Regarding baseball - at this point...

[thekimmer]

So what if you fire the coach. The real issue is talent. The real problem is the new NIL and transfer portal. If the new coach just happens to be a billionaire and wants to spend his own money on his team, then this move would make sense. If not, who cares. Baseball loses money anyway.

Why are you here?

 

[8dog]

150$ per seat?

after my 6K investment in 4 seats it was just under 1500 for seats each year for the 4

The right to buy tickets was originally $1,500 (I mistakenly said $1800 but that’s also publicized somewhere so I don’t know what it was exactly ) per seat for a 10 year PSL deal. So that is $150 (or maybe $180) per seat each year before you buy tickets. Not sure where your numbers are coming from.

 

[Seinfeld]

If we can't recruit good enough talent to sweep Austin Peay and Georgia southern with the resources we have something is wrong. This is deeper than talent. It's huge misses by this staff and huge under development. We aren't getting guy developed like we were. Guys that are making big leaps from year 1 to year 2 to year 3 to 4. Just not seeing. All these guys are exactly the same as when they arrived if not worse. That's on lemonis and his staff

Exactly. When we are back in the upper echelon of the SEC, and we just don't quite have the horses to knock off schools like Vandy and Florida, we can have the discussion about NIL and the portal. Until then, it's a moot point because no matter whether we're spending $1 or $100M on baseball, we're getting zero return

 

[retire the banner]

It certainly does currently.

We were losing about $1.3 million per year in the old stadium as recently as 2016 (before the new stadium).

View attachment 533656

Most recent financial statements still showed a loss in that same range in 2022 or 2023 (maybe a bit larger) but a large part of that is annual debt service for the financed construction cost of the new DNF (which was about $50 million of the $80 million total). I believe the hope is MSU will be turning a profit in baseball within 5-10 years. COVID of course hurt a lot….lost most attendance revenue from 2020/2021 seasons.

There are probably less than 6-7 programs nationally that actually make money on baseball. We would have been one of them a long time ago, but we hamstrung ourselves badly with the old lifetime seating guarantees that we charged peanuts for on the annual renewals. That’s now corrected to where cost is more aligned to demand, but we’ve still got the stadium that has to be paid for.

Good info. But I will also add, even if we won a couple national championships in the near future and things were humming along, college baseball will never be a considered much of a revenue producing sport. It’s a niche sport overall. Even at its best, it would barely surpass expenses.

 

[thekimmer]

I’m not sure how much it matters. If you make the decision to retain him after the past 2 years, you may as well give him all the rope to hang himself.

But if you had to make a move midseason, just do it whenever we become virtually eliminated (not necessarily mathematically eliminated) from at-large regional contention.

It’s tough right now because while we have been very disappointing, we still aren’t fully healthy in some areas. Any outlook for this season that didn’t include Bradley Loftin playing a prominent role was a bleak one. Put him in the weekend rotation with Dohm and Lo, and things might look a bit different right now. Time will tell if he just has some minor injury like Bednar had at the beginning of 2021, or if he’s headed for TJ. I’m not optimistic based on recent history.

But so far, the pitching overall has improved, outside of a couple of outliers. I’m inclined to say that Parker is doing his job thus far. Need to see if Gautreau can start doing his. Again, I’m not optimistic.

Throwing strikes has definitely improved. Not so sure about pitch command. Seems like we throw a lot of pitches down mainstreet which can be just as bad as walks in SEC play.

I am mortified by our hitting. If we struggle against mid-week guys throwing mid 80s we have no hope against SEC staffs. Injuries are also worrisome. If we are that banged up a week into the season what will we look like in April?

 

[Perd Hapley]

Good info. But I will also add, even if we won a couple national championships in the near future and things were humming along, college baseball will never be a considered much of a revenue producing sport. It’s a niche sport overall. Even at its best, it would barely surpass expenses.

Absolutely correct. If you look at the chart in the previous post, you’ll see even LSU only making a profit of $1.5 million per year, in a pretty new stadium, while leading the nation in attendance by a lot. Maybe that’s closer to something like $1.75-$2 million now that its 7-8 years later, but that’s still a drop in the bucket compared to what’s possible in football and MBB. That’s the ceiling of what is possible at the biggest revenue producing baseball school in the nation. At MSU, maybe bump that ceiling down 25-50%. We’d be doing extremely well to make $1.25-$1.5 million per year on baseball.

 

[HuntDawg]

Good info. But I will also add, even if we won a couple national championships in the near future and things were humming along, college baseball will never be a considered much of a revenue producing sport. It’s a niche sport overall. Even at its best, it would barely surpass expenses.

Right never has been a revenue sport. The hope I think was maybe getting it tied into the TV deal but that didnt happen. But people are over blowing this revenue and non-revenue stuff. Basically football carries the entire athletic department. Some schools profit a little here and there basketball wise, and virtually nothing else makes any money.

We were at one time one of the places well ahead of the curve. The margin is no longer that great. And in some aspects of the program, there is no margin at all. To expect us to spend to stay well ahead of the curve just isnt reasonable.

 

[retire the banner]

Right never has been a revenue sport. The hope I think was maybe getting it tied into the TV deal but that didnt happen. But people are over blowing this revenue and non-revenue stuff. Basically football carries the entire athletic department. Some schools profit a little here and there basketball wise, and virtually nothing else makes any money.

We were at one time one of the places well ahead of the curve. The margin is no longer that great. And in some aspects of the program, there is no margin at all. To expect us to spend to stay well ahead of the curve just isnt reasonable.

Which is why I’ll never understand the fans who say dumb stuff like “why are we investing in football if we’ll never win the SEC, we just need to go all in on sports like baseball”. That has never made sense unless we want our university to get wiped off the map. We need to invest as much as we can in football even when the results are discouraging. It’s far better to be mediocre in SEC football than to be Southern Miss.

