in Texas, if you do not have a D1 football team, you do not exist. period.

I get that people in NYC would not understand that.

(12-16-2014 10:26 AM)ballhog Wrote:  Many times, the anti-football "academics", who say too much is spent on athletics, don't take into account the non-monetary benefits of athletics such as increased enrollment, good will, higer caliber of students, community outreach...
Although, I'm not so sure this was the case with UAB football.

Alumni donations, alumni donations, alumni donations, alumni donations

(12-16-2014 11:41 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:04 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 10:26 AM)ballhog Wrote:  Many times, the anti-football "academics", who say too much is spent on athletics, don't take into account the non-monetary benefits of athletics such as increased enrollment, good will, higer caliber of students, community outreach...
Although, I'm not so sure this was the case with UAB football.

This exactly. Academia smells blood in the water and are all to happy about it. Not understanding the effect it might have on them.

I think the impact is overblown....and this is coming from someone that lives, breaths and loves college athletics. Much like I think "academics" over blow the negative impact that athletics has an academics.

Quite simply: if you have a good reputation and academics you will attract good students and faculty. Athletics has very little bearing on that ...

Completely untrue. For the Ivies of the world your POV applies not for everyone else. Bama's academic quality has skyrocketed and there are many articles discussing their improvement. LSU's enrollment has doubled recently. When BC made the move to the ACC they became a much more national brand and improved their academics. When George Mason made their final four run, donations tripled and applications (I think) doubled. The marketing value of that run was estimated to be worth in the 100's of millions.

(12-16-2014 12:12 PM)Carolina Stang Wrote:  in Texas, if you do not have a D1 football team, you do not exist. period.

I get that people in NYC would not understand that.

But you're the one making that true by not acknowledging that there are different levels of players and two 1AA schools playing each other might be a very fun game to watch. Especially if the school is smart enough to have a great game day.

(12-16-2014 12:16 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:41 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:04 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 10:26 AM)ballhog Wrote:  Many times, the anti-football "academics", who say too much is spent on athletics, don't take into account the non-monetary benefits of athletics such as increased enrollment, good will, higer caliber of students, community outreach...
Although, I'm not so sure this was the case with UAB football.

This exactly. Academia smells blood in the water and are all to happy about it. Not understanding the effect it might have on them.

I think the impact is overblown....and this is coming from someone that lives, breaths and loves college athletics. Much like I think "academics" over blow the negative impact that athletics has an academics.

Quite simply: if you have a good reputation and academics you will attract good students and faculty. Athletics has very little bearing on that ...

Completely untrue. For the Ivies of the world your POV applies not for everyone else. Bama's academic quality has skyrocketed and there are many articles discussing their improvement. LSU's enrollment has doubled recently. When BC made the move to the ACC they became a much more national brand and improved their academics. When George Mason made their final four run, donations tripled and applications (I think) doubled. The marketing value of that run was estimated to be worth in the 100's of millions.

Not sure how that's representative of anything. There are many more UABs in the world than there are teams who jump to the ACC, SEC elites, or George Mason's making a Final Four run.

(12-16-2014 12:05 PM)panama Wrote:  How could this guy write for the NY Times and be that clueless. I can see this story being written 4 weeks ago when few knew the real reasons behind UAB football getting the ax. But seriously, not now, not with the overwhelming body of evidence showing that the fix was in.

Yeah, he's clueless, but it's not a news article. It's an online op-ed piece.

(12-16-2014 11:37 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  Universities have become big business and college football is one their most effective marketing tools. UCF's yearly operating budget is closing in on $1B... spending $20m or even $100m on marketing as a percentage of a budget is not out of line for big business.

This is misunderstood.

Only about 25% of that budget is fungible.

You can't include things like a research budget or the endowment (which most often has strings attached). When corporations and the gov't and donors pay for projects, they want the money to go to those projects. The only part of the budget that is fungible is the tuition money. A quick back of the napkin calculation for UCF would take the in-state tuition, multiply it by # of instaters, the outstate tuition by outofstaters, then multiply by .3 to .4 (need-blind scholarships), and that would give you a sense of the fungible budget. Make sure not to include room & board because universities devote all that money to housing budget.

So, 95% instate at UCF is 50k x .95 = 47.5k x $6k tuition = $285 million. Add $15m for out of state, you're at $300m, then multiply by .3 (need-blind scholarships), and subtract that figure from $300m.

