(01-20-2019 06:14 PM)ccd494 Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 06:08 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  The biggest snub was when Louisville was taken over them in November 2012. When Maryland took the B1G invite, UConn was rumored to take their spot until Clemson and Florida State started protesting another basketball addition to the ACC. At that time, the ACC was on shaky ground and a FSU BOT member stated he might be open to listen to what the Big XII had to offer. That’s when Louisville was invited. Had the two football schools not expressed their discomfort of adding another basketball school, UConn would be in the ACC instead of Louisville. Who knows, it would’ve been the end of the ACC as we know it.

I remember after Louisville was invited to the ACC, UConn fans on the BE board were in panic mode. I don’t know if the administration was in denial but the fans kind of realized their chances of getting a P5 invite were not good. The basketball schools splitting and taking the BE name with them was not a good sign either. Then UCF, Houston, Memphis and Temple being good in football along with Cincinnati and their football program going to the ground didn’t help their case either.

BC also had a block on UConn for a while. They may not anymore, but UConn sued BC when BC announced it was leaving the Big East for the ACC. For a while BC refused to play UConn in any sport, and took an "over my dead body" stance on UConn joining the ACC.

That's now ancient history, but BC's athletic department doesn't turn over much.

Pitt and Cuse were also part of that lawsuit BTW.

(01-20-2019 09:14 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 06:14 PM)ccd494 Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 06:08 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  The biggest snub was when Louisville was taken over them in November 2012. When Maryland took the B1G invite, UConn was rumored to take their spot until Clemson and Florida State started protesting another basketball addition to the ACC. At that time, the ACC was on shaky ground and a FSU BOT member stated he might be open to listen to what the Big XII had to offer. That’s when Louisville was invited. Had the two football schools not expressed their discomfort of adding another basketball school, UConn would be in the ACC instead of Louisville. Who knows, it would’ve been the end of the ACC as we know it.

I remember after Louisville was invited to the ACC, UConn fans on the BE board were in panic mode. I don’t know if the administration was in denial but the fans kind of realized their chances of getting a P5 invite were not good. The basketball schools splitting and taking the BE name with them was not a good sign either. Then UCF, Houston, Memphis and Temple being good in football along with Cincinnati and their football program going to the ground didn’t help their case either.

BC also had a block on UConn for a while. They may not anymore, but UConn sued BC when BC announced it was leaving the Big East for the ACC. For a while BC refused to play UConn in any sport, and took an "over my dead body" stance on UConn joining the ACC.

That's now ancient history, but BC's athletic department doesn't turn over much.

Pitt and Cuse were also part of that lawsuit BTW.

Incorrect. Syracuse has never been part of any lawsuit against the BE. Not in 2003 and not when SU left in 2012. SU refrained from being part of the lawsuit in 2003 because they were looking to go to the ACC, and when they didnt go it would look hypocritical to turn around and sue the the ACC. Im no attorney but to me it seems that that situation would have made a weak BE lawsuit against the ACC even weaker.

(01-21-2019 09:29 AM)cuseroc Wrote:  Incorrect. Syracuse has never been part of any lawsuit against the BE. Not in 2003 and not when SU left in 2012. SU refrained from being part of the lawsuit in 2003 because they were looking to go to the ACC, and when they didnt go it would look hypocritical to turn around and sue the the ACC. Im no attorney but to me it seems that that situation would have made a weak BE lawsuit against the ACC even weaker.

1) Yes, Syracuse was never part of the Big East lawsuit. The plaintiffs were UConn, WV, Pitt, Rutgers, and initially VT as well. They sued Miami, BC, and the ACC.

2) The lawsuit itself was weak but apparently not entirely without merit. In 2005 the ACC did settle it with a payout of $1m each to UConn, WV, Pitt, and Rutgers, plus a 9-game scheduling arrangement from 2008-2012.

3) While UConn was never the only school that sued the ACC, UConn was undeniably the "public face" of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in Connecticut state court by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, and Blumenthal was by media accounts the driving force behind it. So IMO it would not be surprising if the ACC holds the biggest grudge against UConn about that whole mess.

Also, Blumenthal was an ambitious politician, and his public statements about the lawsuit, which may have irked the ACC, could have boosted his standing with CONN voters.

