The unofficial online home for fans of the Western Michigan University Broncos. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

After that earlier MLIVE article about athletic budgets and spending... this guy comes out with this...

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016...ost.html#0

Outlining strict football budgets and makes WMU look like the biggest loser here... He's cherry picking stats ... and looks like he has some sort of issue with the non-MSU/UM schools in the state when it comes to football...

WMU apparently was in the biggest deficit in the state last year with regard to Football operating costs... Which also included the fact that WMU had MSU (a huge road money maker) at home... and GaSO in as replacement on the road... Thats gonna make these numbers a little skewed... especially for a program that lives on road money...

MSU has a student population that could fill a small third world country... so any added athletic fee on tuition looks quite huge... UM... well UM has so much booster funding that off-sets operational costs that its easy to show profit when you can fill a 100,000 seat stadium with 50% population of fans who never even attended a class at UM...

Not sure what this guys problem is... but he's definitely showing an agenda...

Sure he does. It couldn't be just facts, right? You're paranoid.

(08-24-2016 07:14 PM)flushtheherd Wrote:  After that earlier MLIVE article about athletic budgets and spending... this guy comes out with this...

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016...ost.html#0

Outlining strict football budgets and makes WMU look like the biggest loser here... He's cherry picking stats ... and looks like he has some sort of issue with the non-MSU/UM schools in the state when it comes to football...

WMU apparently was in the biggest deficit in the state last year with regard to Football operating costs... Which also included the fact that WMU had MSU (a huge road money maker) at home... and GaSO in as replacement on the road... Thats gonna make these numbers a little skewed... especially for a program that lives on road money...

MSU has a student population that could fill a small third world country... so any added athletic fee on tuition looks quite huge... UM... well UM has so much booster funding that off-sets operational costs that its easy to show profit when you can fill a 100,000 seat stadium with 50% population of fans who never even attended a class at UM...

Not sure what this guys problem is... but he's definitely showing an agenda...

Flush, I know you're serious and that's the scary part.

I read the article.

What's your perspective (agenda)?

I thought the agenda was very pro GVSU and how they were doing more with less.

(08-24-2016 11:50 PM)gobaseline Wrote:  

(08-24-2016 07:14 PM)flushtheherd Wrote:  After that earlier MLIVE article about athletic budgets and spending... this guy comes out with this...

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016...ost.html#0

Outlining strict football budgets and makes WMU look like the biggest loser here... He's cherry picking stats ... and looks like he has some sort of issue with the non-MSU/UM schools in the state when it comes to football...

WMU apparently was in the biggest deficit in the state last year with regard to Football operating costs... Which also included the fact that WMU had MSU (a huge road money maker) at home... and GaSO in as replacement on the road... Thats gonna make these numbers a little skewed... especially for a program that lives on road money...

MSU has a student population that could fill a small third world country... so any added athletic fee on tuition looks quite huge... UM... well UM has so much booster funding that off-sets operational costs that its easy to show profit when you can fill a 100,000 seat stadium with 50% population of fans who never even attended a class at UM...

Not sure what this guys problem is... but he's definitely showing an agenda...

Flush, I know you're serious and that's the scary part.

I read the article.

What's your perspective (agenda)?

And another article comes out today stating how students need to be aware of how much tuition they pay is going towards athletics... Someone at MLIVE had made a decision to hammer this point and keeps putting EMU and WMU at the forefront... Just seems a bit odd... Of course this new story is an "opinion piece" from MLive Editorial Board (which could be anyone on staff I suppose)... I think if there is an agenda my point was that its directed more at these articles trying to downplay the importance of athletics at state universities... and making it look like athletic budgets are the only thing handcuffing these universities ... There is SO much more that goes on with a school's budget beyond the athletic fund...

I tend to look at some of these high cost athletics budgets ... i.e Football and Basketball as being more than just sports on campus, but a huge media wing for the University... a HUGE advertising opportunity... Competing with the UofM's and MSU's of the state is not something that is even worth arguing... WMU will never have the revenue of those schools based a number of factors... Conference affiliation (Big10 splits money from ALL of the bowls across ALL of the schools...as an example)... Ticket sales, student enrollment and athletic fees in tuition... If every WMU home game had the same atmosphere as the home MSU game last year... you would definitely see a bump in ticket sales and attendance revenue... which in turn would allow for a bump in ticket prices from year to year... Its just not a sustainable concept when you can't get students and alumni from WMU to put WMU above MSU/UM... I think maybe 15% of the student population and alumni actually would call WMU their favorite Football/BBall College team...

Im starting to cross the beams with this argument so I should stop...

TL,DR: WMU will never be able to compete with MSU/UM as far as sports revenue in the state... stop comparing them in articles and start to show how the WMU's of the college landscape do some creative accounting across the board year in and year out to make sure our athletics programs can still compete on the field/court/ice with the MSU's and UM's..

