Shama: Football Likely Topic Now for U Regents

[BleedGopher]

per Shama:


The University of Minnesota Board of Regents meets today and tomorrow, and discussion will certainly include the Big Ten’s decision to cancel or postpone the 2020 football season. The group has not had a regularly scheduled meeting with school president Joan Gabel since the league announced last month the season would not start with scheduled games in September.

There has been a firestorm of criticism not only about the decision but also the absence of details that led to it. It’s believed that even governing bodies such as the regents at Minnesota and other boards throughout the 14-member Big Ten haven’t been privy to what’s going on.

“I haven’t been told anything about how the decision was made, or if there was a vote,” Minnesota regent Michael Hsu told Sports Headliners. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

Hsu said he has listened to contradictory information from Gabel. “So president Gabel told media that there was no vote per se in terms of the Big Ten decision to postpone or cancel football for the fall. However, some weeks after she said that, the Big Ten…put out the news that the vote was 11-3. I don’t understand how if you didn’t have a vote, how you have an 11-3 vote.”

A spokesman for Gabel declined an interview opportunity yesterday, citing her busy schedule including preparation for the regents meeting and the opening of school this week. The agenda for the two-day regents meeting includes a “report of the president” Friday morning.

David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Go Gophers!!

 

[MplsGopher]

What are you gonna do? Fire the first female president of the University of Minnesota (you know, school) over a vote on football??

Shut up Michael.

Hope she gives you the middle finger, in the meeting.

 

[2nd Degree Gopher]

What are you gonna do? Fire the first female president of the University of Minnesota (you know, school) over a vote on football??

Shut up Michael.

Hope she gives you the middle finger, in the meeting.

I doubt that anyone in a position of authority has even considered raising the issue of Gabel's continued employment, so not sure why you would bring that up. I think it's perfectly fair to expect an explanation of what's transpired thus far, why there's an apparent inconsistency between what she said and what was reported later, why the Big Ten's handling of these events has been communicated so poorly and what plans are in place to make sure that these errors are corrected moving forward. They might also like to know if there are plans for football this fall, winter or spring and what might have to happen for any of those plans to come to fruition.

All that said, Michael Hsu is the Jim Carter of the Board of Regents.

 

[1983]

There will be no football at the U this year and not in the spring either. The board has nothing to say about it at this point.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

All that said, Michael Hsu is the Jim Carter of the Board of Regents.

 

[#2Gopher]

Sorry to hear that Michael Hsu is the Jim Carter of the Board of Regents. There is a time to ask questions in a democratic way and move on in a professional way. There is no time to be disruptive, finger pointing, name calling, blaming others, self promotion etc. That is very immature and hinders the process of the University.

 

[Go4Broke]

Sorry to hear that Michael Hsu is the Jim Carter of the Board of Regents. There is a time to ask questions in a democratic way and move on in a professional way. There is no time to be disruptive, finger pointing, name calling, blaming others, self promotion etc. That is very immature and hinders the process of the University.

You are correct. Michael Hsu has been finger pointing, name calling, blaming others, and promoting himself throughout his tenure as a regent.

 

[MennoSota]

If admins would be transparent there would be no finger pointing. People need to take ownership. For example, the Democratic Party needs to take ownership for the rioting and lawlessness their democratic mayor's and governors have allowed. So B1G Presidents and administrators need to take ownership of the decision to postpone football this fall.
The lack of ownership is very interesting.

 

[Wally]

If admins would be transparent there would be no finger pointing. People need to take ownership. For example, the Democratic Party needs to take ownership for the rioting and lawlessness their democratic mayor's and governors have allowed. So B1G Presidents and administrators need to take ownership of the decision to postpone football this fall.
The lack of ownership is very interesting.

Just like Trump needs to own his terrible Covid response. I agree

 

[Ski U Mah 55]

For example, the Democratic Party needs to take ownership for the rioting and lawlessness their democratic mayor's and governors have allowed.

 

[MennoSota]

Just like Trump needs to own his terrible Covid response. I agree

You mean attempting to stop access from China but being ridiculed by the Democrats, or deferring to States rights as directed by the US Constitution? Which one?

