The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Cleveland.com had a story about Ohio schools using student fees to fund Athletics (except for OSU who doesn’t need to for obvious reasons). In today’s political climate on the cost of college it could start a crusade to end the practice. Youngstown St. got some kudos for cutting costs by dropping down a notch in football reducing costs. It sounded like some legislative efforts might be starting.

One thing surprising to me was Kent St. ticket revenue was $560,000 (going by memory) and Akron had $1,400,000.

Just saw they drew about 30,000 more fans for football so at $25 per ticket that could explain it. Is $25 a good average price? I haven’t gone to either Kent or Akron for years so I have no idea.

We only had 5 home games this year and the last two home games were the last two weeks of the season Nov 15th (a Thursday) and Nov 23rd (Black Friday) netted 5387 and 6125. Good luck getting people to go to those games especially when we're sitting at 2 wins. The first three home games our average attendance was 18026. During the year we went to the MAC championship our average attendance was 17880.2. So we were doing pretty well. Then those last two games added together barely reached half our average attendance. The good news is next year we're only scheduled for one mid-week home game.

I'm guessing that $840,000 difference was cut into significantly by the extra money we made on money games. It's easy to understand scheduling the money games because that's guaranteed money. If you tried to have an additional early season home game instead of an extra money game you might be able to drum up more fan support but it's no guarantee. The best path for football making money is schedule 3 money games, win at least 1 of them, don't have multiple mid-week home games, and be good enough to keep fans interested later in the season.

The best path for football to make money is to drop down a division. This will happen in the next 10 years. Can you imagine if we were in a basketball conference where we could get 2-4 teams in the Big Dance. The enthusiasm and national recognition ?

Unless you are in the upper ranks of power conference football programs, you are not making money on football. Hence the need for student and university subsidies to help pay for it. I don’t know if you lose less in a lower division or not, but FCS schools don’t make money on football.

(03-17-2019 04:08 PM)axeme Wrote:  Unless you are in the upper ranks of power conference football programs, you are not making money on football. Hence the need for student and university subsidies to help pay for it. I don’t know if you lose less in a lower division or not, but FCS schools don’t make money on football.

You are right. You dont make money but you save money. Fewer scholarships, fewer coaches. PLUS you could drop a non revenue producing female team.

It would also drop the money from "pay games" from the $1.9 million Kent will be paid for playing Auburn down to $500k that YSU got paid to play West Virginia. This year alone Kent is getting the $1.9mil (Auburn) + $1.5mil (ASU) + whatever Wisconsin is paying. I would assume that the Wisconsin game would be in the $1 million range so that would put the total near $4.5 million for playing 3 games. Add in the $800k from tickets that makes it over $5 million which is 1/6 of the total athletic department expenses. Seems like football is pulling its weight.

(03-17-2019 09:07 PM)ilovegymnast Wrote:  Seems like football is pulling its weight.

Lets ask the players how they feel about that. I’m sure they love getting their heads kicked in while playing in those big fancy stadiums. I’m sure they love getting five home games a year.

If they got recruited to a school in the B1G, SEC or ACC they would play those teams every week. I would hope that the players on any team would welcome and want the challenge. You think they would rather play Oberlien or Hiram?

I just don’t think they appreciate being the sacrificial lambs for the department.

I don’t think the choice is to play either Auburn and Penn St. or Oberlin and Hiram. How about mid-pack AAC or MWC teams home and home? CUSA team? Or if you have to play power conference teams, how about the Indiana’s and the Rutgers of the world instead of the steady diet of top 20 teams?

(03-17-2019 03:39 PM)KSU93 Wrote:  The best path for football to make money is to drop down a division. This will happen in the next 10 years. Can you imagine if we were in a basketball conference where we could get 2-4 teams in the Big Dance. The enthusiasm and national recognition ?

Dropping down a division in football does not automatically equate to an increased focus on basketball and/or turn us into Gonzaga overnight. BTW, the little football success we’ve had over the years generated more enthusiasm and national recognition than our basketball success. The huge run we had years ago came and went and is now just a fading memory with little to no effect on recruits.

(03-17-2019 11:39 PM)ilovegymnast Wrote:  If they got recruited to a school in the B1G, SEC or ACC they would play those teams every week. I would hope that the players on any team would welcome and want the challenge. You think they would rather play Oberlien or Hiram?

Great point, and I think the kids use this as motivation...”if I can’t play at State U. when we play them I want to show them”. I think a revenue game or two a year could even be a recruiting pitch, but I think 3 a year that are spread around to the places Joel N. wants to take his vacations and play the role of big shot are way too much every year.