Ironically, 2012 was a great year for Blumenthal even as it was a terrible year for UConn football. As the old Big East was collapsing and UConn was losing its AQ status, Blumenthal was being sworn in as a US Senator, a position he holds to this day. So i think it's fair to say that Blumenthal's fortunes have been considerably better than UConn football's fortunes over the past 15 years.

(01-21-2019 10:21 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-21-2019 09:29 AM)cuseroc Wrote:  Incorrect. Syracuse has never been part of any lawsuit against the BE. Not in 2003 and not when SU left in 2012. SU refrained from being part of the lawsuit in 2003 because they were looking to go to the ACC, and when they didnt go it would look hypocritical to turn around and sue the the ACC. Im no attorney but to me it seems that that situation would have made a weak BE lawsuit against the ACC even weaker.

1) Yes, Syracuse was never part of the Big East lawsuit. The plaintiffs were UConn, WV, Pitt, Rutgers, and initially VT as well. They sued Miami, BC, and the ACC.

2) The lawsuit itself was weak but apparently not entirely without merit. In 2005 the ACC did settle it with a payout of $1m each to UConn, WV, Pitt, and Rutgers, plus a 9-game scheduling arrangement from 2008-2012.

3) While UConn was never the only school that sued the ACC, UConn was undeniably the "public face" of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in Connecticut state court by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, and Blumenthal was by media accounts the driving force behind it. So IMO it would not be surprising if the ACC holds the biggest grudge against UConn about that whole mess.

Also, Blumenthal was an ambitious politician, and his public statements about the lawsuit, which may have irked the ACC, could have boosted his standing with CONN voters.

Ironically, 2012 was a great year for Blumenthal even as it was a terrible year for UConn football. As the old Big East was collapsing and UConn was losing its AQ status, Blumenthal was being sworn in as a US Senator, a position he holds to this day. So i think it's fair to say that Blumenthal's fortunes have been considerably better than UConn football's fortunes over the past 15 years.

I didnt hear about the $1 million settlement per school. I thought it was one dollar total and a scheduling agreement. I could be wrong though.

Edit: You are correct according to this article from the Uconn Star:

[i]HARTFORD, Conn. — The Big East and Atlantic Coast conferences have ended their lawsuits over school defections with a multimillion dollar agreement. The presidents of Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and West Virginia signed off on the agreement, which drops lawsuits between the conferences, their member schools and officers. Commissioners of both leagues also endorsed the deal.[/i]

This probably isn't much different from most other schools. They just need to start dropping sports. I personally would like to see school start lobbying to get Title IX revised.

Joking aside, I loved UConn's logo in the 90's and up until they just changed it.

Husky fans, which sport was this script used for:

(01-19-2019 03:55 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(01-19-2019 03:21 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-19-2019 12:02 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Sometimes in a science fiction movie, a damaged space ship will be drifting towards outer space and the crew has one chance left or else be lost forever, and it usually involves blowing out all the remaining fuel in one last burst to try and get to the planet or space station or whatever.

UConn is seemingly doing the same thing, they've fired off all their NOS and whatnot in one last desperate blast to reach their haven, which is the P5.

But unlike in the sci-fi movies, there is no haven on the horizon to aim for.

Yeah...it seems to me there are things UConn probably needs to do to adjust to the current G5 status. They sponsor 20 sports. Might need to pair that back a bit. Then, Im not sure why it costs them 80+ million to run a G5 program. It ridiculous that they are spending what they are for the results they are getting. Not sure where its all going. I see no reason why they cant get better results for much less. I see no reason why they cant be just as good as any school in the AAC for 60 million---which is closer to what the other high performing AAC schools are spending. That cuts the deficit by half right there. Add in a 10 million dollar TV deal and maybe you can cut almost three quarters of the deficit.

UConn. is in the northeast. It is more of a basketball school. The problem is that their fans really do not support their teams in the northeast. They have a Boston College like problem when fans do not buy football tickets.

BC attendance was fine this year. If you are winning, the fans will support you. You need to be winning as the band wagon effect is huge in the NE.

(01-20-2019 07:12 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 05:21 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 08:44 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 03:22 AM)Wedge Wrote:  I question whether the UConn budget numbers reported in the article quoted in the OP are accurate. Something doesn't add up.

From the article:

Quote:In an NCAA financial statement, UConn reported that total generated revenue from sports last year totaled $40.4 million, while expenses came in at $80.9 million.

