Quote:With its multimillion-dollar deficit mounting and no deep-pocketed donor to cover the shortfall, the University of Maryland’s athletic department will proceed with plans to cut at least seven of its 27 varsity teams this weekend. The downsizing is an attempt to correct an unsustainable pattern many households know well: Spending more than you earn.

But the forces behind the bleak reality in College Park aren’t unique to Maryland. Athletic departments at nine out of 10 public universities that compete in big-time sports spent more money than they generated last year — and many are grappling with the question of whether dropping some sports is the solution.

Unless runaway spending is brought under control, according to financial data and those who study them, it’s only a matter of time before other schools are forced to follow Maryland’s lead.

But that’s the exception. According to USA Today’s most recent annual survey of sports spending, culled from data supplied to the NCAA, just 22 of 227 public universities in NCAA Division I turned a profit in 2011. The rest, like Maryland, lost money.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/col...story.html

This is a big part of the problem...
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-11...edex-field


THEN 7 months after the announcement of the cuts they announced this last week...
http://www.umterps.com/sports/m-footbl/s...um=twitter
The project is said to be privately funded but it is not clear if the funds are already collected yet.

Interesting that the perfect storms of bond payments for new facilities combined with declining attendance, in Maryland's case football and basketball, pull down everything else.

A lot of the BE/ACC level teams over the last 10 years or so have made their way to 60,000 seat stadiums and that is just more than what programs without a statewide base of fan support can handle.

UVA was at 28,000 seats in 1980. They moved to 40,000 in the early 80's and that worked out alright. It allowed them to host some bigger teams. Then they go to 60,000 seats in 2000 but on most game days its still 35k Butts in Seats.

They don't have the generations of fans like you have across B1G or SEC country ready to back fill lost season ticket holders even when the team is down. Penn State and Tennessee can put 100,000 in the stands even that they haven't competed at the top for years.

Some of the programs in the new BE like Louisville and Rutgers are going to be forced to come down to earth, IMO.

(06-29-2012 08:38 PM)FlashFan Wrote:  Interesting that the perfect storms of bond payments for new facilities combined with declining attendance, in Maryland's case football and basketball, pull down everything else.

The MAC may get laughed at for its 20,000 seat stadiums and 20 million dollar budgets but that may be the long term sustainable path..

Marshall expanded to 38,000 seats in 2000 and has never averaged more than 27k since then. The extra seats they built in the endzone have turned out to be a waste of money for a school that doesn't even have an on campus baseball stadium.

Which sports are they cutting?

only their football field will be in the black.

(06-29-2012 09:59 PM)uakronkid Wrote:  Which sports are they cutting?

The 17-member panel, which Loh formed in July, last week recommended the elimination of all three men’s track teams (indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, cross-country); men’s and women’s swimming and diving; men’s tennis; women’s water polo; and aerobics and tumbling (former known as competitive cheer).

In the article their president leaves open the chance that they can be maintained if funds are raised and the sports are endowed. I bet some get spared.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mar...story.html

Great article for information, send the T and F kids to EMU, we are always looking for good kids to help our program..

Maryland doesn't know WTF they're doing. Fire Friedgen, who by far had more success then anyone else they've had in decades after a 9 win season, decide against Mike Leach because they're afraid of ESPN and to drum up excitement and renewed ticket sales for the program.....hire Randy Edsall instead and got 30+ transfers since he joined last February.

There is no earthly way to spin Edsall into "excitement".

Wow that's alot of scholarships that are going to get hacked. What else doesn't make sense to me is that Lacrosse should be a $ maker for the university with the success of the men's program. You would think that 3 programs that bring in sizeable revenue would be enough to sustain an athletic program.

(07-01-2012 01:47 AM)onlinepole Wrote:  Wow that's alot of scholarships that are going to get hacked. What else doesn't make sense to me is that Lacrosse should be a $ maker for the university with the success of the men's program. You would think that 3 programs that bring in sizeable revenue would be enough to sustain an athletic program.

One thing that many of us forget here (especially on the conference realignment board) is that while you make more money in a big name conference all of your expenses go WAY up and I am not talking about just travel expenses (in fact those are just a small part). Think about it. Maryland has to spend many times more than we do just to get similar results as we do relative to our conferences. Maryland will spend millions more than Kent to get a similar record for instance. While yes Maryland will have a higher quality team than Kent generally it does not matter because for the most part they are competing against ACC teams not MAC level teams.

That is why small move ups (such as one non-AQ to another) are really such a wash from a money perspective. You end up mostly spinning your wheels trying to keep up with your new conference. What is actually more important is what an individual school does not what the conference does.

Maryland has to spend because the other ACC programs spend so much and they don't want to be left behind even if the money they are spending may not make sense due to their results in the sports they have. This is sadly all too common in college sports.

The MAC mostly does the opposite. We don't spend that much and try to get good results and we mostly succeed (relatively speaking of course we are not in contention for national titles in the two major sports). We do see the consequences of that since this does make our coaches and the like easy to steal and our fan base is small. Perhaps adding more money would help in that regard but I personally don't think so (at least nothing resembling reasonable anyway). Considering how many schools lose money regardless of large fanbases and all else going for them it would seem to me that trying to do a money race would be futile considering that in reality it is futile for most of the large schools as well.

Sultan,
A very thoughtful post and very true. College athletics is out of hand, and the MAC is close to getting it right. Show me an university where a coach makes 4 times the money of the President of the university, and I will show you a perversion of the highest order.

They should cut their multiple ugly football uniforms. That should save some coin.

Actually I think they get those for free since I believe the guy who created under armor is a Maryland grad or something like that...

(06-29-2012 08:53 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  

(06-29-2012 08:38 PM)FlashFan Wrote:  Interesting that the perfect storms of bond payments for new facilities combined with declining attendance, in Maryland's case football and basketball, pull down everything else.

The MAC may get laughed at for its 20,000 seat stadiums and 20 million dollar budgets but that may be the long term sustainable path..

Marshall expanded to 38,000 seats in 2000 and has never averaged more than 27k since then. The extra seats they built in the endzone have turned out to be a waste of money for a school that doesn't even have an on campus baseball stadium.

i don't have the stats in front of me, but aren't most mac stadiums 30,000 or so? just ohio, miami and ball state are nearly that small - aren't they?

(07-07-2012 04:05 PM)e-bethMSU Wrote:  i don't have the stats in front of me, but aren't most mac stadiums 30,000 or so? just ohio, miami and ball state are nearly that small - aren't they?

No

NIU's is a little over 24k
BGSU is a little over 23k
Kent St is around 25k
Toledo is a little over 26k

EMU, CMU, WMU, Buffalo & Akron have 30k+ seats.

(07-03-2012 06:33 AM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  Actually I think they get those for free since I believe the guy who created under armor is a Maryland grad or something like that...

He's actually a former Terp football player.

(07-07-2012 06:26 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote:  

(07-07-2012 04:05 PM)e-bethMSU Wrote:  i don't have the stats in front of me, but aren't most mac stadiums 30,000 or so? just ohio, miami and ball state are nearly that small - aren't they?

No

NIU's is a little over 24k
BGSU is a little over 23k
Kent St is around 25k
Toledo is a little over 26k

EMU, CMU, WMU, Buffalo & Akron have 30k+ seats.

Buffalo is only 29k now and Akron is only 25k not counting the berm.

25,000 seats is the ideal size for a small market program because you can fit a nice 27-28k SRO in there but the stadium will still look decent with 15,000.

Ohio is about 27,000 with a fully packed mound. The goal is to try and get 27k for the big games and at least 20,000 tickets sold every week via season ticket sales.