(12-01-2021 11:52 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: I've been told Chicago State isn't really interested in Pioneer League football.
Right, there wouldn't be much point in it, as the goal of adding football is to make them a more attractive sell as a full member for a multisport conference like the OVC or Southland.
(12-01-2021 11:52 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: I've been told Chicago State isn't really interested in Pioneer League football.
Chicago State has to walk before they can run.
Over 20 years ago, George Mason went down the same "all or nothing" approach, when Carr Sports Associates recommended against a non-scholarship option for GMU given a lack of nearby competition--never mind Georgetown and (then) Towson were both non-scholarship and within an hour of the campus. The recommended costs were prohibitive and still it fell short by one vote in their Board of Visitors.
Where would George Mason football be today if they had built up football instead of trying to do it all overnight? Another Towson? A peer with Richmond and W&M? Or maybe the Beltway version of Old Dominion?
(12-01-2021 11:52 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: I've been told Chicago State isn't really interested in Pioneer League football.
Chicago State has to walk before they can run.
Over 20 years ago, George Mason went down the same "all or nothing" approach, when Carr Sports Associates recommended against a non-scholarship option for GMU given a lack of nearby competition--never mind Georgetown and (then) Towson were both non-scholarship and within an hour of the campus. The recommended costs were prohibitive and still it fell short by one vote in their Board of Visitors.
Where would George Mason football be today if they had built up football instead of trying to do it all overnight? Another Towson? A peer with Richmond and W&M? Or maybe the Beltway version of Old Dominion?
One caveat is that George Mason has been growing very fast for the past couple of decades and they have a great location in Northern Virginia. Getting students to pay full tuition there isn’t a large hurdle because lots of people are doing it already. I could see a non-scholarship setup working there.
It’s very different at Chicago State, which has been losing enrollment and is in a rough part of Chicago (an entirely different universe compared to downtown, the North Side, or even Hyde Park where the University of Chicago is located). The inability to get full tuition paying students (which is what you’re asking for with a Pioneer League-type setup) is the whole problem that Chicago State is facing in the first place. CSU might be at the point where it’s actually more important to get any types of students (even if you have to effectively pay them to attend via scholarships) because they need to continue to justify the overall fixed costs of simply keeping the university open.
Plus, just looking at the list of schools in the Pioneer League, they are all private schools with several of them being legitimately wealthy (such as Davidson and Butler). I don’t think it’s a realistic consideration for Chicago State even if they wanted to go the non-scholarship route.
(This post was last modified: 12-01-2021 01:49 PM by Frank the Tank.)
Some numbers that make the case for Chicago State's Div. I futility:
2020 undergraduates: 1,685
Number of undergraduates 18-21: 504
2020 full time freshman enrollment: 144
Retention rate after one year: 54%
Six year graduation rate: 17%
Male/female ratio: 29%/71%
(12-01-2021 11:00 AM)Todor Wrote: Lots of HBCU's would come play them in Chicago. Teams from Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi etc annually travel north to play games in places like St Louis already, and that's with no local team even in the game. They are going where they have alums, and they draw big gate in the process.
The "Windy City Classic Black College Football Showdown" or Lakeside HBCU Showcase" would likely draw tens of thousands if other such games are any indication. Would be a very good event for Chicago State. A very smart way to leverage their location in the north.
Soldier Field hosts the Chicago Football Classic featuring HBCU schools almost every year. There will always be an HBCU willing to play Chicago St at Soldier Field.
Ok, its already happening and I was unaware. No surprise there I was familiar the Gateway Classic and the Circle City Classic in Indy as 2 of the longer standing events that are up North.
(This post was last modified: 12-01-2021 02:04 PM by Todor.)
(11-30-2021 02:03 PM)Stugray2 Wrote: To start football takes considerable investment in a stadium and other facilities (training for Football, expansion of women's sports, et al), running quite probably close to $100m.
No, it doesn't. These are the kind of numbers that are thrown around by universities who are looking for an excuse not to sponsor football--George Mason, 20 years ago, for example, or Texas-Arlington. Houston Baptist certainly didn't have $100M to spend adding football, nor Stetson or UIW or Campbell.
There is a legitimate question whether Chicago State can support football, but the start-up numbers are not within an a tenth of that figure. For example:
Operating Costs: A Pioneer Football League team like Butler consumes no more than $500K in gameday expenses over the course of a season. Start small and build; besides, no scholarship conference would want them right now.