Quote:The statement shows the football program had an $8.7 million deficit; men’s basketball lost about $5 million; and women’s basketball, a perennial power, lost just over $3 million.

Football is the school’s most expensive program, with operating expenses totaling just over $15.7 million.

That says athletics expenditures were $80.9 million total in the annual budget, with only $15.7 million of it for football.

Which would mean that dropping football and reducing no other spending would leave UConn with a $65.2 million annual athletic budget.

That can't possibly be true. Per the USA Today numbers, there is only one no-football D-I athletic department (VCU, at $33.6 million) that spends even half that much annually.

I suspect that the explanation is that most if not all football playing schools in D-I (not just UConn) are under-reporting the amounts they spend on football, and that in these reports, they are hiding football-related expenses under the category of expenses "Not Allocated by Gender/Sport". I'll further speculate that this means, at most of these schools, football expenditures are about twice the amount reported as football expenditures on the report to the federal Department of Education, maybe even more. (You can look up those reports here: https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/search )

You're right. Nothing adds up here. DI football programs cost a lot more than $15 million a year to operate.

Also, I wonder if there are non-recurring expenses included in this $40 million deficit (like buying out fired coaches and capital costs).

But regardless of what the real numbers are (and I have never found a school that reported their real numbers) the plain fact is that whatever UConn is doing athletically, it isn't working. It's dangerous when a school starts to believe that, for whatever reason, they SHOULD be playing all sports at the top level even though their long history should tell them otherwise.

The funny thing is, I doubt that most schools even HAVE real numbers.

At the last university I worked for (a large public research school), my college did not have a written budget. Why? After some investigation, I think it's for 2 reasons: 1) There's a LOT of different sources of revenue and a LOT of rules about what each source can be used for, and 2) They were petrified of FOIA requests.

It was less painful to pool revenue sources (illegally if necessary), spend money where you think it needs to be spent, and hope you end up allright in the end.

I also think the way each school looks at allocating shared costs is a factor as well. My guess is there are fixed costs for the overall university that are partially allocated to the athletic department. In reality, those costs add to the expense report of the athletic department---but they would exist even if the entire athletic department was closed and shuttered. The only difference is every unit of the university would have slightly higher allocated costs.

Absolutely.

Some units (like admissions or security) get a subsidy because they have no revenue. So they can claim to be a "shared service."

The problem is that athletics (much like traditional liberal arts) is just as critical to the university's success, but they also have a small revenue stream. So people get this idea that athletics should not spend more than their revenue. But that's ridiculous because athletics (and liberal arts) loses money at almost every school.

So the units that make money (med school, management, engineering, agriculture, hard sciences) end up footing the bill for both the "shared services" and the units that have some revenue but can't possibly be expected to perform their function without a subsidy.

The accountants have to choose how to best reflect that subsidy, and the choices usually depend on the politics within each school. Should they figure out a way to represent the value added by liberal arts & athletics and assign the cost appropriately within shared services? Or should they just report the subsidy in cash flow terms?

(01-20-2019 05:21 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 08:44 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-20-2019 03:22 AM)Wedge Wrote:  I question whether the UConn budget numbers reported in the article quoted in the OP are accurate. Something doesn't add up.

From the article:

Quote:In an NCAA financial statement, UConn reported that total generated revenue from sports last year totaled $40.4 million, while expenses came in at $80.9 million.

Quote:The statement shows the football program had an $8.7 million deficit; men’s basketball lost about $5 million; and women’s basketball, a perennial power, lost just over $3 million.

Football is the school’s most expensive program, with operating expenses totaling just over $15.7 million.

That says athletics expenditures were $80.9 million total in the annual budget, with only $15.7 million of it for football.

Which would mean that dropping football and reducing no other spending would leave UConn with a $65.2 million annual athletic budget.

That can't possibly be true. Per the USA Today numbers, there is only one no-football D-I athletic department (VCU, at $33.6 million) that spends even half that much annually.

I suspect that the explanation is that most if not all football playing schools in D-I (not just UConn) are under-reporting the amounts they spend on football, and that in these reports, they are hiding football-related expenses under the category of expenses "Not Allocated by Gender/Sport". I'll further speculate that this means, at most of these schools, football expenditures are about twice the amount reported as football expenditures on the report to the federal Department of Education, maybe even more. (You can look up those reports here: https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/search )

You're right. Nothing adds up here. DI football programs cost a lot more than $15 million a year to operate.

