FC/OT: De-investing in non-revenue sports? OSU doing it…
- Thread starter Midnighter
- Start date
If tOSU is going to be the model for college sport, let's get out of it altogether
I predict we do it too. Seems like this is a return to a sort of normal; the sports don’t make money - put the kids on scholarship and quit flying them all over the country. Quit paying coaches hundreds of thousands of dollars. Football is special and should be - if PSU had a Clemson athletics model we’d have more money than OSU for football.
We will do just the opposite. Penn State will add sports.
I realize that the horse left the barn long ago, but I liked college sport when it was college sport. If I want to watch pro football, I'll watch the NFL.
I like it. Way too many wasteful non-competitive sports at PSU right now. Get rid the ones that can't compete for national championships or earn revenue. The SEC has been doing this for years
Clemson - 19 Varsity sports.
Penn State - 31 Varsity sports.
Ohio State - 36 Varsity sports.
No secret where the money comes from in the south; they dont make more - they spend less.
It's happening like it or not. Where do you think the money is coming from?
$700 million for a stadium
$XX million for other facilities
$25 million / yr to pay players
Basketball, volleyball, baseball, hockey, and lacrosse are probably safe.
IMO wrestling is safe at PSU unless the whole sport fails because too many other schools drop it.
Fencing, track, swimming, tennis, gymnastics, and even golf could be at risk. Maybe they remain as club sports with regional opponents but it's too expensive to have these non revenue programs travelling all across the country.
I really think the non-revs, particularly the “country club” sports, need to self-fund. Swimming, golf and tennis have to be drawing from the upper 1/3 of the income distribution of student families on average. I know the aggregate dollar total isn’t high, but on principle alone. Add in fencing. It’s a bit of a game here in the north burbs of Chicago knowing that fencing provides a lower-competition way to get a scholly, and these people aren’t exactly starving. And what does the average family pay for gymnastics clubs before those athletes arrive here?
I’m not sure I want to make fencers mad. Just saying…in practical terms.
Be thankful PSU doesn't have a rifle team.
The B1G is the premiere conference for wrestling and PSU sits in the middle of the most fertile HS wrestling recruiting grounds in the country. I think it is completely safe.
It is long past time that a serious debate take place about the future of PSU sports.
Note these commitments -
$1 billion plus in principal and interest payments on a $700 million stadium expansion.
$10 million plus a year (and growing) in commitments to pay a head football coach and his staff till the end of this decade.
I read $25 million a year for players ( who doubts that number will be growing rapidly) and their compensation.
Ongoing millions of $ for administrative costs, practice facilities, training facilities.
All this by a not-for-profit whose primary mission is educating students?!?!
Now we see discussion that would downsize or eliminate athletic teams in non-revenue sports.
Of course, this is all insane.
I won’t see it, but I would love to hear a Penn State President and faculty and alumni leadership call this ego driven BS what it is and set a new course for the University.
My dream -
1. Announce the program will be leaving the B1G to pursue a new athletics structure
2. Approach Lehigh, the Ivys, Syracuse, Pitt, Temple, Rutgers, NYU, Fordham, Boston College, Maryland, Villanova, UConn, UVA, West Virginia and other schools and seek their support of a revised college football structure.
3. Immediately cease the construction of all football facilities.
4. Negotiate separation agreements with existing staff, or eat their deals and cut losses.
5. Target a future with a deemphasis of the professional nature of college football. If that means something akin to D3 or less, so be it.
Note these commitments -
$1 billion plus in principal and interest payments on a $700 million stadium expansion.
$10 million plus a year (and growing) in commitments to pay a head football coach and his staff till the end of this decade.
I read $25 million a year for players ( who doubts that number will be growing rapidly) and their compensation.
Ongoing millions of $ for administrative costs, practice facilities, training facilities.
All this by a not-for-profit whose primary mission is educating students?!?!
Now we see discussion that would downsize or eliminate athletic teams in non-revenue sports.
Of course, this is all insane.
I won’t see it, but I would love to hear a Penn State President and faculty and alumni leadership call this ego driven BS what it is and set a new course for the University.