Coaching: One FT coach ($125K), one FT assistant ($45K) and 4-6 PT assistants from the local area incur another $250K.
Scholarships: None to start--if they're successful, that makes the case to invest in them.
I think the big motivation for Chicago State to add football is to make themselves palatable (I won't say attractive) to the Ohio Valley (or maybe the MEAC or Southland). To do that, you have to play football in conference, or Chicago State is just a completely mismanaged UA-Little Rock in a big city.
So add 60 * $11,000 = $660,000 to the theoretical budget. But that's a semi-illusionary number, since those seats aren't being filled otherwise.
Looking at MEAC schools, I picked Delaware State as vaguely comparable. Their Equity In Athletics numbers show a $2.8M football budget out of an $11.5M total athletic budget.
Chicago STate's current athletic budget is $8M. Setting aside scholarships (can you find 30 young men willing to play football for Chicago STate to fill out a first string?) and finding a place to play, you have to come up with an extra $1M a year somewhere.
(11-30-2021 02:03 PM)Stugray2 Wrote: To start football takes considerable investment in a stadium and other facilities (training for Football, expansion of women's sports, et al), running quite probably close to $100m.
No, it doesn't. These are the kind of numbers that are thrown around by universities who are looking for an excuse not to sponsor football--George Mason, 20 years ago, for example, or Texas-Arlington. Houston Baptist certainly didn't have $100M to spend adding football, nor Stetson or UIW or Campbell.
There is a legitimate question whether Chicago State can support football, but the start-up numbers are not within an a tenth of that figure. For example:
Operating Costs: A Pioneer Football League team like Butler consumes no more than $500K in gameday expenses over the course of a season. Start small and build; besides, no scholarship conference would want them right now.
Coaching: One FT coach ($125K), one FT assistant ($45K) and 4-6 PT assistants from the local area incur another $250K.
Scholarships: None to start--if they're successful, that makes the case to invest in them.
I think the big motivation for Chicago State to add football is to make themselves palatable (I won't say attractive) to the Ohio Valley (or maybe the MEAC or Southland). To do that, you have to play football in conference, or Chicago State is just a completely mismanaged UA-Little Rock in a big city.
So add 60 * $11,000 = $660,000 to the theoretical budget. But that's a semi-illusionary number, since those seats aren't being filled otherwise.
Looking at MEAC schools, I picked Delaware State as vaguely comparable. Their Equity In Athletics numbers show a $2.8M football budget out of an $11.5M total athletic budget.
Chicago STate's current athletic budget is $8M. Setting aside scholarships (can you find 30 young men willing to play football for Chicago STate to fill out a first string?) and finding a place to play, you have to come up with an extra $1M a year somewhere.
Chicago State will be able to find scholarship athletes. The quality will probably be way down, but they will have 1 star and 0 star recruits lining up the door. I just don’t think they have the money, nor will they be able to get it. If somehow they try to make this work, finding guys to take the scholarship won’t be a problem. It’s the least of their worries.
(12-01-2021 11:52 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: I've been told Chicago State isn't really interested in Pioneer League football.
Chicago State has to walk before they can run.
Over 20 years ago, George Mason went down the same "all or nothing" approach, when Carr Sports Associates recommended against a non-scholarship option for GMU given a lack of nearby competition--never mind Georgetown and (then) Towson were both non-scholarship and within an hour of the campus. The recommended costs were prohibitive and still it fell short by one vote in their Board of Visitors.
Where would George Mason football be today if they had built up football instead of trying to do it all overnight? Another Towson?
What on earth is the point of having an FCS program on the level of Towson University?
Quote: A peer with Richmond and W&M?
George MAson is a relative newcomer, it's going to be a couple of generations before they / we lose that "upstart commuter school, cheap local option" reputation in Virginia. MAybe not overall, but definitely compared to UR or William & Mary.
Quote:Or maybe the Beltway version of Old Dominion?
Some of y'all really forget that the point of college athletics is to boost the college, not the other way around.
George Mason has been extremely successful at climbing the ladder by pouring resources into under-exploited opportunities. There's some amount of discrimination against conservatives on faculties in academia. And GMU is a half-hour drive from Washington. So they / we recruited a bunch of right-learning economists and law professors and such, with "testify before Congress" as a job perk. And it worked--US News #148 overall, #41 law school.
FCS football isn't that sort of under-exploited opportunity.
(12-01-2021 11:52 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: I've been told Chicago State isn't really interested in Pioneer League football.
