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OT: University of Tulsa Athletic Dept budget cuts

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5 minutes ago, SalinasSpartan said:

So then why do the schools with the largest endowments, for the most part, not have great sports programs? Sure there are some schools with strong athletics that have huge endowments, but for the most part the list is dominated by academic powerhouses that, if they even compete at the D1 level, have marginal athletic programs. 

Ivy League schools shouldn’t really need to be explained.  

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Also most of the University money that goes into athletics goes for non revenue sports when title 9 became the law Universities spent more money. Almost every University dollar and student money goes to these programs, at least at USU that is the case, as far as hurting academics one needs to understand that USU has a overall budget of $715 million not spending the $10 to $13 million we spend would not change the academic side all that much, also some of the money spent comes from the state for the full cost of tuition which of course will not be given with no athletic programs..

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20 hours ago, bigd said:

This, Oregon State and Washington State have stronger programs than schools like Iowa State, Kansas, Wake Forest, Duke, etc. Every conference has its deadweight.

You mean stronger FOOTBALL programs. The four schools you mention consistently have very good to elite BASKETBALL programs. In contrast, Oregon State and WSU occasionally have good football teams but they're never better than that (save for a couple years when Dennis Erickson brought in a bunch of criminals) and neither OSU nor WSU has ever managed more than middling hoops success.

Even if your football team is never better than mediocre, you can still help pull the cart rather than just sitting in it if you're that good in basketball.

Boom goes the dynamite.

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6 hours ago, slappy said:

If you want to evaluate who has the pull and who has the money just look at where the $ is spent.  It is not by accident and it is not a mistake.  Obviously your statement is wrong.

Please.  My undergrad alma mater raised over $500M last year (previous few years have all been in the 400s), and athletic donations amounted to only 6% of that.  The academic side receives multiple 8 figure donations every year, yet the AD just received its first ever such donation and then just barely at $10M exactly.  The overall university budget is 5 billion.  The endowment is 5.1B, and external research funding is just a shade under a billion a year.  And we're a freakin' fooball blueblood.  I'd imagine that athletics have even less significance at peer schools that don't have the football history.  As for my private grad alma mater (endowment 10B/undegrad average SAT score higher than Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford), athletics is such an afterthought that the school is actually notorious for having dropped big time football in the late 30s.

SteelCityBlue

November 24th, 2018 at 9:10 PM ^

I'm looking forward to a new head coach who isn't a cud-chewing autistic retard.

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3 hours ago, SleepingGiantsFan said:

You mean stronger FOOTBALL programs. The four schools you mention consistently have very good to elite BASKETBALL programs. In contrast, Oregon State and WSU occasionally have good football teams but they're never better than that (save for a couple years when Dennis Erickson brought in a bunch of criminals) and neither OSU nor WSU has ever managed more than middling hoops success.

Even if your football team is never better than mediocre, you can still help pull the cart rather than just sitting in it if you're that good in basketball.

Yeah true, I was looking at it just through a football lens. Though if you're looking at the combination of football/basketball they're still competitive with the bottom. Oregon State was one of the better football programs in the Pac 12 for awhile under Riley, and WSU is starting to come alive (both are among the worst P5 basketball programs though). Northwestern, Boston College, Rutgers, Iowa State, Mississippi State, South Carolina etc are all very similar. But yes, I absolutely agree that if the Pac 12 were to form today than both would likely be left out (although honestly I don't know who would be added instead of them).

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5 hours ago, SalinasSpartan said:

Cool, so we will just arbitrarily remove 8 schools from the discussion. Now explain all the others.

Don’t need to remove anything.  Was only stating something obvious.  Settle down.  

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3 hours ago, Victor Maitlin said:

Please.  My undergrad alma mater raised over $500M last year (previous few years have all been in the 400s), and athletic donations amounted to only 6% of that.  The academic side receives multiple 8 figure donations every year, yet the AD just received its first ever such donation and then just barely at $10M exactly.  The overall university budget is 5 billion.  The endowment is 5.1B, and external research funding is just a shade under a billion a year.  And we're a freakin' fooball blueblood.  I'd imagine that athletics have even less significance at peer schools that don't have the football history.  As for my private grad alma mater (endowment 10B/undegrad average SAT score higher than Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford), athletics is such an afterthought that the school is actually notorious for having dropped big time football in the late 30s.

