Question: Why no Baseball team?
- Thread starter Boomer
- Start date
Agreed. Its fun to talk about, but the chances are slim to none of it ever happening without a boone pickens type donor. Gotta take care of our existing programs first, and all of those from football on down need more funding before we can take on baseball.
If some donor said 'hey, here's 100 million, but i want it only spent on baseball', we'd do it as it wouldnt affect our other programs. But other than that..
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Agreements like this between college teams and minor league teams happens all of the time. I know Duke plays all of their ACC games at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. If ISU and I-Cubs got something worked out there would be some empty seats, no doubt about it, but I think there would be a pretty decent crowd. Sec Taylor sounds like a better and better idea the more I think about it.
Here is a link to some attendance numbers from last NCAA Baseball season. Granted, many are in warmer climes, but I think in a city the size of Des Moines, combined with the possibility of students being able to drink while watching an ISU sporting event, we'd actually pull in some good numbers.
College Baseball Attendance Report #3 | College Baseball 360
The problem, you're always playing in the afternoon, you never get night games unless the I-Cubs are gone. I don't think baseball is an appointment sporting event like basketball or football are. As for corporate tickets, they are spread out from April to September, for ISU, it would be April and May, so a much shorter window.
I've been to the Duke campus, and I know where the Durham Bulls ballpark is - that must be a short drive of 2 or 3 miles tops. Not very comparable to ISU playing at Principal Park.
Regarding all of of the shared arrangements between minor league teams and college teams (that I know of) - Penn State, Duke, Nebraska, etc. - both baseball programs are in the same town. Is there an instance where the college team and fans travel 45 minutes one way for games?
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I would make the drive if I lived in Ames. Besides, which town do you think has more interested alumni: Ames (pop: 50,000+) or Des Moines metro area (pop: 560,000+). Besides, this would only be until ISU had an alumnus with a big enough check to put their name on a proper college baseball stadium.
Not that comes to mind, but I wouldn't doubt it.
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The biggest reason I would like to see us start up the baseball program again is that occasionally, we get football players considering us who also play baseball. It, along with basketball, is the one of the most common second sports among football recruits.
But baseball is also one they can more easily participate in, unlike basketball, because the seasons don't overlap (except for spring football). If we are recruiting a football player who also wants to play baseball, we've lost before we start the recruiting process.
That kid from Fort Dodge is a good example. If we had a baseball team, I'm sure he'd be walking on at ISU. As it is, he might walk on anyway, but it would be a no-brainer if we had baseball.
The other reason I'd like to field a baseball team is because every other team in the conference, sans Colorado, fields a baseball team. It's just embarrassing to me that a major college can't afford to play a major college sport. If we didn't have a tradition in wrestling, I'm sure it would have been that sport that got dropped long ago, instead of baseball.
But baseball is also one they can more easily participate in, unlike basketball, because the seasons don't overlap (except for spring football). If we are recruiting a football player who also wants to play baseball, we've lost before we start the recruiting process.
That kid from Fort Dodge is a good example. If we had a baseball team, I'm sure he'd be walking on at ISU. As it is, he might walk on anyway, but it would be a no-brainer if we had baseball.
The other reason I'd like to field a baseball team is because every other team in the conference, sans Colorado, fields a baseball team. It's just embarrassing to me that a major college can't afford to play a major college sport. If we didn't have a tradition in wrestling, I'm sure it would have been that sport that got dropped long ago, instead of baseball.
1) Baseball's impact on football could not be more minimal. Those are rare, rare situations
2) Colorado is on it's way out of the Big 12
3) Title IX? We are literally unable to afford the sports we have. Dollars. Period.
Wow, what lunacy...college baseball teams play roughly 60 games a year...they are not going to play 30 or so home games in Des Moines.
I believe there are 12 scholarships each DI school can allocate...most split the scholarships up so kids are getting a half or quarter of a scholarship.
Frankly, I don't think there is the appetite in Ames to support college baseball...and clearly, there is not the money. We need our FB program to really be successful so we can drive more top line revenue into our budget (and we also need of MBB program to help with this) before we can even think about something like this.
We had baseball when I was in school. I played baseball in HS and contemplated giving it a go at ISU, I love baseball...and I lived about two blocks from Cap Timm and I think I went to 5-10 games my entire time at ISU...mostly to see Robin Ventura. At those games there were usually a small amount of parents and girlfriends with very few other attendees...and it was FREE.
Lastly, why do so many of you act amazed at getting an email from Pollard? Did you ever contemplate that he has a set of "stock" answers to the most common questions that he has his assistant hammer out when he gets an email?
I believe there are 12 scholarships each DI school can allocate...most split the scholarships up so kids are getting a half or quarter of a scholarship.
Frankly, I don't think there is the appetite in Ames to support college baseball...and clearly, there is not the money. We need our FB program to really be successful so we can drive more top line revenue into our budget (and we also need of MBB program to help with this) before we can even think about something like this.
We had baseball when I was in school. I played baseball in HS and contemplated giving it a go at ISU, I love baseball...and I lived about two blocks from Cap Timm and I think I went to 5-10 games my entire time at ISU...mostly to see Robin Ventura. At those games there were usually a small amount of parents and girlfriends with very few other attendees...and it was FREE.
Lastly, why do so many of you act amazed at getting an email from Pollard? Did you ever contemplate that he has a set of "stock" answers to the most common questions that he has his assistant hammer out when he gets an email?
Title IX is not the issue here. I ran the numbers once and ISU is well in compliance and would still be in compliance if baseball were added with no other changes. Someone earlier in the thread said that Pollard has said the same thing.
Here's the post where I counted up the scholarships:
http://www.cyclonefanatic.com/forum/wrestling/93727-big-12-wrestling-expansion.html#post1774527
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D1 (1): Iowa
D2 (1): Upper Iowa
D3 (10): Buena Vista, Central, Coe, Cornell, Dubuque, Grinnell, Loras, Luther, Simpson, Wartburg
By the way everyone, I am, at this moment, thoroughly enjoying listening to my grad school Alma Mater play college baseball on the radio at Myrtle Beach against Coastal Carolina... and I plan to even more thoroughly enjoy watching the Wolfpack play Penn State in a three game series this weekend here in Raleigh... right here, on campus, in a 10 year old college baseball stadium, at a university with pretty much the same athletic budget and student population as ISU. Nothin' better than baseball in March... just saying.