(08-25-2016 06:14 AM)Liam9903 Wrote:  I thought the agenda was very pro GVSU and how they were doing more with less.

Pro as in slanted, leaving out relevant facts or simply pointing out as you did, "more with less"?

There is context to everything. I think Flush is trying to make that argument regarding the $ disparity between B10 and MAC.

I don't know if it was the article or comment section but one of the pieces of context is administrative costs and whether they drive excellence in a quantitative way or is bloat. If bloat difficult to buy into simply choosing someone else's ox being gored over your own.

Life is complicated and with communication flying around in such volume many choose to hunker down being selective and managing to get by.

Being a public institution Universities owe it to tax payers to not be a part of the problem of complexity and noise. As part of it's mission to be good stewards they owe the "shareholders" a clear, fully transparent and accurate insight to the process and outcomes. I will add shareholders owe it to the stewards, other shareholders and themselves to be engaged as much on the front end and not simply reactionary.

I agree that the shareholders owe it to themselves to be engaged, but how much should they engage and how? It's not like the door is open and welcoming the people paying taxes to know where it's all going.

Those budget reports and "transparency reports" are obtuse for a reason.

As big of a fan and supporter that I am, those amounts of subsidies are quite nauseating.

Gee, I wish I knew what Moomba's sarcastic response was to Flush.

Ha,Ha, just kidding

Oh, I forgot I have that "clown" on "Ignore" life is good again!

If everyone who is not a Fleck hater, put Moomba on ignore, Moomba (or Desert Bronco) could write and answer himself.

^
How many times are you going to broadcast that you have me on ignore? I suggested that every time you and your aliases whined about me.

BTW, part of "ignoring a person" is not trying to solicit a response, you fool.

Dear Bronco Friends,
If the governor and the State Legislature would fund our universities as they should, this point of how much is spent on athletics probably would not be an issue.

(08-25-2016 02:23 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Bronco Friends,
If the governor and the State Legislature would fund our universities as they should, this point of how much is spent on athletics probably would not be an issue.

Great point Dear Ken, I almost included that in my "nauseating commentary", but that's a different kettle of fish.

As it stands now, the numbers seem HUGE.

(08-25-2016 02:23 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Bronco Friends,
If the governor and the State Legislature would fund our universities as they should, this point of how much is spent on athletics probably would not be an issue.

Ken,

How should the State Govt do so?

Obviously the govt realizes the power of PJ. We deserve it. :)

In all seriousness though, we spent a lot in a short order with the stadium and such... I don't think it's continual that we'll spend so much (at least hope not). And probably losing money on the Bowl, going to GA-Southern, plus passing up revenue for an away game @MSU but to have it at home (which EMU bowed out of due to finances), yeah -- we should have expected a big margin for last year.

But I do agree we can't keep spending so much money. Universities as a whole tend to spend way too much money.

(08-25-2016 05:44 PM)toddjnsn Wrote:  Obviously the govt realizes the power of PJ. We deserve it. :)

In all seriousness though, we spent a lot in a short order with the stadium and such... I don't think it's continual that we'll spend so much (at least hope not). And probably losing money on the Bowl, going to GA-Southern, plus passing up revenue for an away game @MSU but to have it at home (which EMU bowed out of due to finances), yeah -- we should have expected a big margin for last year.

But I do agree we can't keep spending so much money. Universities as a whole tend to spend way too much money.

Who are the accountable to and how?

We don't like a brand of food, car or another consumable we don't put our money down. Sends a loud and clear message.

The real answer is to reform the funding of college athletics which might mean reducing what an athletic scholarship covers. Maybe it covers 85% of the costs which is than schools eliminating entire programs the NFL and NBA should fund a portion of college sports instead of getting a free farm system and there needs to be more equal revenue sharing of tv revenues the pro leagues have equal shares and luxury taxes on payroll lastly look how the taxpayer funds go to pro teams or how businesses can deduct tickets as business expenses do an article on those subsidies

Dear gobaseline,
First of all the State could raise taxes, (and let's not complain that taxes are too high) and the major responsibility of the State Legislature is education. Second, have different priorities. I would have to look at the State Budget, but I'm sure other sources of income could be found to help with college costs.

Quote:Who are the accountable to and how?

We don't like a brand of food, car or another consumable we don't put our money down. Sends a loud and clear message.

The WMU Admin somewhere, I dunno. They're deciding to invest in that direction. One of the problems with many universities, is that they're trying to expand and jazz things up to bring people in, etc. Too much money put into that. Sure, if we become the next Boise State, I guess it was a bet that was won, but I doubt that will happen of course.

I wouldn't mind if much of it is alumni money on things like stadium enhancements & expansion, etc.