Would you support the return of football at WSU?

[mattdalt]

Should the title of this thread be changed to “Are you willing and able to cut a big enough check to start and sustain a football program?” Supporting is easy. All the big money people have answered the question, ergo, no football!

[WstateU]

Should the title of this thread be changed to “Are you willing and able to cut a big enough check to start and sustains football program?” Supporting is easy. All the big money people have answered the question, ergo, no football!

Not completely true…

[pogo]

I like the good Dr's idea of Ted Lasso starting a go fund me program to resurrect the football at WSU. After all who better to start one than the former "Coach" of a national championship team.

[Shoxing Me Softly]

You know this would be the time to start a team. You have to start FCS for 4 years or something like that. OVC would give WSU an FCS football home. They are hurting for teams. Cessna getting torn down and replaced with something suitable for track anyways. Anything 10k is large enough for FCS. If it’s not a good idea then kill it after a few years. If it gains traction you can build something suitable for FBS down the road.

[shox1989]

Definitely YES. I wish we would have started 5 or 10 years ago. Our athletic program would have more options. Other schools these days are either adding football or upgrading football. That was not the case in the late 80s or early 90s. The landscape of college athletics has changed and football is more important than ever.

[C0|dB|00ded]

100% Baby!

Get the ball rollin' and we'll see if grassroots support springs up. If it does, the big boosters will follow.

Let's start selling $100 bricks. 10,000 Shockers buying 1 brick each is $1,000,000.00.

Let's go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jcdshocker]

If I remember correctly, the start up costs are about $60 - $70 MM. this is in addition to the annual costs of operating the program. One Brick at a time!

[SubGod22]

I see no reason we couldn't be one of the well attended FCS teams in football. It appears that the average FCS attendance is only a little over 7k. I want to say football budgets are generally under 10M as well. You don't have to go all in all at once to build football up. You can still do it right and gradually increase as needed and supported. Build a stadium that holds maybe 20k that is designed to be expanded as necessary.

North Dakota State averages 17440. Of our former Valley friends, Illinois State is the best attended at only 9242. That's the 26th best in FCS. I really see no reason we couldn't be one of the better attended teams at that level as we build up support and success to hopefully move to FBS.

I will say that Jackson St. averaging over 33k is impressive. Montana is 2nd at 22.5k.

Just to see where AAC teams stand in football attendance

Cincinnati - 35985
ECU - 33134
Houston - 25518
Memphis - 38816
Navy - 31970
SMU - 23633
USF - 31823
Temple - 29460
Tulane - 20271
Tulsa - 18741
UCF - 43788

And there are a lot of FBS schools under 20k. But it looks like the bulk are in the 20-35k range. Again, I don't see why we couldn't compete in that regard. Hell, KU barely plays football and averages 33k. If we had football and could build up a successful FCS team and had open goals to move to FBS I think the support would be there. Even if we moved up as an Independent down the road to prove ourselves, I would bet we could generate some assistance from AAC teams with scheduling, as well as scheduling other Indy teams. So I don't think scheduling would be all that complicated,

But even at the FCS startup, I'm sure we could find a conference that would let us in. It might have to include us scheduling a couple of their teams in basketball, but I would think we could make it work. I'm also sure some of the MVC schools wouldn't mind playing us in football so they could try and flex their muscle. I'd think scheduling SWOMO would be pretty easy and probably generate interest from both fan bases.

[C0|dB|00ded]

If I remember correctly, the start up costs are about $60 - $70 MM. this is in addition to the annual costs of operating the program. One Brick at a time!

Bro, nobody is talking about a fully funded FCS startup. Just sell the first brick for $100 and we go from there. Get the equipment paid for and we start holding Saturday morning scrimmages. If you're gonna eat an elephant, you do it one bite at a time.

[Shockm]

NM

[Shoxing Me Softly]

But even at the FCS startup, I'm sure we could find a conference that would let us in.

Yes this is my point. The OVC just lost a few teams to the ASUN and is down to 6 football teams I believe and Murray may be leaving as well. The Southland is also in rough shape with Lamar, Sam Houston, Stephen F Austin all three having left for WAC and Central Arkansas heading to ASUN. Both leagues just entered into a football scheduling agreement.

That's what I mean by now would be the time to start up FCS. OVC would be perfect, it's about as entry level FCS football you can get, well except for the pioneer league.

If you average 10K a game you are doing quite well for FCS. 7800 was average attendance in 2019.

[SubGod22]

Yes this is my point. The OVC just lost a few teams to the ASUN and is down to 6 football teams I believe and Murray may be leaving as well. The Southland is also in rough shape with Lamar, Sam Houston, Stephen F Austin all three having left for WAC and Central Arkansas heading to ASUN. Both leagues just entered into a football scheduling agreement.

That's what I mean by now would be the time to start up FCS. OVC would be perfect, it's about as entry level FCS football you can get, well except for the pioneer league.

If you average 10K a game you are doing quite well for FCS. 7800 was average attendance in 2019.

That's why I'd look more towards the Southland. I'd have to double check who is where these days, but I'd think playing in some of those areas could be more beneficial to out of state recruiting as KS, OK and TX would be the mainstays and expanding from there. The Jayhawk Conference would also be massively beneficial, especially early on.

[bleed yellow]

We should of never left the Valley without football being brought back being a very real possibility. If it really is that difficult to bring back the AAC was a disastrous pick of places to go. We should of tried harder to get into the Big East

[SubGod22]

The Big East was never and will most likely ever be a possibility.

The AAC was still the right move.

We still should have brought back football well before now.

Maybe I should start playing the lottery. Win big, bring back football.

[C0|dB|00ded]

The Big East was never and will most likely ever be a possibility.

The AAC was still the right move.

We still should have brought back football well before now.

Maybe I should start playing the lottery. Win big, bring back football.

Everybody is always talking about lottery tickets and Koch donations for football. I think we should avoid that kind of narrative. It's fuel for the C.A.V.E.R.'s who stomp in the moment football is mentioned and screech, "It's gonna take 100 MiLLiOn DoLLeRz!!111".

Football can be restarted w/ a grassroots effort. With enough voices and individual dollars, we will gain momentum. Then the big donors will rush to get their names stamped on things; maybe even local government will ask how they can help. If we ever got to the 15k+ attendance mark, it would be the biggest recurring event in Wichita. All kinds of synergistic activity would spring forth. Every commercial promoting Wichita would include Shocker football imagery. This town needs a local football team. It's time.