SMU raises $100 million in seven-day stretch from key donors to support upcoming ACC move

Gopher_In_NYC

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This is the difference -$100M in 7 days and this is only from 30 donors- they wanted to move to the ACc as they now have the platform to compete for national tiles -


SMU will forgo television revenue for up to nine years upon joining the ACC in 2024, but the Mustangs' donor base is stepping up to curb any financial disadvantage. The university raised $100 million within a seven-day stretch to support the school's upcoming transition to its new conference, it announced Monday, centering on financial commitments from thirty individuals that include "trustees and key donors."

"This is an unprecedented financial commitment from a core group of donors who have understood from the beginning that moving to the ACC will be transformational for our University on both athletic and academic levels," SMU President R. Gerald Turner said in a statement. "While there is still much work to be done, the ability to rally this kind of support in just one short week demonstrates that SMU and Dallas recognize the excellence of this opportunity and are stepping up to support it."

SMU, along with Cal and Stanford, accepted an invitation in early September to join the ACC, though under the condition that none of the three schools will receive full television revenue shares out of the gate. While the Mustangs will be without TV revenue for the first nine years, the Golden Bears and Cardinal will receive 30% television revenue shares for the first seven years; that number increases to 70% in Year 8 and 75% in Year 9. The additions will bring an estimated $72 million in additional media rights revenue to the ACC, per multiple reports, with up to $60 million of that revenue distributed to existing members in a revised model.


This is not the first time that SMU's robust donor base has delivered. In the past year, SMU secured a $50 million commitment from the Garry Weber Foundation -- the largest gift in SMU athletics history -- to help fund a new $100 million end zone complex at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, set to open in time for the Mustangs' first season in the ACC next year. The school isn't expecting fundraising efforts to slow down anytime soon, either.

"When we announced on September 1 that SMU would be joining the ACC, I was highly confident that we would be able to cover the cost of the transition into what is one of the top three collegiate athletic conferences in the country," David B. Miller, chair of the SMU Board of Trustees, said in a statement. "To be able to raise this level of support in such a short period of time is astounding. It is an incredible start in our campaign to position SMU to compete for championships. I cannot express how grateful I am for the visionary leadership it demonstrates."


SMU's entrance into the ACC will put the Mustangs back in a major NCAA athletic conference for the first time since 1995-96, the final year of the Southwest Conference before it dissolved. Since 2013, the Mustangs have been members of the American, which already lost Houston, Cincinnati and UCF to the Big 12 before adding six new members earlier in 2023.
 



Sad actually. The Dallas metro area is somewhat similar to the Twin Cities because with NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL and D1 sports (football & basketball). They are missing college hockey but that's a niche anyway. Why can they have successful teams and we can't? Arguably their teams are all better than ours over any 20 year period. Stars better than Wild, Rangers better than Twins, Mav's better than Timberwolves, Cowboys better than Vikes, SMU better than Gophers in basketball(sort of). Gophers somewhat better than the Mustangs in football. Dallas metro area is a tad bit over twice the population of the MPS/St Paul metro area. Other than the Twins in 87 and 91, MN sports suck. Why?? Dallas also supports TCU. Better than the Gophs in football and hoops. Is it as simple as doubling our population and we are more successful? Of course not. No answers. Just always trying to figure out why MN sports suck.
 

DFW is well over twice as large as MSP. Around 8M people vs 3.6M people. And I would wild guess that the number of "wealthy households" down there (say per 1M people) is significantly higher. Lot of money due to oil/gas and probably ranching. Is what it is.

SMU and TCU are rich kid schools.


SMU alumns, especially those still around from the glory days of the Southwest Conference, cannot stand how far TCU has pulled ahead of them and will do anything to even it back up.
 


Sad actually. The Dallas metro area is somewhat similar to the Twin Cities because with NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL and D1 sports (football & basketball). They are missing college hockey but that's a niche anyway. Why can they have successful teams and we can't? Arguably their teams are all better than ours over any 20 year period. Stars better than Wild, Rangers better than Twins, Mav's better than Timberwolves, Cowboys better than Vikes, SMU better than Gophers in basketball(sort of). Gophers somewhat better than the Mustangs in football. Dallas metro area is a tad bit over twice the population of the MPS/St Paul metro area. Other than the Twins in 87 and 91, MN sports suck. Why?? Dallas also supports TCU. Better than the Gophs in football and hoops. Is it as simple as doubling our population and we are more successful? Of course not. No answers. Just always trying to figure out why MN sports suck.
Being bigger means more $$$ for the sports teams, especially baseball where there's no salary cap.
T-wolves has just been poor management. Wild have been a pretty good team but just haven't had the teams that could make a run (Suter/Parise trade/contracts killed the Wild for years and still is hurting the team).

