I've been trying to think about the ways that money can impact an athletic program and what would be different if we had about double the budget we had now (which I'm guessing would put us in the top half but not higher than 5th in the Big XII.
1. Facilities:
Looking at the majority of the money we will be spending on facilities in the next few years about 3/4 of it is actually going towards Hilton improvements. I didn't see a lot of problems with Hilton before, and I expect that it will be amazing with just some of the recent improvements we'll see this year. Add a brand new basketball practice facility and I would say our potential in that sport will be looking very good. The major football improvement is going to be bowling in the south end zone of JTS. I'm not sure if this is goiing to be enough to give us a facilities advantage when competing with the vast majority of the Big XII. Thus, don't count on facilities to spark any major turnarounds in the football program in the near future.
Aside from better facilities for recruiting purposes, the improvements should help provide more steady and predictable income to the department through additional suite revenues and higher ticket sales.
2. Coaches:
Schools with more money can afford to retain their good coaches and go after good coaches. We just lost our gymnastics coach to Oklahoma because they could offer more money. Any good football assistants we have tend to go elsewhere for more money. Our head coach salaries are usually dwarfed by the bigger Big XII programs and Iowa's, and from what I understand our assistant's pay is not good. More money would also likely allow the hiring of more assistants and trainers. The cost of buying out McCarney's contract would not be such an issue if we had more money either. (I predict we keep him precisely because of the buy out cost.)
3. Recruiting:
Coaches could take more recruiting trips (especially if we had more staff) if we had more money. More recruiting should be rather highly correlated with better recruits.
4. Programs:
I'm surprised I forgot it until way down here, but I really only need to say one word: baseball. Perhaps I forgot about it until down here as I am one of the majority of fans that primarily care about football and basketball.
I have a lot of faith that JP will wisely use what he has and make prudent moves to increase our revenue, but it might still be an interesting topic of discussion. What can we do to increase revenue? What is the size and monetary standing of our fan base relative to other schools? Does it make financial sense to pay coaches more or go after higher priced coaches? Should bigger money programs support the smaller ones? Any other ways money can help or issues?
1. Facilities:
Looking at the majority of the money we will be spending on facilities in the next few years about 3/4 of it is actually going towards Hilton improvements. I didn't see a lot of problems with Hilton before, and I expect that it will be amazing with just some of the recent improvements we'll see this year. Add a brand new basketball practice facility and I would say our potential in that sport will be looking very good. The major football improvement is going to be bowling in the south end zone of JTS. I'm not sure if this is goiing to be enough to give us a facilities advantage when competing with the vast majority of the Big XII. Thus, don't count on facilities to spark any major turnarounds in the football program in the near future.
Aside from better facilities for recruiting purposes, the improvements should help provide more steady and predictable income to the department through additional suite revenues and higher ticket sales.
2. Coaches:
Schools with more money can afford to retain their good coaches and go after good coaches. We just lost our gymnastics coach to Oklahoma because they could offer more money. Any good football assistants we have tend to go elsewhere for more money. Our head coach salaries are usually dwarfed by the bigger Big XII programs and Iowa's, and from what I understand our assistant's pay is not good. More money would also likely allow the hiring of more assistants and trainers. The cost of buying out McCarney's contract would not be such an issue if we had more money either. (I predict we keep him precisely because of the buy out cost.)
3. Recruiting:
Coaches could take more recruiting trips (especially if we had more staff) if we had more money. More recruiting should be rather highly correlated with better recruits.
4. Programs:
I'm surprised I forgot it until way down here, but I really only need to say one word: baseball. Perhaps I forgot about it until down here as I am one of the majority of fans that primarily care about football and basketball.
I have a lot of faith that JP will wisely use what he has and make prudent moves to increase our revenue, but it might still be an interesting topic of discussion. What can we do to increase revenue? What is the size and monetary standing of our fan base relative to other schools? Does it make financial sense to pay coaches more or go after higher priced coaches? Should bigger money programs support the smaller ones? Any other ways money can help or issues?
