(01-14-2022 09:19 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:50 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:12 PM)DZ1 Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 06:18 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 05:24 PM)Pounder Wrote:  There’s an article about Portland State’s next step as the 400-page athletic department vision/review study has been available for a few months… if you make an FOIA request. Which The Oregonian hasn’t bothered to do, but someone else has. And if there were an indication that football is on the chopping block, I could couple that with the school President’s statement in that article that he’s committed to keeping Portland State in D-1 and make something of a deal about possibilities with the WAC.

But the committee using the study to make a decision can’t land a new AD. And, to put it mildly, Portland State is the Kobayashi Maru of athletic department case studies.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Back to your usual.

It’s an interesting piece. From a WAC aspect, would a now more “Texas centric” conference add PSU if they did drop football? I don’t know. It would be nice for “travel partners” with SU, but what do they really add. WAC from 3 years ago, would have rolled out the red carpet for them.

If they do drop football, it does not automatically mean their basketball program will start being good. They need some kind of investment and just reiterates my belief that some schools are better off without football. That’s why schools like UTA, Grand Canyon, and UVU don’t and shouldn’t add football.

Exactly! Adding football is a money pit unless you have an elite program. Schools salivate over football thinking they will eventually be rolling in the dough. Some schools (especially mid-majors) have been waiting for this "pay day" for decades.

UTA found out first hand what a money pit football was. I sincerely doubt if they will go that route again.

You can’t compare pre-90’s UTA to now. Apples and oranges in many ways.

Unless your name is Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, etc. money pits are money pits. Show me any team in G5 that is actually making money from football.

(01-14-2022 08:58 PM)Lopes87 Wrote:  Portland State invested a ton into their new basketball arena. $52.1 million into their last renovation in 2016, reno was finished in 2018.

BTW, a little irony. It is a new arena, but within the renovation of the PE building housing the old gym. So if you ask me if the project was a new build or a renovation, my answer is “yes.” And it was a gym… and my PE class and all the others used it back in the day.

Part of the reason I called it the Kobayashi Maru of AD case studies is that this just opened 3 years ago. Makes even chopping off the whole AD look really dumb. But there’s no money to really grow anything else in the AD, and while the state has been generous with the university in other ventures (which hasn’t normally been the case), and they did help with the Pavilion, the best chance available to help with a stadium already passed with the timeframe of the HS campus construction across the freeway.

(01-14-2022 06:24 PM)Todor Wrote:  Some schools, and I think PSU is one, have football simply because they've always had football, and they are in a conference with other schools that have football.

If they were designing an athletics program from scratch today, they definitely wouldn't include football. But proactively getting rid of something is a whole other beast.

The funny thing about this is when I stopped to watch the rest of the soccer game with UC Davis at Sonoma State back when UCD was D2. 1992. I stopped on my way out after a D2 ranked Portland State FB team got beat at Sonoma State… who had Larry Allen at the time.

I’m standing at the soccer game when I must have turned my head to an adjoining conversation. Turns out I’m right next to the Sonoma State athletic director. Since I must have been a bit tall for the soccer crowd, he initiated the conversation, I justified my presence, then he mused about how Portland State could keep football like they did… and dropped men’s basketball.

I know Title IX was an issue then, but not quite at the forefront. Portland State had sent Neil Lomax and June Jones to the pros using Mouse Davis’ “run and shoot,” so I’d say the thought process wasn’t really ‘having it because they always had it.’ It was more like PSU was on a roll with the sport and thought the roll would continue.

Mouse had already been in and out of the pros by then. Pokey Allen was the coach at PSU… and took them to the D2 championship game his first two seasons. PSU lost to North Dakota State before it was cool. By then, he was moving heaven and earth to draw crowds to then Civic Stadium, managing one year (based on a bet with the editor of the student newspaper) to draw 10,000 per game. But ‘92 was Pokey’s last year in Portland before going to Boise State (it’s only coincidence that I got moved to Idaho the next fall), Sonoma State’s coach at the time ended up in Portland, and Tim Walsh spent a long time there helping PSU’s transition to D-1 but never quite reaching those heights.

