Would you support the return of football at WSU?

[bleed yellow]

I don’t think it’s so much that they can’t find the cash to start up a team. It’s probably more they look at the schools like Villanova that have football and say “Why does Villanova have a football team that no one ever sees and has absolutely no shot at the college football playoff?”

[SubGod22]

I don’t think it’s so much that they can’t find the cash to start up a team. It’s probably more they look at the schools like Villanova that have football and say “Why does Villanova have a football team that no one ever sees and has absolutely no shot at the college football playoff?”

Villanova was a top 10 FCS team this season and in the playoffs as the #5 team and received a first round bye. Playoffs begin this week.

FCS has a 24 team playoff it appears with the top 8 teams receiving first round byes. Nova has had zero desire to move up to FBS and that's fine. I believe many of us have said we'd be happy with FCS and if we built it up well enough that we could transition. I believe we could be capable of being a consistent playoff team in FCS and have the financial capability of doing so. Of course, many of us dream of having football and eventually moving to FBS, and it would be nice to have that at least as a potential option in the future landscape of college athletics.

And if I looked at the bracket correctly, six of the playoff teams come from the MVFC, three being former MVC foes. The one and three seeds are moving to FBS soon, one to CUSA and the other to the Belt.

[pogo]

I would agree with you that losing football had a disastrous effect on our enrollment back in the day. I am sure someone has done a study on the money WSU lost in tuition etc and not just the money we lost out on from funding from the state because of reduced enrollment. What would the loss in money that those students would have brought or kept in the community. I would be hesitant to ask the students to help pay for a football team by an increase in student fees as UTSA is going to do. Free tickets to games as an incentive? I wonder what the dollar amount would be equal to for say an increase of 2,000 students in enrollment fees and funding from the state. If it could be a break even scenario then I say go for it. I know I have said this before but some of my happiest times with my kids was walking across campus in the fall to attend a football game. The amazing thing is they still think the Shocks won every game. Go Shocks

[SubGod22]

I get the hesitancy of more student fees. I don't think something like $10 a credit hour capped at 12 hours would be horrible. I believe WSU Tech also would take on these fees as those students also have access to everything offered at the main campus, including the free tickets for men's basketball. That would raise around 2.5M with no increase in enrollment. Free tickets to games would be worth it from a program perspective. If main campus enrollment would grow to 20k, which isn't unreasonable with a little time, that's around 3M a year.

If we could average 10k per game, you'd be looking at say 1.5M in ticket sales, at least. I'm not sure how much would be raised in SASO fees. Im.getrimg sidetracked with the Financials again.

I also don't know though how the athletic fees are distributed. Not asking for some football specific increase would take from other areas. I still think we could pull it off financially without it, but a guaranteed 2M without taking from others just seems more appealing and would only cost full time students an extra 120 a semester. For those that would use free tickets they'd come out on top. Obviously that wouldn't be the majority, but again I think you'd start seeing more donations in all areas long term with football that would benefit all areas of the university.

In the end it all comes down to an increase in the college experience for students as well as brand recognition for the school.

As I've said before, college football is far more popular today than it was when we last sponsored it. I can't speak to the overall popularity and support of WSU as I was around 5 when football was dropped. I never got the experience of college football here.

[bleed yellow]

It seems like if WSU were to ever bring it back they want a 40k seat stadium, marching band and the whole 9 yards, but when they get told things like “Best we can do is FCS or D-2 level accommodations for the foreseeable future or basically until enrollment is a solid 20,000” they just drop the idea completely. It’s a little strange, not going to lie. I mean, let’s say that they built a 12,500 stadium to accommodate a FCS or D-2 team for a few years. They could always just add onto the stadium when they were ready to move to a stronger conference

[SubGod22]

Which is what many of us advocate for. Build a 12k-15k seat stadium that's designed to be added onto as needed. And you're required to start at FCS and it makes sense as you put things in place.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

Which is what many of us advocate for. Build a 12k-15k seat stadium that's designed to be added onto as needed. And you're required to start at FCS and it makes sense as you put things in place.

Death Valley (Tiger Stadium) started out roughly the size of Cessna Stadium and has been expanded over the years to the now 100k+ stadium it is. Where you have to go down 60 rows of seats, out of the stadium, then back in to get to the next seat over from you.

If you build it with easy options to expand, it would be a great asset even if WSU doesn’t get football. Leave current area for Track and field and build new one in close proximity to campus.

[Stickboy46]

Michigan State, USC and LSU just made big hires/extensions. All 3 were ~ 100 million contracts (~10 mil a year). Notre Dame is likely to steal Cincys coach now.

Our budget would need to grow exponentially to even remotely think about competing in football. The coaches market is skyrocketing.

