OT: Orlando Sentinel says MAC schools should drop football instead women’s tennis
Interesting article that outlines just how much of a bath the bottom feeders of FBS take on football compared to the other sports.
Akron has dropped men’s cross country, men’s golf and women’s tennis.
Bowling Green dropped baseball.
Central Michigan became the latest casualty today, dropping their men’s indoor and outdoor track programs.
Movie theaters should drop movies and just sell concessions since their margins are better there.
Then comes the inevitable WSJ/Bloomberg/Forbes article about how movie snack concession stands are being crushed in the market by 7-Eleven and Circle-K due their wider variety and 24/7 operations.
No, it would be about how millennials don’t eat popcorn anymore and their go-go avocado toast lifestyles are killing the movie theater concession industry. (A small blurb in paragraph 7 would reveal the movie theatres were bought by private equity firms.)
The major theater chain in Canada had their popcorn available on Uber eats before the pandemic started. Never tried it so I am unsure if it came with the additional option of the delivery person spilling a half gallon of diet mr pibb on your livingroom floor.
Insert <Why not both?> gif.
As discussed in the CMU thread, the author of this (Mike Bianchi) is 100% correct: football is a huge money loser for the MAC, and sports (overall), is a huge money loser for these universities. It's pathetic that 70% of "athletic" revenue is not actually from athletics, but from institution support and student fees.
Drastic change is necessary. Don't "drop" the sports, change them into something much less expensive by significantly reducing (e.g., going from 85 to 36 football scholarships, which is Div II) or getting rid of scholarships entirely (Div III). By doing that, you won't need to hire coaching staffs (in the case of football and basketball) which costs millions of dollars a year.
Do the big change now, as thoughtfully as possible, instead of this death by a thousand cuts.
Using CMU as an example - I gotta believe this might be a bad decision. Assume for a second that the CMU football program does not directly generate any profit or a small loss. How many CMU alumni make the trek up there in the Fall to watch a game, have a great weekend - and ultimately donate back to their alma mater? And how would this get impacted if CMU dropped a competitive football team?
Don't know all the facts - but I am sure it is not as simple as Bianchi makes it. CMU is not Division II Florida Tech...
Remember, CMU joined the MAC in the mid 70’s. They were Div-II before.
Yes, it's for things like this that universities keep sports going. For better or worse, sports are a strong aspect of community building, and end up indirectly benefitting the school through increased applications/donations.
Not sure about the donations but I can say with 100% confidence and accuracy that none of my three children would have considered a school without football. I think the biggest hit would be to applicants/students. Maybe I’m wrong and kids today don’t give a shit, but there would have to be a few at the very least
Easy said on paper, but you risk upsetting a large chunk of your donor base. You probably make some people happy, but many donors are passionate about athletics and give in some capacity. If you drop to a DII program, does anyone come to the games anymore? Do people give the school/department money any more?
It would be an interesting study to see the impact of a disbanded team/team dropped a level on the University.
This is the insanely flawed logic that keeps college athletics in business. If you think for one moment that alumni donations outweigh the amount of government and tuition-backed funding these schools give to athletics, you are nuts.
Siphoning off tuition and government assistance to support football at any MAC school that, without help, would draw 5,000 fans per game is downright criminal.
These schools should be educating students and focusing on that. Having football at Eastern, Central, etc., is unnecessary and detracts from that financially which is truly sad. The pandemic will accelerate something that should have happened long ago. UChicago was away ahead of this.
I guess we’d have to know what the donor base is actually donating. CMU hasn’t won more than 8 games in a season in awhile. GVSU is D2 and seems to have a very loyal fan base. Sometimes winning more games attracts fans more than playing better teams. Hard to know for sure.
I can only imagine how much money some of these schools like CMU lose on bowl games when they go 8-6.
Here's a preview:
Amount the university spends on football > donations to the university (in the case of these universities).
I'm a CMU alum. When I was choosing schools (got wait listed for Michigan), I wouldn't even consider schools that didn't have D1 football programs (even though we only won 16 games in my 4 years I was still able to go on some great road trips). Now there probably aren't a lot of people like me, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. Also, I do feel that it would affect donations. How much? I have no idea, but still something to consider. You also have to consider the advertising the MAC gets from the weekday MACtion. There has to be some value there. If not, then they are idiots for doing it.
Well cutting football would likely remove them from the MAC and the TV revenue that comes from football (estimated $670K per school). So they'd be looking at a new conference for all other sports, maybe a exit fee for leaving the MAC, and potentially an entry fee/limited revenues for joining a new conference. I'm not certain of a conference more geographically located for Akron (Ohio Valley?), so travel expenses may rise for these other sports.