Well let’s just agree to disagree then.  I am not dumb founded by universities spending habits.   I guess you are.  That seems fair.  

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4 minutes ago, SalinasSpartan said:

So no explanation, got it.

Not sure what you are angling for?  

There isn’t really a need to explain the endowment sizes for the Ivy League schools.   Same goes for most of our top engineering schools.  I think most people understand the reasons for their sizes.  

If you are attempting to argue academic success is the solution for endowment growth as it pertains to the average university, I would say that the use of the top 1% as an example is not really realistic.  

Again so I am clear.  My belief is that investing in athletics is wise and should be considered a solid long term investment.  Most leaders regardless of professional field agree to this norm and participate.  Maybe you see it differently?  That is ok with me.  

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12 minutes ago, slappy said:

 I would say that the use of the top 1% as an example is not really realistic.  

 

Yet the arguments about how super awesome athletics are for universities have been based around Notre Dame, Alabama, Ohio State, and Michigan. You know, schools in the top 1% of athletic programs. 

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8 hours ago, slappy said:

Not sure what you are angling for?  

There isn’t really a need to explain the endowment sizes for the Ivy League schools.   Same goes for most of our top engineering schools.  I think most people understand the reasons for their sizes.  

If you are attempting to argue academic success is the solution for endowment growth as it pertains to the average university, I would say that the use of the top 1% as an example is not really realistic.  

Again so I am clear.  My belief is that investing in athletics is wise and should be considered a solid long term investment.  Most leaders regardless of professional field agree to this norm and participate.  Maybe you see it differently?  That is ok with me.  

Washington has been on a fundraising tear recently.  They're in the middle of a $5B (if they make it; it'll be the largest single campaign by a public university) campaign that's propelled their endowment into the top 10 among public universities.  Do you think that's being driven by athletics or the academic reputation of UW?

SteelCityBlue

November 24th, 2018 at 9:10 PM ^

I'm looking forward to a new head coach who isn't a cud-chewing autistic retard.

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22 minutes ago, Victor Maitlin said:

 Do you think that's being driven by athletics or the academic reputation of UW?

I don’t think it really matters.  They are raising money for their university.  People get involved for athletics, the arts, engineering etc.  You are trying really hard to paint fundraising into a specific category.  They just spent a huge amount of money on their football stadium.  I think they did a practice field/ locker room upgrade too.  Both are wise investments in the future of that university.  It is really not that hard to see. 

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Victor's position appears to be a university should not spend any money on sports. A school should not spend 1% on sports because it should be spent on academics .even when much of the sports money comes from ticket sells, TV revenue, and alumni support. That argument ignores that most loyalty to a school comes from alumni which are drawn to a school by sports.

This is objecting to sports per se.

I recently sent a "decent" check to my university as part of a fund raiser it was conducting. It had sent a request for donation. How did they get my address since I had been out of country for 11 years.? They got it from my donation to sports.

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41 minutes ago, since1670 said:

Victor's position appears to be a university should not spend any money on sports. A school should not spend 1% on sports because it should be spent on academics .even when much of the sports money comes from ticket sells, TV revenue, and alumni support. That argument ignores that most loyalty to a school comes from alumni which are drawn to a school by sports.

This is objecting to sports per se.

I recently sent a "decent" check to my university as part of a fund raiser it was conducting. It had sent a request for donation. How did they get my address since I had been out of country from 11 years.? They got it from my donation to sports.

My point is that schools should be responsible in what they spend on sports.  At many G5 schools, literally 10% of an in-state student's tuition is going to subsidize the AD, and this is in an era where skyrocketing tuition is a national issue.  Is that responsible?  Some ADs rely on subsidies to fund 75% of their budget.  Is that responsible?  Yes, I think schools should operate sports programs, and I'm even open to a responsible level of subsidies, say no more than 33% of the budget.  There's a lot of grey area and nuance in between "I hate sports and the AD should be shut down" and "Football Uber Alles; give the athletic department whatever it wants."

