DISCLAIMER: I don't know anybody, and nobody I know knows anything. This is based on no inside information at all, just on "the shape of the river."

Fact 1. G5 schools are running steady $10-20M athletic deficits, including Rice.
Fact 2. Non-FBS schools are running $10-$15M athletic deficits.
These two, in conjunction, generally mean that dropping from FBS is a bad idea.

Fact 3. Rice's stadium is over 50 years old, and new stadiums are expensive.

Conjecture: With the escalating cost of competing in FBS, that $10-20 number becomes $15-25.

Fact 4. Looking at an athletic conference as a group of peers, Rice has shifted from having peer-competitors SMU, Tulane and Tulsa to a conference completely composed of large, public, academically weak schools (compared to Rice). I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone in C-USA 2015 is in the US News Top 200 National Universities.

Fact 5. Rice had McKinsey consulting look at their Division options in 2004. McKinsey recommended Division III, before an alumni and booster backlash changed the Board of Trustee's minds.

OP's Note: This "fact" turns out to be FALSE. To the extent that McKinsey made a recommendation, it was Division I-A, with Division III as a possible but inferior option, and all other options (I-AA, DI-NoFB, II, NAIA) as horriblenogoodterribadno.) My information came from this link: http://www.ricefootball.net/04athleticsbrouhaha.htm to articles by Rice boosters/alums/fans. I have since read the McKinsey report.

I apologize to Rice for any damage to Rice's athletic reputation, and apologize again for anyone whose belongings I may have been sick on at Prospective Student Weekend Fall 1990, which due to a huge oversight was also Homecoming Weekend.
I am told I had a great time, although I remembered very little, beyond being left at the football game to sober up.

Fact 5a. Those boosters and alumni, and Rice's SWC glory days, are 10 years older.

Fact 6. Rice would be a good fit, profile-wise, with the Division III UAA--Chicago, Brandeis, NYU, Carnegie-Mellon, Washington U in St. Louis. http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/

I wonder if the answer to C-USA being at 13 is Rice folding.
OP Note: No.

Ahh. UNT is at #149, UAB is at #156, Louisiana Tech is at #193. STill not really a group that Rice sees as peer institutions.

(12-31-2014 10:22 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  DISCLAIMER: I don't know anybody, and nobody I know knows anything. This is based on no inside information at all, just on "the shape of the river."

Fact 1. G5 schools are running steady $10-20M athletic deficits, including Rice.
Fact 2. Non-FBS schools are running $10-$15M athletic deficits.
These two, in conjunction, generally mean that dropping from FBS is a bad idea.

Fact 3. Rice's stadium is over 50 years old, and new stadiums are expensive.

Conjecture: With the escalating cost of competing in FBS, that $10-20 number becomes $15-25.

Fact 4. Looking at an athletic conference as a group of peers, Rice has shifted from having peer-competitors SMU, Tulane and Tulsa to a conference completely composed of large, public, academically weak schools (compared to Rice). I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone in C-USA 2015 is in the US News Top 200 National Universities.

Fact 5. Rice had McKinsey consulting look at their Division options in 2004. McKinsey recommended Division III, before an alumni and booster backlash changed the Board of Trustee's minds.
Fact 5a. Those boosters and alumni, and Rice's SWC glory days, are 10 years older.

Fact 6. Rice would be a good fit, profile-wise, with the Division III UAA--Chicago, Brandeis, NYU, Carnegie-Mellon, Washington U in St. Louis. http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/

I wonder if the answer to C-USA being at 13 is Rice folding.

Rice isn't going anywhere. My brother is a Rice season ticket holder, and closely follows the team. If there were rumblings, he'd know about it. They just announced a $30 million renovation to their stadium, and their boosters have deep pockets.

(12-31-2014 10:22 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  DISCLAIMER: I don't know anybody, and nobody I know knows anything. This is based on no inside information at all, just on "the shape of the river."

Fact 1. G5 schools are running steady $10-20M athletic deficits, including Rice.
Fact 2. Non-FBS schools are running $10-$15M athletic deficits.
These two, in conjunction, generally mean that dropping from FBS is a bad idea.