[SubGod22]

If your expectation was to compete immediately with the wealthiest schools with the greatest football traditions you're insanely unrealistic and just looking for and making up reasons to not have football. Those are the exceptions to the rule when it comes to coaching budgets and the vast majority of schools aren't now and never will be paying those figures.

That's kind of like saying the CEO of Amazon gets paid millions a year so I shouldn't start a business because I can't offer that now and may never be able to. That has little to do with my ability to create and run a successful business that adds value to my life and my community and who's to say it won't grow and one day become a relevant player in whatever market I'm in or even nationally?

[Stickboy46]

If your expectation was to compete immediately with the wealthiest schools with the greatest football traditions you're insanely unrealistic and just looking for and making up reasons to not have football. Those are the exceptions to the rule when it comes to coaching budgets and the vast majority of schools aren't now and never will be paying those figures.

That's kind of like saying the CEO of Amazon gets paid millions a year so I shouldn't start a business because I can't offer that now and may never be able to. That has little to do with my ability to create and run a successful business that adds value to my life and my community and who's to say it won't grow and one day become a relevant player in whatever market I'm in or even nationally?

The point is .. the market for college football coaches is out of control. Combined with all the start up costs ... it would be an astronomically stupid decision to try to start one up. The support needed to make it successful isn't there .. if it was ... Bardo would have done it.

Combine that with the fact that the current playoff system makes it basically impossible to compete for a title ... why would we want it. So we can get the UnionHome Mortgage Gasparilla bowl vs the 8th place team from the SEC? Dumbest sport setup in existence. Would literally just be burning money and stealing it from our other programs to do it.

[SubGod22]

Again, most coaches aren't making crazy money. Especially at the non blue blood levels. A lot of schools the last few decades have started up football and been fine. The startup costs aren't as bad as most naysayers project, but would be a bit of a hurdle. The numbers show that you can run a top tier FCS program on 5M a year and that includes coaching salaries. AAC teams average around 15M a year, but that will drop with the three biggest spenders leaving for the XII. So even that level is currently only 10-15M a year. Increased student enrollment isn't guaranteed, but it most certainly would happen, which generates more money. Current enrollment with an added $10 per credit hour would raise around 2M. Ticket sales, with even modest attendance, is gonna earn another 1M. I can't speak to increased advertising and donations that would follow football as well as merchandising. SASO would generate quite a bit more as well. More graduates also equals more potential giving in the future. Most of this would cover yearly operational expenses for a football program without taking anything from other programs.

If we'd already had football and joined the American, we'd also be getting an additional 5M a year for the athletic department from the media deal and then whatever the share would be from postseason football.

Would we ever be able to play for a national title? At the FCS level, I absolutely believe we could. At the FBS level, it would be a long shot. But with the current setup, it's a longshot for over 100 teams and none of them are bitching about football. Those bowl games against the 8th place SEC team still generate money and work towards a larger brand recognition. Winning some of those games also helps towards those things as well as recruiting, donations and sponsorships.

But if it's all about playing for a national title at the highest levels, we should drop almost every sport we sponsor as it's probably not going to happen outside of men's basketball and baseball. The deck is pretty stacked against us in most every other sport so why bother? And those sports don't offer the brand recognition or money generating opportunities that football does. Nor do they boost student enrollment or involvement on any real level like football does.

[bleed yellow]

I wonder if the lack of interest in football at wsu has anything to do with them either thinking ku/k-state would block them from joining the Big 12 or if wsu doesn’t want to chance any involvement with the Big 12, as in maybe they don’t ever want to be a big 12 member for some reason? I just don’t see why else they would be so reluctant to start small and build up

[SubGod22]

I wonder if the lack of interest in football at wsu has anything to do with them either thinking ku/k-state would block them from joining the Big 12 or if wsu doesn’t want to chance any involvement with the Big 12, as in maybe they don’t ever want to be a big 12 member for some reason? I just don’t see why else they would be so reluctant to start small and build up

Hell will freeze over before KU or KSU allow WSU to share a conference with them. That should have absolutely nothing to do with bringing back football.

If we eventually got to the point where football was even somewhat respectable, we'd easily be more attractive than KSU due to being located in a growing urban area instead of being a rural based school and fanbase. But that would take time to develop such a program. But without football, we will always be behind the other two in the grand scheme of such things.

[SubGod22]

Watching the FCS playoff game between NDSU and ETSU. They just said ETSU brought back football in 2015 and this is their 2nd playoff appearance.

There's never guarantees, but it shows that you can bring back football and find success in short order. They're also thr number 7 ranked team in the country.

[ABC]

I would support it, but am not sure it is a good idea.