New wrestling facility put on hold - Jamie Pollard statement

[Trice]

Problem solved!

I think they should sell alcohol, simply because it's an amenity people expect in a modern sports venue and we need to do everything we can to get and keep butts in seats, because I fear that's going to be a bigger challenge as the gap between the haves and have-nots grows.

But it isn't going to save a sport or fund a building project.

 

[Chitowncy]

DII, DIII, and NAIA schools make it work. At most places there is nothing fancy and they just get enough but they make it work.

Exactly. I would hope before cutting programs completely they think about making do with less. I just went to the soccer page for Iowa State, and the team has 4 coaches and 5 support staff (some of which are shared clearly).
https://cyclones.com/sports/womens-soccer/roster#roster-staff. For a team of 20-some college kids! It's pretty incredible when you think how little our society pays K-12 school teachers and nurses and others who have much more important and valuable jobs to our society then these athletic coaches. The average school teacher salary in Iowa is like $54K. The head soccer coach at ISU is making $161,231.40 per year in 2023 with great ISU benefits and assistants making a ton as well for coaching a sport of 20-some people as their full-time job, it's something that should be looked at first to reduce the salary by say $70,000 for the top spot, cut paid assistants, cut travel / other expenses and of course lessen scholarships a bit for student athletes before completely eliminating the program completely. I would think you could go back to the situation of what programs looked like 40 years ago and have two paid coaches (at considerably less salary), some volunteers and keep the program alive?

If the doomsday happens and Pollard or others in administration think they have to eliminate these sports like they did baseball because of the money pits they are, I hope they'll think first about letting the sports exist with less fiscal support (partial scholarships, less coaches, etc.) and cutting within the AD itself first and within those sports. They could probably cut $600K out of the sport's budget and the results wouldn't be too different. The soccer program doesn't win already, so what is the harm in keeping it as an opportunity for a sport to play at the college level? It helps those students develop and have amazing experiences. Same with other olympic sports. Give them trial periods with less before just axing them completely. That strikes me as a bad, but "less-bad" option than complete elimination.

Regardless, I hope it doesn't get there and I hope we keep all our olympic sports programs fully-funded as they currently are, but if these programs ever face the chopping block, I hope they'll try to just keep them around because of the worth they have to student athletes, their families and the few people who do attend these games and the pride they elicit when they do well even if not funded with all the perks and well-paid large staffs they once had. It's crazy in many ways we're even talking about this considering the insane athletic revenue football and men's basketball bring in.....

To the OP, it is sad to hear they won't be able to build the wrestling training center for the foreseeable future.

 

[CyCity]

 

[Cyhig]

Exactly. I would hope before cutting programs completely they think about making do with less. I just went to the soccer page for Iowa State, and the team has 4 coaches and 5 support staff (some of which are shared clearly).
https://cyclones.com/sports/womens-soccer/roster#roster-staff. For a team of 20-some college kids! It's pretty incredible when you think how little our society pays K-12 school teachers and nurses and others who have much more important and valuable jobs to our society then these athletic coaches. The average school teacher salary in Iowa is like $54K. The head soccer coach at ISU is making $161,231.40 per year in 2023 with great ISU benefits and assistants making a ton as well for coaching a sport of 20-some people as their full-time job, it's something that should be looked at first to reduce the salary by say $70,000 for the top spot, cut paid assistants, cut travel / other expenses and of course lessen scholarships a bit for student athletes before completely eliminating the program completely. I would think you could go back to the situation of what programs looked like 40 years ago and have two paid coaches (at considerably less salary), some volunteers and keep the program alive?

If the doomsday happens and Pollard or others in administration think they have to eliminate these sports like they did baseball because of the money pits they are, I hope they'll think first about letting the sports exist with less fiscal support (partial scholarships, less coaches, etc.) and cutting within the AD itself first and within those sports. They could probably cut $600K out of the sport's budget and the results wouldn't be too different. The soccer program doesn't win already, so what is the harm in keeping it as an opportunity for a sport to play at the college level? It helps those students develop and have amazing experiences. Same with other olympic sports. Give them trial periods with less before just axing them completely. That strikes me as a bad, but "less-bad" option than complete elimination.

Regardless, I hope it doesn't get there and I hope we keep all our olympic sports programs fully-funded as they currently are, but if these programs ever face the chopping block, I hope they'll try to just keep them around because of the worth they have to student athletes, their families and the few people who do attend these games and the pride they elicit when they do well even if not funded with all the perks and well-paid large staffs they once had. It's crazy in many ways we're even talking about this considering the insane athletic revenue football and men's basketball bring in.....

