Louisville officially leaving the AAC after this season

[Kung Wu]

I've run the numbers on getting WSU FB in place and on a course to join a good FB conference. I've got an Accounting degree and have done business plans and financial projections for NYSE-traded companies.

Start with $100 mill. That will get you the coaching staff, recruiting resources, and other basics to compete with some lower-level FBS teams, and enough reserve cash to maintain that through enough years to begin being competitive with some mid-level BCS teams. That's 5 - 7 years after startup.

Then get another $50 - $100 mill for a new (or renovated) stadium. Without a TV contract, it's going to require about 50K butts in seats spending $40 - $60 per butt in ticket price and concessions to pay for the program while getting to a point where an invite to a league with a TV contract is conceivable.

I'm not happy with the Valley. It's a dead-end league, but...

...While in that dead-end league, we've managed to pay a coach $1.75 mill base, charter recruiting trips and away games, rebuild the arena, renovate the arena, get an NIT championship, get a F4 banner. Keep that up and we'll be able to get our own TV deals without worrying about our league affiliation. Keep that up and we don't need to worry about joining FB conference. Keep that up and we'll be generating enough TV revenue that we will be attractive to other leagues.

Show that you're a player and the players will want you to join them, but you've got to prove it before it can happen.

Very nice @Aargh:.

The infuriating thing is, the MVC does NOT have to be a dead-end league. If the conference had leadership with vision and a modicum of creativity, it would only take a few strategic upgrades to start restore itself as a national name brand for basketball. The screws should start getting turned right now.

How about this concept to get things rolling: In lieu of kicking people out, perhaps they need to have a tiered voting system where the amount of funds you are pouring into your Men's basketball program gives you more of a vote. Clearly, that incentives the schools to start pouring funds into Men's basketball. As the schools get better and better and rack up more NCAA wins -- which piles up the cash to be shared within the conference, and larger TV deals come down the pike, ALL other sports teams benefit substantially.

[pogo]

The only drawback there is, many of the schools are strapped for cash due to the drain of their football programs.

[Kung Wu]

The only drawback there is, many of the schools are strapped for cash due to the drain of their football programs.

Yes, that voting system should help the cash strapped schools either a) clean up their books (possibly by dropping football) or b) find another conference that fits their budget.

[RoyalShock]

The problem is that you have Valley schools pumping money into football facilities (SIU), trying to get into the MAC for the sake of football (ISUr) and dumping baseball to keep football afloat (UNI).

Don't expect to see those schools do anything to de-emphasize football.

This may sound crazy, but I think our best hope is that the problems plaguing football as a sport right now (concussions, college program corruption, lower youth participation) knocks football down a rung or two on the American sports ladder to the point that Valley-level schools drop it altogether. For the record, I don't think that will happen.

[Kung Wu]

Maybe we need to be the good guy and cover the tab on hiring Lew Perkins as a consultant for them?

[Kung Wu]

The problem is that you have Valley schools pumping money into football facilities (SIU), trying to get into the MAC for the sake of football (ISUr) and dumping baseball to keep football afloat (UNI).

Don't expect to see those schools do anything to de-emphasize football.

This may sound crazy, but I think our best hope is that the problems plaguing football as a sport right now (concussions, college program corruption, lower youth participation) knocks football down a rung or two on the American sports ladder to the point that Valley-level schools drop it altogether. For the record, I don't think that will happen.

Totally agree. With the situation as-is, why should any of them consider dumping football? If the programs break even it's a net positive in name recognition, alumni building, merchandise sales, and other indirect tangibles and intangibles. Even small losses can be justified, probably.

That's why I believe the MVC and lead schools needs to start applying pressure.

Clearly basketball is the marquee sport of this conference, and the MVC conference administration needs to start emphasizing that. Once the voting is slanted toward basketball expenditures, the screws can the be further tightened by having minimum spend requirements on men's basketball, SOS schedule requirements/bonuses, that type of thing. That's going to cause a few schools to seek an alternative conference (which is a great thing), and it's going to open the eyes of more attractive schools that are clearly pouring money into their basketball programs.

We should never have lost Creighton. We lost Creighton because the leadership of this conference has no vision and was unable to make the hard choice to drop schools that won't spend the money that it takes to be in a strong basketball conference. In fact, the opposite should have happened. If the leadership had vision, we would have culled out the lower end schools and brought in a Butler. The opportunity to improve the conference has been there right along. The conference is simply lacking leadership. And it's frustrating.

[shockmonster]

Very few non BCS schools break even.

[Kung Wu]

Very few non BCS schools break even.

Sure, but they are clinging on to hope. Or they are keeping it around and pumping money into it without even hoping it's going to break even. Either way it's a distraction if we are basketball conference. The conference administration needs to start turning some dials to figure out how to return the conference to a national brand with national brand basketball teams participating in the conference.

[RoyalShock]

Very few non BCS schools break even.

True, they don't break even if you only consider revenue brought in by the football program. But most schools have student fees to subsidize the losses so the overall AD budget is usually in the black.

[SHOCKvalue]

I always tell myself at the outset of these threads that I will not be taking part in the WSU football convo, and I am always drawn in. In my case I will actually supply metrics and/or links supporting my figures, as at least in my profession numbers or other conclusions without reference or support are laughed at, as they should be.


