$5 million to bring back football at WSU!

[shocky]

I don't see a school like WSU ever generating enough money to fully fund a D-1 or D-1AA program. It will take a great deal of help from students, alumni and the community to make it work. The fact that we dropped the sport, for better or worse, will make it that much harder to get people behind it.

It's a chicken and egg thing. No one wants to put up the money without a strong plan and a commitment to start the program. And our university wants the money up front before they will make a move.

[shocky]

5 million seems like a very low number to me.

[shock]

How much would it take to bring in parcells to get the program going? My guess is about $5 mil.

[ABC]

Remember that when we bring on 80 new men's football scholarships, we have to bring on 80 new women's scholarships or something close.

So we'd have to add three women's sports.

Scholarship costs alone would be at least $1 million per year, every single year. (160 scholarships x $6,000)

That doesn't include housing, coachess, facilities, travel for any of the new sports.

[shocker3]

5 million seems like a very low number to me.

Five million was the number given by Dr. Beggs as the start up costs for football on the Channel 3 news Monday night:

http://www.ksn.com/news/local/story/Questionable-call-Should-WSU-bring-back-football/EkngwMoldEmFn5pNYo7bkw.cspx

[shock49]

Hey Marty,I am saying the stated start up numbers Of $30 m were the ones in the past

[Veritas]

I don't see a school like WSU ever generating enough money to fully fund a D-1 or D-1AA program. It will take a great deal of help from students, alumni and the community to make it work. The fact that we dropped the sport, for better or worse, will make it that much harder to get people behind it.

It's a chicken and egg thing. No one wants to put up the money without a strong plan and a commitment to start the program. And our university wants the money up front before they will make a move.

What exactly do you mean "a school like WSU" couldn't generate enough money?

[martymoose]

One thing to keep in mind is we already have football scholarships...that's what paid my sister's way through WSU. She had enough money to cover tuition, books, housing, transportation and maybe some left over. I'm sure she's not the only one.

Beggs said $5 million in start up costs. As I mentioned earlier and others have mentioned the figures we've heard in the past were $30 million total cost to keep it going (5 years?). The way I understood it before was that $30 million covered everything including women's scholarships.

Other Valley schools can do it, so I don't see why we can't too.

[shocky]

Outside of the BCS. I should have been specific.

[SB Shock]

Beggs said $5 million in start up costs. As I mentioned earlier and others have mentioned the figures we've heard in the past were $30 million total cost to keep it going (5 years?).

Did anybody hear Beggs say that - all I heard was the lady doing the story. The context that Beggs was speaking in terms of is probably important and I'm not sure we know what his context was and frankly sounds unrealistic when you look at what budgets are for football. Just trying to get Cessna Stadium back up to standard for football would I think cost >>5million.

The way I understood it before was that $30 million covered everything including women's scholarships.

There was a study done that came up with these numbers if IIRC. I have tried to find it on the internet but have not had any luck (maybe somebody else can or has a copy of it) Again the context of those number and IIRC that was for Div I football. There were other options that were less expensive.

Other Valley schools can do it, so I don't see why we can't too.

Depends on how much stress you want to put your athletic department under. Here is link to story looking at the cost of Division I football at the MVC level (UNO was looking at what it would take to join the MVC football)

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110323/MAVS/303249985/0

MVC football budgets run from 2.03 to 3.33 Million (average of 2.68 million).

Then there is the additional cost of tuition and funding the other parts of the athletic program looks to be an additional $5.11 million (MSU) to $12.4 Million (SIU) per year. You are talking about 7-15 million dollar per year committement for your athletic department to play in the MVC for football.

[Kung Wu]

Remember that when we bring on 80 new men's football scholarships, we have to bring on 80 new women's scholarships or something close.

So we'd have to add three women's sports.

Scholarship costs alone would be at least $1 million per year, every single year. (160 scholarships x $6,000)

That doesn't include housing, coachess, facilities, travel for any of the new sports.

I've got actual annual cost of scholarships at 64 football + about 50 women's sports x about $6000 = $648,000/yr

That includes housing for the players. If the women's teams are lacrosse and soccer, the coaches salaries are PALTRY and there aren't additional facilities needed -- just a soccer field (already have an NCAA eligible one and a lacrosse field which costs peanuts).

[RoyalShock]

Here's a recent study on athletic department revenues and expenses broken down by football subdivisions.

http://ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/resources/latest+news/2011/june/report+shows+widening+financial+gap+in+division+i

What I found interesting is that on average schools without football get 80% of their revenue from institutional support, whereas schools with FCS football receive 73%. On the surface, that sounds like having football is better. But it's just the opposite.

Let's say we have a non-football school with $10 million in expenses. They want to add a FCS program that will cost $3 million a year to operate. The institutional support without football (80% or $10M) is $8 million. With football (73% of $13M) is $9.5 million.

I suspect that WSU does much better than %80. In 2009-10, WSU's athletic operating expenses were $18.7 million. Revenue from student fees ($2.93M), direct institutional support ($2.14M) and indirect support ($1.53M) totalled $6.6M, or 35.3%.

Here are the student fees, direct/indirect institutional support and total athletic expenditures of some of our MVC FCS-playing brethren:

        Student Fees   Inst. Sup.   Total Exp.   Support
SIU         $9.4M         $4.6M       $22.3M       63% 
MSU         $0            $5.5M       $14.3M       38%
UNI         $1.2M         $6.5M       $15.8M       49% 
ISU-Red     $7.9M         $2.4M       $15.9M       65%
ISU-Blue    $5.9M         $2.0M       $10.7M       74%
WSU         $2.9M         $2.1M       $18.7M       35%

Some things to consider are that SIU, MSU and ISU-Red have higher enrollments and probably a significantly higher number of credit hours, so while SIU and ISU-Red have a lot of student fee support, it's spread out more. But I still bet they are higher per credit hour than WSU.

Interesting that only one of those football-playing schools (SIU) outspends WSU. And only one other school (MSU) can match our relatively low % of student/institutional support.

Another interesting stat is that WSU gets $4M in ticket sales. The next closest is SIU at $1.7M. That is a staggering discrepancy and one that tells me WSU has the greatest potential, even considering the credit hour difference, of all MVC public schools to have a fiscally responsible football program (with additional student fees) without harming the rest of the athletic programs.

Source for financial data: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colle...a-finances.htm

[_kai_]

I propose Royal to lead a round table with the administration. :p

[RoyalShock]

The KSN series is missing at least one and maybe two more parts, where they talk to current, former and prospective students to get their take. If this is a university issue (which it clearly is since the sub-focus of the series was Don Beggs), then the opinion of alumni and students should be central.

Some questions I'd like to see asked:

(Of alumni, pre-1986)
What role did football play in your college experience?

(Of alumni, post-1986)
Do you wish WSU had played football during your time there? Would you have paid a few extra dollars per credit hour to support it?

(Of current students)
Would you like to see football at WSU? Would you support a modest increase in student fees to help pay for it?

(Of prospective students)
Does whether or not a school plays football factor in to your school choice? If WSU had football would you be more or less likely to attend? If more likely, would increased student fees affect that decision?

It's the students and alumni that reflect whether WSU is or should be a metropolitan or traditional university. Why did the KSN piece only talk to one alumnus and one former player?

[SubGod22]

Why did the KSN piece only talk to one alumnus and one former player?

Because it's KSN