SMU situation is a little different. As has been discussed here many times, for college sports you need a few private/ultra-wealthy donors (like oil tycoons). The wealth in Minnesota is not like that. We have many fortune 500 companies for a state our size but they don't donate huge sums to the U.
 

Being bigger means more $$$ for the sports teams, especially baseball where there's no salary cap.
T-wolves has just been poor management. Wild have been a pretty good team but just haven't had the teams that could make a run (Suter/Parise trade/contracts killed the Wild for years and still is hurting the team).

SMU situation is a little different. As has been discussed here many times, for college sports you need a few private/ultra-wealthy donors (like oil tycoons). The wealth in Minnesota is not like that. We have many fortune 500 companies for a state our size but they don't donate huge sums to the U.

Corporations have share holders and boards to answer to. They can’t just send $50 mil to a local athletic department.
 

They do send money to schools ... but it's to have their name plastered all over a building. They want big, visible ROI for their donations.

I really doubt there is much actual ROI on these NIL deals. They're all scammy/fake, in that sense.


No one in the Twin Cities is gonna be like "oh dang, Athan likes Chick-Fil-A sandwhiches! Well shoot, I'm definitely gonna have that for lunch now!"
 

Could the U raise $100M in 7 days, for literally any purpose???

"The school will literally implode if we don't raise $100M in 7 days."

"Well garsh .... that is just too bad, that is a shame ... well anyway!"
Man, this is so true, and sad. It's a horrible blend of inept, unimaginative management, lack of any major sugar daddy alums, school loyalty that's tepid at best, and the choking bureaucracy that engulfs the entire university that would prevent anything remotely close to this happening.
 



Corporations have share holders and boards to answer to. They can’t just send $50 mil to a local athletic department.
Exactly. Cargill is about the only large, privately-held Minnesota company I can think of. But I don't know if they have any strong ties to the U of M.
 

Exactly. Cargill is about the only large, privately-held Minnesota company I can think of. But I don't know if they have any strong ties to the U of M.

That’s why the Fortune 500 thing as donors is so silly. Maybe sponsors. Or great for jobs after school. But doesn’t help build aquatic centers and baseball fields.
 

Exactly. Cargill is about the only large, privately-held Minnesota company I can think of. But I don't know if they have any strong ties to the U of M.
And if they do it's highly likely to be on the academic side for research funding, not athletics.
 

That’s why the Fortune 500 thing as donors is so silly. Maybe sponsors. Or great for jobs after school. But doesn’t help build aquatic centers and baseball fields.
Right - my point was just that even though Minnesota has a lot of wealth, it's not the right kind of setup to have big donors for sports.
 



Right - my point was just that even though Minnesota has a lot of wealth, it's not the right kind of setup to have big donors for sports.

Let’s see how tonight goes. If all goes to plan the “UpandUnder43 Center for athletes who want to learn how to play good and do other things good too” could be opening soon.
 

DFW is well over twice as large as MSP. Around 8M people vs 3.6M people. And I would wild guess that the number of "wealthy households" down there (say per 1M people) is significantly higher. Lot of money due to oil/gas and probably ranching. Is what it is.

SMU and TCU are rich kid schools.


SMU alumns, especially those still around from the glory days of the Southwest Conference, cannot stand how far TCU has pulled ahead of them and will do anything to even it back up.
True there continues to be a lot of wealth in the DFW area based on oil/gas industry, but there is much more diverse overall growth and multi-industry (wealth). It's really nuts just how many relatively young wealthy individuals there are in the Dallas area alone, in SMU's back yard. The current stadium renovation is one example. Can't say it was really even necessary, but a donor made it happen.
 

Right - my point was just that even though Minnesota has a lot of wealth, it's not the right kind of setup to have big donors for sports.
Schwans was the second largest private company in the state, but they've split into to two now.

What most of the big sugar daddies have in common, is they started a business that became massively successful, and one person, or a few people, still have a lot of control/stock/power over the company, even if the company is public. Phil Knight, T. Boone Pickens, Denny Sanford, the Under Armour guy in Baltimore, etc.

Widely diverse companies, or ones where the fortune has been watered down over generations (Daytons, Pillsburys) are not the really big money sports donors for the most part.

The two people with ties to MN that I can think of that fit this description are Glen Taylor, who gave a bunch to Minnesota State, and Dick Schultz, who gave a bunch to St. Thomas.

I stand by my statement that St. Thomas in 5-10 years will have a significant NIL advantage in basketball over Minnesota.
 
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Could the U raise $100M in 7 days, for literally any purpose???