More story than you wanted, but I keep forgetting how many of those things tie together.

(01-14-2022 09:26 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 09:19 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:50 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:12 PM)DZ1 Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 06:18 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  It’s an interesting piece. From a WAC aspect, would a now more “Texas centric” conference add PSU if they did drop football? I don’t know. It would be nice for “travel partners” with SU, but what do they really add. WAC from 3 years ago, would have rolled out the red carpet for them.

If they do drop football, it does not automatically mean their basketball program will start being good. They need some kind of investment and just reiterates my belief that some schools are better off without football. That’s why schools like UTA, Grand Canyon, and UVU don’t and shouldn’t add football.

Exactly! Adding football is a money pit unless you have an elite program. Schools salivate over football thinking they will eventually be rolling in the dough. Some schools (especially mid-majors) have been waiting for this "pay day" for decades.

UTA found out first hand what a money pit football was. I sincerely doubt if they will go that route again.

You can’t compare pre-90’s UTA to now. Apples and oranges in many ways.

Unless your name is Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, etc. money pits are money pits. Show me any team in G5 that is actually making money from football.

If they weren't locked into a cold war spending cycle on lockerroom updates and coaching buyouts, I think there are probably 40 schools that would make money from their college sports. They should break off and institute spending limits.

Everyone else should be in a different division.

(01-14-2022 09:26 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 09:19 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:50 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:12 PM)DZ1 Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 06:18 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  It’s an interesting piece. From a WAC aspect, would a now more “Texas centric” conference add PSU if they did drop football? I don’t know. It would be nice for “travel partners” with SU, but what do they really add. WAC from 3 years ago, would have rolled out the red carpet for them.

If they do drop football, it does not automatically mean their basketball program will start being good. They need some kind of investment and just reiterates my belief that some schools are better off without football. That’s why schools like UTA, Grand Canyon, and UVU don’t and shouldn’t add football.

Exactly! Adding football is a money pit unless you have an elite program. Schools salivate over football thinking they will eventually be rolling in the dough. Some schools (especially mid-majors) have been waiting for this "pay day" for decades.

UTA found out first hand what a money pit football was. I sincerely doubt if they will go that route again.

You can’t compare pre-90’s UTA to now. Apples and oranges in many ways.

Unless your name is Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, etc. money pits are money pits. Show me any team in G5 that is actually making money from football.

That’s not the same. I guess you’re advocating SMU drop football.

(01-15-2022 03:07 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 09:26 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 09:19 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:50 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 07:12 PM)DZ1 Wrote:  Exactly! Adding football is a money pit unless you have an elite program. Schools salivate over football thinking they will eventually be rolling in the dough. Some schools (especially mid-majors) have been waiting for this "pay day" for decades.

UTA found out first hand what a money pit football was. I sincerely doubt if they will go that route again.

You can’t compare pre-90’s UTA to now. Apples and oranges in many ways.

Unless your name is Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, etc. money pits are money pits. Show me any team in G5 that is actually making money from football.

That’s not the same. I guess you’re advocating SMU drop football.

SMU is definitely losing money on football, but they will never drop the sport.

Really, the question of whether or not a school is "making money" on football is only answerable if one is able to correctly gage how much the sport tangibly and intangibly brings to the school in terms of donations, pride, enthusiasm, allegiance, alumni participation, community identity and so forth. It's easy enough to build a spreadsheet that demonstrates the football program is losing money, but that spreadsheet fails to accurately measure school spirit and enthusiasm.

I was raised singing "Varsity" and cheering along with (the SMU fight song) Peruna. Don Meredith was me and my brother's hero. I can't imagine SMU without football and The Mustang Band. Those years after the "death penalty" must have been awful.