As for the argument that alumni loyalty to a school is driven by sports, that's nonsense.  My school is a freakin' blueblood, and I've shown the figures that athletic giving is a tiny amount of their annual take, and please don't tell me that people are donating to the history or chemical engineering departments because of sports.  The vast majority of alumni that I know personally donate to the school because they love the school and want to move it forward, and I know members of the board of our Chicago development office and have been told by them that this is also the case on the larger macro level.  Also, I can point to two multi-year fundraising campaigns that were both very successful (one in the 80s set the record at the time for a public U and the other in the late 90s was one of the first public u. campaigns to top a billion) yet both occurred during down times and frustration with the football program.  Big time football and basketball are merely nice diversions, but they don't drive the bus.  And if they don't drive the bus at my university, they're never going to drive the bus at schools like Nevada or Wyoming.

If schools want to move forward, they need to make a commitment to moving academics forward by raising money for that, not speculating that if they put the money into the athletic department that somehow some halo effect will make them better universities.  Nevada might just be a great test case for this should they get to the Elite 8/Final 4 next year.  If so, let's check back in three years and see how much both academic giving to the university and the average SAT of an entering freshman increased over the following two years.

SteelCityBlue

November 24th, 2018 at 9:10 PM ^

I'm looking forward to a new head coach who isn't a cud-chewing autistic retard.

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26 minutes ago, Victor Maitlin said:

My point is that schools should be responsible in what they spend on sports.  At many G5 schools, literally 10% of an in-state student's tuition is going to subsidize the AD, and this is in an era where skyrocketing tuition is a national issue.  Is that responsible?  Some ADs rely on subsidies to fund 75% of their budget.  Is that responsible?  Yes, I think schools should operate sports programs, and I'm even open to a responsible level of subsidies, say no more than 33% of the budget.  There's a lot of grey area and nuance in between "I hate sports and the AD should be shut down" and "Football Uber Alles; give the athletic department whatever it wants."

As for the argument that alumni loyalty to a school is driven by sports, that's nonsense.  My school is a freakin' blueblood, and I've shown the figures that athletic giving is a tiny amount of their annual take, and please don't tell me that people are donating to the history or chemical engineering departments because of sports.  The vast majority of alumni that I know personally donate to the school because they love the school and want to move it forward, and I know members of the board of our Chicago development office and have been told the same by them.  I can point to two multi-year fundraising campaigns that were both very successful (one in the 80s set the record at the time for a public U and the other in the late 90s was one of the first public u. campaigns to top a billion) yet both occurred during down times and frustration with the football program.  Big time football and basketball are merely nice diversions, but they don't drive the bus.  And if they don't drive the bus at my university, they're never going to drive the bus at schools like Nevada or Wyoming.

If schools want to move forward, they need to make a commitment to moving academics forward by raising money for that, not speculating that if they put the money into the athletic department that somehow some halo effect will make them better universities.  Nevada might just be a great test case for this should they get to the Elite 8/Final 4 next year.  If so, let's check back in three years and see how much both academic giving to the university and the average SAT of an entering freshman increased over the following two years.

Kind of like I have been telling you all along.  Everyone contributes for different reasons.  Glad yours is academic related.  It takes all kinds in this world.  Those in charge of most universities can see that and play all the fields.  That is why they are in charge.  They can see the big picture.  

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1 hour ago, Victor Maitlin said:

At many G5 schools, literally 10% of an in-state student's tuition is going to subsidize the AD,

Do you have data supporting this? Not saying you're wrong, it just seems like that's an awfully high %. 

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9 hours ago, 307dude said:

Do you have data supporting this? Not saying you're wrong, it just seems like that's an awfully high %. 

Here's the data from a few years ago for the Ohio D-1 schools.

ueetuet.JPG

SteelCityBlue

November 24th, 2018 at 9:10 PM ^

I'm looking forward to a new head coach who isn't a cud-chewing autistic retard.

