(01-17-2019 09:13 AM)kreed5120 Wrote: (01-17-2019 08:13 AM)BruceMcF Wrote: (01-16-2019 09:07 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote: I live in a hockey mad state so I get the idea that hockey is cool and sexy and whatever. But adding hockey, especially men's hockey, seems like a poor financial and TitleX decision is today's day and age. There are many easier sports to add.
If you are in an area where people will turn out for a college hockey game, it can be a break even sport in operating costs (including Title IX offsets) ... similar to baseball in the best areas for college baseball.
It's the capital cost of the rink that is the killer for starting a program.
I know Miami spent ~$35 million on a ice rink 10 or so years back while Millett Hall hasn't been updated in what seems to be decades. Similarly, BGSU spent ~$30 mil on a basketball arena when their hockey rink was built in the 60s. I can't imagine it would be that much more costly to build an arena that could serve as both a basketball and hockey rink. Is the cost/man hours just too costly of switching back and forth between a hockey rink/basketball court that it's just more financially wise to keep two separate arenas?
I'm told that, in the 1970s, the State of Ohio had funded some campus sheets of ice, probably through the usual capital budget process. I'm not sure which ones. Seeing this, in 1978, BGSU began trying to persuade the state to retroactively award a $6 million grant for the BGSU Ice Arena, which the university had finished a few years earlier. (I think they got the money, too, although I'm not certain.)
As far as combination basketball/hockey facilities: Sure, that's possible, I guess. The thing is, though, if you have ice, people are going to want to skate. In Bowling Green, the BGSU hockey team is not the only tenant. The local high school, which has several state titles, has also used the ice, and I assume there are club teams, open skates, phys ed classes, and other stuff.
When Bowling Green was planning a new basketball arena, I don't think they ever seriously contemplated building a combination facility. Instead, donors have invested in improvements to what is now the Slater Family Ice Arena.
Another big issue in launching a program, as has been mentioned here, is Title IX. Kent State started a hockey program in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and had successfully talked themselves into the CCHA with Bowling Green, Miami, Western Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State, etc. Then, suddenly, they dropped the program. I think Title IX was a factor there, although others closer to that program may remember more.
Most of Division I college hockey is either P5 schools or Division II schools that play up a division in the sport. It is a heavy lift for G5 schools.