Chicago State has to walk before they can run.
Over 20 years ago, George Mason went down the same "all or nothing" approach, when Carr Sports Associates recommended against a non-scholarship option for GMU given a lack of nearby competition--never mind Georgetown and (then) Towson were both non-scholarship and within an hour of the campus. The recommended costs were prohibitive and still it fell short by one vote in their Board of Visitors.
Where would George Mason football be today if they had built up football instead of trying to do it all overnight? Another Towson? A peer with Richmond and W&M? Or maybe the Beltway version of Old Dominion?
One caveat is that George Mason has been growing very fast for the past couple of decades and they have a great location in Northern Virginia. Getting students to pay full tuition there isn’t a large hurdle because lots of people are doing it already. I could see a non-scholarship setup working there.
It’s very different at Chicago State, which has been losing enrollment and is in a rough part of Chicago (an entirely different universe compared to downtown, the North Side, or even Hyde Park where the University of Chicago is located). The inability to get full tuition paying students (which is what you’re asking for with a Pioneer League-type setup) is the whole problem that Chicago State is facing in the first place. CSU might be at the point where it’s actually more important to get any types of students (even if you have to effectively pay them to attend via scholarships) because they need to continue to justify the overall fixed costs of simply keeping the university open.
Plus, just looking at the list of schools in the Pioneer League, they are all private schools with several of them being legitimately wealthy (such as Davidson and Butler). I don’t think it’s a realistic consideration for Chicago State even if they wanted to go the non-scholarship route.
(12-01-2021 12:38 PM)72Tiger Wrote: Put some bleachers up down the first base line of their baseball park and reconfigure the field during football season. It already has lights. May need a locker room facility.
They're already using the old Fire stadium for soccer. Adding FB for games should be an easy sell.
If you're non-scholarship you don't really get the payday games at P5s like you would if you provide the NEC level minimum. A P5 and a G5 payday game each year could pay for the scholarships and probably some of the coaching staff too.
(12-01-2021 06:04 PM)Yosef Himself Wrote: If you're non-scholarship you don't really get the payday games at P5s like you would if you provide the NEC level minimum. A P5 and a G5 payday game each year could pay for the scholarships and probably some of the coaching staff too.
But it also has to pay for the 130 or so female scholarships since your school has a 71% female enrollment.
(12-01-2021 02:39 PM)johnbragg Wrote: What on earth is the point of having an FCS program on the level of Towson University?
Towson's got a decent program: two CAA titles and advanced to the FCS finals in 2013, losing to North Dakota State. Their stadium is a nicer version of what Villanova has.
(12-01-2021 02:39 PM)johnbragg Wrote: A peer with Richmond and W&M?
IF GMU was in CAA football, games with UR and W&M would draw interest.
George Mason is successful because Northern Virginia needed a public higher ed option and the DC universities could never grow to meet the need. The closest commonwealth universities outside GMU are James Madison or VCU, which is too far away for all parties concerned.
(This post was last modified: 12-01-2021 09:47 PM by DFW HOYA.)
(12-01-2021 01:07 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote: Chicago State has to walk before they can run.
The walk before you run thing is the study and the ramp-up before the season starts. There's a reason virtually nobody tries to go from non-scholarship to scholarship...they're really different products with different staffers and goals.
Quote:Where would George Mason football be today if they had built up football instead of trying to do it all overnight? Another Towson? A peer with Richmond and W&M? Or maybe the Beltway version of Old Dominion?
Like, as a school? Probably the same it is now.
(12-01-2021 02:33 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: So does that mean they are committed to scholarships then? How do they plan to make the finances work?
I woulnd't say they're committed to ANYTHING. They're studying, in part because they know they can't pay for this themselves. I think it would be accurate to say that IF they do this, they're doing scholarship, even if they don't fully fund the entire maximum allotment.
(This post was last modified: 12-01-2021 10:06 PM by MattBrownEP.)
(12-01-2021 01:57 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote: Some numbers that make the case for Chicago State's Div. I futility:
2020 undergraduates: 1,685
Number of undergraduates 18-21: 504
2020 full time freshman enrollment: 144
Retention rate after one year: 54%
Six year graduation rate: 17%
Male/female ratio: 29%/71%
The actual number of full time students is lower. The reported number on the website includes part time taking one or two classes only.