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On 8/11/2018 at 7:36 AM, Victor Maitlin said:

And how many schools like Boise or Gonzaga receive that temporary, transitory "flutie effect" bump versus how many hundreds of millions of dollars every year are subsidizing money losing athletic departments?  And even the studies that do show a Flutie Effect agree that, while it causes a temporary bump in the quantity of applications, it does nothing to drive improvements in the quality of applicants.  As for giving, it drives increased athletic donations but not overall university donations, and one study I saw even showed that it might lessen academic donations as donors jump on the athletic bandwagon, and this would particularly be the danger at a school like Nevada that doesn't have a strong history of academic fundraising.

As for A&M, it was elected into the AAU long before Johnny Manziel was dropping racial slurs and empty beer cans on campus.  And A&M is NOT the school of choice in Texas.  Texas had more applications (47K vs. 33K), a lower acceptance rate (40% vs 66%) and higher SAT scores (1269 vs 1191), and those numbers aren't even close.  Texas A&M is only the school of choice for a very particular type of kid drawn to the weird fake army culture at A&M.  For everyone else in Texas, it's a backup school to UT.

Is Nevada a fundamentally better university because of 2010? I don't really see any difference in entering SAT scores, endowment, rankings etc.  Let's see how much SAT scores go up because of this year's Sweet 16.  Yet how much has Nevada pumped into athletic subsidies over the last decade?  Probably around $100M, and it's actually on the moderate end of the scale.  Do you think that $100M might have actually led to better academic improvements had it been directly spent on something like.....uhhh....academics?

Look, I can actually respect somebody saying, "I want my college to have big time sports and I don't care what it costs."  That's at least intellectually honest.  It's this bullshit argument that dumping all that money into athletics is somehow the best way to move the university forward academically that's a loser.

Being a myth and not being commonplace are two completely different stances. If you read my original post, it said that a successful athletic department CAN be one of the best marketing tools for a university, so let's be clear...I doubt many here would argue that this is the case at all or even most schools. And the success stories would almost exclusively involve small schools who are not in a P5 conference. That being said, one great season in 2010 for Nevada may have produced a small uptick in applications, but it certainly wouldn't cause a large long-term change in the makeup of a university. Increasing the number of applications won't change the fact that the University has to adhere to state mandated admission requirements, so even with an increase in applications, you wouldn't necessarily see an increase in SAT scores. The academic makeup won't see much of a shift until the Board of Regents and the University revise their mandates. Boise State hasn't necessarily become a top academic school, but the academic side has benefited greatly from the Bronco's success at the very least  As the RGJ pointed out, "Since Boise State’s first Fiesta Bowl (2007) to its last (2015), the university has exploded. Enrollment is up 18 percent, research grants and contracts are up 68 percent, foundation assets have increased 59 percent and the number of donors, not just in athletics, but the entire university has risen from 5,271 people to 12,195, a 131 percent jump." Boise State has improved it's academics, but not a lot, as it still ranks towards the bottom of the barrel of most FBS schools. It will take years and policy shifts to do that, but I think they're working towards that goal. What it has done is provide BSU money to improve their infrastructure to accommodate growth and improvement on the academic side. The article also mentions that officials at UConn, Gonzaga, Butler, Davidson and even Alabama have credited athletics with huge positive effects on the academic side from athletic success. Again, nobody is claiming that this is the norm, but to deny that it happens is foolish. 

As for A&M, I can tell you first hand that more Texans now identify with Texas A&M than Longhorn fans (22% vs 20% after the move to the SEC compared to 15% vs 23% before the move) and having a son go through the college application/admissions process in the past couple years, I can tell you that the majority of the students now favor A&M....your view of their "fake army culture" notwithstanding. 

I think everybody here wants their school to have big time athletics, otherwise we wouldn't be on this board, but I don't recall seeing anyone claim that sports improves a school academically. If you got that from any of my posts, then you've misread them. What a successful athletic program CAN do is increase the pool of applicants from which the school chooses that's within their mandates. 

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