 

[MennoSota]

As do all people who have watched the progressive left attempt to make the US a marxist nation...

 

[bga1]

Just like Trump needs to own his terrible Covid response. I agree

Dumb as a rock ^^

 

[short ornery norwegian]

I think the U of M Board of Regents is a Marxist organization-

there's Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo and Gummo.

 

[Block M]

You mean attempting to stop access from China but being ridiculed by the Democrats, or deferring to States rights as directed by the US Constitution? Which one?

It'll all be over soon enough. The Donald and The Covid down the crapper.

 

[GoGophersUMN]

What are you gonna do? Fire the first female president of the University of Minnesota (you know, school) over a vote on football??

Shut up Michael.

Hope she gives you the middle finger, in the meeting.

Where did Hsu suggest firing Gabel? Seems like a straw man.

If there was a vote, the issue is also much bigger than football. The president of the U should not be making false statements to the media.

 

[Ski U Mah 55]

As do all people who have watched the progressive left attempt to make the US a marxist nation...

This was not a comment about the position you took, just why did you feel the need to take the thread in that direction? Keep it in the OT board.

 

[Block M]

You mean attempting to stop access from China but being ridiculed by the Democrats, or deferring to States rights as directed by the US Constitution? Which one?

You have a tough hill to defend.

 

[Block M]

per Shama:


The University of Minnesota Board of Regents meets today and tomorrow, and discussion will certainly include the Big Ten’s decision to cancel or postpone the 2020 football season. The group has not had a regularly scheduled meeting with school president Joan Gabel since the league announced last month the season would not start with scheduled games in September.

There has been a firestorm of criticism not only about the decision but also the absence of details that led to it. It’s believed that even governing bodies such as the regents at Minnesota and other boards throughout the 14-member Big Ten haven’t been privy to what’s going on.

“I haven’t been told anything about how the decision was made, or if there was a vote,” Minnesota regent Michael Hsu told Sports Headliners. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

Hsu said he has listened to contradictory information from Gabel. “So president Gabel told media that there was no vote per se in terms of the Big Ten decision to postpone or cancel football for the fall. However, some weeks after she said that, the Big Ten…put out the news that the vote was 11-3. I don’t understand how if you didn’t have a vote, how you have an 11-3 vote.”

A spokesman for Gabel declined an interview opportunity yesterday, citing her busy schedule including preparation for the regents meeting and the opening of school this week. The agenda for the two-day regents meeting includes a “report of the president” Friday morning.

David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Go Gophers!!

I'm fine letting university presidents do the job they are paid to do. It could have gone either way, but delaying the season was a prudent decision. Ideally the three outlier schools would have understood the value of unity for the conference and not made waves after the decision was reached.

 

[MennoSota]

This was not a comment about the position you took, just why did you feel the need to take the thread in that direction? Keep it in the OT board.

Go back to my first post.
It's time for the University President's to be transparent and take ownership.

 

[MplsGopher]

It'll all be over soon enough. The Donald and The Covid down the crapper.

McConnell is purposefully blocking a second stimulus, because he knows it’s over. That’s a big clue.

He’s not going to give Biden a jumpstart on fixing the economy, wants to make it as tough as possible.

 

[oak_street1981]

There will be no football at the U this year and not in the spring either. The board has nothing to say about it at this point.

Wrong again

The University of Minnesota Board or Regents has more to say about this than almost any other entity, with that power shared by the other 13 Big Ten institutions.

 

[Block M]

Pandemic dynamics have not changed appreciably and neither should the Big 10s response. My B1G school could not field a football team this weekend if it wanted to.

 

[Go4Broke]

UMN regents endorse plan to cut three men’s sports, reject resolution on football’s return

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents on Friday signaled support for the permanent shutdown of three men’s sports programs as the U begins to chip away at an expected shortfall of up to $70 million in this year’s athletics budget caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Regents on Friday discussed the proposal to eliminate the three sports, but they won’t take official action till a future board meeting. None indicated opposition to the plan. They also rejected one regent’s surprise effort to overturn the Big Ten’s cancellation of the football season.