You're around $200m now.

(12-16-2014 12:10 PM)panama Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:05 AM)upstater1 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 10:54 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 10:26 AM)ballhog Wrote:  Many times, the anti-football "academics", who say too much is spent on athletics, don't take into account the non-monetary benefits of athletics such as increased enrollment, good will, higer caliber of students, community outreach...
Although, I'm not so sure this was the case with UAB football.

^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^

Athletics functions as the public face of the university and it's primary advertising/marketing department. How many marketing departments make money? The fact that the schools have a marketing model that generates literally hundreds of hours of mini infomercials (that are watched by millions on national tv), hundreds of press articles, and thousands of mentions on radios and water coolers ------AND are actually able to recover much of the costs via ticket, media agreements, and other forms of revenue is actually pretty impressive.

I disagree with many college sports fans on this. A loss of $20m a year is a huge sum of money. For any university. And I think the UAB's calculations are not misleading in the least. In fact, I think administrators and athletics people hide their true losses for a reason. They don't want parents to know about it.

Lots of schools have dropped football in 1-AA and lived to tell the tale. Boston U. dropped it 15 years ago, and they just joined the AAU with test scores skyrocketing. A lot of the Cals don't have it and they are doing just fine without it (i.e. San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine, etc.)

I agree with many of you that football is great for some schools, and adds to academics. For instance, BC, ND, Boise St., and several others. But the sports economist did a study that showed for losing schools (someone has to lose) there is actually a sheen of failure that comes with sports. Take Rutgers for instance. They have dropped 25 spots in the USNWR academic rankings over the last several years, and surveys into the thinking of high school students have shown that Rutgers is associated with losing. It's actually an excellent academic school, but as much as sports colors our perceptions of universities, it can damage them too.

Lastly, I'll say that when college sports people are interviewed, they will defend sports until their dying breath because their jobs are on the line. I've seen excellent internal suggestions made by academics and administrators who have a positive view of college sports rejected by ADs because they don't want to have a drop in support for a sport on their resume. In one example, a school was willing to take a loss on ice hockey (which would have brought together the campus community) but could no longer abide by $25m losses for football. The AD was adamantly against the perfectly sensible plan.

Schools should be willing to lose some money on sports, but the kinds of money being lost now at many schools is absolutely untenable in an era of huge budget cuts to higher education.

This isnt about dollars and cents.

Everything is about dollars and cents.

Universities are cutting seats in order to boost their USNWR rankings. Meanwhile, the population is growing. Couple that with the free electronic application, where students apply to 10-15 schools (I applied to 4), and you have a massive increase in applications everywhere.

Look at what's going on in California. Not enough seats at the state university. Community colleges are locking people out. There is a super high demand for higher education right now, and existing institutions are unable to fill it. For private schools this may be different because of the lack of affordability for many.

So, even with the jacked up applications, you then look at average test scores of incoming classes at these schools, and the scores aren't improving. Which tells me a lot.

(12-16-2014 12:47 PM)upstater1 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:37 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  Universities have become big business and college football is one their most effective marketing tools. UCF's yearly operating budget is closing in on $1B... spending $20m or even $100m on marketing as a percentage of a budget is not out of line for big business.

This is misunderstood.

Only about 25% of that budget is fungible.

You can't include things like a research budget or the endowment (which most often has strings attached). When corporations and the gov't and donors pay for projects, they want the money to go to those projects. The only part of the budget that is fungible is the tuition money. A quick back of the napkin calculation for UCF would take the in-state tuition, multiply it by # of instaters, the outstate tuition by outofstaters, then multiply by .3 to .4 (need-blind scholarships), and that would give you a sense of the fungible budget. Make sure not to include room & board because universities devote all that money to housing budget.

So, 95% instate at UCF is 50k x .95 = 47.5k x $6k tuition = $285 million. Add $15m for out of state, you're at $300m, then multiply by .3 (need-blind scholarships), and subtract that figure from $300m.

You're around $200m now.

The comparison was to % of marketing in operating cost for big companies... don't you think they have fixed costs and earmarked expenses too?

(12-16-2014 12:16 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:41 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:04 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 10:26 AM)ballhog Wrote:  Many times, the anti-football "academics", who say too much is spent on athletics, don't take into account the non-monetary benefits of athletics such as increased enrollment, good will, higer caliber of students, community outreach...
Although, I'm not so sure this was the case with UAB football.