Also, I wonder if there are non-recurring expenses included in this $40 million deficit (like buying out fired coaches and capital costs).

But regardless of what the real numbers are (and I have never found a school that reported their real numbers) the plain fact is that whatever UConn is doing athletically, it isn't working. It's dangerous when a school starts to believe that, for whatever reason, they SHOULD be playing all sports at the top level even though their long history should tell them otherwise.

The funny thing is, I doubt that most schools even HAVE real numbers.

At the last university I worked for (a large public research school), my college did not have a written budget. Why? After some investigation, I think it's for 2 reasons: 1) There's a LOT of different sources of revenue and a LOT of rules about what each source can be used for, and 2) They were petrified of FOIA requests.

It was less painful to pool revenue sources (illegally if necessary), spend money where you think it needs to be spent, and hope you end up allright in the end.

If a bunch of people pour water into a common bowl, and later someone draws a glass of water out of that bowl, whose water did they draw? It's largely the same with money. With few exceptions, you can't tell where the money came from when you spend it.

NCAA reporting requirements are (and are meant to be) pretty vague. Each school is permitted to disguise as little or as much of their information as suits their particular internal and external political needs. Even gross revenue and expenditure numbers are suspect.

UConn and Blumenthal approached the lawsuit in a vicious, NE Gangster manner. Their request for depositions of middle level people in the ACC office was egregious for an unwinnable lawsuit. The attempt was create the specter of personal embarrassment for some.


Someone said it was ancient history - it is not. Moreover, while I can't recall the details, the ACC had legal reasons not to be operating in the State of Connecticut that went beyond Blumenthal.


UConn never had the votes to enter the ACC. The football schools didn't want to take the financial hit of unappealing game in Hartford every two years in a region with no recruiting base. VT, NCSU, GT, Clemson, FSU, and Miami had no compelling football reason to vote for UConn. BC has an existential reason to oppose UConn. That's 7 no votes.

The effects of the lawsuit is the second biggest urban myth behind De Filliipio's supposed blackball.

Neither played much of a factor in the ACC selecting Louisville over UConn. It was then and still remains a business decision. Football pays the bills and UConn is a football non-entity.


If UNC and Duke couldn't block expansion together back in 2003 I want someone to explain how BC could do it a decade later. They couldn't. Flipper mouthing off was the equivalent of the third string punter who didn't even make the travel squad trying to impress the ladies at a bar with his championship ring.

If the lawsuit mattered so much then why were people who were directly involved in it, like ACC officials, pushing so hard for UConn to replace Maryland?

(01-21-2019 01:17 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Someone said it was ancient history - it is not.

Pitt's former chancellor, also the school's former law school dean, spearheaded the 2003 law suit and led the strategy and initiation of it. It was filed in Connecticut for strategic reasons because Connecticut had the best legal standing for reasons I won't detail now, but essential had to do with guarantees and financial commitments of that state to UConn moving to D1A. He was still the chancellor of Pitt when it was invited into the ACC in 2011. The 2003 lawsuit and accompanying rhetoric was clearly not a consideration by then.

(01-21-2019 10:55 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  This probably isn't much different from most other schools. They just need to start dropping sports. I personally would like to see school start lobbying to get Title IX revised.

Title IX is one issue. Giving schools and conferences more freedom to select what level/division they can field their sports would be greatly beneficial, imo. It's probably something where Title IX and the NCAA can change.

I know there are schools that will make the women's and non-revenue sports pound sand...I doubt that's everywhere, even in the P5/6.

(01-21-2019 03:15 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(01-21-2019 10:55 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  This probably isn't much different from most other schools. They just need to start dropping sports. I personally would like to see school start lobbying to get Title IX revised.

Title IX is one issue. Giving schools and conferences more freedom to select what level/division they can field their sports would be greatly beneficial, imo. It's probably something where Title IX and the NCAA can change.

I know there are schools that will make the women's and non-revenue sports pound sand...I doubt that's everywhere, even in the P5/6.

Title 9 is a convenient boogeyman, but it's really not like the women's swimming and diving team is bleeding the department dry. Using the 2014 numbers published in the report the school authored (which shouldn't be that far off today's numbers for non-revenue sports), the 11 non-basketball women's sports ran a budget of about $10.8 million combined, including the "cost" of scholarships. Sure, it'd be convenient to have more flexibility in terms of funding the department, but at a little under a million a program (and more like a half-million a program in actual expenditures when deducting the "cost" of not charging the girls tuition) the lower-profile women's sports are pretty reasonable in the bills they ring up.