The termination of mens tennis, gymnastics and track and field should save $2 million next year and $2.7 million a year by 2024-25, when the last of the teams’ 58 current student-athletes leave school. The U will honor the students’ 18.4 scholarships until they earn a degree or transfer.

Regent David McMillan said the board has pressed Athletics Director Mark Coyle since his hire to make athletics into a revenue-positive department, and that can’t happen without this kind of move.
“I appreciate you coming forward with difficult, painful and challenging moves like this,” he said.

Regent Richard Beeson bemoaned the “arms race” in intercollegiate athletics, in which the U and other schools have ramped up spending while relying on big media rights contracts to pay for it.
The U, he said, invited this day; he just expected it to come after the Big Ten’s media deal ends, not because of a pandemic.“It’s a shock to see us drop sports,” he said.

GENDER CONCERNS

It’s no coincidence that all three targeted sports are men’s teams. Even before the pandemic, Coyle was studying how to reduce the number of male athletes in order to comply with federal Title IX law, which requires gender equity in school athletics.

The loss of 58 male athletes brings the U into better gender balance between its athletes and the general student body, which is increasingly female. “I feel like we’ve exhausted every possible avenue and these are the difficult decisions we have to make,” Coyle said.

Addressing whether the U could solicit donations to keep the programs alive, McMillan said they’d have to raise money to not only support the programs long-term but also for additional women’s sports.

FOOTBALL’S IMPACT

Rhonda McFarland, deputy athletic director, said the department expects to lose $60 million to $70 million this fiscal year. That assumes minimal revenue from winter and spring sports and nothing from football or other fall sports, which the Big Ten canceled last month. “While there are many possible outcomes for our fall sports to compete before the end of the fiscal year, there is no certainty as to the amount of revenue that might be generated during what could be a shortened football season with very limited or no fans,” she said.

Football, which in 2018-19 netted $31.2 million on $65.7 million in revenue, subsidizes the school’s money-losing sports. Men’s gymnastics that year lost $825,000 and tennis $775,000. Men’s track and field and cross country, whose budgets are reported as one, lost $1.84 million.

The U entered this school year expecting to spend $123 million on athletics. The cancellation of fall sports should save $5 million on operations.

Other cost-saving measures the athletics department has taken include:

• Voluntary pay cuts for Coyle and five head coaches, saving $1.2 million this school year
• Additional furloughs and pay cuts, saving $1.1 million
• A hiring freeze, saving $700,000.

Regents voted 11-1 on Friday — Michael Hsu opposed it — to approve another $1.3 million in spending cuts through a combination of furloughs, reduced hours and position eliminations. The loss of the three sports — four counting both the indoor and outdoor track seasons — leaves the U with 21 sports programs. President Joan Gabel called the decision “heartbreaking” but said “significant change is needed to create stability in Gopher athletics.”

HSU URGES RETURN TO PLAY

At the end Friday’s meeting, Hsu proposed a resolution asserting that the U “supports proceeding with Big Ten fall sports, including football, commencing at the earliest logistically possible date for each sport with appropriate safeguards and monitoring.”

He said the Big 12, ACC and SEC are proceeding with their football seasons, and games already have been played with no “reported negative impacts” related to the coronavirus. Cheap diagnostic tests are available now, too, he noted. “We should be in no different situation in terms of our league or our conference,” he said, “and basically, I think the Big Ten, it’s become a joke every day in the media.”

Board chairman Ken Powell said he couldn’t follow the resolution and didn’t know it was coming. He said the U should leave decisions about conference athletics to the school president. Others agreed that deciding whether fall sports should be played during a pandemic is not the job of the regents and that the resolution represented poor governance.

https://www.twincities.com/2020/09/11/no-vote-but-umn-regents-endorse-plan-to-cut-three-mens-sports/

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

UMN regents endorse plan to cut three men’s sports, reject resolution on football’s return

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents on Friday signaled support for the permanent shutdown of three men’s sports programs as the U begins to chip away at an expected shortfall of up to $70 million in this year’s athletics budget caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Regents on Friday discussed the proposal to eliminate the three sports, but they won’t take official action till a future board meeting. None indicated opposition to the plan. They also rejected one regent’s surprise effort to overturn the Big Ten’s cancellation of the football season.