Fact 3. Rice's stadium is over 50 years old, and new stadiums are expensive.

Conjecture: With the escalating cost of competing in FBS, that $10-20 number becomes $15-25.

Fact 4. Looking at an athletic conference as a group of peers, Rice has shifted from having peer-competitors SMU, Tulane and Tulsa to a conference completely composed of large, public, academically weak schools (compared to Rice). I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone in C-USA 2015 is in the US News Top 200 National Universities.

Fact 5. Rice had McKinsey consulting look at their Division options in 2004. McKinsey recommended Division III, before an alumni and booster backlash changed the Board of Trustee's minds.
Fact 5a. Those boosters and alumni, and Rice's SWC glory days, are 10 years older.

Fact 6. Rice would be a good fit, profile-wise, with the Division III UAA--Chicago, Brandeis, NYU, Carnegie-Mellon, Washington U in St. Louis. http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/

I wonder if the answer to C-USA being at 13 is Rice folding.

These are questions that will get asked more and more frequently. As I have said, IMO, sustaining FBS outside the "Power" division is simply not feasible. The obvious choices are: 1) Discontinue FB and stay at D1 for other sports, 2) Drop FB down to FCS and stay at D1 for other sports. It would be interesting to see if a 3rd option develops...similar to the Ivy and Pioneer conferences in FCS... for a FBS-non scholarship conference, but this is not in existence at this point. (If you could get two such non-scholarship FB conferences, you could do your own bowl game.)

Rice is burdened with a huge stadium that cannot really sustain FCS football in it's current state. It could, however, be rebuilt downward in stages to make it more suitable for FCS type crowds.
\

If the Big XII were to ever expand, and if Texas was one who must be appeased by the subject, I always thought this was how Rice found their way back in.

This assumed, however, that leadership actually went out and tried to lobby P5 schools and conferences for support. Rice of the leadership who suggested D3 wouldn't do that. Rice of today...?

Exactly Joe.

I too have Rice in-laws and the vibe I get from them is that for the first time in decades, people who care about Owl athletics are in positions of authority and are turning the tide against the other camp that ranges from apathy to the out right wanting to scrap all athletics.

Rice has always had the potential to be a Stanford type program but they've never had the people who care enough to even try...until possibly now. Should be interesting to see where they take the Owls over the next few years.

And because of its academics and location, Rice can be a major target of just about every P5 conference if they were to turn around their athletic department.

(12-31-2014 10:22 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  DISCLAIMER: I don't know anybody, and nobody I know knows anything. This is based on no inside information at all, just on "the shape of the river."

Fact 1. G5 schools are running steady $10-20M athletic deficits, including Rice.
Fact 2. Non-FBS schools are running $10-$15M athletic deficits.
These two, in conjunction, generally mean that dropping from FBS is a bad idea.

Fact 3. Rice's stadium is over 50 years old, and new stadiums are expensive.

Conjecture: With the escalating cost of competing in FBS, that $10-20 number becomes $15-25.

Fact 4. Looking at an athletic conference as a group of peers, Rice has shifted from having peer-competitors SMU, Tulane and Tulsa to a conference completely composed of large, public, academically weak schools (compared to Rice). I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone in C-USA 2015 is in the US News Top 200 National Universities.

Fact 5. Rice had McKinsey consulting look at their Division options in 2004. McKinsey recommended Division III, before an alumni and booster backlash changed the Board of Trustee's minds.
Fact 5a. Those boosters and alumni, and Rice's SWC glory days, are 10 years older.

Fact 6. Rice would be a good fit, profile-wise, with the Division III UAA--Chicago, Brandeis, NYU, Carnegie-Mellon, Washington U in St. Louis. http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/

I wonder if the answer to C-USA being at 13 is Rice folding.

Isnt Rice 1) in a bowl and 2) doing a $30M renovation to their football operations building @ the stadium?


Silly Season in FULL Effect

I think Rice could fit nicely in the AAC if it ever went to 14

Rice is in the mid 80s in terms of published budget size (keep in mind a lot of private schools hide profit/money).

