If ISU Has to cut sports, which sports are on the block?

[LivntheCyLife]

That was a one year deficit. There are several schools there with excesses well above $10 million for 2019. A guy I do camps with put together a spreadsheet going back 15-20 years. Ohio State has cumulative excesses in the hundreds of millions. Alabama, Texas, Texas AM, Georgia and many others as well. Most of the SEC and B10 had huge excesses.

I'm pretty sure $8.9M is the Ohio St AD reserves, not any one year amount. I've never seen any financials from any of the public schools that suggest their athletic departments have these huge excesses, I'd be interested if you've seen something like that somewhere.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

I'm pretty sure $8.9M is the Ohio St AD reserves, not any one year amount. I've never seen any financials from any of the public schools that suggest their athletic departments have these huge excesses, I'd be interested if you've seen something like that somewhere.

As non profit organizations these teams are allowed by federal tax law to keep reserves. Many schools are giving money back to the university, for example UT has given the university over 40 million dollars over the past 5 years, Alabama over 20 million. On the link that I provided if you click on total allocated if it is in red, it will bring up a screen that shows how much money each school is transferring back its university.

https://grantspace.org/resources/kn... used reserve goal,its cash flow and expenses.

 

[isu81]

Not sure where the whole “non profits have to spend all their revenue” narrative started but the above link is explanatory. The ADs transferring money back to the schools do so only after ensuring proper reserves in the AD.

 

[LivntheCyLife]

Not sure where the whole “non profits have to spend all their revenue” narrative started but the above link is explanatory. The ADs transferring money back to the schools do so only after ensuring proper reserves in the AD.

Do you know why they transfer money back to the university? Just curious. Again, this recent article about Ohio State says their most recent financial filings said their current athletic department reserves are a little over $10M. Which doesn't strike me as proper reserves.


https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2020/...ball-cannot-play-in-2020-due-to-covid-19.html

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

Do you know why they transfer money back to the university? Just curious. Again, this recent article about Ohio State says their most recent financial filings said their current athletic department reserves are a little over $10M. Which doesn't strike me as proper reserves.


https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2020/...ball-cannot-play-in-2020-due-to-covid-19.html

One would guess political pressure from the state legislature, if the athletic department is sending money, then the state does not.
There was a proposal to do the same thing here in Iowa a few years ago, both EIU and ISU would send money from our athletic departments to UNI. It quickly went nowhere and died without much debate.

 

[isu81]

I can’t speak for Ohio State, but know there are target reserves. Once hit, SE is correct. Pressure to give back to the mother ship/university. Looks like many P5 programs were in a deficit position and received from the University (including Iowa State). I looked back for years and don’t see where the ISU AD has ever given money back to the University.

 

[BCClone]

I can’t speak for Ohio State, but know there are target reserves. Once hit, SE is correct. Pressure to give back to the mother ship/university. Looks like many P5 programs were in a deficit position and received from the University (including Iowa State). I looked back for years and don’t see where the ISU AD has ever given money back to the University.

ISU hasn't given to the university directly. One thing to ask, how many of these athletes would attend ISU if college sports were not available (anywhere, not just at ISU). There are several students that the athletic departments gains ISU by having athletics that would not attend otherwise; many out of state.

 

[drlove]

ISU hasn't given to the university directly. One thing to ask, how many of these athletes would attend ISU if college sports were not available (anywhere, not just at ISU). There are several students that the athletic departments gains ISU by having athletics that would not attend otherwise; many out of state.

it is important to note that in some cases, those out of state student athletes are on partial scholarships.

 

[cyclonestate]

I would disagree that our wrestling program is in the clear because so few schools have wrestling now and it will be one the first sports the remaining schools cancel. There will be few schools to compete with.

 

[ISUTex]

Can they cut women's programs? Women's tennis and golf maybe? Men's golf. Swimming and diving?

 

[AuH2O]

ISU hasn't given to the university directly. One thing to ask, how many of these athletes would attend ISU if college sports were not available (anywhere, not just at ISU). There are several students that the athletic departments gains ISU by having athletics that would not attend otherwise; many out of state.

While this has value, it's a bit of a false argument that got brought up by those that want to bring back baseball. People talk about the money-losing sports (all but FB and MBB) as providing opportunities for students. If you were trying to give as many opportunities to students to go to college that wouldn't be able to otherwise, sports are a horribly inefficient way to do it. Not only are you paying the scholarships (full or partial), you are paying for equipment, coaches, AD staff, facilities, travel, etc. For example, rather than spend the money fielding a golf team you could get more students aid/academic scholarships.

Title IX is much broader than college athletics, and there's no getting around it. I believe ISU's first constraint is fielding the six men's sports needed to be in the Big XII. Before cutting anything, ISU would have to be able to maintain Big XII membership with fewer than 6 men's sports.

 

[dualthreat]

I'm one of those that really doesn't want open cups of beer all over the stadium - you end up wearing more than they drink. However, I concede that may be one of the only ways to replace lost revenue...and it's a sad day when (if) that becomes true.

You're overlooking the possibilities!

