Serious Question

[Make MVC Great Again]

The AAC will just raid the best of what's available in CUSA with ready-made FBS football programs. IF Wichita ever does start it, they'll have a place for them.

Agreed. Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee would be great adds for the American and still make the league better than the Valley.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

The American might actually get stronger. If ok and Kansas go big ten and the big 12 folds with ok st and Texas going out west or sec and sec or pac 12 take baylorbaylor Texas tech, tcu. That leaves west Virginia, Iowa State, and Kansas State. 1 will get picked up by a big conference. The others 2 might be left out in the cold depending on which way things fall and the American could scoop them up to join Cincy, Memphis, UConn, and Houston. I think it's more plausible the big 12 folds instead of of losing a couple and then expanding. Eventually they will because the PAC 12, sec, and bog 10 will all go 16 eventually. That leaves 10 teams to be scooped up by those 3. Eventually it will be a big 4 of 16 teams a piece that will break off.

[Make MVC Great Again]

Could scoop Dayton as well.

[BirdsEyeView]

Some Shocker fans are misinformed.

Had Charles Koch and Co. not led the charge to keep 3G when Alabama came with truckloads of money, we would have lost him. And Chuckles is responsible for more than 5% of 3G's salary. LOL!

I agree with the ankle biters who've been chirping this thread up. There's nothing to be ashamed of regarding Koch's alliance with our university. Charles Koch is a proponent of free markets and understands clearly what actions led to the United States becoming the most dominant nation in the history of the civilized world. His vision for America is a breath of fresh air compared to the current generation of Snowflakes whose aim is to destroy everything that was built before them.

I'm proud our arena bears his name.


T


...

Finally, a realist. This was not that hard folks. No reason to be ashamed to have deep pocketed alums WILLING to help the basketball program (or athletic dept) when in need. You would not have had Marshall these past two years without big money boosters, starting with Koch.

Why fight that fact? Weird.

[shocktheheart]

The American might actually get stronger. If ok and Kansas go big ten and the big 12 folds with ok st and Texas going out west or sec and sec or pac 12 take baylorbaylor Texas tech, tcu. That leaves west Virginia, Iowa State, and Kansas State. 1 will get picked up by a big conference. The others 2 might be left out in the cold depending on which way things fall and the American could scoop them up to join Cincy, Memphis, UConn, and Houston. I think it's more plausible the big 12 folds instead of of losing a couple and then expanding. Eventually they will because the PAC 12, sec, and bog 10 will all go 16 eventually. That leaves 10 teams to be scooped up by those 3. Eventually it will be a big 4 of 16 teams a piece that will break off.

I think Iowa St, TCU, Tech, and K State could end up in this scenario

[Stickboy46]

A couple of points here. I think one of the reason people get defensive is its used as an excuse for other teams in the league why they can't get better. "We can't do what Wichita did because we don't have a billionaire backer". That's crap.

Lets look at Season tickets. CKA holds 10,500. So round down to 8,000 as season tickets. That leaves 2500 for Students, single game sales etc etc. The CHEAPEST donation to get a season ticket is ~500 for 2 tickets (This is the last row behind a pole type seats). So let's assume all of those seats have that minimum donation amount (they don't, it gets way more expensive up close). The cheapest season ticket price last year was 390 per ticket. That's 640 (250 + 390) per ticket x 8,000 season tickets. That's 5.1 Million in ticket sales/required donation per year. That's not including any of the "higher level" donor amounts, or the amounts from higher priced seats. That would WELL above any other MVC school's Men's Basketball budget without any special donations from billionaires. Obviously that gets split out to other areas beside men's basketball, but that's a VERY low side estimate of ONE example of money that comes from the community besides that one Billionaire.

So to say the entire success relies on that is crap. Other schools can do it to IF they get the right community support. Yes, it helps to have an "emergency" fund that doesn't require building a fundraising campaign to keep a coach. But let's back up a second from that. Yes, without a major donor "leading the charge" (whatever that was, money, influence, etc) Marshall would have probably bolted to Alabama in April of 2015. At that point, WSU was paying Marshall ~1.8 million + incentives. They had been to a Final Four, Gone Undefeated, Went to a 2nd Sweet 16. All of that happened BEFORE WSU had to cash in it's "emergency fund". That happened from Normal donor support, community support, Administration Support and making a few good hires.

