(04-18-2019 02:33 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote: Was browsing our rankings this afternoon on Massey for all sports...thought this may be a good place to share it. (obviously some are not finished for the year)
Men's Soccer: #10
Women's Lacrosse: #13
Softball: #16
Women's Basketball: #60
Women's Volleyball: #82
Women's Soccer: #95
Women's Tennis: #98
Football: #107 (in D1, not just FCS)
Men's Tennis: #116
Baseball: #154
Men's Basketball: #249
3 programs in the top 20 in all of D1 as a non-P5 is pretty amazing (not counting FCS FB). Really, for a non-P5, the fact that we only have two programs that ranked outside the top 120 is impressive, especially when the margin of error is pretty small for ranking highly with the scheduling for most of our teams being weaker thanks to most of our conference schedule. It also shows how truly terrible we are at MBB. Baseball is lagging also, but not nearly as bad. Considering there are nearly 70 P5 teams (who because of $$, exposure, name, brand, facilities, etc are hard to compete with), the fact that for most sports we rank either within that or just outside of that level is great. Is there room for improvement, obviously, but when you look at the actual rankings across the board, our athletics program is doing great and sets a very high standard...except for one glaring problem...cough...MBB...cough...
Those are interesting numbers and we know only FBS Football and Men's Basketball move the needle for the pecking order of NCAA athletics. For all the other sports, it is nice to have success and certainly shows a well rounded athletics program. It does not advance the overall department though. If golf is first or last in the CAA, it has zero impact on the athletics department. Not financially, not for prestige, not for brand awareness. I love golf, but I also know it is irrelevant in the grand scheme.
The concern for many is where is the sustainable revenue for JMU and Bourne has even elaborated on it in one of his monologues "money matters."
It would seem that JMU has put the cart before the horse and failed to acknowledge that THE money maker in NCAA athletics is Men's basketball = 75% of all NCAA revenue. The Dukes latest budget shows $51.7 in expenses, but only $2 million spent on Men's basketball. That ratio is so far out of line with any other school in the NCAA. Of the 61 NCAA programs that spend more on athletics than JMU, 52 are P5 programs and 9 are G5 programs. None of them come close to spending as little as JMU does on Men's basketball. Not even in the same area code. Just looking at the head basketball coach investment for the top 62 athletic budgets in the NCAA, the lowest paid is, of course, Louis Rowe at $270,000 annually. The next lowest is San Diego St. which is more than 3X that of JMU at $830,000.
This is what I consider not even trying to compete.
Why does this matter? The only performance based NCAA distributions JMU can tap into are from the Men's basketball tournament. Of the massive $1 billion the tournament generates each year, about $400 million is distributed back to participating teams based on performance and the payouts last 6 years for each tourney appearance along with additions for any wins. The CAA's conference sharing formula takes 50% of the distributions for an excellence fund that rewards the teams that actually win the games. That's right, Our Dear ol' Dukes tourney win in 2013 has a final payout this year.
There are some other formula distributions that the NCAA returns to its members from the remainder of the $1 billion basketball pot o'gold, but they have nothing to do with performance so it would seem that a wise athletics department would maximize its Men's Basketball program first, then worry about other programs second. Of course, we are smarter than everyone else and have decided to heavily fund non profit sports first and then perpetuate the myth that there isn't enough money to fund men's basketball in efforts to compete nationally. The annual allocation of $51.7 million should indeed be questioned.
A strong mid-major hoops team with consistent appearances in the tourney and mixing in some wins occasionally can reel in an additional $3 million annually in distributions not to mention the increased ticket revenue, licensing, etc. What other sport can offer a bonus like that? Until JMU shows that it has big-time million $ boosters, Men's basketball should be the default big-time booster.