Rice won't sink anytime soon. There are about 30-35 schools that will need fall off first before I see Rice giving in. Also, keep in mind that the remaining FBS schools will collectively get more of the pot for each one that drops.

I don't see things getting messy for a long while. Most of the G5 isn't that badly off - they just aren't P5 rich.

(12-31-2014 10:32 AM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  These are questions that will get asked more and more frequently. As I have said, IMO, sustaining FBS outside the "Power" division is simply not feasible.

Yes'n'no. Maybe "Sustaining lower-FBS isn't feasible", but if that's true that sustaining Division I athletics isn't feasible.

Staying in FBS costs $10-20M now. Maybe it goes up to $15-25M (more likely schools with tight budgets hold the line on expenses and pay the price on the field, MAC-style.)

The problem is that a lot of that deficit is created by non-revenue sports that are required to stay FBS (18) and are required to stay Division I(14). Football usually pays for itself (at least in the past), but it doesn't generate enough profit to support the non-revenue sports.

So for most G5 schools, the options are:
1. Lose around $20M a year in lower-FBS, with the branding benefits of FBS
2. Lose around $10M a year in FCS or I-AAA and hope for a Cinderella run in the NCAAs every onece in a while.
3. Drop out of Division I entirely.

"3" is a little more attractive for Rice than for Middle Tennessee or Utah STate or UMass because Rice would fit nicely in the UAA, a Division III league for Ivy-caliber schools. MTSU or USU or NMSU or FIU would be looking at a local league with members below their academic peer-institution level.

(12-31-2014 10:53 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(12-31-2014 10:32 AM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  These are questions that will get asked more and more frequently. As I have said, IMO, sustaining FBS outside the "Power" division is simply not feasible.

Yes'n'no. Maybe "Sustaining lower-FBS isn't feasible", but if that's true that sustaining Division I athletics isn't feasible.

Staying in FBS costs $10-20M now. Maybe it goes up to $15-25M (more likely schools with tight budgets hold the line on expenses and pay the price on the field, MAC-style.)

The problem is that a lot of that deficit is created by non-revenue sports that are required to stay FBS (18) and are required to stay Division I(14). Football usually pays for itself (at least in the past), but it doesn't generate enough profit to support the non-revenue sports.

So for most G5 schools, the options are:
1. Lose around $20M a year in lower-FBS, with the branding benefits of FBS
2. Lose around $10M a year in FCS or I-AAA and hope for a Cinderella run in the NCAAs every onece in a while.
3. Drop out of Division I entirely.

"3" is a little more attractive for Rice than for Middle Tennessee or Utah STate or UMass because Rice would fit nicely in the UAA, a Division III league for Ivy-caliber schools. MTSU or USU or NMSU or FIU would be looking at a local league with members below their academic peer-institution level.

Tulane - which is not a top G5 right now - doesn't lose 15-20 million a year. The program would have been shuttered a long time ago if that was the case. At it's absolute worst, it shed 7 million one year and then IMMEDIATELY investigated it and changed how it did business.

Saying that all G5 schools are drowning in red ink is an overstatement.

People need to stop thinking of profit as an aim of Division I intercollegiate athletics. Its a marketing cost center. How much am I willing to pay to have my school mentioned on Fox, CBS and ESPN? How much that halftime commercial for my university worth? How much is my school getting mentioned eleventy billion times during a bowl in December worth? And that is just in football. Add in MBB and a tourney bid and this is a no brainer and explains why nobody is dropping down to FCS or dropping football (UAB being an aberration and a result of 1950's style state politics). Rice dropping down is preposterous.

(12-31-2014 10:22 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  DISCLAIMER: I don't know anybody, and nobody I know knows anything. This is based on no inside information at all, just on "the shape of the river."

Fact 1. G5 schools are running steady $10-20M athletic deficits, including Rice.
Fact 2. Non-FBS schools are running $10-$15M athletic deficits.
These two, in conjunction, generally mean that dropping from FBS is a bad idea.

Fact 3. Rice's stadium is over 50 years old, and new stadiums are expensive.

