But the $122M (read annual revenue amount) was already fully spent pre NIL. So by adding $21M of expense over night, what gets cut out?
Williams & Blum: Recapping a crazy 10 days
- Thread starter Aiden Wyatt
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That’s a question for JP. But he chose not to do it. Our Big12 peers decided it was important enough to find a way.
Don't you think if something should have been cut out before it would have already been done? Or is Pollard that incompetent he just lets wasted spend continue.
The universities, administrators, coaches, fans/donors, and media partners. The NIL $$ has, and will, only come from one of these sources.
I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic here. Getting to the max salary cap is the single most important thing for ISU and the future of the athletic department.
We’re not going to get there in fan donations alone. We have to get creative in generating revenue some other way as well as making really hard decisions in cutting costs.
But not maxing out isn’t acceptable. If JP can’t get us there (and I think he can get us there), we need someone who can or we need to drop down a level.
We’re not going to get there in fan donations alone. We have to get creative in generating revenue some other way as well as making really hard decisions in cutting costs.
But not maxing out isn’t acceptable. If JP can’t get us there (and I think he can get us there), we need someone who can or we need to drop down a level.
Well our coaches will be walking away soon if we don’t pay our athletes on par with our peers. So we have that going for us.
It will have to be done incrementally and not just through generating revenue but through cutting costs.
You take We Will’s budget, no idea what that is but let’s say $5M annually, plus cut two sports saves $4M. So that’s an extra $9M there. Then you need to find $12M more, through additional cuts, pull from Cyclone Club donations, additional student fees, raised ticket prices, lobby county for a tax to support athletics, lobby state to allow the university to assist with athletics, sell alcohol at games, additional sponsorship opportunities, revshare partnerships with local businesses, private equity ( only as a last resort), etc.
Sorry to say, but the most direct way to do it is by increasing ticket prices. If we want to watch a D1 P4 product, we the fan will need to pay. The issue is, you risk losing ticket sales if you increase too much. The game day experience needs to be elite.
Pretty sure they did increase ticket prices this year. In addition to that, they're now also charging tax on top of all ticket prices, where those were 'included' previously.
I just did some quick math on this. Assume we sell 55,000 tickets a football game and 13,000 to basketball. 6 games for Football and 18 for MBB. So total attendance would be 564,000 tickets sold it would equate to an increase of $35 dollars per ticket if you split that cost evenly. There are some funky assumptions here, but man I do not think fans would swallow an increase that large when our state is economically shrinking.
I think Blum is doing a thankless job. He's in a rock and hard place and almost powerless to wiggle out of it. Others posters are correct, somehow the fan has been tasked with bearing the brunt of these increases when it should be the TV people, the university (they benefit from exposure of athletics), city of Ames.
People are rightfully lashing back and opting out of the NIL era. Blum, CW, many others don't want to go down without a fight. Soldiers in an ideological war they didn't ask for.
I have zero idea how this shakes out for ISU long term. I can see us pulling out and retaining something similar to current status or I could see us moving down a level--whatever that level is is even undetermined. Even if we maintain something similar to the status quo, at what cost? No track, XC, WBB? That's not college athletics, that's lipstick on the Iowa cubs and Iowa wolves. Some sort of glorified semi-pro league.
Appreciate all the work CW and Blum, JP, and others do for the fans. The people bashing them can go kick rocks.
People are rightfully lashing back and opting out of the NIL era. Blum, CW, many others don't want to go down without a fight. Soldiers in an ideological war they didn't ask for.
I have zero idea how this shakes out for ISU long term. I can see us pulling out and retaining something similar to current status or I could see us moving down a level--whatever that level is is even undetermined. Even if we maintain something similar to the status quo, at what cost? No track, XC, WBB? That's not college athletics, that's lipstick on the Iowa cubs and Iowa wolves. Some sort of glorified semi-pro league.
Appreciate all the work CW and Blum, JP, and others do for the fans. The people bashing them can go kick rocks.
What's his incitive to not spend everything that comes in? This is a non-profit of course if you make 122 mil you spend 122 mil. You think if we made 150 mil they wouldn't find a way to spend that extra 30 mil. Of course they would!
You can run an athletic department on less than 101 mil if we assume we HAVE to spend the 20.5 mil. You want to know how I know that... because K State, Colorado, Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston all did.
$20 mil is the total. It sounds like we have some money set aside for that, but we are going to be short of the $20 mil total. Other P4 schools will make it to the $20 mil. There are other ways, but the most direct and easiest way to close the gap is to raise ticket prices. I don't know what that increase ends up being, but it would likely be something closer to $10 or $15 per ticket. It sucks, but it is going to cost to compete at the P4 level in this new world of college sports. I don't think anyone wants to see us moving down a level (non P4). Those games suck compared to what we are used to at Iowa State.
Sure seems like a lot of hand wringing over how the $20M should have been handled better. It's early days.
The House Agreement hasn't been finalized, so probably not necessary to take preemptive steps until it has been finalized. Plus the 2025/26 fiscal doesn't start for a couple months. At the same time, I would bet Jamie and staff have been working internally to revise future budgets based on House Agreement specifics. New sources of revenue and cutting costs.
If we know one thing about Jamie after 20 years, he's elite at balancing a budget AND more importantly fielding winning teams as evidenced by the big 3 sports having the highest combined winning % among the 16 conference schools over the last sport year.
The House Agreement hasn't been finalized, so probably not necessary to take preemptive steps until it has been finalized. Plus the 2025/26 fiscal doesn't start for a couple months. At the same time, I would bet Jamie and staff have been working internally to revise future budgets based on House Agreement specifics. New sources of revenue and cutting costs.
If we know one thing about Jamie after 20 years, he's elite at balancing a budget AND more importantly fielding winning teams as evidenced by the big 3 sports having the highest combined winning % among the 16 conference schools over the last sport year.
But did they find a way? Or is this just semantics on their part regarding combining money coming from their university and money coming from their NIL collective?
What did Jamie choose not to do?
- He didn't cut sports and cause the athletic department to be in non-compliance with Federal Title IX requirements. And oh kids, find a way for your parents to pay for your education at Iowa State or some other school next year.
- He didn't go to TJ, Bill and Matt and say- "We need to cut coaches salaries by 50% so give me a list of coaches willing to take a 50% cut". BTW, all coaches have employment contracts of various lengths.
- He didn't tell coaches to stop recruiting out-of-state student athletes. Go forward only in-state student-athletes because in-state tuition is much less!
- He didn't lay off hundreds of support staff.
- He didn't go to coaches and tell them, "No more charter flights, staying at decent hotels & meals. Go forward buckle-up!! Bus rides, stays at Econo Lodge and cheese sandwiches."
I don’t buy this at all (except for the fans being maxed out). Businesses have to cut costs all of the time based on changing environments. It’s not fair to blame fans for not maxing out when the AD takes in $115 million per year and claims it’s poor.
There is a path towards maxing out - there has to be with the amount of revenue we take in, even if it’s very painful to get there.
Everything you mentioned from support staff to coaching salaries are only possible off the backs of these athletes. If we want to back to the day where there is no 50 mil dollar TV contracts I am all for it. But until then let's not pretend that these individuals have not benefited massively from these TV deals and the athletes getting a relatively small pie of that.
Treating people right should include the players who without them this money is non existent. Every other sports league CBA argues around 50% should go to the athletes, why shouldn't the NCAA be the same?