The termination of mens tennis, gymnastics and track and field should save $2 million next year and $2.7 million a year by 2024-25, when the last of the teams’ 58 current student-athletes leave school. The U will honor the students’ 18.4 scholarships until they earn a degree or transfer.

Regent David McMillan said the board has pressed Athletics Director Mark Coyle since his hire to make athletics into a revenue-positive department, and that can’t happen without this kind of move.
“I appreciate you coming forward with difficult, painful and challenging moves like this,” he said.

Regent Richard Beeson bemoaned the “arms race” in intercollegiate athletics, in which the U and other schools have ramped up spending while relying on big media rights contracts to pay for it.
The U, he said, invited this day; he just expected it to come after the Big Ten’s media deal ends, not because of a pandemic.“It’s a shock to see us drop sports,” he said.

GENDER CONCERNS

It’s no coincidence that all three targeted sports are men’s teams. Even before the pandemic, Coyle was studying how to reduce the number of male athletes in order to comply with federal Title IX law, which requires gender equity in school athletics.

The loss of 58 male athletes brings the U into better gender balance between its athletes and the general student body, which is increasingly female. “I feel like we’ve exhausted every possible avenue and these are the difficult decisions we have to make,” Coyle said.

Addressing whether the U could solicit donations to keep the programs alive, McMillan said they’d have to raise money to not only support the programs long-term but also for additional women’s sports.

FOOTBALL’S IMPACT

Rhonda McFarland, deputy athletic director, said the department expects to lose $60 million to $70 million this fiscal year. That assumes minimal revenue from winter and spring sports and nothing from football or other fall sports, which the Big Ten canceled last month. “While there are many possible outcomes for our fall sports to compete before the end of the fiscal year, there is no certainty as to the amount of revenue that might be generated during what could be a shortened football season with very limited or no fans,” she said.

Football, which in 2018-19 netted $31.2 million on $65.7 million in revenue, subsidizes the school’s money-losing sports. Men’s gymnastics that year lost $825,000 and tennis $775,000. Men’s track and field and cross country, whose budgets are reported as one, lost $1.84 million.

The U entered this school year expecting to spend $123 million on athletics. The cancellation of fall sports should save $5 million on operations.

Other cost-saving measures the athletics department has taken include:

• Voluntary pay cuts for Coyle and five head coaches, saving $1.2 million this school year
• Additional furloughs and pay cuts, saving $1.1 million
• A hiring freeze, saving $700,000.

Regents voted 11-1 on Friday — Michael Hsu opposed it — to approve another $1.3 million in spending cuts through a combination of furloughs, reduced hours and position eliminations. The loss of the three sports — four counting both the indoor and outdoor track seasons — leaves the U with 21 sports programs. President Joan Gabel called the decision “heartbreaking” but said “significant change is needed to create stability in Gopher athletics.”

HSU URGES RETURN TO PLAY

At the end Friday’s meeting, Hsu proposed a resolution asserting that the U “supports proceeding with Big Ten fall sports, including football, commencing at the earliest logistically possible date for each sport with appropriate safeguards and monitoring.”

He said the Big 12, ACC and SEC are proceeding with their football seasons, and games already have been played with no “reported negative impacts” related to the coronavirus. Cheap diagnostic tests are available now, too, he noted. “We should be in no different situation in terms of our league or our conference,” he said, “and basically, I think the Big Ten, it’s become a joke every day in the media.”

Board chairman Ken Powell said he couldn’t follow the resolution and didn’t know it was coming. He said the U should leave decisions about conference athletics to the school president. Others agreed that deciding whether fall sports should be played during a pandemic is not the job of the regents and that the resolution represented poor governance.

https://www.twincities.com/2020/09/11/no-vote-but-umn-regents-endorse-plan-to-cut-three-mens-sports/

Not a fun stance to take but can't oppose it and seriously not have a way to pay for it...