $2.4 million. Axing both would have net the Gophers about $2.1 million last year.

I would imagine that the story will be significantly worse this year given the men's team's lack of success and consistently empty arena. If the men's team posts profit for 2020, then I will gladly eat crow, but they won't. Unsuccessful hockey programs are huge resource drains.

They're not going to cut any sports, but if they were going to cut a sport, then hockey would be the easiest target by far, not football.

Football (only men) made $28 million last year. Non-basketball sports lost $25 million. Football essentially covers the expenses for all non-basketball sports.

The men's basketball team made $9.7 million and the women's team lost $3.4 million which means that basketball made about $6.3 million.

Hockey was not profitable, and it's trending the wrong direction. They had more revenue in their last year of WCHA participation than they do today, 7 years later. It's not a business decision, but if it was, then hockey would get cut in a second.

By the way, when Ruesse says, "we should concentrate fundraising on other sports", he's completely missing the fact that football generates ~65% of all athletics department donations. The football team could easily cover all of their scholarships through existing revenue sources. When you cut a 'scholarship seating check', you're funding scholarships for gymnastics, not football.

 

[Some guy]

It would be interesting if CFB across the board went from 85 to 75 or 70 scholarships. We would get more parity in the sport and it would save a school whose tuition is 20k per year a quarter of a million per year at a minimum.
It also would allow for a reduction of 10-15 women’s scholarships. So a total around a half a million. I don’t think the P5 would go for it.

 

[Deleted_User]

You really need to look up the word "waste". What you have written out is incredibly stupid. BTN brought in over $800 million dollars in 2019. That money was brought in, entirely, from football and basketball. That does not include the games on ESPN. It does not include the games on ABC or Fox Spots. This does not take into account the gate revenue. All of this money was brought in from football and basketball. Investing money into something that generates all of the revenue for the entire department is not a waste, it's an investment. They literally call them revenue-generating sports. LOL.

This type of mindset is one of the most annoying things with NCAA football and basketball. I love them, I love and support U of MN, but holy sh!t things tied to academia do not exist in the real world. Opinions like this can only come from things tied to the public sector.

Let's look at ESPN net revenue now. Oops. Ad spend down. Viewership down. They are not going to be full of money at the end of the day. The circulation rate of money, how many times it changes hands, is way down. Deflationary. That is why the FED pushed 2 trillion more in new, fiat, brand new money, funny money into the economy THIS MONTH. They are trying to inflate the economy to keep it from just being a membrane with no air. And, the entire department is a luxury, not a necessity. It is an investment in too few students. Foundationally, it has little to do with the mission of the U. Research and education.

As for for academics in the real world, medicine is a real world application of the training received from the U. The world's first stem cell institute is at the U. Hard to not deal with the latest cancer cures without stem cells. First rate application of the education and research at the U.

If a person wastes their education, as Americans are programmed to do, that is their fault. Not the U's fault.

I work at a clinic. It is not a public sector job. Private sector opinion.

 

[Tredwell]

You really need to look up the word "waste". What you have written out is incredibly stupid. BTN brought in over $800 million dollars in 2019. That money was brought in, entirely, from football and basketball. That does not include the games on ESPN. It does not include the games on ABC or Fox Spots. This does not take into account the gate revenue. All of this money was brought in from football and basketball. Investing money into something that generates all of the revenue for the entire department is not a waste, it's an investment. They literally call them revenue-generating sports. LOL.

They are revenue-generating sports that are part of an athletic department that doesn't show a profit at the end of the fiscal year. Every dollar in...every dollar spent.

Taking a football team to a Beyonce concert is a waste. A different tshirt with a different message every week is a waste. 4-5 different helmets is a waste. A team of analysts made up of 40-60 year old former head coaches is a waste (not MN). Staying overnight in a hotel before a home game is a waste. A bonus given to a coach for things such winning six games is a waste. Paying a coach millions of dollars years after you've fired them is a waste.

All of that is required to succeed in college football today. All of that is waste that could and should be spent on better things. What entity in the real world with a 130-150 million dollar budget lives paycheck to paycheck?

The University survives without the athletic department. The athletic department doesn't survive without the University.

