Jamie Pollard letter on falls sports

[alarson]

His job is to try to find a viable solution. His job is to balance the safety and the financial considerations. There's no right or wrong answer, and that's essentially what he's said thus far. He's just trying to be transparent and say if we don't play, here's what you can expect.

The problem is he hasn't really been balancing it. The experts were saying that large crowds were the highest risk of community spread since the beginning and the only reason he even limited things to 50% attendance was because the state required it. It's not like we did some sort of reseating. People will be just as packed in between the 40s as on a normal game day. Even after the local health board said "please don't have fans because 30,000 people brought in from all over the state will create a huge community spread risk" he doubled down and practically raised a middle finger to that health board.

If he was actually striking a balance he would have gone no fans and tried to salvage the tv dollars.

 

[BryceC]

Dead people don't have jobs.
It's about pretending the pandemic isn't really a problem, and that's another problem.

He raises a good point - we tolerate all kinds of things in our society that kill a lot of people, and the justification is almost always money. Making those calls is extremely tough when facing COVID, and we should be able to have those conversations and figure out where to strike the balance.

 

[clonedude]

I think my favorite COVID person is the "actively hoping things get worse so they can say 'hey, I was right"" bunch.

Yeah, I want people to die just so I can be “right”. F off buddy, you’re sick in the head.

If people want to live in denial about how bad this can get, then it likely will.

I said I understood the impossible situation JP is in, and I wouldn’t want to be him because he most definitely is deciding between safety and revenue generation.

This virus spreads easily between people. And even if you survive it there can be lasting health impacts like organ failure, etc.

 

[madguy30]

266,837 alumni with degrees from ISU. Most won't give a dime, just sayin'.

So if an average donation is $100 as some would donate way more, some less, that's over $26 million to start.

Obviously that doesn't cover up the shortfalls all across the board but it does add up.

 

[Clonefan32]

The problem is he hasn't really been balancing it. The experts were saying that large crowds were the highest risk of community spread since the beginning and the only reason he even limited things to 50% attendance was because the state required it. It's not like we did some sort of reseating. People will be just as packed in between the 40s as on a normal game day. Even after the local health board said "please don't have fans because 30,000 people brought in from all over the state will create a huge community spread risk" he doubled down and practically raised a middle finger to that health board.

If he was actually striking a balance he would have gone no fans and tried to salvage the tv dollars.

Which may well where we wind up. What's the harm in starting with fans and tapering it back if need be?

 

[alarson]

Which may well where we wind up. What's the harm in starting with fans and tapering it back if need be?

Because of the lag time in testing and such by the time you wait it is too late. You've already spread it to large numbers of people and increased the rate of community spread

We already know that the spread risk is at its highest in large events. The epidemiologists are pretty clear on this. There's nothing really to wait and see about.

 

[Clonefan32]

Yeah, I want people to die just so I can be “right”. F off buddy, you’re sick in the head.

If people want to live in denial about how bad this can get, then it likely will.

I said I understood the impossible situation JP is in, and I wouldn’t want to be him because he most definitely is deciding between safety and revenue generation.

This virus spreads easily between people. And even if you survive it there can be lasting health impacts like organ failure, etc.

I just don't get the value in going straight to "fold the athletic department, our entire World is coming to an end". It's JP's job to do his best to sort this out and I, for one, am glad he's trying to strike a good balance.

And I never said you, or anyone, wants anyone to die, so chill out on that one.

 

[JRE1975]

I am disagreeing with your post because as follows:

View attachment 73515
Unrestricted = $552 million as I stated in my post

$1 billion is the portion for capital assets
$28 million is for Permanently restricted items
Appox. $38 million is Restricted for a particular purpose (Student loans, Scholarships, etc.)

Per Footnote 1:

View attachment 73516

Okay, I see. I misread the description on page 4 of Net Capital Assets and when I read the footnote I did't look close enough to see it didn't tie back to the page 4, so it was not the same as I thought.

They aren't very clear on how much of the unrestricted amount is for bonded enterprises, which I assume includes the AD and Research Park.

I hope they figure out a way to solve the problem.

 

[ArgentCy]

Now would be a great time to start looking at paying players. They're now risking both their brains by playing college football and their lungs / respiratory system.

The scientific evidence of both brain trauma in football and the impacts of COVID-19 matter a lot here.

Hopefully the athletic departments and NCAA don't use the recession and COVID as a reason to continue to not pay students.

Well, this may not be the best time because now we're on the downside of the growth. And the players got none of the benefits on the upside. But yes, these changes highlight the needs to make them what they really are, employees.

 

[Clonefan32]

Because of the lag time in testing and such by the time you wait it is too late. You've already spread it to large numbers of people and increased the rate of community spread

We already know that the spread risk is at its highest in large events. The epidemiologists are pretty clear on this. There's nothing really to wait and see about.

The fan proposal has been around for months now. It may need to be tailored as the spread continues. Again, what harm is there in that? So they decide next week to go no fans-- who cares? Until you actually put butts in seats there's no harm.

