(05-11-2020 06:03 PM)WMSportsBlog Wrote:  Student fees comprise a massive amount of the W&M Athletics Department's budget. With students at-risk for a Fall return...and potential student fee refunds thereafter...what could this mean for W&M Athletics?

We dive into this burning question in our most recent article below. What do you think?


Article: https://wmsportsblog.com/2020/05/11/covi...athletics/

In the near term, charging a fee for an activity that may not be available, or has risks for those attending/participating, won't be viewed favorably.

Longer term, the component parts to the college experience are changing. Activities that previously were part of the experience may change/disappear. Student interests are changing (e.g. gaming/esports).

I'm a football fan; if I retire to Williamsburg, I'll buy season tickets. I'm also cognizant that the allure of attending outdoor costume/cocktail parties where young men risk brain damage in an athletic competition may diminish in the future.

Fee compression happens to numerous enterprises. The in-residence college experience is one that may be ripe for this to occur. Funding will have to come from elsewhere.

Under these circumstances, donors become more important, especially below the Power 5 level. The challenge is to capture the imagination of alums, and going forward, non-alums with a vision anyone would be excited and proud to fund.

The athletic vision that Wm & Mary presently has on the books -- to dominate the Ottoman Empire of college athletic conferences (aka the CAA) -- seems unlikely to produce a deluge of donor funding. It actually burdens the athletic department with stewardship issues -- how to rationalize and defend travel costs in a period demanding austerity.

Media reporting indicates that conference commissioners and ADs are struggling with the way ahead. The concern is that they mistake rearranging deck chairs for boldness. Revenues were at risk before the pandemic. Leaders of member institutions need to recognize that conference commissioners have a vested interest in saving the existing flawed conferences, even if these conferences will continue to take on water intra- and post-pandemic.

The academic success of Tribe athletes noted elsewhere in this thread provides the point of departure for a more captivating vision for coming decades that will attract donors, be seductive to like minded institutions wishing to reorganize, embarrass the NCAA into allowing it to proceed, and reinvigorate the College's revolutionary legacy.

The College has the talent and intellectual capital to pull this off, but the leadership has to be willing to fight publicly for change to the present structural and regulatory box where it's being held captive by the NCAA and Power 5. The link below has the most recent example of how the goalposts continue to be moved to the detriment of schools like Wm & Mary.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...-selection

That's what I think.