I've posted the figures below before for reference, but I will again:

2012 AD Revenues:

WSU (no football) - $19,792,391
SIU (football) - $19,671,796
ISU Red (football) - $18,631,777
Creighton (no football)(for reference) - $15,062,122
UNI (football) - $14,632,492
MSU (football) - $13,605,468
ISU Blue (football) - $12,394,542
Bradley (no football) - $12,987,000
Evansville (no football) - $10,043,793
Drake (no football) - $12,964,153
Loyola (no football) - $10,386,126

SOURCE: http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/index.aspx

We lead the MVC in athletic budget, and when you consider we are not running a football program out of that kitty then you might say we smoke the MVC in budgetary abilities. You might also say we are not a good institutional fit due to this disparity.


Now let's take a look at the same numbers for the Mountain West Conference, plus their football budgets:

School - AD Revenue/Football Program Expenses

Air Force - figures N/A via quoted source
Boise State - $31,051,495/$8,537,612
Colorado State - $25,389,541/$8,902,908
Fresno State - $32,016,817/$8,718,043
Hawaii - $34,811,644/$10,585,001
Nevada - $25,404,564/$6,279,506
New Mexico - $32,146,734/$7,808,217
San Diego State - $38,503,669/$11,748,674
San Jose State - $25,854,038/$7,572,660
UNLV - $54,030,985/$6,947,976
Utah State - $21,510,746/$5,881,831
Wyoming - $29,731,941/$6,981,430

AVERAGES - $31,859,288/$8,178,532

SOURCE: http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/index.aspx

The point here is that WSU's ~$20M AD revenues compare quite well with the MWC as a whole, excluding football. If we added the average monies spent for football for MWC's members to WSU's current revenues then WSU would roughly fall in the middle range of the MWC in total AD budget.

The above should also establish the concept that the year-to-year operating budget for football program(s) at the competitive level most would consider WSU's realistic target is roughly $8M/yr. Assuming WSU would half-fill Cessna Stadium for 8 home games per year, this would require $65 tickets to equate to the $8M football budget if such was based ticket sales alone.


Moving on...

Per this link, there have been 4 FBS football programs started up since 2008. They are:

Old Dominion (2008)
South Alabama (2010)
Georgia State (2010)
UT-San Antonio (2011)

Old Dirty says they spent $13.5M on direct football start-up costs. They also say they spent and additional $24M to renovate Foreman Field, which could be argued as a reasonable comparable to Cessna Stadium:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/latc/genrel/auto_pdf/2013-14/misc_non_event/ODU_Facts.pdf

Georgia State projected the costs of start-up could range from $6.2M to $24.8M:

http://www.georgiastatesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=12700&ATCLID=695518

UTSA projected stand-alone start-up costs of $13M back in 2008:

http://www.goutsa.com/pdf4/359299.pdf

(I can't find anything on South Alabama's start-up costs.)


So, in summary, we have multiple sources indicating FBS football at the MWC level to cost roughly $8M per year in operating expenses, a few reasonable sources indicating FBS start-up costs (excluding football facility capital improvement costs) of say $10M-$20M, and a lone but decent example of the upper-end of facility improvements showing $25M in costs. Any of these above numbers are a heck of a long ways from the ridiculously high, unsupported, reference-less figures thrown around by some on this forum.

[Perezident]

Very sound analysis RB. My question would be in regards to the reasoning for those four schools to add football. What kind of success have they had, in terms of football AND basketball? Another observation, we don't seem to fit in with the likes of those four schools...all four in the south, none with a bball program that is worth a hoot, etc. I'm wondering how important basketball is to them...

[MoValley John]

I'm not saying Wichita State should, or should not bring back football, I don't care and it's not my war. That said, a bit of realism needs to be kept, so I will throw a few things out.

1. Don't trust numbers supplied by universities for equity in athletics, they are usually trumped up. Never, ever, ever, ever trust those same numbers provided by, or extrapolated to represent a private school. Those numbers smell of a dung heap.

2. If a school is using student fees, and, or, state aid to fund athletics, numbers can and will be severely clouded.

3. A start up football program will never have eight home games. Six is optimistic, five is realistic. That is actually good because....

4. A start up will have an empty stadium trying to sell $65 tickets. For example, Nebraska sells their tickets for $56. Oklahoma is in the same ballpark and Iowa State is much less. It is a huge mistake to try to calculate ticket revenue of a start up based on $65 tickets when established successful programs in your region don't charge as much.

[MoValley John]

Another challenge for a start up is the BCS teams gravitating away from 1-AA. buy games. These buy games are the lifeblood of schools like UNI and Missouri State. BCS conferences are beginning to lean on schools to avoid them. These games will be difficult for 1-AA's going forward.

I think Bill Snyder still will schedule them, but having an annual buy game from a deep pocketed program is getting tough.

[SHOCKvalue]

I wish everyone worked in an industry where they were forced to substantiate claims or values, simply for the mere fact that perhaps internet forums would then not make me want to slam my head against the wall repeatedly in discussions like these.

Posters can pick apart my numbers all they want. I did not claim them to be references I would bet my life on, but at least they are something. My figures may not be data you'd write a dissertation on, but at minimum I am not pulling them out of my ass. I was simply trying to add quantitative context to a debate where there is usually zero.

I have seen the Equity in Athletics figures utilized as a reference for media members in the past. I'm not the only person that believes it to be a reasonably decent source, apparently. If the EiA search engine is not to your liking, then what source might you suggest?

[SHOCKvalue]

Another challenge for a start up is the BCS teams gravitating away from 1-AA. buy games. These buy games are the lifeblood of schools like UNI and Missouri State. BCS conferences are beginning to lean on schools to avoid them. These games will be difficult for 1-AA's going forward.

I think Bill Snyder still will schedule them, but having an annual buy game from a deep pocketed program is getting tough.

FCS has no context to my prior post, and I don't believe this thread in general. My post and it's data was based strictly on FBS. The level of football that WSU once played was what eventually became FBS, not FCS.