Williams & Blum: Recapping a crazy 10 days

ZorkClone

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I worded that poorly, but that's what I meant, the 2 worst performing. Caveat to that though, the worst performing is Women's basketball (-$4.4M in 2023) and that's not going away. Beyond that it's basically a tossup between Volleyball, Wrestling, Gymnastics, and Soccer. Cutting 2 of those saves about $4m total.
I think WBB splits the cost of Hilton and the practice facility with MBB, which is fair, but if WBB went away all that cost would just be put on the MBB side.
 

FinalFourCy

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Problem is we're already trying to push a relatively limited AD to compete with schools with a lot more money, so we're already running pretty efficiently. The "just cut sports" or "reduce support staff" ideas are easy to throw around, but there are limits to what you can do there and stay competitive also. Going off those two ideas, if you cut the lowest 2 sports (most you can cut to stay at NCAA level under current rules) and ALL of the support staff, we would be just about right at the money we need for paying players. Good luck keeping Campbell around when he has to drive the bus for away games and keep the team back after home games to clean up the stadium.
Why is Campbell driving the bus or negatively impacted by cutting costs of non-revenue sports?


Staying competitive in non-revenue sports should NOT be on the table. And shouldn’t have for at least 15 years. That’s both operating costs and infrastructure.

Gut the non-revenue, cutting two sports or male scholarships in non-revenue sports if needed.

Delay any infrastructure costs that aren’t for facilitating revenue generation, which for the most part they have.

Be political and get the views on how the state, and State, support college athletics. But being charismatic and swaying others isn’t exactly a strength of JP. He’s not that kind of leader.

Borrow against the future. I mean, does anyone really think the Iowa AD is going to pay off all of their liabilities?
 
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HarryClone

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WBB is never getting cut at ISU, or elsewhere for that matter

but yeah those volleyball matches in Arizona and track meets in California are a killer on the expenses

View attachment 147738
Some of this smells like creative accounting to manufacture a specific bottom line. Not calling out you, Messi, but the AD could explain this better. For example I'm skeptical that Swimming (a couple home meets each year, zero broadcasts, free admission) has 2.5x the revenue of Volleyball (a dozen home matches per year, several broadcast, ticketed event, concessions, etc).
 

agrabes

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Why is Campbell driving the bus or negatively impacted by cutting costs of non-revenue sports?


Staying competitive in non-revenue sports should NOT be on the table. And shouldn’t have for at least 15 years. That’s both operating costs and infrastructure.

Gut the non-revenue, cutting two sports or male scholarships in non-revenue sports if needed.

Delay any infrastructure costs that aren’t for facilitating revenue generation, which for the most part they have.

Be political and get the views on how the state, and State, support college athletics. But being charismatic and swaying others isn’t exactly a strength of JP. He’s not that kind of leader.

Borrow against the future. I mean, does anyone really think the Iowa AD is going to pay off all of their liabilities?
Because if you cut all support staff, who else is on the payroll to drive the bus?

I'm all for cutting what we can to fully fund the athlete revenue sharing, but I highly doubt it's as simple as cut all except MBB & Football and we'll be there. You can't just say "cut everything!!" - that's not a real plan. Not that I have one either, but don't act like it's so simple.

Whatever happens, there have to be dramatic changes. My personal hope would have been coaches taking a paycut across the board. But that can't happen since it's a separate budget and the rich schools will still pay. Maybe they can't pay huge buyouts anymore but they can still pay huge contracts.
 

isucy86

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I 100% guarantee it would hurt TV revenues at the next round of negotiations. Having "access" to the playoff, even if it's mostly symbolic, is hugely important for the Big XII's relevance. Officially being completely separate from the sport's biggest brands would destroy interest over time.

It would certainly hurt TV revenue if Iowa State was competing in a 2nd tier division of college sport. But at the same time it would force schools to right-size their athletic budgets to match the new level of TV revenue.

Maybe football/basketball coaches in the Big12 would only make $1M annually. Football and basketball teams would limit the number of assistants/analysts. Teams would cut back on expensive road trips. Facility investment would be backed off. And athletic department overhead expenses would have to be cut way back.

It might also cause conferences like the Big12 to explore taking media in house and cut out for profit entities like ESPN, FOX, etc. With technology today, it's not like broadcasting games to the masses is difficult. Heck I have Roku apps for IHSSN, CISN and WHOTV+ that I have all watched sports with solid viewing quality.
 

amishclone

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A few things I would argue.

First, the cost of coaching, developing and training the athlete is a direct benefit to the athlete so I would include on top of the $15M. I would also include the cost of putting on and traveling to the athletic event as a direct cost that benefits the student athlete.