Now imagine UTA fans suffering for thirty-six years, so far, after our death penalty was imposed. Any glimmer of hope that we can grab on to at this point is positive. Thanks for your support!

By the way, please sign our petition. No $ contribution is required.

https://chng.it/pxWvh4MvtF

How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

I look at successful sports teams as ‘loss leaders.’ As you note, sports keep alumni connected and connected, happy alums are more likely to cough up bucks for their alma mater. The more successful the sports team (Football and MBB) the happier the Alums and the bigger the checks.

(01-16-2022 03:19 AM)OscarWildeCat Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

I look at successful sports teams as ‘loss leaders.’ As you note, sports keep alumni connected and connected, happy alums are more likely to cough up bucks for their alma mater. The more successful the sports team (Football and MBB) the happier the Alums and the bigger the checks.

But the key question: if the next generation considers the sport harmful, or doesn’t appreciate it as much, how else will that connection be kept?

Even when I went to Portland State in the 80s, you had students who didn’t care about athletics at all, then you had those who fell in love with another school’s athletic program and weren’t afraid to show it. Then maybe a couple people in a given class who were either athletes or actually cared. And I get the impression that the first two populations are growing, not shrinking.

So if it feels like P5 schools are trying to monopolize fan interest, are we sure they don’t have a basis to do so?

Well I can tell you at UTA, waving the white flag isn’t working. SFA and TXST have the same issue of P5 fans on campus, but draw well at their venues for their level (although TXST basketball hasn’t historically).

Attendance for basketball fell after football was dropped and didn’t recover until we opened state-of-the-art College Park Center. As frustrating as it may be for students who are fans of other sports, football has reverberations across the whole athletic department.

(01-16-2022 03:19 AM)OscarWildeCat Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

I look at successful sports teams as ‘loss leaders.’ As you note, sports keep alumni connected and connected, happy alums are more likely to cough up bucks for their alma mater. The more successful the sports team (Football and MBB) the happier the Alums and the bigger the checks.

"Loss Leaders" is a very perceptive and insightful comment. As a metaphor it helps explain all the Vanderbilt, Kansas, UNT and Rice-type programs. Using "loss leader" football as a way to entice teenage "retail education customers" into entering their "hallowed halls" makes some pragmatic sense. But I don't want to sound cynical here - college athletics and football in particular have many positive aspects that make the project eminently worth pursuing and able to stand on its own merits.

(01-17-2022 08:38 PM)wewererebels Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 03:19 AM)OscarWildeCat Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

I look at successful sports teams as ‘loss leaders.’ As you note, sports keep alumni connected and connected, happy alums are more likely to cough up bucks for their alma mater. The more successful the sports team (Football and MBB) the happier the Alums and the bigger the checks.

"Loss Leaders" is a very perceptive and insightful comment. As a metaphor it helps explain all the Vanderbilt, Kansas, UNT and Rice-type programs. Using "loss leader" football as a way to entice teenage "retail education customers" into entering their "hallowed halls" makes some pragmatic sense. But I don't want to sound cynical here - college athletics and football in particular have many positive aspects that make the project eminently worth pursuing and able to stand on its own merits.

It’s worth pursuing if you can realistically believe that it can stand on its own merits. Vanderbilt and Kansas have giant media deals, it doesn’t matter that they’re bad programs, they will always be a P5 school. Incarnate Word, Tarleton, and Texas-Arlington will never ever be at that level. Their best hope is being better than Texas State and UTEP.

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

Not just that but being discussed by the media and the population in general.

I hear more about Southern Utah and Dixie St than Utah Valley. Guess which one doesn't have a football program.

(01-18-2022 01:15 AM)TardisCaptain Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

Not just that but being discussed by the media and the population in general.

I hear more about Southern Utah and Dixie St than Utah Valley. Guess which one doesn't have a football program.