This is where I'm right back to JP's point in all this. Maybe we don't have fans. Maybe we don't have games. Who knows. But it's worthwhile to let people know ahead of time of the ramifications of doing so.

 

[alarson]

I think my favorite COVID person is the "actively hoping things get worse so they can say 'hey, I was right"" bunch.

Most of our us aren't hoping it gets worse. but there is definitely a frustration from some of us that have been warning that this that we are seeing now was an inevitable conclusion if we took the courses of action we have taken over the last couple months. a lot of people have lived in denial about this and now that they see what is here they need to also listen to the warnings from experts about what happens going forward if we continue on the same path. Moving the goal posts to another stage of denial isn't good enough

 

[Cy$]

Hoho's don't cause covid.

source?

 

[BryceC]

So if an average donation is $100 as some would donate way more, some less, that's over $26 million to start.

Obviously that doesn't cover up the shortfalls all across the board but it does add up.

If you think they are going to get an average donation of 100.00 for athletics from all grads you are certifiably insane.

 

[ArgentCy]

Once EIU became self sustainable in their athletic department, the pro EIU congressmen started pushing for ISU to do the same. They hoped that it would destroy the ISU sports programs, what they did not factor in was 1) ISU would be self funded within a year, 2) this would kill UNI which will never be self funded, so the idea quickly was dropped.

ISU athletic revenue also grew like 4-10x as much so it was natural that they did not need the academic support any longer. I also highly doubt that ISU wants to use any endowment money to bail-out the AD.

 

[Clonefan32]

Most of our us aren't hoping it gets worse. but there is definitely a frustration from some of us that have been warning that this that we are seeing now was an inevitable conclusion if we took the courses of action we have taken over the last couple months. a lot of people have lived in denial about this and now that they see what is here they need to also listen to the warnings from experts about what happens going forward if we continue on the same path. Moving the goal posts to another stage of denial isn't good enough

I don't disagree with any of this. But I also, as I've stated before, think there are just as many people that think that we can shut everything down and everything will be back to normal on the other end.

To me, the answer lies in the middle. Try to mitigate, do what you can to be safe, but also keep in mind the large scale economic considerations involved in what you do. There's no right/wrong answer to any of that.

And I do genuinely believe there are people who want this to be bad just so they can say "told yah so". Not saying you, or anyone else on here, is one of them. But a quick view of my social media would seem to prove this point. I just don't understand the value in "shut everything down, society as we know it will crumble" line of thinking. Just try to do the best you can to strike an adequate balance and figure out a way to adjust to a new normal.

 

[ArgentCy]

I am disagreeing with your post because as follows:

View attachment 73515
Unrestricted = $552 million as I stated in my post

$1 billion is the portion for capital assets
$28 million is for Permanently restricted items
Appox. $38 million is Restricted for a particular purpose (Student loans, Scholarships, etc.)

Per Footnote 1:

View attachment 73516

But that is for the University as a whole. How can you separate out the AD? Because I highly doubt these Universities are going to want to use endowments for on-going expenses, especially for athletics. Even if they are technically unrestricted.

 

[alarson]

The fan proposal has been around for months now. It may need to be tailored as the spread continues. Again, what harm is there in that? So they decide next week to go no fans-- who cares? Until you actually put butts in seats there's no harm.

This is where I'm right back to JP's point in all this. Maybe we don't have fans. Maybe we don't have games. Who knows. But it's worthwhile to let people know ahead of time of the ramifications of doing so.

The science on this isn't going to change. We know the things that are large community spread risks. Bringing in tens of thousands of people from across the state into a relatively close environment will always be a large community spread risk. And taking that kind of risk for something as non-essential as football is about the most insane thing out there right now. So ignoring the science now is a pretty clear indication that it will be ignored in 30 days 60 days etc.

 

[ArgentCy]

College football is just plain crazy. When it's up an running its a cash cow and you can't print money fast enough to keep up with the arms race. When it can't happen, budget cuts everywhere, threats of losing sports, and a grim outlook.

That's all of economics, things are not linear. I posted this in the stocks thread.

"The fantasy of linearity holds that a 10% decline in revenues, profits, rents collected, etc. will only cause a 10% decline in isolated parts of the economy. The believers in the fantasy acknowledge that the 10% decline will hurt, but only a bit, and soon Mommy and Daddy (Treasury and Fed) will apply the Band-Aid and it will all go away."

 

[CascadeClone]

He was using a double negative to provide proof positive.

Here's a guy with a Clue.

 

[Statefan10]

The science on this isn't going to change. We know the things that are large community spread risks. Bringing in tens of thousands of people from across the state into a relatively close environment will always be a large community spread risk. And taking that kind of risk for something as non-essential as football is about the most insane thing out there right now. So ignoring the science now is a pretty clear indication that it will be ignored in 30 days 60 days etc.

I think you could make the argument that football is quite essential. Just because something is entertaining, doesn't mean it's non-essential. The amount of money college football brings into the University and the college towns is unbelievable.