My dream -
1. Announce the program will be leaving the B1G to pursue a new athletics structure
2. Approach Lehigh, the Ivys, Syracuse, Pitt, Temple, Rutgers, NYU, Fordham, Boston College, Maryland, Villanova, UConn, UVA, West Virginia and other schools and seek their support of a revised college football structure.
3. Immediately cease the construction of all football facilities.
4. Negotiate separation agreements with existing staff, or eat their deals and cut losses.
5. Target a future with a deemphasis of the professional nature of college football. If that means something akin to D3 or less, so be it.
osu’s lack of expense.
At which point I totally divest myself of all college sports, SCREW YOU!!!!!
"De-invest" but still have scholarships and compete at D1?? Sounds like maybe some half scholarships and no investment in facilities other than to keep them minimally usable. Having all those sports programs has marketing value even if spending on them is cut.
Good luck determining which sports can't compete for a championship. Remember that just because a team hasn't before, doesn't mean they can't.
Penn State/NLWC leads the nation in funding/donations. I think the program is on pretty steady ground.
So, you are suggesting euthanasia of the entire athletic department. No way anything remotely close to that plan happens.
The ones that fit the "keep" criteria... Wrestling, M & W Volleyball, Football, M & W B-Ball, M & W Lacrosse, Field Hockey, M & W Soccer, Fencing. The rest are all up for discussion. Golf has not been competitive, ever. No history of success and too far north. Can the softball team win nationally? Baseball or either tennis team win nationally? Again no. Woman's gymnastics cannot compete with the schools that really go all in with it like the SEC/P10. The men's gymnasts seem to hold their own for the most part. Swimming? Not a sport that is ever gonna be a national champion here. Wrong environment and many better options for swimmers elsewhere. Track has had individual success but let's be honest the P10 and SEC schools are so far ahead on track/field and some school from the northeast isn't really gonna compete for team titles now or in the future. Cross country same thing. BTW... Why do we even have a women's rowing team? Is this a Title IX thing to balance the football scholarship counts?
You retain both lacrosse programs + field hockey but you put the coaches on a Cael Sanderson results oriented contract. You have more than enough regional recruiting talent to dominate and win NCAA championships. Get it done or we replace you with someone that can. Find the Cael Sanderson of each sport.
No admin has the guts to cut the athletic programs down but the argument is there to do it. Give CJF more money and all the facilities upgrades he demands and cut the fat. That is the only thing keeping him from being in the same class as these other coaches
And if it were in jeopardy of being cut, the same donors that spent to get Cael Sanderson hired would reach into their pockets again, I’m sure. You don’t cut a team that won the last 11 out of 13 National Championships without some major pushback. The NLWC is also the top Olympic training center in the country for wrestling and they have plenty of funding.
What are your sources on the wrestling revenue? One way to increase it, even though I hate the idea, would be to have the home meets at BJC to sell more tickets. I absolutely hate that idea.
Let's see. "Boys" (sic) basketball made $385k. "Boys" (sic) lax lost a mil and a quarter. Guess you couldn't find those numbers in Celebrtity Net Worth.
The wrestling program loses money every year. Where are those donors? Guess the AD never asked. Helluva way to run a department.
What is the profit or loss on ice hockey?
The biggest drain on just about every universities athletic program…women’s basketball…-$4.5 million at PSU.
The biggest drain on just about every universities athletic program…women’s basketball…-$4.5 million at PSU.
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Men's hockey lost $300k. Women's lost $1.35mm.
Embedded in the men's number is $1.7mm of endowment income (roughly $300k more than the football program's). Women's earned a paltry $70k.
I’ll admit I didn’t read the full thread.
My son had an internship at an SEC school this summer. One of the first weeks he’s there in June, he calls and we talk.
He said talk around the office - he was doing academic advising for athletes - was in 5 - 7 years schools will basically be football and men’s basketball. In the big ten you might see wrestling.
All other sports cut.
My son had an internship at an SEC school this summer. One of the first weeks he’s there in June, he calls and we talk.