Where do you hear more about SUU and DSU? You don’t hear a lot about UTA because their basketball program is mediocre and if they did start football, it will likely be mediocre too. Does anyone really think UTRGV is going to have a good football program? I don’t think they’re ever been to the NCAAs, but we’re going to believe the football program is going to be done differently?

(01-18-2022 01:15 AM)TardisCaptain Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

Not just that but being discussed by the media and the population in general.

I hear more about Southern Utah and Dixie St than Utah Valley. Guess which one doesn't have a football program.

That media comment rings true. The small town schools have 100% coverage from their small town papers. UT Arlington is in a large, but underserved media area. The Fort Worth paper is all about TCU, and the Dallas paper covers Big XII and SMU. Even the campus paper is more interested in promoting woke causes than actually reporting on UTA athletics. I'm thinking that UTA needs to go out in the boonies and adopt an outlying community so as to get coverage from their newspaper. My favorite candidate would be The Hood County News here in Granbury. Of course, like Utah Valley, we need to get a football team before even the Hood County News will notice us.

(01-17-2022 09:46 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(01-17-2022 08:38 PM)wewererebels Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 03:19 AM)OscarWildeCat Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

I look at successful sports teams as ‘loss leaders.’ As you note, sports keep alumni connected and connected, happy alums are more likely to cough up bucks for their alma mater. The more successful the sports team (Football and MBB) the happier the Alums and the bigger the checks.

"Loss Leaders" is a very perceptive and insightful comment. As a metaphor it helps explain all the Vanderbilt, Kansas, UNT and Rice-type programs. Using "loss leader" football as a way to entice teenage "retail education customers" into entering their "hallowed halls" makes some pragmatic sense. But I don't want to sound cynical here - college athletics and football in particular have many positive aspects that make the project eminently worth pursuing and able to stand on its own merits.

It’s worth pursuing if you can realistically believe that it can stand on its own merits. Vanderbilt and Kansas have giant media deals, it doesn’t matter that they’re bad programs, they will always be a P5 school. Incarnate Word, Tarleton, and Texas-Arlington will never ever be at that level. Their best hope is being better than Texas State and UTEP.

Tarleton has cultivated quite the fanbase in their college town of Fort Worth. Haven’t you heard? Forget TCU, Tarleton is the prominent D1 school in the metroplex now. Fans flock to Tarleton Memorial Stadium and that NBA-quality arena they have on campus. Packed every night. That’s why their football stadium is being expanded to 30,000.

I’d watch your mouth, bozo. Tarleton will be Big 12 by July.

(01-18-2022 10:07 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(01-18-2022 01:15 AM)TardisCaptain Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

Not just that but being discussed by the media and the population in general.

I hear more about Southern Utah and Dixie St than Utah Valley. Guess which one doesn't have a football program.

Where do you hear more about SUU and DSU? You don’t hear a lot about UTA because their basketball program is mediocre and if they did start football, it will likely be mediocre too. Does anyone really think UTRGV is going to have a good football program? I don’t think they’re ever been to the NCAAs, but we’re going to believe the football program is going to be done differently?

For us fans/alum of WAC schools w/o football why care about those who are or might add football? These schools that add football at the FCS level will be hamstrung to the sport and will have to shift focus away from hoops to continue to feed football. Which means non football schools should be stronger than those who are just now starting football.

(01-18-2022 01:15 AM)TardisCaptain Wrote:  

(01-16-2022 12:45 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  How do you put a dollar figure on feelings and spirit? I’d say the conference payout of the SBC is better than FCS, but the costs are more. Meanwhile, schools with football tend to have more active posters on message boards. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of making money, but offering amenities for students and ways to keep alums connected.

Not just that but being discussed by the media and the population in general.

I hear more about Southern Utah and Dixie St than Utah Valley. Guess which one doesn't have a football program.

Could this possibly mean you are a football fan and thus hear more about Southern Utah and Dixie State because they are football schools? As a basketball fan, I hear way more about Utah Valley than the other two schools. Guess which of the three schools has a better basketball program?
We all have viewer bias.