In the latest budget round, EMU faculty have zeroed in on this issue with layoffs.

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/inde...ratio.html

[commentary]
I continue to be amazed at the nearly $200M in deficit spending EMU athletics has racked up this decade. Despite declining enrollment, strong faculty opposition, essentially zero student support for funding or attending, minimal donation base, poor attendance, that the administration continues to invest and spend in athletics.

To put this is perspective, it requires a typical 4 year full time student to take on $10,000 in loans to cover the extra expense. (of course the average is closer to 5 years.) This has real negative economic consequences, such as delaying house buying and family formation. Of course these are hidden lost opportunity costs.

There needs to be reform in DoE reporting of actual deficits and transfers for supporting sports should not be counted in the ledger as income, but as it's own line items "institutional transfers" and "student funds." The second reform needs to be attendance reporting, which should be by turnstile and not ticket distribution, where EMU and other schools create 10,000 phantom season ticket holders every other year to meet NCAA FBS minimums.
[/commentary]

EMU is the poster child for a school that either needs to drop athletics all together, or at least drop football

Dropping football, moving to the Horizon would be a good move, IMHO

Sounds like the EMU faculty are going to walk-out to make their point. I do see their frustration, that is a big deficit in athletics and to lay off faculty instead of the root cause of the deficit for the university will become a boiling point soon enough.

This is going to come to a head, and soon, at many of our schools.

So if EMU drops football, does the MAC add a FB-only affiliate? I hear UMass is looking for a conference....

(03-16-2018 01:05 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  So if EMU drops football, does the MAC add a FB-only affiliate? I hear UMass is looking for a conference....

Faculty are kicking up a dust at UMass too over their massive deficits in their athletic department. But sure, they could do that.

Quite frankly, if I'm the MAC, I'd consider asking ODU to join if there's an opening.

Maybe time to drop athletics. I mean they are a school first right?

I think this realignment talk, which always come sup, completely misses the point. It's a fans attempt at deflection from the reality that G5 and much of D-I athletics simply do not pay for themselves. There are a half dozen G5 programs running massive deficits, and another three dozen running deficits about half of what EMU runs. These have a corrosive effect on the University, draining it of much needed resources in times of challenge.

There is a definite regional and ethnic differences in tolerance. Southerners, Texans and African-Americans have a much higher tolerance for athletic "welfare" transfers from money earmarked for education. That is quickly apparent on this board. But it's also apparent in attendance declines and concussion issues as well. For whatever reason the South seems to be a decade or so behind the curve of the rest of the nation.

At places like EMU and UMass the pro sports welfare lobby is laid naked with near universal faculty opposition and little to no student support for it either. But school leaders fear the wrath of the sports lobby, especially football. The faculty protests may swing the balance at EMU, as it provides a larger counter lobby.

Drop football...and use the money to buy all the overpaid faculty hijabs and dresses...

EMU problems began when it moved from DII to the MAC without actually having a fb fan base. EMU and the MAC just pretended that one would form. EMU is just a stones throw from UMich, so a core fb fan base will never amount to much. They should dump fb and start men’s lax or hockey and get a Horizon bid. The MAC should add Ill St and proceed. CMU and WMU have much more history and an actual fb fan base that is passionate.

poor overpaid faculty members... so sad.

(03-16-2018 02:19 PM)No Bull Wrote:  poor overpaid faculty members... so sad.

All the layoffs (42 of them) are staff:

https://www.emich.edu/documents/layoff-p...n-list.pdf

Includes 13 secretaries, three janitors, two groundskeepers and one success coach.

Without the success coach, I figure they're pretty well ******.

(03-16-2018 02:17 PM)No Bull Wrote:  Drop football...and use the money to buy all the overpaid faculty hijabs and dresses...

Pathetic comment.

Maybe they could drop football and give you a brain transplant, or a one-way ticket to Russia.

(03-16-2018 02:31 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-16-2018 02:19 PM)No Bull Wrote:  poor overpaid faculty members... so sad.

All the layoffs (42 of them) are staff:

https://www.emich.edu/documents/layoff-p...n-list.pdf

Includes 13 secretaries, three janitors, two groundskeepers and one success coach.

Without the success coach, I figure they're pretty well ******.

LOL!!!

Maybe Ray Watts can hire a success coach!!! he needs one...

(03-16-2018 02:33 PM)No Bull Wrote:  

(03-16-2018 02:31 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-16-2018 02:19 PM)No Bull Wrote:  poor overpaid faculty members... so sad.

All the layoffs (42 of them) are staff:

https://www.emich.edu/documents/layoff-p...n-list.pdf

Includes 13 secretaries, three janitors, two groundskeepers and one success coach.