"The school will literally implode if we don't raise $100M in 7 days."

"Well garsh .... that is just too bad, that is a shame ... well anyway!"
they'll raise more than that amount to cover the credit monitoring we're going to get 😅
 

The U was shaking down everyone and their neighbor just to fund Athlete's Village and look how long that took...or is taking. Is that thing even paid for yet?
Minnesotans just prioritize differently it appears.
 


One thing to note. If you know anything about the Pony Express years of SMU, and it's covered really well in the 30 for 30 episode on it, is that college football success was (and I assume still is based on the money thrown around) a big source of bragging rights and pride in Texas. TCU, Baylor, UT, A&M, SMU etc. - it's a big deal to wealthy alums. Only Rice seemed to be immune from this of the SWC teams.

Those bragging rights were largely what led to the Pony Express era. SMU, which is one of the tiniest FBS schools, was tired of listening to alums of UT and A&M talk trash, so they bought a team.

Texas is probably the most extreme, but you see it in other southern states. Clemson vs. SC. Auburn vs. Bama, Florida vs. FSU vs. Miami, Ol Miss vs. Miss State, Oklahoma vs. OSU.

Minnesota doesn't have an in-state rivalry, and the business community in this state isn't tied into the alumni base of the U like it is the major schools in other states. I suspect Wisconsin is similar in this respect.
 


For all the reasons listed, theGophers are destined to be at or near the bottom of the new B1G conference. We can’t compete with Ohio Stare, Michigan, USC, Washington, Penn State, and etc…. Maybe it’ll time to form a new conference with Ia, Wis, Nebraska, the two South Dakota and North Dakota schools. Little to no tv money but at least we would be competitive on the field. Because of NIL money, the rich will get richer with big time recruits and the rest of us will try to compete with lesser athletes. Sad
 

Schwans was the second largest private company in the state, but they've split into to two now.

What most of the big sugar daddies have in common, is they started a business that became massively successful, and one person, or a few people, still have a lot of control/stock/power over the company, even if the company is public. Phil Knight, T. Boone Pickens, Denny Sanford, the Under Armour guy in Baltimore, etc.

Widely diverse companies, or ones where the fortune has been watered down over generations (Daytons, Pillsburys) are not the really big money sports donors for the most part.

The two people with ties to MN that I can think of that fit this description are Glen Taylor, who gave a bunch to Minnesota State, and Dick Schultz, who gave a bunch to St. Thomas.

I stand by my statement that St. Thomas in 5-10 years will have a significant NIL advantage in basketball over Minnesota.
Schwan's is owned by a South Korean company now. Probably not huge Gopher fans.
 

For all the reasons listed, theGophers are destined to be at or near the bottom of the new B1G conference. We can’t compete with Ohio Stare, Michigan, USC, Washington, Penn State, and etc…. Maybe it’ll time to form a new conference with Ia, Wis, Nebraska, the two South Dakota and North Dakota schools. Little to no tv money but at least we would be competitive on the field. Because of NIL money, the rich will get richer with big time recruits and the rest of us will try to compete with lesser athletes. Sad
As long as the media rights faucet is flowing, nobody is leaving or moving to some lower conference.
Schwan's is owned by a South Korean company now. Probably not huge Gopher fans.
The home delivery business stayed with the family. The branded retail frozen food business (Tonys Pizza, Mrs. Smiths pies etc.) was split off and sold to the Korean company.
 

Cargill family - any ties at all to the UofM?
Glenn Taylor - MSU Mankato alum
Richard Schulze - a St. Thomas guy
Pohlads - any UofM ties?
Stanley Hubbard - UofM grad. Getting up there in age. I'm guessing the UofM hits him up constantly.
Davis family (Davisco/Cambria) - the founder (passed) and had UofM ties but not sure about the family.

The pool of wealthy entrepreneurs in this state is pretty shallow and getting old.
 

It's clear we need to discover oil in Minnesota and have the barons funnel their windfalls into Gophers athletics.
Going to go off topic really quickly here...yes, the oil companies donate much money all the while we will pay for it at the pump and elsewhere. Same goes for all those ads, names on buildings, such as EXCEL, insurance company donations, we pay for it in our premiums and our eclectic bills etc. There should be a different way of dealing with insurance companies, electric, internet etc., much like the rest of the world.
 

SMU is the big money school in Dallas, in the past I'm not sure they have cared about athletics to a great extent, when they were given the death penalty in football the rumor I was hearing was that the big donors to the school said pull it, we don't want the headache anymore making it easy for the NCAA.

The athletic environment has changed big time recently, the things that were done in the 80's that made the school look bad are the norm these days and legal. Looks like they are getting back into athletics big time.
 




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