(12-10-2023 11:18 AM)pantone1935 Wrote:  

(12-10-2023 10:55 AM)tampabayrocketfan Wrote:  

(12-09-2023 09:07 AM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(12-09-2023 08:44 AM)tampabayrocketfan Wrote:  

(12-08-2023 12:13 PM)uiniu57 Wrote:  First and foremost Big Red, I apologize to you for completely missing the sarcasm on a day when too many things had me in a literal foul mood. My bad and my major error.

Nevertheless I simply don't believe Chicago State is being realistic considering a time when the NCAA is proposing an uber Division I level that will start paying players while continuing the arms race for facilities, NIL packages, and excessive coaching salaries. But the Cougars can enjoy their five minutes of fame because I'm certain the Chicago media and the rest of the sporting world will go back to ignoring the place.

There are only five schools in the MAC that have shown the ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to their endowments with values at or over a $500 Million, which would lead me to believe it would potentially correlate well to athletic donations and that include Buffalo, Toledo, Miami, WMU, and Ohio U. The other MAC schools endowments are very small in comparison. The vast majority of donations for athletics run through university foundations which manage the endowments and then are disbursed as directed by the donors.

NIU reported a few months back that we were about to embark on a historic $500 mil. raise for the University. According to that summer article it should be announced anytime now. I'm hoping they wouldn't kick-off that large of a raise if they didn't have some of the donors locked in already.

$500M is now sort of the mark that most schools want to be at or above and keep building. Foundations usually kick off 5% of their endowment to the University each year so based on $500M UT gets $25M kicked over the University each year for things like scholarships, buildings/renovations, programs, etc. Then they aim to replace and grow that 5% with current year donations and market based increases (which can also be decreases) UT averages around $25M or more in donations each year so it gets replaced and continues to grow. So instead of having a giant goal one time, UT rinses and repeats every single year to replace and grow. UT Alumni Association & Foundation (now one combined group working together) does a terrific job of programing and seeing alumni clubs all over the country and they never miss doing it. I attend one every year in Tampa. We have a few dozen alumni clubs and they bring folks to each club every single year including The President, AD, Coaches, Professors/Deans and usually a somewhat famous alum or two from that area where the chapter is. You guys know better then me, but if NIU is doing those same things all of the time and every single year they should see success. You cant do this some of the time, its not an afterthought! By the way, I was just reading the Toledo Blade and the AD and President of UT said that they plan on being part of the new subdivision and making football along with men's and women's basketball as the pillars along with the current NIL "Friends of Rocky" run by wealthy alum Cleves Delp! The number is around $6M. I am hopeful that most of the MAC including NIU is able to get there!

Don't we all wish we were as perfect as the Univ of Toledo.

GO HUSKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe our goals should be to increase our enrollment to full capacity like Illinois State and copy our fundraising model after the University of Toledo instead of making fun of them.