[Stickboy46]

Some Shocker fans are misinformed.

Had Charles Koch and Co. not led the charge to keep 3G when Alabama came with truckloads of money, we would have lost him. And Chuckles is responsible for more than 5% of 3G's salary. LOL!

I agree with the ankle biters who've been chirping this thread up. There's nothing to be ashamed of regarding Koch's alliance with our university. Charles Koch is a proponent of free markets and understands clearly what actions led to the United States becoming the most dominant nation in the history of the civilized world. His vision for America is a breath of fresh air compared to the current generation of Snowflakes whose aim is to destroy everything that was built before them.

I'm proud our arena bears his name.


T


...

That fact that he personally employs >100,000 people isn't a bad thing either.

[BirdsEyeView]

A couple of points here. I think one of the reason people get defensive is its used as an excuse for other teams in the league why they can't get better. "We can't do what Wichita did because we don't have a billionaire backer". That's crap.

Lets look at Season tickets. CKA holds 10,500. So round down to 8,000 as season tickets. That leaves 2500 for Students, single game sales etc etc. The CHEAPEST donation to get a season ticket is ~500 for 2 tickets (This is the last row behind a pole type seats). So let's assume all of those seats have that minimum donation amount (they don't, it gets way more expensive up close). The cheapest season ticket price last year was 390 per ticket. That's 640 (250 + 390) per ticket x 8,000 season tickets. That's 5.1 Million in ticket sales/required donation per year. That's not including any of the "higher level" donor amounts, or the amounts from higher priced seats. That would WELL above any other MVC school's Men's Basketball budget without any special donations from billionaires. Obviously that gets split out to other areas beside men's basketball, but that's a VERY low side estimate of ONE example of money that comes from the community besides that one Billionaire.

So to say the entire success relies on that is crap. Other schools can do it to IF they get the right community support. Yes, it helps to have an "emergency" fund that doesn't require building a fundraising campaign to keep a coach. But let's back up a second from that. Yes, without a major donor "leading the charge" (whatever that was, money, influence, etc) Marshall would have probably bolted to Alabama in April of 2015. At that point, WSU was paying Marshall ~1.8 million + incentives. They had been to a Final Four, Gone Undefeated, Went to a 2nd Sweet 16. All of that happened BEFORE WSU had to cash in it's "emergency fund". That happened from Normal donor support, community support, Administration Support and making a few good hires.

First of all, who is using this as an excuse for us to not get better??? We are just explaining to the close-minded Shocker faithful how lucky they are to have very wealthy donors who are willing to help overcome a huge amount of money to continue growth in the athletic program. Almost every mid-major school can't afford that even if they sold out games...

Speaking of, I already talked about the controllable factors. That is, fans buying tickets and selling out stadiums. Each program needs to get better at that, especially in a great year like ISUr had last year. However, hardly anyone has the emergency fund type donors, especially not in this conference that rivals those of Power 5 schools. Wichita has that. You are lucky there.

Yes, you accomplished all that before April of 2015. But, what does WSU basketball program look like TODAY without the emergency fund booster money keeping your beloved coach around? Are they still this good without Marshall? Doubtful. Are you getting an invite to AAC? Doubtful, but maybe.

Again, Muller gets that offer and even if we were selling out our stadium every game, we don't have booster support to that level to keep him when a $4 million + offer comes in.

[Stickboy46]

A couple of points here. I think one of the reason people get defensive is its used as an excuse for other teams in the league why they can't get better. "We can't do what Wichita did because we don't have a billionaire backer". That's crap.

Lets look at Season tickets. CKA holds 10,500. So round down to 8,000 as season tickets. That leaves 2500 for Students, single game sales etc etc. The CHEAPEST donation to get a season ticket is ~500 for 2 tickets (This is the last row behind a pole type seats). So let's assume all of those seats have that minimum donation amount (they don't, it gets way more expensive up close). The cheapest season ticket price last year was 390 per ticket. That's 640 (250 + 390) per ticket x 8,000 season tickets. That's 5.1 Million in ticket sales/required donation per year. That's not including any of the "higher level" donor amounts, or the amounts from higher priced seats. That would WELL above any other MVC school's Men's Basketball budget without any special donations from billionaires. Obviously that gets split out to other areas beside men's basketball, but that's a VERY low side estimate of ONE example of money that comes from the community besides that one Billionaire.