I'm sure it's an idea that's been kicked around at schools. Nobody wants to be the AD/president when you drop football though.
The author seems like a moron. If you want claim you'd save more money by cutting the football team than the women's tennis team, you should start by showing the revenue and expenses of each team. My guess is the author doesn't actually know either of these stats.
Numbers would be good. I’d still bet you a million dollars that cutting the 0-12 football team would save you more money than women’s tennis. I’m still blown away they somehow “averaged” 18k attendance a game.
Akrons football coach makes ~$600k a year. How many women’s tennis teams do you have to cut just to cover his salary?
Drop soccer.
One million percent co-signed. Cancel soccer. Defund the US national teams. Rocket the premier league and bundesliga into the sun. Arrest everyone involved in MLS for running a Ponzi scheme (which they are).
An, do that to MLB. Baseball is boring AF.
Then you don't understand baseball.
Then I do. It is a boring sport.
Soccer is much more exciting.
Then you don't understand baseball.
WMU Alumnus here. I've thought for a long time that the MAC would be great fits as FCS conference. I understand that it changes the football program in terms of scholarship numbers, type of exposure (MACtion), and I assume, revenue sharing. I think of the chance to play for a National Championship and probably reduced costs would be a lot easier to sell, especially in times of economic hardships. It's been a huge success at places like Montana, ND State, James Madison, etc. We all know the Group of 5 conferences are never going to be seriously considered for the FBS playoffs in its current state. I admit it was fun watching my Broncos go undefeated a few years ago and almost beating Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl, but we are lucky if a MAC team can hang in the top 20 for a full season.
Totally agree. Miami alum here... the MAC is not, and will never be, premier D1 football. When member schools regularly get paid millions to go get their teeth kicked in by a Power 5 school, they're playing the sport at two very different levels. I'd rather watch the Redhawks compete for an FCS Championship than compete for the "MAC Title", then get blown out in a bowl game.
I don't know the numbers, but I can't imagine Miami is making a net positive from our football program.
Drop Florida.
It's not like that hasn't been tried before
This is an interesting discussion. To throw in my two cents. I chose UNC over Emory for grad school mostly because they had D1 sports and that was important to me.
I have to believe that there are a lot of us with that same mindset and dropping sports will have a far greater impact for a non P5 university than just saving money on scholarships and coaching salaries.
I did the same. I have to believe that choosing a university for the love of big time football Saturdays is dying though. Online learning is going to dominate, the college experience we all knew is getting less popular. If we don’t see a massive attendance drop in the next 5 years (covid not withstanding) I will be extremely surprised.
I'm sure there are a few but I think people are over rating overall interest. How much does the average American spend on sports blogs vs the average mgoblog user?
If they drop football they would have to drop every other sport because what little revenue they bring in is related mostly to football.
Non-Revenue sports lose schools money too with much smaller crowds and zero media attention.
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The catch is with most of these non-power 5 conferences, the football programs do not have a positive net revenue on paper.
Of course. But then none of the sports do. All sports are money losers.
Of course. But then none of the sports do. All sports are money losers.
I don't think you fully grasp how this works.
At these school all sports are money losers. I do wonder if there is an intangible benefit to having football that isn’t measured by strictly looking at the football P&L. Like is there a benefit for joining the MAC for non-football sports that is only available because they are in the MAC because of football? In other words, they realize revenue gains of $X in non-football sports as a result of their conference affiliation which itself is due to football
Its a double-edged sword. If you drop football, yeah you're probably dropping the biggest money-sucker your athletic department has and it may give your other sports more breathing room, but only for a time. Save for the Dukes and Kentuckys of the world and a few other one-offs (UConn Women's BBall), football is any given school's biggest revenue-driver by a significant margin. Who do you think is paying the bills and keeping the lights on for your baseball team, men's tennis team, women's soccer team, women's golf team, etc?
Bowling Green, Akron, and all these other MAC schools schedule at least one body-bag football game a year where they get their teeth kicked in by Alabama, OSU, Georgia, Clemson, or some other powerhouse in exchange for a half million dollar paycheck that funds the entire AD for the rest of the year. I absolutely get that all these other sports shouldn't have to suffer at the football team's expense. It's not right. But can you realistically rely on your tennis team, your baseball team, or your golf team to drive enough revenue in to keep the lights on for everyone else? They're called non-revenue sports for a reason.