He said talk around the office - he was doing academic advising for athletes - was in 5 - 7 years schools will basically be football and men’s basketball. In the big ten you might see wrestling.
All other sports cut.
It will be interesting. Not sure if they get cut but could see the Power conferences just having football and basketball. Hard to justify sending the soccer, field hockey, baseball etc to USC, Oregon etc. Should just form a non football/basketball conference on a regional basis...Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, Monmouth, Temple, Binghamton etc. And you don't even need scholarships.
This might annoy you, but Purdue and O$U are the best administered universities in the B1G
Do we need to be in the b10 for non revenue sports? It makes zero sense to fly across country and play any sport in empty multi million dollar stadiums. Soccer plays in front of 200 fans. Total waste. Play local teams within driving distance and the turnout would probably go up and cost goes way down. Pitt, wvu, Maryland, temple, Rutgers, Syracuse, nova, lASlle, Penn, bc, Lafayette, Lehigh, and bucknell
Men's Basketball, which doesn't make much, is nevertheless - far and away - the second biggest money producer (net) at PSU (as is the case at nearly every other P5 school). Obviously.
The biggest revenue losers?
Womens Basketball, a bit over $4 Million
None of the others come close to that level of loss, and are individually not more than rounding error wrt the entire departmental budget (ie: you would have to drop at least a fistful of them to make any dent into any serious shortfalls).
Most of the biggest losers are on the Womens' side:
Field Hockey ~$2 Million
Soccer ~$1.6 Million
Volleyball ~$1.5 Million
Hockey ~$1.4 Million
Biggest losers on the Men's side are:
Baseball at ~$1.4 Million
and
Lacross at ~$1.2 Million
If I missed one, or transcribed one in error, mea culpa.
Keep in mind, those are all "ledger sheet" based losses. Net-net University-wide cash flows are a bit different (and much more nebulous).
A lot of that will change, obviously, when each school starts to look at how to adapt to the new NCAA regulations. Stay tuned.
Knowing all that, where would one turn to "balance a budget"?
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Turning the page:
The good news?
There are prudent ways to create a more fiscally sound, sustainable, and sensible ICA budget (which could contain dropping some sports - or not dropping any sports). No doubt. Those who do it the soonest and the smartest will benefit.
- PSU, for example, could - relatively easily - create a much, much more fiscally sound ICA budget - without dropping any of the existing sports.
ie: Fiscally sound and sustainable does not HAVE TO include dropping sports.
- One might choose to drop sports, for any number of reasons, but it is not an absolute necessity to achieve fiscal soundness (it might be necessary and prudent to alter HOW some of those sports are managed - but not necessary to cut them outright).
- At the same time, simply dropping a few "low level" sports - without instituting fiscally sound overall policies, is whistling through the graveyard. No doubt. It is a very lazy (both in terms of effort and intellect) "solution".
Many - probably most - large ICA departments have ignored the fiscal realities, and any concern over fiscal soundness - for decades.
Largely because they could - thanks to the piles of "free money" from large football programs. Most P5 level collegiate athletic programs are run as incredibly fat and lazily run business. has been that way for several years.
Those days - to paraphrase Herb Brooks - "are over" (or soon will be).
Will that fiscal responsibility happen? The sooner the better - but no signs of it happening yet.
It is not easy to teach fish (the folks who manage, and have managed, large collegiate ICA departments for many years) to climb trees. It is just an incredibly foreign task to them.
They - mostly - have never done it before. Most probably don't know how to do it. Consistently adopting the lazy and short-sighted approach - among those responsible for running big-money college sports - for many years, is why we are where we are right now.
As I mentioned at a meeting discussing, I believe, Beaver Stadium:
It is NOT supportive of athletics to blindly continue down the path of the "free money" era in college athletics (during which time most of the leaders in collegiate sports "grew up") - equating headlong spending of large chunks of cash (or taking on large chunks of debt) with no regard as to efficiency and efficacy as being supportive.
It is, and will be, crippling.
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tOSU does--and a pistol team (had a buddy that was on it and two friends on the fencing team).