What if the State or University paid for some of the Olympic sport scholarships?
Williams & Blum: Recapping a crazy 10 days
- Thread starter Aiden Wyatt
- Start date
Blum's numbers are exaggerated. He credited all the financial tourist losses in 20 on no football games. There were football games, I think only the one was no crowd and half crowds at the rest. There were no conventions or nearly any other event due to the crazy policies in place. I'm probably okay with alcohol sales with limits, but it is a fairly limited revenue stream.
Story county voters aren't going to vote to support ISU sports and they shouldn't, especially under the current semi pro to pro world the main sports have become. The PR value of sports is also exaggerated. If sports determined your University I would have gone to Iowa in the late 80's, the quality of the engineering school was all the really mattered to me.
Agree to disagree. As one ISU faculty member put it to me today, if we lose power 4 sports, we may as well be the Dakota schools. Higher education has changed tremendously since the 80s and if you don’t see a value in high end sports for this area as a differentiator in choice for students, I’m not sure any argument I can make will change your mind.
The State or Universities should cover all scholarships for in-state student athletes.
I was gonna go to Luther college but wanted to go to football and basketball games so I chose Iowa state… many of my friends made the same choice
Darin Wohlgemuth in the Iowa State economics department has worked in the university office on tuition pricing re:maximizing revenue, he would be a place to start to find research on this topic. Great professor.
**** the Dakota schools have been more competitive on tuition (even to state of Iowa students!) for years at this point… what’s the biggest differentiator…?
Go to Ames on a football weekend (hotels are often full) or basketball game (hard to find a restaurant to eat at prior to the game because they are so busy and bars are busier) and you’ll see the financial impact is real.
Take football and basketball out of Ames and it’s another dying rural community.
And it’s only going to get more important when the looming demographic cliff is in full swing.
With technology and a marginalization of the undergraduate degree, residential universities are luxury goods.
Iowa State University depends heavily on high major athletics in order to stay in that segment of the market.
The university can easily justify backing athletics like they do in AZ. It’s like any other initiative to cover costs needed to stay competitive and relevant. The State and local municipalities can as well, given the economic activity and taxes generated from a P4 university.
Getting the needed political support has historically been an issue, and JP isn’t the type to change that. Hopefully the severity of the issue is enough in itself
Ok? No offense then go watch Grandview and Simpson while the rest of discuss power 4 athletics and how we can remain viable.
Last edited:
And teams like Kansas can continue to spend $$$ under the table like the sleazeballs they are and not be punished???
Yeah wow, his last 2 posts are extremely depressing. We actually have fans that believe athletics isn’t a KEY driver to a P4 university? That there even is an “Ames” in 2025 with a lowly non-P4 university here? That’s about as uninformed/ head-in-the-sand or whatever as it gets. Truly a bummer to see stuff like that. That line of thinking is literally the opposite of what we need now and into the future…
I always enjoy the 'well 40 years ago it wasn't like this so it still isn't' perspectives on things.
Such a simplistic view
Taxpayers already have a stake. The State and state can either invest in the asset that is Iowa State athletics, continuing to make money off of it, or they can starve their asset so it’s not competitive in the market, and lose the future revenue
What economic generator replaces Iowa State athletics, let alone the overall decline from the university falling behind peers?
And who pays for the infrastructure and operating costs for those replacement revenue generators? Taxpayers, with much less ROI.
The State and local municipalities want to be free riders of ISU athletics. That should not be allowed
Last edited:
I think that's what stinks about all this is fb paid for all those sports and those kids are as hardworking and committed as by other students athletes.
But truly not trying to be a jerk, but why would the state or university pay for them? Why not pay for more national merit scholars? Or better fund the faculty and staff that the university also needs to continue to be a top school? Or ensure our facilities are maintained for all students?
Thanks, Blum, for all you have done (as it all is evolving) to help us stay as relevant as possible in the NIL landscape.
And to be clear, I totally am for a robust "school spirit" and experience athletics brings to my central iowa and to ISU.
Because those scholarships are currently mandatory costs to having P4 football.
Until there aren’t requirements in how many sports needed to be D1, and Title IX, those costs have priority over other students
Last edited:
My friends who went to SDSU always said Brookings was just a smaller Ames……..
And that’s what Ames would turn into.
JFC. Yes Kansas cheated, yes UNC cheated, and yes we also cheated in some capacity.
Can we stop clutching pearls and admit that cheating has been done, by everyone as long as forever.
To be honest I HOPE we do some under the table NIL deals whenever this gets settled.
Who cares anymore?
I agree that funding universities is important, but doesn’t it make more sense to increase funding to the universities’ academic missions as opposed to the athletics?
MIT and the Ivy League don’t have P5 athletics, but people don’t say those aren’t good schools. Cal was in the PAC-12 and now in the ACC, but doesn’t really care about sports, but they’re an excellent university. Universities overseas can be excellent (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, Heidelberg, etc.) but they basically have intramurals or club sports, etc.
MIT and the Ivy League don’t have P5 athletics, but people don’t say those aren’t good schools. Cal was in the PAC-12 and now in the ACC, but doesn’t really care about sports, but they’re an excellent university. Universities overseas can be excellent (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, Heidelberg, etc.) but they basically have intramurals or club sports, etc.
Last edited:
Ames water.
Iowa State has already lost AAU in part because of a lack of support from the State/state. That’s just one example of losing status, as it’s up against institutions in other areas of the country ride the wave of economic growth (favorable demographics).
No longer being a peer in athletics would be a much more public devaluation of the brand
Is this satire?
You have to know what segment of the market you’re competing in.
ISU’s path to a tenable, if not successful future, isn’t from doing the same things as those institutions
It would take many billions to implement and execute a strategy to compete in that segment
Meanwhile, it would take less than $50 million to make a huge difference in being competitive in the major-state-school-with-top-athletics segment