 

[BCClone]

While this has value, it's a bit of a false argument that got brought up by those that want to bring back baseball. People talk about the money-losing sports (all but FB and MBB) as providing opportunities for students. If you were trying to give as many opportunities to students to go to college that wouldn't be able to otherwise, sports are a horribly inefficient way to do it. Not only are you paying the scholarships (full or partial), you are paying for equipment, coaches, AD staff, facilities, travel, etc. For example, rather than spend the money fielding a golf team you could get more students aid/academic scholarships.

Title IX is much broader than college athletics, and there's no getting around it. I believe ISU's first constraint is fielding the six men's sports needed to be in the Big XII. Before cutting anything, ISU would have to be able to maintain Big XII membership with fewer than 6 men's sports.

I know several kids that would not attend college if it weren’t for football. Know a pair of brothers who said they went to college only to play football.

ISU could lose one women’s sport and still be ok, IIRC. Title nine was starting when I was in school. I believe ISU has added a woman’s sport after they hit compliance.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

I know several kids that would not attend college if it weren’t for football. Know a pair of brothers who said they went to college only to play football.

ISU could lose one women’s sport and still be ok, IIRC. Title nine was starting when I was in school. I believe ISU has added a woman’s sport after they hit compliance.

Title IX was enacted when I was in high school. They started putting it into effect a couple of years later...circa 1974.

 

[Cyched]

You're overlooking the possibilities!

View attachment 73702

It's beautiful

 

[BCClone]

Title IX was enacted when I was in high school. They started putting it into effect a couple of years later...circa 1974.

It was a lot older and slower moving than I thought, or used as an excuse more than I understood.

 

[AuH2O]

I know several kids that would not attend college if it weren’t for football. Know a pair of brothers who said they went to college only to play football.

ISU could lose one women’s sport and still be ok, IIRC. Title nine was starting when I was in school. I believe ISU has added a woman’s sport after they hit compliance.

It is not number of sports, but #scholarships, correct?

I'm sure there are people that only went to college because of football. And that's good that they did. However, I'm speaking more to sports that lose money. They might go to college only because of those sports. That's good, but there's opportunity cost for those.

What's more efficient?
- Pay tuition, R&B, cost of coaches, facilities, travel to games, etc. for a student that would've otherwise not gone to college
OR
- Pay tuition and R&B for a student (non-athlete) that is good academically but otherwise wouldn't go for financial reasons

Again, it's a high-level view of the university as a whole, not the AD working largely independently from a financial standpoint. You could send a lot more kids to school if you didn't have to incur the very large costs of coaching, insuring, providing tutoring services, practice facilities, travel, etc. for athletes for sports that lose money.

I see money-losing men's sports as being a necessity due to Big XII requirements, and the money-losing women's sports as being a necessity due to Title IX. That doesn't mean they don't have benefits, but the real and opportunity costs are much larger.

 

[BCClone]

It is not number of sports, but #scholarships, correct?

I'm sure there are people that only went to college because of football. And that's good that they did. However, I'm speaking more to sports that lose money. They might go to college only because of those sports. That's good, but there's opportunity cost for those.

What's more efficient?
- Pay tuition, R&B, cost of coaches, facilities, travel to games, etc. for a student that would've otherwise not gone to college
OR
- Pay tuition and R&B for a student (non-athlete) that is good academically but otherwise wouldn't go for financial reasons

Again, it's a high-level view of the university as a whole, not the AD working largely independently from a financial standpoint. You could send a lot more kids to school if you didn't have to incur the very large costs of coaching, insuring, providing tutoring services, practice facilities, travel, etc. for athletes for sports that lose money.

I see money-losing men's sports as being a necessity due to Big XII requirements, and the money-losing women's sports as being a necessity due to Title IX. That doesn't mean they don't have benefits, but the real and opportunity costs are much larger.

Then explain how small schools survive under the same premise without the TV money. I’ve had one small college bluntly say, w/o sports, we don’t survive. ISU in fortunate to have TV money, but they are still ahead with the money losing sports.

 

[AuH2O]

Then explain how small schools survive under the same premise without the TV money. I’ve had one small college bluntly say, w/o sports, we don’t survive. ISU in fortunate to have TV money, but they are still ahead with the money losing sports.

Not sure I understand what you are saying, but what do you mean by small schools? The DIII and even JC schools need football (and sports) because it drives up enrollment. I think to a large part DII as well.

As an example, Central, which is non-scholarship, has something like 125 people on the football roster. Not sure how many would go there otherwise, but that's 125 guys paying tuition at a school of a little over 1000. I know at the JC and DII levels at small schools you get a similar deal - lots of partial scholarships and walk-ons from sports at really small schools driving up enrollment. Not only are you getting a lot of tuition rolling in from these teams, the cost of operating a JC, DII, or DIII school is a lot closer to a HS than an FBS school. In all those cases, you are busing kids to games in-state or usually neighboring states, not paying the coaches that much.

Sure, sports like T&F at ISU I'm sure have partial scholarships and walk-ons, but not enough to offset the expenses - including higher coaches salaries, travel, etc. that it takes to run a Big12 program. Small school programs get as many or more full and partial-tuition paying students (rosters for sports are usually the same), but there are huge differences in cost.

Not sure if I am addressing your comment or not.