So to say the entire success relies on that is crap. Other schools can do it to IF they get the right community support. Yes, it helps to have an "emergency" fund that doesn't require building a fundraising campaign to keep a coach. But let's back up a second from that. Yes, without a major donor "leading the charge" (whatever that was, money, influence, etc) Marshall would have probably bolted to Alabama in April of 2015. At that point, WSU was paying Marshall ~1.8 million + incentives. They had been to a Final Four, Gone Undefeated, Went to a 2nd Sweet 16. All of that happened BEFORE WSU had to cash in it's "emergency fund". That happened from Normal donor support, community support, Administration Support and making a few good hires.

First of all, who is using this as an excuse for us to not get better??? We are just explaining to the close-minded Shocker faithful how lucky they are to have very wealthy donors who are willing to help overcome a huge amount of money to continue growth in the athletic program. Almost every mid-major school can't afford that even if they sold out games...

Speaking of, I already talked about the controllable factors. That is, fans buying tickets and selling out stadiums. Each program needs to get better at that, especially in a great year like ISUr had last year. However, hardly anyone has the emergency fund type donors, especially not in this conference that rivals those of Power 5 schools. Wichita has that. You are lucky there.

Yes, you accomplished all that before April of 2015. But, what does WSU basketball program look like TODAY without the emergency fund booster money keeping your beloved coach around? Are they still this good without Marshall? Doubtful. Are you getting an invite to AAC? Doubtful, but maybe.

Again, Muller gets that offer and even if we were selling out our stadium every game, we don't have booster support to that level to keep him when a $4 million + offer comes in.

I think you are missing the point. I have definitely seen a ton of "Must but nice to have billionaire Donor X and Y funding your program". When in reality, Donor Y isn't even associated with the program and Donor X is a small percentage of the overall athletics budget. You are absolutely correct that we are lucky to have it, but its not what built the program. It helped keep it from falling off a bit, but lets be clear. The program would have absolutely not crashed if Marshall bolted to Alabama. We would have gone to market with a program that had great recent success, a sold out 10,000+ arena for multiple years running, and a salary range approached 2 million. Do you not think we would have landed a decent coach? We aren't going to market with 500k like most school in the Valley without the COMMUNITY support that Wichita has.

COMMUNITY support is what built the program. The few high level donors is what helped maintain it at an EXTRA high level without a small drop. That's the point. WSU would have still been in a great position relative to the market even if the big donors didn't step up as a "emergency" fund. I've already shown where there is WELL over 5 million a year in just Men's basketball SASO+ticket sales. Realistically that's probably over 10 million as I'm assuming every seat is the cheapest price.

If Muller gets poached to a P5 for 4 million, I wouldn't expect you to be able to keep him. But when you go to the market, What are you offering? Are you offering community support? are you offering sold out arenas? are you offering an enticing salary BECAUSE you have that support? No, because the community support isn't there at the same level of Wichita. AND because you have another big program to support (football).

There are obviously other factors, but the reason we get so defensive is that WSU's success is not tied to one or two donors. Yes, they helped keep it there, but they were not the primary reason why the success was there in the first place.

[BirdsEyeView]

I will remember the community support my school that I coach receives the next time I get offered $4 million instead of my $1 million contract.

I'll turn them down and say "although you are giving me $3 million more than what I am currently making, the community support here at my school is just too good. Sorry."

Saying you can just replace him if those emergency big boosters never stepped up is very ignorant. You have to hit a home run with a new hire ONCE AGAIN. Even Power 5 schools who get coaches poached can't replicate the success.

Illinois lost Bill Self to Kansas
Illinois has been in the dumpster ever since Bill Self's recruits left (Deron Williams/Dee Brown)
Illinois has the support, funding and donor backing, yet can't find a really good coach to fix that.

If GM is gone because the donors did not step up (which they needed to EVEN WITH ALL THAT MONEY COMING IN FROM TICKET SALES AND MERCHANDISE SALES over the years), you would have to hit another home run on your next hire....having money AND community support does not mean you will get that.

Exhibit A: Bradley and Geno Ford