St. Thomas - Are They Hosed?

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TrapperDoo said:
I think St. Thomas’ endowment is pretty huge. Lots of highly successful grads. That school is crazy expensive - it blue blood all the way. They’ve got money.
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I always wonder how that plays out.

Like at some point you gotta have some fan support outside of boosters don't you?
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I always wonder how that plays out.

Like at some point you gotta have some fan support outside of boosters don't you?
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I know a couple St Thomas grads, one from the 80s and one from the 90s. Both quite successful. Neither of them feels any connection to St. Thomas. Both kind of wish they had gone somewhere like the U of M. Maybe St. Thomas sees going D1 as a way to make those kinds of students be more connected in the long run.
 

TrapperDoo said:
I think St. Thomas’ endowment is pretty huge. Lots of highly successful grads. That school is crazy expensive - it blue blood all the way. They’ve got money.
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About 500 million.
By comparison
NDSU 226 million (FCS football Public)
SDSU 133 million (FCS football public)
Augustana 144 million (future FCS football private)
U of M 3950 million (FBS football public)
Marquette 698 million (no football D1 private)
Drake 211 million (FCS non scholarship football private)
Notre Dame 13800 million (FBS football private)
Villanova 767 million (FCS football private)


You’d have to do a study to see if there is a correlation between endowment size and type of football played. But my rudimentary comparison tells me the UST endowment is the type of size for non scholarship football or no football...closer to Drake, Marquette than Villanova and Notre Dame.

hard to compare to a public,
Hard to compare to an Augustana without an individual big donor a la Sanford Health
 

I think St Thomas lines up well enough with Butler, which has Pioneer football, Xavier which does not, and Duquesne which plays in the NEC, which allows some schollys.

Drake, Creighton, and Dayton would be lower comparisons, as they’re in smaller markets.
 


Some guy said:
About 500 million.
By comparison
NDSU 226 million (FCS football Public)
SDSU 133 million (FCS football public)
Augustana 144 million (future FCS football private)
U of M 3950 million (FBS football public)
Marquette 698 million (no football D1 private)
Drake 211 million (FCS non scholarship football private)
Notre Dame 13800 million (FBS football private)
Villanova 767 million (FCS football private)


You’d have to do a study to see if there is a correlation between endowment size and type of football played. But my rudimentary comparison tells me the UST endowment is the type of size for non scholarship football or no football...closer to Drake, Marquette than Villanova and Notre Dame.

hard to compare to a public,
Hard to compare to an Augustana without an individual big donor a la Sanford Health
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Wiki says, STU have a $519 million dollar endowment.
 

One other possibility if STU decides to have scholarship football is that the Summit would then have 6 football playing members. That gives them an automatic berth in the playoffs. I could see the other Summit members pulling out of MVC.
 

Some guy said:
About 500 million.
By comparison
NDSU 226 million (FCS football Public)
SDSU 133 million (FCS football public)
Augustana 144 million (future FCS football private)
U of M 3950 million (FBS football public)
Marquette 698 million (no football D1 private)
Drake 211 million (FCS non scholarship football private)
Notre Dame 13800 million (FBS football private)
Villanova 767 million (FCS football private)


You’d have to do a study to see if there is a correlation between endowment size and type of football played. But my rudimentary comparison tells me the UST endowment is the type of size for non scholarship football or no football...closer to Drake, Marquette than Villanova and Notre Dame.

hard to compare to a public,
Hard to compare to an Augustana without an individual big donor a la Sanford Health
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There are several ways to look at it. Endowment per student, gifts given directly to the athletic department. There is a much larger correlation to gifts to the athletic department and success than endowment size. There are quite a few universities that dwarf us in endowment size. Some huge football powers have smaller endowments than we do but far more success in football.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
One other possibility if STU decides to have scholarship football is that the Summit would then have 6 football playing members. That gives them an automatic berth in the playoffs. I could see the other Summit members pulling out of MVC.
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It was the Summit League behind it all along!!!
 




builtbadgers said:
There are several ways to look at it. Endowment per student, gifts given directly to the athletic department. There is a much larger correlation to gifts to the athletic department and success than endowment size. There are quite a few universities that dwarf us in endowment size. Some huge football powers have smaller endowments than we do but far more success in football.
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Correct. Which is why maybe augustana can make the jump easier than say Drake.
I don’t believe UST has the sport donors to support football.

then again I don’t believe they have the money to be a competitive D1 non football either
 

Endowments are made up of all gifts, that usually have various spending restrictions. A gift to support talented band members. A gift for a new chemistry lab. A gift to support engineering scholarships.

UST can't just decide to spend all earnings off its $500M one year on athletics.


Not that anyone was arguing they could. Just saying, this might be more of a relevant point at a school that has been DIII for its lifetime.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
One other possibility if STU decides to have scholarship football is that the Summit would then have 6 football playing members. That gives them an automatic berth in the playoffs. I could see the other Summit members pulling out of MVC.
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I don't think the Dakota schools want that. I think they enjoy their (loose) association with the MVC, which is solidly a mid-major in bball, as opposed to the low-major Summit.

Also, FCS football doesn't really amount to much of anything. It's pretty much the same as DII and DIII. So severing your ties with the MVC members, and possibly pissing them off, might not be worth it.

On the other hand, N Iowa would probably like to win a conference in football again, one day ...
 




https://www.startribune.com/st-thom...being-considered-by-ncaa-this-week/571252902/

After a two-month delay, St. Thomas expects to learn this week whether it can proceed with its plans to become a Division I program.