This exactly. Academia smells blood in the water and are all to happy about it. Not understanding the effect it might have on them.

I think the impact is overblown....and this is coming from someone that lives, breaths and loves college athletics. Much like I think "academics" over blow the negative impact that athletics has an academics.

Quite simply: if you have a good reputation and academics you will attract good students and faculty. Athletics has very little bearing on that ...

Completely untrue. For the Ivies of the world your POV applies not for everyone else. Bama's academic quality has skyrocketed and there are many articles discussing their improvement. LSU's enrollment has doubled recently. When BC made the move to the ACC they became a much more national brand and improved their academics. When George Mason made their final four run, donations tripled and applications (I think) doubled. The marketing value of that run was estimated to be worth in the 100's of millions.

I am a graduate of George Mason University and I hope Mason never adds Division 1 football.

The University of Chicago made the correct move to drop out of Big Ten athletics.

-And I love college football.

(12-16-2014 12:57 PM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 12:47 PM)upstater1 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:37 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  Universities have become big business and college football is one their most effective marketing tools. UCF's yearly operating budget is closing in on $1B... spending $20m or even $100m on marketing as a percentage of a budget is not out of line for big business.

This is misunderstood.

Only about 25% of that budget is fungible.

You can't include things like a research budget or the endowment (which most often has strings attached). When corporations and the gov't and donors pay for projects, they want the money to go to those projects. The only part of the budget that is fungible is the tuition money. A quick back of the napkin calculation for UCF would take the in-state tuition, multiply it by # of instaters, the outstate tuition by outofstaters, then multiply by .3 to .4 (need-blind scholarships), and that would give you a sense of the fungible budget. Make sure not to include room & board because universities devote all that money to housing budget.

So, 95% instate at UCF is 50k x .95 = 47.5k x $6k tuition = $285 million. Add $15m for out of state, you're at $300m, then multiply by .3 (need-blind scholarships), and subtract that figure from $300m.

You're around $200m now.

The comparison was to % of marketing in operating cost for big companies... don't you think they have fixed costs and earmarked expenses too?

I don't think they devote 50% of their fungible budget to marketing, no.

There's $200m for the teaching of classes and the running of the administration. A $20m cut of that is really going to hurt you--and your reputation, I might add. Since you're not going to be able to hire anything but part-timers to teach.

Besides, UCF is competing for instate dollars at public institutions against UF, USF, Florida St, FGCU, etc. The question becomes, can it raise its profile enough to attract the students electing to go to UF or FSU? And how does it do nit? Improved academics? Football?

This isn't a classic case of marketing nationally to brand yourself. Big state institutions don't do that. They serve an instate constituency.

Students elect to go to San Diego over UCLA for a variety of reasons. In California, both are considered essentially equal, whereas nationally, UCLA has a bigger profile because of sports.

(12-16-2014 01:15 PM)chess Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 12:16 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:41 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:04 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 10:26 AM)ballhog Wrote:  Many times, the anti-football "academics", who say too much is spent on athletics, don't take into account the non-monetary benefits of athletics such as increased enrollment, good will, higer caliber of students, community outreach...
Although, I'm not so sure this was the case with UAB football.

This exactly. Academia smells blood in the water and are all to happy about it. Not understanding the effect it might have on them.

I think the impact is overblown....and this is coming from someone that lives, breaths and loves college athletics. Much like I think "academics" over blow the negative impact that athletics has an academics.

Quite simply: if you have a good reputation and academics you will attract good students and faculty. Athletics has very little bearing on that ...

Completely untrue. For the Ivies of the world your POV applies not for everyone else. Bama's academic quality has skyrocketed and there are many articles discussing their improvement. LSU's enrollment has doubled recently. When BC made the move to the ACC they became a much more national brand and improved their academics. When George Mason made their final four run, donations tripled and applications (I think) doubled. The marketing value of that run was estimated to be worth in the 100's of millions.

I am a graduate of George Mason University and I hope Mason never adds Division 1 football.

The University of Chicago made the correct move to drop out of Big Ten athletics.

-And I love college football.

Amen!

(12-16-2014 01:20 PM)upstater1 Wrote:  I don't think they devote 50% of their fungible budget to marketing, no.

There's $200m for the teaching of classes and the running of the administration. A $20m cut of that is really going to hurt you--and your reputation, I might add. Since you're not going to be able to hire anything but part-timers to teach.