Number of Full-time Undergraduates: 1,361
Men: 432
Women: 929
Note, 54 of 144 Freshmen are listed on one of the sports teams. This raises serious questions about the per student cost at the university because of how much over head is required for athletics.
Todor,
It will cost close to $100m to start football. We are talking land prices and building prices, including EIR, union and other things with Chicago which are not so costly in New Mexico or some rural area. A building that costs $1m in Texas might cost $5m in Chicago.
A stadium requires a significant amount of urban land to build. It needs a support village. You also have to consider a performance center, then staffing for these facilities (again big city rates, not countryside). In addition this is a 71% female campus, meaning 63 football scholarships requires around 125 female scholarships. That's a lot of coaches, facilities, housing, et al. When it all is added up there is no question that it will easily top $100m over say five years to get it up and running.
And even if it's 25% cheaper, all told, you still have to weigh it against the number of students you could send full scholarship to Northwestern for that amount of money from the State of Illinois and City of Chicago funds. Any real feasibility study has to include the opportunity costs. Of course the ones done for schools are anything but that, rather presentations of the maximum positive range and the minimum cost range. This is what advocacy is about; not putting forward fair and balanced options, but rather what you want as a sales pitch.
My response would be, "we are not getting you a helicopter."
(12-01-2021 01:57 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote: Some numbers that make the case for Chicago State's Div. I futility:
2020 undergraduates: 1,685
Number of undergraduates 18-21: 504
2020 full time freshman enrollment: 144
Retention rate after one year: 54%
Six year graduation rate: 17%
Male/female ratio: 29%/71%
The actual number of full time students is lower. The reported number on the website includes part time taking one or two classes only.
Number of Full-time Undergraduates: 1,361
Men: 432
Women: 929
Note, 54 of 144 Freshmen are listed on one of the sports teams. This raises serious questions about the per student cost at the university because of how much over head is required for athletics.
Todor,
It will cost close to $100m to start football. We are talking land prices and building prices, including EIR, union and other things with Chicago which are not so costly in New Mexico or some rural area. A building that costs $1m in Texas might cost $5m in Chicago.
I think they'd use an existing facility. Probably the old Chicago Fire MLS stadium, now SeatGeek Stadium. that's where Chicago State's soccer teams play, and it's hosted Division III football games before (in 2013.)
Quote:A stadium requires a significant amount of urban land to build. It needs a support village. You also have to consider a performance center, then staffing for these facilities (again big city rates, not countryside).
You're ignoring the option of pinching pennies and just being terrible.
Quote:In addition this is a 71% female campus, meaning 63 football scholarships requires around 125 female scholarships. That's a lot of coaches, facilities, housing, et al. When it all is added up there is no question that it will easily top $100m over say five years to get it up and running.
I think the $100M number is high, by a lot. But it will cost money, and Chicago State doesn't have any. They cut their baseball team a minute ago to save money. Now they're adding a much more expensive sport? I don't think that gets off the ground.
Nobody is building a new stadium. If the school doesn't just decide to rent out SeatGeek, there are two high school stadiums *much* closer to campus that can be renovated to FCS standards without massive investments, plus D-III fields that could be shared. There's space on or very near campus to operate just about any new women's sport they would decided to sponsor as well. It's also worth nothing that unlike in many other parts of the city, real estate is pretty cheap near CSU's campus.
It's absolutely correct to note that there are significant start-up costs. Chicago State *will* need to build a new football performance center and gym facility. If they have to pay for it themselves, it will not happen. The question is to what degree the Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Schools, the State of Illinois, and other business groups, will step up to share the costs of an athletic expansion. The state paid for most of the basketball arena, office space and athlete gym. If they decide to invest more, potentially as a multi-purpose/community center facility, this could work. If not, the actual cost is moot, because it won't happen.
(This post was last modified: 12-02-2021 03:18 PM by MattBrownEP.)
Chicago State can't put together a women's golf team that isn't an embarrassment at 200 strokes over par, how are they adding 63 women's opportunities to offset football?
Chicago State is talking about football because the internal conversation was "WTH are we doing here? We need to start from scratch with a blank sheet of paper, how do we have an athletics program that a Division I conference actually wants? And football comes up solely because the question is "how do we differentiate ourselves from Loyola, DePaul and UIC?"
(This post was last modified: 12-05-2021 05:49 AM by JRsec.)
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Chicago St Feasibility Study
I was familiar the Gateway Classic and the Circle City Classic in Indy as 2 of the longer standing events that are up North.