 

[HuntDawg]

Which is why I’ll never understand the fans who say dumb stuff like “why are we investing in football if we’ll never win the SEC, we just need to go all in on sports like baseball”. That has never made sense unless we want our university to get wiped off the map. We need to invest as much as we can in football even when the results are discouraging. It’s better to be mediocre in SEC football than to be Southern Miss.

From a financial standpoint I agree. And i think at most places if not all places, the football program is given every last penny it can be given without crippling things for the entire athletic department. But i dont think any of that is even an issue. We'll give football what is needed just like everyone else does.

Now from an NIL point. I think its a little different. Not from who gets the most money type thing, but a who gets a bigger slice of the overall pie type thing outside of football. And also football not always getting what they want or having that endless supply so to speak

 

[patdog]

Boosters and AD should have left him alone FIRED HIS *** and not made him fire Foxhall. Just let it all ride.

We do some dubmass stuff around MSU, for sure.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

Throwing strikes has definitely improved. Not so sure about pitch command. Seems like we throw a lot of pitches down mainstreet which can be just as bad as walks in SEC play.

I am mortified by our hitting. If we struggle against mid-week guys throwing mid 80s we have no hope against SEC staffs. Injuries are also worrisome. If we are that banged up a week into the season what will we look like in April?

Yeah it doesn't matter if you throwing strikes if you don't have gas or good breakin pitches. Throwing strikes ain't the answer along. Throwing strikes with nothing on it or to it is just bp for the other team. I guess it's better than a bunch of walks but I'll take a couple for somebody that's got hard to hit crap or a strike out combo. I haven't see much of that lately. These guys just don't have much to them or haven't been told how to use it or maybe too much. Need some guys that have a real sec 4 seam fastball and real breaking ball that can cut. If you don't have at least two good pitches you aren't getting anyone out.

 

[Mr. Cook]

it's guess the weekend Lemonis gets fired. I hate it for him because I like Lemonis personally but State baseball SHOULD be plug and play.

I'm thinking after Florida.

2024 Baseball Schedule - Mississippi State (hailstate.com)

Sorry, but it is time to DISregard baseball

 

[7Dust]

NIL is not an issue. At all. None. I can tell you that with great certainty.

The portal haul was bad this year bc we are a losing program.

Yep....as you know we lost two players to other SEC schools in this past portal class when we were the highest NIL offer to one and had the same offer on the table that LSU had to the other and Lemonis could not close the deal and that's not even adding in said players dad was pushing for State over LSU.

NIL is far from the issue at State....support is far from the issue at State....there is one issue that's been the issue the past two seasons and the current one.

 

[GloryDawg]

We will have a 0-9 SEC record after the Florida weekend. We just might lose to JSU.

 

[Perd Hapley]

Which is why I’ll never understand the fans who say dumb stuff like “why are we investing in football if we’ll never win the SEC, we just need to go all in on sports like baseball”. That has never made sense unless we want our university to get wiped off the map. We need to invest as much as we can in football even when the results are discouraging. It’s far better to be mediocre in SEC football than to be Southern Miss.

The counterpoint to that is that football certainly pays the bills at MSU, but its really not MSU football paying those bills. Its Alabama, UGA, LSU, Florida, Auburn, A&M, and Tennessee football paying those bills for us via the SEC Network payouts that we get every year.

We go 0-12, we’re getting $55 ~ $60 million from the SEC Network. We go 12-0, we’re getting the same. Its literally half our entire AD revenue, totally dwarfing what we take in from football ticket sales….no matter how good or bad of a year we are expected to have. As long as we continue to field a football team, we keep getting that guaranteed revenue.

So, its a difficult proposition as to how much we should invest in football. It almost feels like the worst thing we can do is to just spend proportional to the overall revenue there. Seems to be the fiscally prudent measure, but in our neighborhood its as half-asś as half-asś gets. The result will just be that we continue to tread water in that 5-7 to 8-4 range, with continued national irrelevance being assured, and not a lot left over for baseball / basketball. That is more or less our current status. I think the only viable options are to spend way more on football than we bring in directly from our own football revenue….while feeding all other sports to the wolves, or spend way less and try to moneyball our way to the same “treading water” status while trying to excel in baseball and MBB / WBB. Obviously, we cannot choose both of these options.

 

[Curby]

The counterpoint to that is that football certainly pays the bills at MSU, but its really not MSU football paying those bills. Its Alabama, UGA, LSU, Florida, Auburn, A&M, and Tennessee football paying those bills for us via the SEC Network payouts that we get every year.

We go 0-12, we’re getting $55 ~ $60 million from the SEC Network. We go 12-0, we’re getting the same. Its literally half our entire AD revenue, totally dwarfing what we take in from football ticket sales….no matter how good or bad of a year we are expected to have. As long as we continue to field a football team, we keep getting that guaranteed revenue.

So, its a difficult proposition as to how much we should invest in football. It almost feels like the worst thing we can do is to just spend proportional to the overall revenue there. The result will just be that we continue to tread water in that 5-7 to 8-4 range, with continued national irrelevance being assured, and not a lot left over for baseball / basketball. That is more or less our current status. I think the only viable options are to spend way more on football than we bring in directly from our own football revenue, or spend way less and try to moneyball our way to the same “treading water” status while trying to excel in baseball and MBB / WBB. Obviously, we cannot choose both of these options.

This.

State must do whatever it takes to make sure that if there is a separation from the NCAA and there ends up being a SUPERCONFERENCE.....that we are a part of it. Because there is no guarantee that we will be included, and if we're not, there will be no more SEC money because there will be no more SEC.