Without the success coach, I figure they're pretty well ******.

LOL!!!

Maybe Ray Watts can hire a success coach!!! he needs one...

Sad thing is, Ray's bumbling covered up some real problems in the athletic department: it was heavily overstaffed for what it produced, with whole packs of 24-year-old "sports marketing" majors in skirts and middle-aged "fundraising" dudes in very nice suits. That department needed to be cleaned out with hand grenades and flamethrowers.

But that's true for most university departments. Start by firing every dean and VP with "associate" or "assistant" or "senior" in their title.

weaaaah weaaah weaaah said the professor. All these faculty members care about is themselves and their programs (which I understand), and they see athletics as an easy target. The most vocal of them grew up hating sports to begin with, so they are completely biased. The vocal ones usually didn't attend the university that they teach at and have no history of attending games or feeling any sort of connection to the athletic department. A lot of them have also had some bad interactions with athletes in their classes that have also swayed their view of things.

I've had discussions in person and via email with a number of anti-sports professors at UMass and they are all a bunch of whiny idiots who simply want more money for their programs and think if they whine about the athletic department budget then maybe the school will give them some extra money to be quiet.

Oh, and they also all refuse to even come to a tailgate or game and try to understand why athletics are so important to a university community.

(03-16-2018 02:52 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-16-2018 02:33 PM)No Bull Wrote:  

(03-16-2018 02:31 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-16-2018 02:19 PM)No Bull Wrote:  poor overpaid faculty members... so sad.

All the layoffs (42 of them) are staff:

https://www.emich.edu/documents/layoff-p...n-list.pdf

Includes 13 secretaries, three janitors, two groundskeepers and one success coach.

Without the success coach, I figure they're pretty well ******.

LOL!!!

Maybe Ray Watts can hire a success coach!!! he needs one...

Sad thing is, Ray's bumbling covered up some real problems in the athletic department: it was heavily overstaffed for what it produced, with whole packs of 24-year-old "sports marketing" majors in skirts and middle-aged "fundraising" dudes in very nice suits. That department needed to be cleaned out with hand grenades and flamethrowers.

But that's true for most university departments. Start by firing every dean and VP with "associate" or "assistant" or "senior" in their title.

That's good. I am always pulling for UAB. When i lived in Atlanta I used to drive over to B-ham to watch the UCF games... and grab some good bar-b-que. Birmingham is a nice city.

P.S. Joe Webb was one hell of a good QB for UAB. There was virtually no way to shut him down...

(03-16-2018 02:53 PM)EmeryZach Wrote:  weaaaah weaaah weaaah said the professor. All these faculty members care about is themselves and their programs (which I understand), and they see athletics as an easy target. The most vocal of them grew up hating sports to begin with, so they are completely biased. The vocal ones usually didn't attend the university that they teach at and have no history of attending games or feeling any sort of connection to the athletic department. A lot of them have also had some bad interactions with athletes in their classes that have also swayed their view of things.

I've had discussions in person and via email with a number of anti-sports professors at UMass and they are all a bunch of whiny idiots who simply want more money for their programs and think if they whine about the athletic department budget then maybe the school will give them some extra money to be quiet.

Oh, and they also all refuse to even come to a tailgate or game and try to understand why athletics are so important to a university community.

Isn't UMass one of the worst cases of a bloated athletic budget?

(03-16-2018 03:08 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-16-2018 02:53 PM)EmeryZach Wrote:  weaaaah weaaah weaaah said the professor. All these faculty members care about is themselves and their programs (which I understand), and they see athletics as an easy target. The most vocal of them grew up hating sports to begin with, so they are completely biased. The vocal ones usually didn't attend the university that they teach at and have no history of attending games or feeling any sort of connection to the athletic department. A lot of them have also had some bad interactions with athletes in their classes that have also swayed their view of things.

I've had discussions in person and via email with a number of anti-sports professors at UMass and they are all a bunch of whiny idiots who simply want more money for their programs and think if they whine about the athletic department budget then maybe the school will give them some extra money to be quiet.

Oh, and they also all refuse to even come to a tailgate or game and try to understand why athletics are so important to a university community.

Isn't UMass one of the worst cases of a bloated athletic budget?

Per the NCAA reporting, they are. They have a top 5 student subsidy in all of D1.

The problem is that it is expensive to be a FBS indy. And the A-10 doesn't give them any slack on their requirements to spend on non-football conference sports.

The problem that most of our programs have is that they don't really recognize that they should actually sell their programs to those who are funding it.

Academia is out of touch of reality anyways so I don't feel sorry for them.