(11-14-2014 05:23 PM)WKUYG Wrote: (11-14-2014 04:58 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote: For those of you worried about travel expenses, you knew this was not a bus league when your school joined. If that's what you're interested in then you're in the wrong place. With teams in Virginia, Florida, Texas and all points in between, there are going to be trips on new fangled transport devices called airplanes.
I could care less about travel...I'm going where ever Western plays for football and 90% of basketball. But school presidents that have to consider where the dollars are coming from do care. I'm fairly sure Western isn't the only school with flat enrollment after many years of increases...
you don't only budget for last years enrollment you grow the budget off of predicting the next years increase. So if a school had a increase of 700 students the last few years...
you expect that to be the case next year or with in reason. When you lose 200-400 it hurts your budget. ALL of us are in the same boat in that department. The bubble is going to pop and when it does you don't want another 1700 mile trip for your Olympic Sports.
Nope you want as many bus trips as you can get and for everyone but UTEP Mobile is closer than NMST ...and a bus trip for most of the eastern schools. A long one but still a bus trip.
People that actually have to make the cuts to football & basketball programs need to consider those things and how they can cut cost else where first. And I think USA would easily get the votes over NMST...
and there bottom of the barrel football program and added expense
With projections of enrollment being flat or falling nationwide expenses are a serious consideration when you consider that the large part of G5 budgets tends to come from student fees (totally enrollment dependent) and auxillary budgets (profits from dorms, cafeteria, bookstore, vending machines etc) that are also highly enrollment dependent.
Now past experience tells us that FBS type schools in the coming environment are far more likely to be flat or even grow during periods of declining enrollment because they are more likely to be attractive to those entering school leading to the smaller schools losing both market share and enrollment.
Nationally the trend is also toward less government direct aid to higher ed a trend that has been brewing for 30 years. Schools with high overhead cannot afford to divert auxillary revenue to athletics because they will require that money for operating expenses.
Right now you don't want to be a college that is carrying a lot of debt. AState has been slicing its debt to income ratio because we are trying to build a cash reserve. Rumor mill says one, maybe two junior colleges in the state are negotiating to join our system (one has a lucrative workplace training program we covet) and at least one four year school has had informal talks of merging into our system because we've got the revenue to absorb them.
That's the upside of a sluggish economy, right now is a great time to acquire assets if you can afford them, just as Memphis did with Lambuth. University of Arkansas gobbled up three other colleges the last time enrollment trended downward and in the long-run it was a financial home run.
That is one of the hidden benefits of FBS. That name value branding helps your ride out downturns like the one approaching, that's also a weakness that UAB has in not being independent, they cannot capitalize on that because of their board.
I'll wager their Tide neighbor leadership sees UAB being weakened as a positive not because of fear of football but because they expect there will be opportunities to acquire some added campuses and consolidating the supremacy of UAT places UAT in better position to benefit.
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The Sunbelt is going crazy discussing if UAB drops football...