To the OP, it is sad to hear they won't be able to build the wrestling training center for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, average salaries are not based on value brought to society, but rather it's more about supply and demand.

 

[Trice]

I do like that he also said watch out bottom of the SEC and B1G. Eventually the top will ask why are YOU getting a share. "Will eat their own". And i agree.

I live for the day when that happens. And if all this madness in college athletics continues for another 3-5 years, maybe it will.

But if a resolution to all the madness really isn't that far away, I suspect it will have a stabilizing effect that will protect the bottom-feeder schools in big-money conferences. If this resolution had happened fifteen years ago, it might have prevented all this madness in the first place. But nothing ever gets done without a crisis.

 

[Dandy]

Tough to forecast what the B1G and SEC are doing to everyone else in college athletics.

As CW, Woody, and Blum have all mentioned in the past week.... be careful what you wish for though. If the B1G and SEC piss off the fans... it will come back to haunt them all too. Greed will destroy everything in the end. Everyone needs one another.

I think the ESPN/SEC + Fox/B1G monopoly is going to slowly kill the collegiate athletics viewership. They need to remember the "N" in NCAA is National. Pretty soon it won't be a national level of sporting anymore. It will be the east and southeast parts of the country and the eye balls everywhere else will me mad they were left out and stop watching. The constant transferring of players doesn't help either.
(This is my guess.)

 

[Dandy]

Isn't one of the reasons why Cael Sanderson left ISU was he wanted a nice, new wrestling only facility?

 

[CyCity]

Isn't one of the reasons why Cael Sanderson left ISU was he wanted a nice, new wrestling only facility?

It’s because they gave him a bunch of money. But facilities in 2009 mattered. Now only NIL matters.

 

[06_CY]

Iowa State can't even handle concession sales properly right now. I would hate to see the cluster **** if beer was being sold.

 

[Cyclonsin]

I think the ESPN/SEC + Fox/B1G monopoly is going to slowly kill the collegiate athletics viewership. They need to remember the "N" in NCAA is National. Pretty soon it won't be a national level of sporting anymore. It will be the east and southeast parts of the country and the eye balls everywhere else will me mad they were left out and stop watching. The constant transferring of players doesn't help either.
(This is my guess.)

It'll be plenty national for solid and reliable viewership for a very very long time. Remember that the B1G and SEC will have teams (almost always the flagship, too) in these states starting this year:

California
Oregon
Washington
Oklahoma
Texas
Iowa
Nebraska
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Michigan
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Maryland
Kentucky
Tennessee
Arkansas
Missouri
Louisiana
Mississippi
Alabama
Georgia
Florida
South Carolina
And will likely be able to add North Carolina & Virginia soon enough.

That's a much larger footprint than any of the national pro leagues and will capture plenty of eyeballs without the need to pay the "dead weight" programs.

Contrary to a lot of posters here, I strongly believe a ton of people would watch these games simply because they'll get a ton of coverage, and every talking head will preach about these teams being easily the best out there. And with the revenue/visibility discrepancy, they'll be right.

 

[CascadeClone]

I live for the day when that happens. And if all this madness in college athletics continues for another 3-5 years, maybe it will.

But if a resolution to all the madness really isn't that far away, I suspect it will have a stabilizing effect that will protect the bottom-feeder schools in big-money conferences. If this resolution had happened fifteen years ago, it might have prevented all this madness in the first place. But nothing ever gets done without a crisis.

Agree. There could be a grand bargain that pays players but still creates a competitive environment where there is some semblance of competitive balance. At least as much as it ever was balanced. But a GINI coefficient of 0.4 is a lot different than 0.9.

But I don't see how it can happen. The big players just have no incentive to do such a bargain and share. They see it all as zero-sum, which it really isn't. Maybe at some point, someone says the ultimate conclusion to this is that Alabama plays Ohio State every week until the end of time. And realizes that probably isn't good.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Big donor bases are the only way for Olympic sports to survive then?

As long as you've got one at every school, I guess.

You could pump a bunch of money into a non-revenue to keep it but that doesn't do you much good if there aren't any other programs to compete against.

 

[buf87]

Are all sports lumped into 1 TV contract? Or is Men's Basketball separated?

What % of the the TV $$$ contracts are allocated to each sport, if they are lumped together?

If lumped together, why would Big 12, ACC, Big East tie their Men's basketball to a Football TV contract?

 

[WISCY1895]

Are all sports lumped into 1 TV contract? Or is Men's Basketball separated?