Conjecture: With the escalating cost of competing in FBS, that $10-20 number becomes $15-25.

Fact 4. Looking at an athletic conference as a group of peers, Rice has shifted from having peer-competitors SMU, Tulane and Tulsa to a conference completely composed of large, public, academically weak schools (compared to Rice). I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone in C-USA 2015 is in the US News Top 200 National Universities.

Fact 5. Rice had McKinsey consulting look at their Division options in 2004. McKinsey recommended Division III, before an alumni and booster backlash changed the Board of Trustee's minds.
Fact 5a. Those boosters and alumni, and Rice's SWC glory days, are 10 years older.

Fact 6. Rice would be a good fit, profile-wise, with the Division III UAA--Chicago, Brandeis, NYU, Carnegie-Mellon, Washington U in St. Louis. http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/

I wonder if the answer to C-USA being at 13 is Rice folding.

Rice just announced a significant stadium facility change. Rice Stadium need a freshen-up, no doubt, but it is an excellent facility under the dirt. The north end-zone will be completely rebuilt, an investment of $31mm. See: http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2014/...26318101=0

But football is not the only sport. Reckling is an excellent baseball stadium. Tudor Fieldhouse had an eight figure makeover in the recent past.

The McKinsey study did not recommend D3. It stated, with plenty of justification, that the choice was between D1A and D3. The stops in-between would not be prudent. Rice chose D1A and will remain there for the foreseeable future. For those nterested, the study is here: http://professor.rice.edu/images/professor/report.pdf

(12-31-2014 10:35 AM)panama Wrote:  Isnt Rice 1) in a bowl and 2) doing a $30M renovation to their football operations building @ the stadium?

Silly Season in FULL Effect

Being in a minor bowl doesn't answer the question of whether FBS makes sense for Rice.

(12-31-2014 10:46 AM)oliveandblue Wrote:  Rice is in the mid 80s in terms of published budget size (keep in mind a lot of private schools hide profit/money).

Rice won't sink anytime soon. There are about 30-35 schools that will need fall off first before I see Rice giving in. Also, keep in mind that the remaining FBS schools will collectively get more of the pot for each one that drops.

I don't see things getting messy for a long while. Most of the G5 isn't that badly off - they just aren't P5 rich.

I'm not saying Rice will _have_ to drop. I'm saying that Rice, essentially, has the option to drop. The argument for FBS athletics is branding, and grouping with like-minded peer institutions, etc. These arguments don't really apply to a small private top 25 school like Rice the way they do to a large state non-flagship school.

Most lower-FBS schools are sort of trapped--if Louisiana-Monroe decides to drop, they're giving up a position of perceived equality with ULL and Louisana Tech. If San Jose State or SDSU drops, they're giving up something that separates them from a dozen UC's and Cal STate's. Likewise Middle TEnnessee going from an "aspirational peer" of Memphis to being grouped with ETSU. Rice is in a different situation--right now they're grouped athletically with UTSA, UTEP, UNT, LT etc. Without athletics, they look like U of Chicago, MIT, NYU, etc.

Rice is not looking at the same sort of return from sinking $20M a year into staying in FBS, plus the cost of a new stadium. I don't think athletics is doing much to keep Rice in the USNWR top 25. They're in a position to look at the balance sheet and say "we're not doing that."

Losing money? I don't see that as a problem at all. I don't understand how some G5 schools show such huge budgets on paper when their facilities are nothing spectacular and they don't pay any better than the rest of the G5 in terms of salaries. A lot of those numbers are an accountant's method of making the program seem bigger than it really is and a lot of the "costs" are not real. Regardless, athletics have a value beyond the ledger. They are essentially a branch of a university's advertising department.

As for all the talk of academic "peers", that is usually reserved for people who know their program or conference can't compete with others on the field or court. Fans, boosters and alums are not clamoring for their team to beat the top rated academic schools. They want to beat and be like Alabama in football and Kentucky in basketball.

Almost everyone who can move to FBS has moved to FBS recently and those programs were powerhouses at the FCS level. They know the data and they made the move because they know what the real costs are and more importantly they know the real value.