Besides, UCF is competing for instate dollars at public institutions against UF, USF, Florida St, FGCU, etc. The question becomes, can it raise its profile enough to attract the students electing to go to UF or FSU? And how does it do nit? Improved academics? Football?

This isn't a classic case of marketing nationally to brand yourself. Big state institutions don't do that. They serve an instate constituency.

Students elect to go to San Diego over UCLA for a variety of reasons. In California, both are considered essentially equal, whereas nationally, UCLA has a bigger profile because of sports.

Right now, UCF is already the most applied to university in FL.
When you look at why someone would apply at FSU (2nd most applied to in FL) over UCF: Older, better perceived academics in some major, location, etc... Athletics is really the only thing that money can buy to help improve.

Let's be honest. If UCF hired away the best professors from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard they'd still be rated around where they are today academically. The name of the game in the higher education industry is image. You can only improve image with marketing and athletics is the best marketing tool in the industry.

(12-16-2014 01:22 PM)dezagcoog Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 01:15 PM)chess Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 12:16 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:41 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:04 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  This exactly. Academia smells blood in the water and are all to happy about it. Not understanding the effect it might have on them.

I think the impact is overblown....and this is coming from someone that lives, breaths and loves college athletics. Much like I think "academics" over blow the negative impact that athletics has an academics.

Quite simply: if you have a good reputation and academics you will attract good students and faculty. Athletics has very little bearing on that ...

Completely untrue. For the Ivies of the world your POV applies not for everyone else. Bama's academic quality has skyrocketed and there are many articles discussing their improvement. LSU's enrollment has doubled recently. When BC made the move to the ACC they became a much more national brand and improved their academics. When George Mason made their final four run, donations tripled and applications (I think) doubled. The marketing value of that run was estimated to be worth in the 100's of millions.

I am a graduate of George Mason University and I hope Mason never adds Division 1 football.

The University of Chicago made the correct move to drop out of Big Ten athletics.

-And I love college football.

Amen!

Every situation isn't the same and obviously Mason is starting too far behind and will be in a UAB position behind others in the state. The point I am making is the value of athletics to a schools brand, it's huge.

(12-16-2014 12:12 PM)Carolina Stang Wrote:  in Texas, if you do not have a D1 football team, you do not exist. period.

I get that people in NYC would not understand that.

Yep, agree. For example, Trinity in San Antonio (great school, very small football presence) vs. Rice vs. SMU vs. TCU/Baylor. Similar academic private schools but I can guarantee that nationwide people know TCU/Baylor more-so than Trinity.

In the end, one factor to help get a job and increase the value of your degree is how well known your school is nationwide. To me, in Dallas, UAB is nothing more than a community college.

(12-16-2014 01:15 PM)chess Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 12:16 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:41 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 11:04 AM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 10:26 AM)ballhog Wrote:  Many times, the anti-football "academics", who say too much is spent on athletics, don't take into account the non-monetary benefits of athletics such as increased enrollment, good will, higer caliber of students, community outreach...
Although, I'm not so sure this was the case with UAB football.

This exactly. Academia smells blood in the water and are all to happy about it. Not understanding the effect it might have on them.

I think the impact is overblown....and this is coming from someone that lives, breaths and loves college athletics. Much like I think "academics" over blow the negative impact that athletics has an academics.

Quite simply: if you have a good reputation and academics you will attract good students and faculty. Athletics has very little bearing on that ...

Completely untrue. For the Ivies of the world your POV applies not for everyone else. Bama's academic quality has skyrocketed and there are many articles discussing their improvement. LSU's enrollment has doubled recently. When BC made the move to the ACC they became a much more national brand and improved their academics. When George Mason made their final four run, donations tripled and applications (I think) doubled. The marketing value of that run was estimated to be worth in the 100's of millions.

I am a graduate of George Mason University and I hope Mason never adds Division 1 football.

The University of Chicago made the correct move to drop out of Big Ten athletics.

-And I love college football.

Again using that isolated school isn't fair, they had the benefit of a huge starting endowment/funding along with being the premier school in our 2nd largest financial city. However, if they were n the B10 now they would be crushing it. Should Northwestern had dropped out of the B10? Should Vandy have left the SEC? Did Tulane make the right choice leaving the SEC?