Second, football and to a lesser extend MBB have subsidized all the other men's and women's sport teams. Not by choice, but by law (Title IX) going back 50+ years. So until there is clarity on the House Agreement and possible NIL guardrails, Athletic Directors are in a difficult spot. They don't want to drop non-revenue sports until they can or have to.

Third, the $22M is 1/6 of Iowa State's athletic budget- so not chump change. It's going to require Athletic Directors and Coaches to re-think whats important at a school like Iowa State from a coaches salaries, support coach staffing levels, facility investment and overhead costs.

In the end, everything will be OK. But in the short-term things will be messy. It's like trying to turn an aircraft carrier 90 degrees.
Title IX will not survive turning the players into employees
 

DFWClone

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I’ve seen that WBB loses about 4-5mil a year several times on here.

Does anyone know or have seen a number about how much NIL money they eat up?

Imagine that isn’t a small number after paying to keep Crooks and Addy, plus adding the transfer from Arizona.
 

isucy86

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Title IX will not survive turning the players into employees
IMO Title IX will survive because of the academic nature of the law.

More than likely, if athletes become employees, the universities would spin-off all or some athletic teams into a separate legal entity to avoid potential future legal liabilities that universities and states could face.

I think University Presidents would face the obvious conclusion, their CORE MISSION is to educate 18-22yo and not run a minor league sport franchise.
 
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Jkclone15

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We will see a big hit to football recruiting imo.

Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin will have that money.
We're not competing against them for most of our prospects anyway. Look at the 4* players we have recruited out of high school. Becht is from Florida. Purdy Arizona. Not many from the Midwest.
 

isucy86

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I’ve seen that WBB loses about 4-5mil a year several times on here.

Does anyone know or have seen a number about how much NIL money they eat up?

Imagine that isn’t a small number after paying to keep Crooks and Addy, plus adding the transfer from Arizona.
I haven't seen anything for ISU.

But I've read where schools are contemplating splitting the $20M according to this general split:
  1. FB - 75%
  2. MBB - 15%
  3. WBB - 5%
  4. All Other - 5%
ESPN had an article on this in the last couple weeks. It mentioned South Carolina which faces the tough choice to the fund an elite WBB program (which loses $5M annually) at more than 5% and give FB & MBB a lower percentage than competing SEC schools.
 

ClubCy

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Because if you cut all support staff, who else is on the payroll to drive the bus?

I'm all for cutting what we can to fully fund the athlete revenue sharing, but I highly doubt it's as simple as cut all except MBB & Football and we'll be there. You can't just say "cut everything!!" - that's not a real plan. Not that I have one either, but don't act like it's so simple.

Whatever happens, there have to be dramatic changes. My personal hope would have been coaches taking a paycut across the board. But that can't happen since it's a separate budget and the rich schools will still pay. Maybe they can't pay huge buyouts anymore but they can still pay huge contracts.
What in the world are you talking about?
 

TitanClone

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So if amounts less than $600 will not be policed, how hard would it be to set up large amounts of deals at $599? Signing books or recording personalized videos or whatever?
I imagine it would be like banks not having to report deposits of under $10K. A bunch of $9K deposits would standout IF someone is investigated for tax evasion, fraud, money laundering, etc... You have one of the best players in the country not reporting perceived value and an investigation would be started.
 

amishclone

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It would be A LOT of work for $599 transactions to add up to $500,000!

The $600 threshold is an IRS requirement for non-employee income. Gotta file a specific 1099.

Plus the $600 isn't at a transaction level, its at a vendor level. So if Rocco would work with a marketing firm to travel around Iowa signing autographs. It's the aggregate business he does with that marketing firm.
Actually, on the podcast they were saying the $600 was a cap on what you could make in individual deals before the clearing house would need to arbitrate if it's fair market value?
 

FinalFourCy

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Because if you cut all support staff, who else is on the payroll to drive the bus?

I'm all for cutting what we can to fully fund the athlete revenue sharing, but I highly doubt it's as simple as cut all except MBB & Football and we'll be there. You can't just say "cut everything!!" - that's not a real plan. Not that I have one either, but don't act like it's so simple.

Again with these false dichotomies.

Gutting the non-revenue does not mean cutting the support staff for things like someone driving the football bus, which is undoubtedly already under the football expenses

If we’re truly spending that much on things like WBB, then either Pollard has done an awful job splurging on non-revenue sports, or it is that simple

This isn’t a new problem. He’s been spending too much on non-revenue for at least 15 years, when it became apparent that college athletics was changing.
 
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FinalFourCy

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We will see a big hit to football recruiting imo.

Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin will have that money.

Although retention in football may decrease, basketball is the real risk of suffering hierarchy changes
 

RagingCloner

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We will see a big hit to football recruiting imo.

Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin will have that money.
Disagree wholeheartedly. Majority of these schools already have more money than us, and recruiting hasnt suffered