(01-21-2019 03:41 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(01-21-2019 03:15 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(01-21-2019 10:55 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  This probably isn't much different from most other schools. They just need to start dropping sports. I personally would like to see school start lobbying to get Title IX revised.

Title IX is one issue. Giving schools and conferences more freedom to select what level/division they can field their sports would be greatly beneficial, imo. It's probably something where Title IX and the NCAA can change.

I know there are schools that will make the women's and non-revenue sports pound sand...I doubt that's everywhere, even in the P5/6.

Title 9 is a convenient boogeyman, but it's really not like the women's swimming and diving team is bleeding the department dry. Using the 2014 numbers published in the report the school authored (which shouldn't be that far off today's numbers for non-revenue sports), the 11 non-basketball women's sports ran a budget of about $10.8 million combined, including the "cost" of scholarships. Sure, it'd be convenient to have more flexibility in terms of funding the department, but at a little under a million a program (and more like a half-million a program in actual expenditures when deducting the "cost" of not charging the girls tuition) the lower-profile women's sports are pretty reasonable in the bills they ring up.

Yeah, totally this. There aren't a lot of resources committed to these programs to begin with compared to football, basketball and other sports. What they "do" to any budget? It's not an anchor.

Of course football and basketball carry with it high administrative costs for staffing, facilities, and the general operational costs. Ice hockey, baseball/softball, swimming/diving, and gymnastics are real drains because of the facilities, equipment upkeep, roster size, travel, and other specialized budget items that can squash a ledger.

The real burden pretty much is football and basketball. Maybe basketball especially since its overall profit return has not been what it once was, as staffing has dramatically swelled the budgets. And the issue is that they can, or only now do pay for themselves (or not), but can't prop up the rest of the department.

Does anyone know if Ollie's $10 million buy-out is part of that breakdown? Or is it technically still in limbo because Ollie is challenging that in court?

From what I have read, Ollie has a strong case of recouping a majority of his contract. I wonder if UConn would settle just to make it go away (although, by the looks of the finances, it genuinely looks like every penny matters).

(01-21-2019 10:55 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  This probably isn't much different from most other schools. They just need to start dropping sports. I personally would like to see school start lobbying to get Title IX revised.

So these schools don't have to sponsor womens sports? Yeah thats cool

(01-21-2019 01:17 PM)Statefan Wrote:  UConn and Blumenthal approached the lawsuit in a vicious, NE Gangster manner. Their request for depositions of middle level people in the ACC office was egregious for an unwinnable lawsuit. The attempt was create the specter of personal embarrassment for some.


Someone said it was ancient history - it is not. Moreover, while I can't recall the details, the ACC had legal reasons not to be operating in the State of Connecticut that went beyond Blumenthal.


UConn never had the votes to enter the ACC. The football schools didn't want to take the financial hit of unappealing game in Hartford every two years in a region with no recruiting base. VT, NCSU, GT, Clemson, FSU, and Miami had no compelling football reason to vote for UConn. BC has an existential reason to oppose UConn. That's 7 no votes.

Don't act like the victims here, the Big East offered a scheduling agreement and the ACC said no thanks but we'll just raid you for almost all of your FB members. The ACC had it in for the Big East from the time Ewing stepped foot onto campus at Georgetown and put the Big East on the map. Guys like him, Mullin, Pearl and Pickney were choosing to stay local in the north east instead of going down south put a bullseye on the conferences back by the mint julip on the veranda crowd.

(01-21-2019 03:15 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(01-21-2019 10:55 AM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  This probably isn't much different from most other schools. They just need to start dropping sports. I personally would like to see school start lobbying to get Title IX revised.

Title IX is one issue. Giving schools and conferences more freedom to select what level/division they can field their sports would be greatly beneficial, imo. It's probably something where Title IX and the NCAA can change.

I know there are schools that will make the women's and non-revenue sports pound sand...I doubt that's everywhere, even in the P5/6.

Well thats not fair when pretty much all womens sports are at a D3 level and no scholarships are provided while schools build huge facilities with all the bells and whistles for the football team. Kind of why title 9 exists in the first place.