(03-09-2020 03:35 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-09-2020 03:12 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(03-09-2020 02:11 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-09-2020 02:01 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  Jeez, using the numbers available, if UCF charged the same student fee as James Madison, we'd have a $164m budget, which is about $3m larger than UF.

Looking at the USA Today data, ODU has an overall athletic transfer rate - student athletic fees and other school transfers- of 64%. That's in the same ballpark as other C-USA schools, such as UNCC (70%), North Texas (67%), Middle Tennessee (67%), UTEP (64%) and UAB (60%).

Of course, all of those subsidy %s are way too high and indicate programs that should not be in FBS or Division I. But ODU isn't extra- out of line as the student fee size seems to indicate.

So at what level of subsidy should you be allowed to to be in FBS and Div I. And should it be actual self generated revenue like ticket sales and donations or are you allowed to suck off the the teet of your conference and the successes of other teams? Asking for a friend.

What level of subsidy? Ultimately, athletic departments should be self-sustaining. But to allow for contingencies, then maybe a 5-year rolling average of 20% is a reasonable number. That shows an AD that is largely sustaining itself and not cannibalizing its university. Below that should be another division.

What would also help is much higher barriers to entry. Right now, the NCAA barriers to FBS are very low, and allow indefinite soaking of students and pathetic attendance requirements. E.g., the 15,000 number is very low, and schools are allowed to fake it by buying their own tickets. E.g., I saw a report that said that Miami of Ohio has been buying 10,000 tickets a year to get to the 15,000 threshold, meaning actual fans are only buying 5,000 tickets per game. That's absurd.

An attendance requirement of 30,000 with no gimmicks would go a long way towards ending the ego-driven push for FBS by bottom-scroungers.

As for "sucking off the teet or your conference" well that makes no sense, as a conference is a coalition of schools that want to be together so nobody is "sucking" in that sense.

Nobody in Division II or III is self-sustaining. But sports is seen as part of the student experience-for the participants, not just the spectators. However, those subsidies are manageable. Division I is a different story where 14 sports are required.