UNI dropping baseball

[rrshock]

http://www.kansas.com/sports/shockers/story/716980.html

Not good for an already dismal valley.

[Born2Shock]

If this happens, and the Valley is down to 8 teams, are they going to open up the Tourney to all 8, and go to a similar pod style to the CWS, or B12 tourney? It would be nice to get rid of the 6-team bracket.

[rrshock]

That would be a good question.

[SB Shock]

Re: UNI dropping baseball

http://www.kansas.com/sports/shockers/story/716980.html

Not good for an already dismal valley.

kind of old news.

http://www.shockernet.net/sn/viewtopic.php?t=13591

but I don't agree that this is bad news from a WSU perspective.

[SpanglerFan316]

On the issue of UNI baseball, there is an interesting thread http://www.panthernation.com/showthread.php?t=24200. On page 5 of the thread, there is a poster who seems to think he/she is brilliant but actually does not seem to understand economic issues like marginal cost, fixed costs, etc. Here is the post; I'll comment at the end.

You make a good analogy, but here's the problem with it: The University isn't making a "profit" on any student. No student pays 100% of what it costs to educate them, in fact it's not even close.

So let's say you have a capacity of 200 customers, but you are currently serving 170. Of those, 20 have a 20% off discount. The problem is, you're only barely breaking even on the 170, and on those 20 you're losing money.

With an entirely self-sufficient baseball program, meaning UNI doesn't contribute a dime to the program, the University still has to spend state money to educate those students. If the University has to pay nearly $100,000 per year to keep the program, they aren't making any money - they're still losing.

So if baseball is self-funded, those 35 players cost the same to the University as everyone else. If baseball needs the University to fork over 100k per year, that means those 35 students are causing an even greater deficit than your average student...for almost no benefit to the University.

It's a great folly, and one that should've been corrected in these discussions long ago, to assume that just because players' tuition is being covered from some extra-university source, that means the University is revenue neutral as it pertains to those players. They are not - they still lose money and have to dip into the general fund. If those players are not students, the University loses their tuition, but also loses the cost of educating them, creating a net gain, because the cost of educating them is greater than the revenue coming from their tuition...and the "gain", ie, the money in the general fund that isn't being used to educate them, can be spent on other students.

When we're talking about 35 students, that's not enough to change what's in the general fund as well, so literally there will be more money to spend on "traditional" students.

If UNI proposes to fire the faculty who would have taught the 35 students, sell the buildings in which they would have been taught, reduced utility costs, etc., then perhaps they could save the money required to educate these 35 baseball players. In the real world, these savings are largely not going to occur.

The costs of educating 10,000 students vs. 10,035 (or 15,000 vs. 15,035) are largely the same; the marginal cost of 35 additional students is probably almost zero. The marginal revenue in terms of tuition might be $175,000 per year (using $5000 per year per student as a guess at UNI's tuition). If this poster (Newsbreaker) is right, UNI would benefit most by getting rid of all students and closing. Since this would allow ORU (or Butler or ...) to join the MVC, I'm a fan; let's start the "close UNI to save money and the improve the MVC" bandwagon. :lol: :lol: :lol:


Just for fun, consider two of Newsbreaker's comments:
No student pays 100% of what it costs to educate them, in fact it's not even close.
AND
The problem is, you're only barely breaking even on the 170.
If none of the 170 "customers" (students) is paying her/his full cost, how are you "breaking even" with them? If somebody else (e.g. the state of Iowa) is helping to pay for the 170 "customers" then it would seem most profitable to throw out all of the customers, close the place and just accept the money from the outside source. :whistle: :lol:

[shoxlax]

Despite our superior pitching, they will get two out of three from us. If our infield cant even make plays on nice, smooth turf, on a potholed field that has been covered by snow for the past few months, we have no chance.

[SB Shock]

On the issue of UNI baseball, there is an interesting thread http://www.panthernation.com/showthread.php?t=24200. On page 5 of the thread, there is a poster who seems to think he/she is brilliant but actually does not seem to understand economic issues like marginal cost, fixed costs, etc. Here is the post; I'll comment at the end.

You make a good analogy, but here's the problem with it: The University isn't making a "profit" on any student. No student pays 100% of what it costs to educate them, in fact it's not even close.

So let's say you have a capacity of 200 customers, but you are currently serving 170. Of those, 20 have a 20% off discount. The problem is, you're only barely breaking even on the 170, and on those 20 you're losing money.

With an entirely self-sufficient baseball program, meaning UNI doesn't contribute a dime to the program, the University still has to spend state money to educate those students. If the University has to pay nearly $100,000 per year to keep the program, they aren't making any money - they're still losing.

So if baseball is self-funded, those 35 players cost the same to the University as everyone else. If baseball needs the University to fork over 100k per year, that means those 35 students are causing an even greater deficit than your average student...for almost no benefit to the University.

It's a great folly, and one that should've been corrected in these discussions long ago, to assume that just because players' tuition is being covered from some extra-university source, that means the University is revenue neutral as it pertains to those players. They are not - they still lose money and have to dip into the general fund. If those players are not students, the University loses their tuition, but also loses the cost of educating them, creating a net gain, because the cost of educating them is greater than the revenue coming from their tuition...and the "gain", ie, the money in the general fund that isn't being used to educate them, can be spent on other students.

When we're talking about 35 students, that's not enough to change what's in the general fund as well, so literally there will be more money to spend on "traditional" students.

If UNI proposes to fire the faculty who would have taught the 35 students, sell the buildings in which they would have been taught, reduced utility costs, etc., then perhaps they could save the money required to educate these 35 baseball players. In the real world, these savings are largely not going to occur.

The costs of educating 10,000 students vs. 10,035 (or 15,000 vs. 15,035) are largely the same; the marginal cost of 35 additional students is probably almost zero. The marginal revenue in terms of tuition might be $175,000 per year (using $5000 per year per student as a guess at UNI's tuition). If this poster (Newsbreaker) is right, UNI would benefit most by getting rid of all students and closing. Since this would allow ORU (or Butler or ...) to join the MVC, I'm a fan; let's start the "close UNI to save money and the improve the MVC" bandwagon. :lol: :lol: :lol:


Just for fun, consider two of Newsbreaker's comments:
No student pays 100% of what it costs to educate them, in fact it's not even close.
AND
The problem is, you're only barely breaking even on the 170.
If none of the 170 "customers" (students) is paying her/his full cost, how are you "breaking even" with them? If somebody else (e.g. the state of Iowa) is helping to pay for the 170 "customers" then it would seem most profitable to throw out all of the customers, close the place and just accept the money from the outside source. :whistle: :lol:

kind of reminds me of the marketing guy who thought a good way to increase the range of airplane was to get rid of fuel (baggage is untouchable for marketing types).

[Ashockalypse]

that last part sounds like the economics of farming :D