Sorry I made the comment about Youngstown St. as my intent was not to turn this into another discussion about D1 football. It was just an aside. The main point of the article was why should students be forced to pay athletic fees. Imagine if the legislature decided state universities could not make them mandatory. I doubt very many students would pay them if they were optional. Except for Ohio St. type schools that would mean a huge change in Athletic Departments (if they even existed anymore). Measures like this are also tied into reducing funding of new buildings, cutting back on personal, etc. With all the talk about the high costs of college I don’t think mandatory sports fees would be very popular if it became a topic of political discussion.

The state of Virginia a few years back passed legislation that limits how much public schools can subsidize their athletic programs. I wouldn't be opposed to Ohio passing something similar.

https://pilotonline.com/sports/article_3...a5f01.html

Eliminating that portion of student fees that goes to athletics, or even making them voluntary, would end college sports, most especially football, as we now know them. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

(03-18-2019 06:35 AM)Polish Hammer Wrote:  

(03-17-2019 03:39 PM)KSU93 Wrote:  The best path for football to make money is to drop down a division. This will happen in the next 10 years. Can you imagine if we were in a basketball conference where we could get 2-4 teams in the Big Dance. The enthusiasm and national recognition ?

Dropping down a division in football does not automatically equate to an increased focus on basketball and/or turn us into Gonzaga overnight. BTW, the little football success we’ve had over the years generated more enthusiasm and national recognition than our basketball success. The huge run we had years ago came and went and is now just a fading memory with little to no effect on recruits.

You couldn’t be more wrong. Look at our run in 2002. Talk to administrators. The numbers of students wanting to apply to KSU doubled. That led to us being more selective in who we allowed in. We created academic standards. Those students graduated since they were a higher caliber of student. With a higher graduation percentage we received more money from the state because they base a portion of their money on that rate. With more money academic programs expanded. Dorms were built to accommodate the new students. We have expanded ever since that year of basketball. So sir, that run in 2002 propelled the university. Quite the opposite of close to 50 years of embarrassment in the football program.

(03-17-2019 09:07 PM)ilovegymnast Wrote:  It would also drop the money from "pay games" from the $1.9 million Kent will be paid for playing Auburn down to $500k that YSU got paid to play West Virginia. This year alone Kent is getting the $1.9mil (Auburn) + $1.5mil (ASU) + whatever Wisconsin is paying. I would assume that the Wisconsin game would be in the $1 million range so that would put the total near $4.5 million for playing 3 games. Add in the $800k from tickets that makes it over $5 million which is 1/6 of the total athletic department expenses. Seems like football is pulling its weight.

We have 1-2 womens programs that we must fund do to title 9. Drop football a level thus decreasing men’s scholarships and we can stop 1-2 other programs that do not bring in any revenue.

(03-18-2019 07:09 AM)burden Wrote:  Sorry I made the comment about Youngstown St. as my intent was not to turn this into another discussion about D1 football. It was just an aside. The main point of the article was why should students be forced to pay athletic fees. Imagine if the legislature decided state universities could not make them mandatory. I doubt very many students would pay them if they were optional. Except for Ohio St. type schools that would mean a huge change in Athletic Departments (if they even existed anymore). Measures like this are also tied into reducing funding of new buildings, cutting back on personal, etc. With all the talk about the high costs of college I don’t think mandatory sports fees would be very popular if it became a topic of political discussion.

Gotta be more careful. It doesn't take a lot to spark the powder keg of "drop D1 football" on here and once you do, there's no stopping it.

Any idea how much each student is paying per semester? I had friends that complained about it when I was in school. I was thinking it wasn't a huge amount though. One thing worth noting is Kent students get into games for free which isn't true of OSU. Not that that makes a difference to students that don't care about sports.

(03-18-2019 11:38 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 07:09 AM)burden Wrote:  Sorry I made the comment about Youngstown St. as my intent was not to turn this into another discussion about D1 football. It was just an aside. The main point of the article was why should students be forced to pay athletic fees. Imagine if the legislature decided state universities could not make them mandatory. I doubt very many students would pay them if they were optional. Except for Ohio St. type schools that would mean a huge change in Athletic Departments (if they even existed anymore). Measures like this are also tied into reducing funding of new buildings, cutting back on personal, etc. With all the talk about the high costs of college I don’t think mandatory sports fees would be very popular if it became a topic of political discussion.

Gotta be more careful. It doesn't take a lot to spark the powder keg of "drop D1 football" on here and once you do, there's no stopping it.

Any idea how much each student is paying per semester? I had friends that complained about it when I was in school. I was thinking it wasn't a huge amount though. One thing worth noting is Kent students get into games for free which isn't true of OSU. Not that that makes a difference to students that don't care about sports.