(04-19-2016 06:13 AM)Maize Wrote:  Interesting article and important points...here is the link:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/col.../83035862/

Well, based on the new Big-10 numbers floating around, it looks like the Big10 can keep spending.

(04-19-2016 12:23 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  I think, though, overall, we're going to see a qualitative difference in the student-athlete experience at lower P5s vs upper G5s. Ten years ago, being a football player at Purdue vs Marshall was a semi-similar experience. But that changes if they play a home-and-home, and Marshall shows up to Purdue on a bus while Purdue takes a short-hop charter from airfield to airfield.

The non-FBS schools I've noticed have dialed back salaries in basketball. The age of a rinky dink school coming out of the woodwork to start paying like an ACC basketball program is likely over.

Cincinnati is a case where a school has put a lot of resources into the football program the last couple of years in hope of catching the eye of a P5 program. They signed an expensive coach by G5 standards. To maintain this commitment to its coaching staff Cincinnati has decided to cut travel costs in the short term.

Marshall hasn't stuck its neck out their with the football budget to the point where they have to skim off the travel costs. Charter travel and hotels make it easier for the team to compete on the road. There are schools like Arkansas State and Ohio spending more on travel than ever before.

(04-21-2016 08:27 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(04-19-2016 12:23 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  I think, though, overall, we're going to see a qualitative difference in the student-athlete experience at lower P5s vs upper G5s. Ten years ago, being a football player at Purdue vs Marshall was a semi-similar experience. But that changes if they play a home-and-home, and Marshall shows up to Purdue on a bus while Purdue takes a short-hop charter from airfield to airfield.

The non-FBS schools I've noticed have dialed back salaries in basketball. The age of a rinky dink school coming out of the woodwork to start paying like an ACC basketball program is likely over.

Cincinnati is a case where a school has put a lot of resources into the football program the last couple of years in hope of catching the eye of a P5 program. They signed an expensive coach by G5 standards. To maintain this commitment to its coaching staff Cincinnati has decided to cut travel costs in the short term.

Marshall hasn't stuck its neck out their with the football budget to the point where they have to skim off the travel costs. Charter travel and hotels make it easier for the team to compete on the road. There are schools like Arkansas State and Ohio spending more on travel than ever before.

Cincinnati (as well as UConn and USF) probably budgeted and made projections based on where they thought the Big East was going, not where the American currently is. Their payouts (and theirs alone in the American) took a cut when the Big East split.

Speaking from first hand experience, it is VERY difficult to slash when your income goes down, especially by 25% or more. Cincinnati is facing that now. They expanded Nippert and have renovations going on for Fifth-Third (if I'm correct); those really can't be stopped once in progress. They signed Tuberville before the new financial situation was clear, and I would expect that Cronin's contract pays him handsomely. Those can't be cut. Travel to conference games can't be cut, but at least Cincinnati is close to the geographic center of the American. Travel to OOC games can.

The assumption here is that athletics is merely a money making proposition. It isn't. Its performs multiple functions. First and foremost---it is the primary marketing arm of the university. Secondly, it is a amenity that the university offers its students (like a student center or intramural fields). Its last function is as a stand alone business where it hopefully makes a profit. The reality, is intramural and other student amenities aren't expected to make a profit. Marketing is a cost---not a profit center. Athletics performs both of these functions----yet it still recovers a large percentage of its costs. That's actually a pretty sweet deal for the schools.

A nationally televised football game is essentially a 3 hour national infomercial promoting the student life on a schools campus that draws more viewers than any commercial the school could ever make. Additionally, a schools gains literally thousands of mentions in both TV and print every year due to their athletics program.. By the time a child reaches high school, he/she has heard the schools name mentioned thousands of times and seen the school featured on TV hundreds of times. In fact, many have already decided where they will attend college based solely on being a fan of that schools sports teams despite the fact that they have never spent a single day enrolled at that school.

(04-19-2016 10:26 AM)ken d Wrote:  I'm curious - are there any P5 teams that don't follow this practice? Is that also true of G5 schools with smaller budgets? And do basketball teams do this as well for weekend games?

Didn't the then-Pac 10 ban hotel stays for home football teams a few years ago?

(04-21-2016 01:13 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The assumption here is that athletics is merely a money making proposition. It isn't. Its performs multiple functions. First and foremost---it is the primary marketing arm of the university. Secondly, it is a amenity that the university offers its students (like a student center or intramural fields). Its last function is as a stand alone business where it hopefully makes a profit. The reality, is intramural and other student amenities aren't expected to make a profit. Marketing is a cost---not a profit center. Athletics performs both of these functions----yet it still recovers a large percentage of its costs. That's actually a pretty sweet deal for the schools.

A nationally televised football game is essentially a 3 hour national infomercial promoting the student life on a schools campus that draws more viewers than any commercial the school could ever make. Additionally, a schools gains literally thousands of mentions in both TV and print every year due to their athletics program.. By the time a child reaches high school, he/she has heard the schools name mentioned thousands of times and seen the school featured on TV hundreds of times. In fact, many have already decided where they will attend college based solely on being a fan of that schools sports teams despite the fact that they have never spent a single day enrolled at that school.

Ahhh yes the t-shirt fan. Most kids growing up in big ten, sec and Texas country have attended many college football games as well.--Part of the culture. I've met people on the east coast who have never attended a college football game. That is truly amazing to me.
Cheers!