The general point I am making is athletics is now the primary face of so many D1 schools. The public is sports crazy and th e$/branding is enormous. This doesn't mean many smaller schools like UAB are making the wrong choice dropping FBall, but the general point remains the same, athletics are perhaps the most important aspect of so many schools. Even among the US News big boys, having competent athletics can make a huge difference as you traverse the rankings, outside the Ivy/MIT/UC's of the world. However, even schools like Harvard are realizing what an important role athletics can play to the moral of the campus and student experience.

(12-16-2014 01:37 PM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 01:20 PM)upstater1 Wrote:  I don't think they devote 50% of their fungible budget to marketing, no.

There's $200m for the teaching of classes and the running of the administration. A $20m cut of that is really going to hurt you--and your reputation, I might add. Since you're not going to be able to hire anything but part-timers to teach.

Besides, UCF is competing for instate dollars at public institutions against UF, USF, Florida St, FGCU, etc. The question becomes, can it raise its profile enough to attract the students electing to go to UF or FSU? And how does it do nit? Improved academics? Football?

This isn't a classic case of marketing nationally to brand yourself. Big state institutions don't do that. They serve an instate constituency.

Students elect to go to San Diego over UCLA for a variety of reasons. In California, both are considered essentially equal, whereas nationally, UCLA has a bigger profile because of sports.

Right now, UCF is already the most applied to university in FL.
When you look at why someone would apply at FSU (2nd most applied to in FL) over UCF: Older, better perceived academics in some major, location, etc... Athletics is really the only thing that money can buy to help improve.

Let's be honest. If UCF hired away the best professors from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard they'd still be rated around where they are today academically. The name of the game in the higher education industry is image. You can only improve image with marketing and athletics is the best marketing tool in the industry.

That's not true. Rice is consistently considered the best University in Texas and their sports/football sucks compared to UT, TAMU, etc.(caveat: exception in Baseball)

(12-16-2014 01:44 PM)MustangChuck Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 12:12 PM)Carolina Stang Wrote:  in Texas, if you do not have a D1 football team, you do not exist. period.

I get that people in NYC would not understand that.

Yep, agree. For example, Trinity in San Antonio (great school, very small football presence) vs. Rice vs. SMU vs. TCU/Baylor. Similar academic private schools but I can guarantee that nationwide people know TCU/Baylor more-so than Trinity.

In the end, one factor to help get a job and increase the value of your degree is how well known your school is nationwide. To me, in Dallas, UAB is nothing more than a community college.

Well if that's a common perception than UAB's football money was poorly spent --- "poorly spent," that is, if the intent was to generate the positive image so many here think a football program does. I'd wager a dollar spent a one school bring much more marketing value than a dollar spent at another. If that's the case than these broad brush statements about marketing really should be case by case --- which is what the article seems to suggest.

(12-16-2014 01:55 PM)dezagcoog Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 01:37 PM)SublimeKnight Wrote:  

(12-16-2014 01:20 PM)upstater1 Wrote:  I don't think they devote 50% of their fungible budget to marketing, no.

There's $200m for the teaching of classes and the running of the administration. A $20m cut of that is really going to hurt you--and your reputation, I might add. Since you're not going to be able to hire anything but part-timers to teach.

Besides, UCF is competing for instate dollars at public institutions against UF, USF, Florida St, FGCU, etc. The question becomes, can it raise its profile enough to attract the students electing to go to UF or FSU? And how does it do nit? Improved academics? Football?

This isn't a classic case of marketing nationally to brand yourself. Big state institutions don't do that. They serve an instate constituency.

Students elect to go to San Diego over UCLA for a variety of reasons. In California, both are considered essentially equal, whereas nationally, UCLA has a bigger profile because of sports.

Right now, UCF is already the most applied to university in FL.
When you look at why someone would apply at FSU (2nd most applied to in FL) over UCF: Older, better perceived academics in some major, location, etc... Athletics is really the only thing that money can buy to help improve.

Let's be honest. If UCF hired away the best professors from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard they'd still be rated around where they are today academically. The name of the game in the higher education industry is image. You can only improve image with marketing and athletics is the best marketing tool in the industry.

That's not true. Rice is consistently considered the best University in Texas and their sports/football sucks compared to UT, TAMU, etc.(caveat: exception in Baseball)

Rice has 4k students, it's unfair to compare it to the two big state schools. In fact, I know kids who choose UT over Rice and I am sure athletics plays a role in that decision.