If someone else has a better option, I'm all ears. I don't mean to be callous about this, and again, its not fair at all. But this is the economic reality. The argument the Orlando Sentinel is making is essentially akin to saying "Hey we're bleeding cash, but let's take our biggest remaining money-maker and just cut it loose anyway." Cut football loose now, and you may get your other sports another couple of years. But the money's going to run out eventually, and then you end up having to cut almost all of your sports loose.
You really think the $500,000-$1 million paycheck the football teams get for a body bag game fund the rest of the athletic department for the year? The paycheck those schools get for the body bag game doesn't even cover the salaries of the football coaching staff.
It goes a long way though. Body bag games generate millions annually.
Okay, fine, maybe it doesn't fund everything, but my main point still stands. Football and the revenue it brings from TV contracts (yes, even the MAC has a TV contract with CBS Sports) far outweigh anything any of the other sports bring in for the university. Its likely that the money that football brings in within the MAC outweighs the money all the other sports bring in put together.
That is what's helping foot the bill for all of these other sports to keep going. You can't realistically rely on your non-revenue sports to be able to pay for themselves. Football is the financial engine that makes it all go.
Is it fair? No. But that's the way it is.
Do you know what the MAC TV contract with ESPN pays each school? Keep in mind, this contract isn't just for football. It's for men's and women's basketball as well as other Olympic sports. Get this, ready...each MAC school gets a whopping $670,000 per year. That's it and as I mentioned that's not a football TV contract, that is a contract between ESPN and the MAC to broadcast all MAC sports. ESPN controls the broadcasting rights to all the MAC sports and each school gets $670,000 per year. There's no golden goose with some TV deal for football when it comes to the MAC.
https://www.hustlebelt.com/2014/8/19/6045303/explaining-the-new-mac-espn-tv-deal
There are lots of schools throughout the country that have athletic departments without having a football team (West Coast, Big East, etc). Unless you are a power 5 school, football isn't some golden goose that funds, or is necessary to fund, an athletic department. As has been mentioned in some of these threads recently, at the non-power 5 schools the student fees make up the vast majority of money that funds the ADs.
These football programs LOSE money. They take money from the university. While all sports do that, the football program does so at an exponential level relative to the other sports. If you cut football at these schools, the AD's bottom line actually improves. I don't know why some on this board have issues grasping that.
I think you overestimate the average profit margin of most football programs. 4 power 5 teams lost money in 2017. I would imagine that profit margins in the FBS and down are super slim. Once you get outside of tv deals, it’s gonna be difficult to make a profit.
I'm curious whether the NCAA requires teams to use a certain number of scholarships. Football has the 85 scholarship max, but is there a minimum? Could a MAC school cut the football budget by telling coach Smith that he's only getting 60 scholarships to work with going forward?
Too lazy to look it up.
There is no NCAA scholarship minimum. There are 3 FBS schools (you can probably figure out which ones) and many FCS schools that don't offer any football scholarships.
So yes, that's entirely possible. The flip side, of course, is that if you are only going to offer 60 scholarships, why not drop down to FCS anyway, where the scholarship limit is 63? Another con would be the fact that the MAC would certainly consider suspending a program that refuses to support football or basketball with a full load of scholarships.
I feel like that route would put the G5 schools in a wasteland. The G5 teams would be terrible if they dropped to 60 scholarships, so if you're a 2*/3* guy with MAC offers, why wouldn't you just go play for a good FCS team? Way more fun and the team is probably better
If you're referring to the service academies, they don't offer football scholarships because there is no cost of attendance to begin with. Seems pretty disingenuous to gloss over that fact and act like these are just three regular schools who get by without scholarships.
Excellent point, I was disingenuous there.
But to answer the original question, there are no scholarship minima in any sport at any level.
Fuck that.
OK, for one, the article's constant focus on women's tennis is bullshit. Yes, Akron cut women's tennis. But the cuts across the NCAA have fallen almost exclusively on men's sports. Central cut men's track. Akron also cut men's golf and CC. Bowling Green cut baseball. Old Dominion cut wrestling, and Cincinnati cut men's soccer. Men's sports are the ones getting killed. Instead, the writer finishes with:
In other words, it’s much cheaper to keep the women’s swimming team than the football team.
When will other schools put their macho egos aside and come to the same realization?
The implication that Florida Tech nobly decided to be un-macho while Akron decided to be misogynistic is crap.
Second, I'm also not interested in hearing Floridians lecture the Midwest on how to run their business.