What % of the the TV $$$ contracts are allocated to each sport, if they are lumped together?

If lumped together, why would Big 12, ACC, Big East tie their Men's basketball to a Football TV contract?

Right now all sports are lumped together. Yormark has made it clear he wants to do a separate negotiation for basketball the next round of media rights.

 

[Xerxes_]

This is what the big guys don’t get. They think they can just secede, and they’ll keep rolling on the never ending gravy train? Just who do they expect to play to pad their 10-win seasons every year?

Plenty of teams from outside the SEC & B1G would be lining up to play a game at Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, etc and collect a 7 figure pay day (and a beatdown) that goes with it.

Gotta pay the bills.

 

[Mr Janny]

It'll be plenty national for solid and reliable viewership for a very very long time. Remember that the B1G and SEC will have teams (almost always the flagship, too) in these states starting this year:

California
Oregon
Washington
Oklahoma
Texas
Iowa
Nebraska
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Michigan
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Maryland
Kentucky
Tennessee
Arkansas
Missouri
Louisiana
Mississippi
Alabama
Georgia
Florida
South Carolina
And will likely be able to add North Carolina & Virginia soon enough.

That's a much larger footprint than any of the national pro leagues and will capture plenty of eyeballs without the need to pay the "dead weight" programs.

Contrary to a lot of posters here, I strongly believe a ton of people would watch these games simply because they'll get a ton of coverage, and every talking head will preach about these teams being easily the best out there. And with the revenue/visibility discrepancy, they'll be right.

Agreed. If you try to take a step back and try to divorce yourself from the Iowa State fan mindset, it's hard to argue that the Big10/SEC is in anything but an incredibly favorable position to succeed as a separate league; nationally known brands, big fan support, media partners that are motivated to promote and sell the product. They're starting from 3rd base.

 

[Lewey24]

There's absolutely no way that this isn't something they've taken into consideration. Too much money riding on it to let something like projected viewership slip past their notice. If the Big 10/SEC move forward with the Big 2, it will be because they have solid data backing the decision. They're definitely not dumb. You don't drop a nuke on the college sports landscape without being very sure that you're going to come out the other side in as good or better of a position.

These people added Rutgers not long ago, which is now a huge negative because markets don’t matter anymore, viewers do. Let’s not pretend they know what they’re doing lol.

 

[Lewey24]

It'll be plenty national for solid and reliable viewership for a very very long time. Remember that the B1G and SEC will have teams (almost always the flagship, too) in these states starting this year:

California
Oregon
Washington
Oklahoma
Texas
Iowa
Nebraska
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Michigan
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Maryland
Kentucky
Tennessee
Arkansas
Missouri
Louisiana
Mississippi
Alabama
Georgia
Florida
South Carolina
And will likely be able to add North Carolina & Virginia soon enough.

That's a much larger footprint than any of the national pro leagues and will capture plenty of eyeballs without the need to pay the "dead weight" programs.

Contrary to a lot of posters here, I strongly believe a ton of people would watch these games simply because they'll get a ton of coverage, and every talking head will preach about these teams being easily the best out there. And with the revenue/visibility discrepancy, they'll be right.

Gonna push back a little on this one, why would people choose to watch and spend money on a worse NFL? College sports are so dominant because of the connections people have to a school, whether it’s attending, a family member attending, or growing up near a college. If you want to see the power of that, Iowa State women’s basketball averages more fans than the average WNBA game.

 

[4theheckofit]

Jamie has talked about that recently too. I do believe we will see a day when the men’s Olympic sports get mostly cut and the women’s Olympic sports compete in the MVC. Cuts down on travel and we actually might see a bump in attendance at softball and soccer when they play more local teams.

Unfortunately I think there will be a day when football, basketball, and wrestling are the only 3 male sports left at Iowa State

We have more men's sports than these three?

 

[Cyclonsin]

Gonna push back a little on this one, why would people choose to watch and spend money on a worse NFL? College sports are so dominant because of the connections people have to a school, whether it’s attending, a family member attending, or growing up near a college. If you want to see the power of that, Iowa State women’s basketball averages more fans than the average WNBA game.

They already have nearly all of the biggest brands and will likely have all them once the ACC becomes fair game. They'll lose some Iowa State fans, but they also won't have to pay Iowa State as much (or at all). They'll definitely make the arithmetic work in their favor, and I have no doubt this would.

My fear is that we're approaching a point where the people writing checks couldn't care less about getting the second biggest fan base in the 31st most populated state.