From a philosophical stand point, yeah DIII would make some sense. The UAA would most fit their academic profile but travel would suck. The SAA and SCAC are the only ones that make geographic sense and even then the SAA is a stretch.

But the reality is Rice is amazingly competitive given their enrollment and size of their alumni base but geography and population dynamics play well to their favor. There are a lot of student-athletes within a one day drive and quite naturally a large number who can gain admission without wiggling on the academics. If Rice were in say Kansas City they would have a much more difficult time and would have to travel much further to recruit enough players who can play AND meet the academics.

I don't see Rice in a Stanford type situation because the President at Stanford sits down at league meetings with a group of presidents that includes a good number who are every bit Stanford's academic peer. Their scenario is more Vanderbilt. A long-time SEC administrator used to joke that they needed Duke more than any other school so Kentucky would have someone to talk basketball with and Vandy would have someone to talk academics with.

All in all, the only thing for Rice to do is embrace what they what they have and hope that the competition level of AAC presents a greater hurdle for Tulsa, Tulane, and SMU that permits Rice to sell success more than they can. Resolve the stadium issue and they are in a good position.

As for the proposition that G5 football isn't viable. We have decades of history that contradicts that premise. It wasn't until 1994 that virtually all schools playing FBS were offering the same number of rides and not until 2004 or 2005 that the NCAA mandated minimum awarding of aid in football. Historically there has been a dramatic difference across the NCAA's top level of football in aid.

The risk to G5 isn't Alabama out pricing them in coaching salaries or player stipends. The risk is the ability to continue to afford subsidizing athletics out of the general budget and with student fees in a climate of decreased student aid when there is a risk of declining enrollment driven by an improving economy, fewer college age students expected to be a factor the next few years, and risks of changes to student loan assistance. The other G5 risk points are UMass being able to sustain independence and the risk hanging over Idaho and New Mexico State of operating under four year contracts with the Sun Belt.

(12-31-2014 11:06 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(12-31-2014 10:35 AM)panama Wrote:  Isnt Rice 1) in a bowl and 2) doing a $30M renovation to their football operations building @ the stadium?

Silly Season in FULL Effect

Being in a minor bowl doesn't answer the question of whether FBS makes sense for Rice.

(12-31-2014 10:46 AM)oliveandblue Wrote:  Rice is in the mid 80s in terms of published budget size (keep in mind a lot of private schools hide profit/money).

Rice won't sink anytime soon. There are about 30-35 schools that will need fall off first before I see Rice giving in. Also, keep in mind that the remaining FBS schools will collectively get more of the pot for each one that drops.

I don't see things getting messy for a long while. Most of the G5 isn't that badly off - they just aren't P5 rich.

I'm not saying Rice will _have_ to drop. I'm saying that Rice, essentially, has the option to drop. The argument for FBS athletics is branding, and grouping with like-minded peer institutions, etc. These arguments don't really apply to a small private top 25 school like Rice the way they do to a large state non-flagship school.

Most lower-FBS schools are sort of trapped--if Louisiana-Monroe decides to drop, they're giving up a position of perceived equality with ULL and Louisana Tech. If San Jose State or SDSU drops, they're giving up something that separates them from a dozen UC's and Cal STate's. Likewise Middle TEnnessee going from an "aspirational peer" of Memphis to being grouped with ETSU.

Rice is not looking at the same sort of return from sinking $20M a year into staying in FBS, plus the cost of a new stadium. I don't think athletics is doing much to keep Rice in the USNWR top 25. They're in a position to look at the balance sheet and say "we're not doing that."

What is $20M to Rice? Their operating budget is $600M/year. Their endowment is $4B.

Until the amount any of us are sinking into essentially marketing our universities becomes uncomfortable, nobody is dropping to FCS or dropping FBS football.

(12-31-2014 11:07 AM)Crump1 Wrote:  Losing money? I don't see that as a problem at all. I don't understand how some G5 schools show such huge budgets on paper when their facilities are nothing spectacular and they don't pay any better than the rest of the G5 in terms of salaries.