A proposal to allow the move is on the agenda for the NCAA’s Division I Council meetings Tuesday and Wednesday. The 40-member council, comprised of representatives from D-I schools and conferences, is expected to vote on whether to let Division III schools reclassify directly to D-I.

St. Thomas hoped to get an answer in April, but the decision was delayed while the council focused on addressing the pandemic.

The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference voted 13 months ago to eject the Tommies following the 2020-21 season. If St. Thomas is allowed to go directly to D-I, it would become a member of the Summit League in most sports.
 


They'll be allowed to go DI.

And for football, it will be Pioneer League or drop the sport. MVFC is way too expensive, just to lose a bunch of games to Dakota teams.
 

Some guy said:
About 500 million.
By comparison

Augustana 144 million (future FCS football private)

Hard to compare to an Augustana without an individual big donor a la Sanford Health
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Not correct. It has been widely reported that Augustana's endowment is <$50,000,000.

It is also widely assumed that Sanford Health would be a big supporter of a D-I Augie but nothing publicly reported. Sandford also funnels a lot of money to SDSU, USD and even NDSU and if Sandford wanted Augie to be DI bad enough, I'm sure they could have made it happen, either by additional support to these schools or withdrawal of support.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
One other possibility if STU decides to have scholarship football is that the Summit would then have 6 football playing members. That gives them an automatic berth in the playoffs. I could see the other Summit members pulling out of MVC.
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This is not even a remote possibility. The MVFC is the best conference in FCS football and its not even close. The more likely scenario would see teams leave the MVFC. Youngstown and Mo St. have had eyes for FBS and Youngstown is a geographic outlier. NDSU might have the local and regional support and success to play FBS football but there has been enough analysis of why that doesn't work.
If the Summit members sponsoring football would leave, scheduling would be a nightmare with only five conference games. FBS teams are reluctant to play Dakota Schools because of the very real possibility of losing and its too expensive for Dakota schools to pay guarantees to get home games OOC.
 



Some guy said:
Correct. Which is why maybe augustana can make the jump easier than say Drake.
I don’t believe UST has the sport donors to support football.

then again I don’t believe they have the money to be a competitive D1 non football either
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There can be a case of "if you build it, they will come." The Dakota schools' athletic budgets have ballooned since moving to DI. SDSU was not allowed to surcharge students to fund the move. Basketball has seen its attendance cut in half from the old DII days. Football attendance is up. Corporate sponsorship and giving has mushroomed. There's a lot more interest in a higher level of competition.
 

Swede said:
There can be a case of "if you build it, they will come." The Dakota schools' athletic budgets have ballooned since moving to DI. SDSU was not allowed to surcharge students to fund the move. Basketball has seen its attendance cut in half from the old DII days. Football attendance is up. Corporate sponsorship and giving has mushroomed. There's a lot more interest in a higher level of competition.
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Like you’re getting at: one appearance in March madness for a school like SDSU is instantly worth more to the school in mentions and word of mouth advertising than a case full of DII national trophies.
 

Swede said:
Not correct. It has been widely reported that Augustana's endowment is <$50,000,000.

It is also widely assumed that Sanford Health would be a big supporter of a D-I Augie but nothing publicly reported. Sandford also funnels a lot of money to SDSU, USD and even NDSU and if Sandford wanted Augie to be DI bad enough, I'm sure they could have made it happen, either by additional support to these schools or withdrawal of support.
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I had the wrong Augustana

there is some Augustana in Illinois with a 145 million dollar endowment
 

Saw the NCAA DI council tabled the vote today, won’t vote until next year.

But they said UST can apply for a waiver now.
 

MplsGopher said:
Saw the NCAA DI council tabled the vote today, won’t vote until next year.

But they said UST can apply for a waiver now.
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To me this doesn't make sense. The Tommies have applied to get in. They have tabled it to next year as you have reported. However they can apply for a waiver now. Of course they want to get in now. Why didn't they just vote on it one way or another?
 

#2Gopher said:
To me this doesn't make sense. The Tommies have applied to get in. They have tabled it to next year as you have reported. However they can apply for a waiver now. Of course they want to get in now. Why didn't they just vote on it one way or another?
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The proposal was for new legislation that would govern a process for any DIII school to apply to move directly to DI.

Maybe that would spark schools such as Johns Hopkins, UChicago, WashU, etc. to consider it. But that could also be wishful thinking.
 

MplsGopher said:
The proposal was for new legislation that would govern a process for any DIII school to apply to move directly to DI.

Maybe that would spark schools such as Johns Hopkins, UChicago, WashU, etc. to consider it. But that could also be wishful thinking.
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I wish I Chicago could join B1G hockey.
 

MplsGopher said:
The proposal was for new legislation that would govern a process for any DIII school to apply to move directly to DI.

Maybe that would spark schools such as Johns Hopkins, UChicago, WashU, etc. to consider it. But that could also be wishful thinking.
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Got it...thanks.
 

#2Gopher said:
To me this doesn't make sense. The Tommies have applied to get in. They have tabled it to next year as you have reported. However they can apply for a waiver now. Of course they want to get in now. Why didn't they just vote on it one way or another?
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ST has essentially been given approval. They will file a waiver and proceed, waiting for the formal legislation in the spring of 2021. The NCAA is clearly not going to stop them from moving to DI, otherwise a different message would have been sent.
 

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