 

[Plato]

Minnesota cannot cut one sport at a time due to scholarship numbers. They have to cut a men's sport and a women's sport to keep the numbers balanced. Men's hockey made about $289,000 last year. Women's hockey lost $2.4 million. Axing both would have net the Gophers about $2.1 million last year.

I would imagine that the story will be significantly worse this year given the men's team's lack of success and consistently empty arena. If the men's team posts profit for 2020, then I will gladly eat crow, but they won't. Unsuccessful hockey programs are huge resource drains.

They're not going to cut any sports, but if they were going to cut a sport, then hockey would be the easiest target by far, not football.

Football (only men) made $28 million last year. Non-basketball sports lost $25 million. Football essentially covers the expenses for all non-basketball sports.

The men's basketball team made $9.7 million and the women's team lost $3.4 million which means that basketball made about $6.3 million.

Hockey was not profitable, and it's trending the wrong direction. They had more revenue in their last year of WCHA participation than they do today, 7 years later. It's not a business decision, but if it was, then hockey would get cut in a second.

By the way, when Ruesse says, "we should concentrate fundraising on other sports", he's completely missing the fact that football generates ~65% of all athletics department donations. The football team could easily cover all of their scholarships through existing revenue sources. When you cut a 'scholarship seating check', you're funding scholarships for gymnastics, not football.

View attachment 7588

Title IX was properly designed with the premise that men and women were equal and that an institution that takes Federal $$ women are to have equal access to not only education but also to participate in sports.
A person's value to the institution was not to be based on how much revenue that person generated or did not generate in sports.
The $$$ the BTN generates and doles out to schools in the BIG is determined by how many people subscribe to the channel and the money those subscriptions generate. The value of the BTN to Fox is determined by ad revenue. Fewer or no sports equals far less ad revenue and less value.
In the past and probably now the obscene salaries given to major sports coaches was mostly from donor $$ and $$ from TV and radio stations that said coaches performed on. The $$ the universities paid was a small fraction of the total salary.
However $$ for assistants, travel, food and scholarships, recruiting etc etc comes from the institutions.
All universities like most of America is going to lose money in the struggle to contain this virus and sacrifices are going to have to be made.
The criminal incompetence that led to less than 1% of Americans being tested to date led isolation for almost all as the only way to save lives.

 

[Replacement Gopher]

Hard to argue with the article. The spending is ridiculous. The seat donations are ridiculous. The salaries are ridiculous. The waste is ridiculous. The buyouts are ridiculous.

Alabama football spends over 600,000 on interns....3 of those interns are Butch Jones, Mike Stoops and Major Applewhite (Saban calls them interns and analysts).

If there's no 2020 season, here's hoping all of that changes.

I was thinking the same think about the Star Tribune, the Guthrie, school districts, and few non-profits. Cut all those budgets please!
Amazing to me how many people with no financial interest in an organization feel the need to weigh-in on how they should spend their money.
Now that I think about it, my neighbors need to cut their budgets too!

 

[Spaulding!No!]

Wow, pat’s opinion is how we got here in the first place. I do find local hi profile media types resent success for others.

 

[Livingat45north]

It would be interesting if CFB across the board went from 85 to 75 or 70 scholarships. We would get more parity in the sport and it would save a school whose tuition is 20k per year a quarter of a million per year at a minimum.
It also would allow for a reduction of 10-15 women’s scholarships. So a total around a half a million. I don’t think the P5 would go for it.

You'd get far less parity in the sport. Players would still walk on at the elite programs, and they wouldn't at the others. Elite programs would still have 100 or so players on the team, versus "the others" that would only have 70.

 

[watertown 1987 guy n]

This is funny, its not like he actually believes or desires what he has written. Half the garbage he has put over the years is on the two Gopher money sports - football n basketball, its how he has desperately tried to scratch out a living until he hits retirement. This is troll bate, he has to write something controversial because he couldn’t be more irrelevant than now.

 

[cncmin]

You'd get far less parity in the sport. Players would still walk on at the elite programs, and they wouldn't at the others. Elite programs would still have 100 or so players on the team, versus "the others" that would only have 70.

?

 

[Livingat45north]

I'm predicting a lot of gymnastics, golf and tennis teams will be cut across the nation. Now is a good time for AD's to axe a lot of expensive sports with limited fan base.