Looking at a lot of different schools' budgets, I think a big chunk of it is a fairly fixed cost of being in Division I and supporting 14-18 non-revenue sports on some sort of level.

Quote:A lot of those numbers are an accountant's method of making the program seem bigger than it really is and a lot of the "costs" are not real. Regardless, athletics have a value beyond the ledger. They are essentially a branch of a university's advertising department.

I don't know that that applies to the specific case of Rice, though. Rice's target student isn't terribly concerned with whether they win the Boca RAton Bowl or not.

Quote:As for all the talk of academic "peers", that is usually reserved for people who know their program or conference can't compete with others on the field or court. Fans, boosters and alums are not clamoring for their team to beat the top rated academic schools. They want to beat and be like Alabama in football and Kentucky in basketball.

It matters to the academics and the administrators. It's the reason West Virginia isn't in the ACC and VCU isn't in the Big EAst and BYU and Boise STate aren't in the PAC. Rice has gone from being mentioned athletically with Texas and the SWC 30 years ago, to being mentioned with SMU and Tulane in CUSA 2.0, to being mentioned with UTEP and UTSA and UNT and Louisiana Tech. That's not really who Rice sees themselves as being.

Quote:Almost everyone who can move to FBS has moved to FBS recently and those programs were powerhouses at the FCS level. They know the data and they made the move because they know what the real costs are and more importantly they know the real value.

Everyone who has moved from FCS to FBS lately has been a large-enrollment public university. Rice looks a lot more like Villanova than UConn. (No slight to UConn)

(12-31-2014 11:10 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  From a philosophical stand point, yeah DIII would make some sense. The UAA would most fit their academic profile but travel would suck. The SAA and SCAC are the only ones that make geographic sense and even then the SAA is a stretch.

But the reality is Rice is amazingly competitive given their enrollment and size of their alumni base but geography and population dynamics play well to their favor. There are a lot of student-athletes within a one day drive and quite naturally a large number who can gain admission without wiggling on the academics. If Rice were in say Kansas City they would have a much more difficult time and would have to travel much further to recruit enough players who can play AND meet the academics.

I don't see Rice in a Stanford type situation because the President at Stanford sits down at league meetings with a group of presidents that includes a good number who are every bit Stanford's academic peer. Their scenario is more Vanderbilt. A long-time SEC administrator used to joke that they needed Duke more than any other school so Kentucky would have someone to talk basketball with and Vandy would have someone to talk academics with.

All in all, the only thing for Rice to do is embrace what they what they have and hope that the competition level of AAC presents a greater hurdle for Tulsa, Tulane, and SMU that permits Rice to sell success more than they can. Resolve the stadium issue and they are in a good position.

As for the proposition that G5 football isn't viable. We have decades of history that contradicts that premise. It wasn't until 1994 that virtually all schools playing FBS were offering the same number of rides and not until 2004 or 2005 that the NCAA mandated minimum awarding of aid in football. Historically there has been a dramatic difference across the NCAA's top level of football in aid.

The risk to G5 isn't Alabama out pricing them in coaching salaries or player stipends. The risk is the ability to continue to afford subsidizing athletics out of the general budget and with student fees in a climate of decreased student aid when there is a risk of declining enrollment driven by an improving economy, fewer college age students expected to be a factor the next few years, and risks of changes to student loan assistance. The other G5 risk points are UMass being able to sustain independence and the risk hanging over Idaho and New Mexico State of operating under four year contracts with the Sun Belt.

This

Rice is spending $30M on Rice Stadium in Phase 1 of a complete overhaul. That does not sound like a program on the verge of dropping football.

Now, it's taken them 4 years and 2 ADs to raise $30M for Phase 1, so I don't know how quickly the other phases will be accomplished.

I'll say this, if Rice ever gets its act together and UH continues its upward trajectory, I can totally see UH and Rice joining the Pac 12 together. The Pac 12 is comfortable with pairs of schools within 50 miles of each other (UCLA/USC, Stanford/Cal, Ore/Ore St), while Ariz/Ariz St are just 111 miles apart.