Regarding baseball - at this point...
- Thread starter dawgstudent
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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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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