What's the next realignment domino to fall?

[uniftw]

No one is losing 2 million dollars on football.

Years UNI is in the red it's about 500K in the red for football.
There are years UNI actually turns a football profit.
Most years it's basically a wash.

UNI did a study in 2010 to explore what the options for football were - stay FCS, move FBS, go non-scholarship D1 (Drake, Valpo, Butler, etc...), go D2, or drop football completely. The study found that going doing anything except staying FCS or moving FBS would end up costing the athletic department so much money it would cripple it. The number of donors that would drop donations was found to be about 80% of donations. Ticket sales would have dropped an estimated 80-90%. It was found that donations to the university - not just the athletic department - would fall. It was found enrollment would greatly decrease thus losing money.

The reason so many hold on to football, even if it doesn't "Seem to make sense" is that the PR hit to the general public, the PR hit to the alumni, the PR hit to the donors, etc... isn't worth the potential savings on football.

UNI spends about 3.6M on football. Between ticket sales, cost to park (straight cash for the AD), FBS games, concessions, merch sold on game day in the stadium, and players not on scholarship paying tuition the program isn't losing any real money. That's not taking into account the donors who would go away if football left the school. That's not taking into account so many other things.


It's not as simple as "Drop football and take that 3.6m and put it into other sports".

[BEARZ77]

The thing is UNI represents the upper 5% of FCS football; the financial picture for most others is much more desolate. Secondly, you're not also looking at the number of non-revenue woman's sports that have to be maintained for compliance issues; you have to add all that expense to what the cost of football actually is. And lastly, I'm not meaning to single out football per se; my real point is Universities at our level can't continue to fund athletics the way we do under the current system given the amount of subsidy that is being directed that way to offset the huge losses across the board in athletics departments. FCS football is just the most obvious point of scrutiny because of the number of scholys and the associated impact across entire athletics departments at most Universities maintaining FCS football. Even in the rosy picture you paint for UNI, their percent of subsidy is still significant for athletics, and they had to cut baseball to help that picture already.

I see Universities having to lobby the NCAA for a reduction in the total # of sports that have to be offered to be D-1, the power 5 +??? splitting totally off into their own separate entity, and the overall landscape changed drastically in 5-10 years. You just can't keep operating athletics departments the way they are now given the amount of subsidy it requires to offset the expenses.

[uniftw]

UNI cutting baseball was more a Title IX issue than a financial issue...though I suppose you could argue football makes that harder.

UNI's subsidity is extremely low, especially compared to the FCS - and actually in relation to non P5s as well. It's one of the few in the country under 50% at the FCS level, and many/most G5s are in the 60s and 70s for subsidy. I'd argue G5 football is less sustainable than FCS football.

I suppose UNI is better off financially, and a bit of a "unicorn" in the FCS world when it comes to combined football and basketball success being sustained and at the level it has been the last 20 years.

[BEARZ77]

uniftw, I agree with your perspective on UNI and FCS football for them. But think what you just indicated. UNI is well above the norm, where most schools are subsidizing 50-60% of costs to run their athletics programs and the demands are increasing every year. So even as one of the more successful programs UNI can't cover about 45% of the costs it takes to maintain it's athletics programs and has to take that money from student fees or the general fund in order to exist. And they're one of the programs doing well. I just can't see with State legislatures tightening the purse strings on education how Universities will be able to justify those expenditures at an ever increasing level as time moves forward.

I think the sentiment will always be there that athletics are integral to the college experience, but in trying to keep up with the huge $$$ p-5 schools have available to throw into all levels of their athletics, the budgets at the non p-5 schools have gotten totally out of control. And yet what do we hear constantly on this site; MVC schools need to allocate more dollars towards athletics in order to remain competitive, get scheduling advantages, and retain coaches. I can't see that as a sustainable approach much longer. Where will the money come from and how much longer are States and Universities boards going to continue to divert $$ from other educational needs or tax students to pay for athletics at this cost.

[mvfcfan]

The fact of the matter is that SIU just built a new stadium not very long ago, MSU and ILST recently renovated their stadiums, and UNI plays in a dome. INST also has plans to eventually build a new stadium (although I'm not certain that will ever happen). 4 of the 5 schools have spent a tremendous amount on football, so I don't see football going anywhere anytime soon.

And then there's Murray State and they also play FCS football and I seriously doubt they have any serious plans of dropping it.

[BEARZ77]

And I've said that a number of times in regards to MSU; they've clearly made a commitment to maintaining a football program and will ride that horse to hell. In the mean time when they had a top 10-20 women's basketball program that was drawing 7-8,000 fans per night for over a decade and at that time was unique in that it was one of a handful in the entire country that turned a significant profit yearly, indicate they needed more funding to remain competitive, they were denied those funds, the coach left, and we now draw 2,500 and have made 1 NCAA Tourney in the past 10 years after making 14 in a 18 year period including 2 Final Fours. . Our men's basketball program that made 5 straight NCAA Tourney appearances and won the MVC Tourney in it's 1st year in the league, hasn't won another Tourney and only one league title and hasn't sniffed the NCAA Tourney since 1999[ although truthfully BH got screwed twice].We fund most of our sports in the middle third of the Valley or worse . We have a MBB program that is seen as a legitimate Title contender, but the school says they couldn't afford to pay the necessary going rate to get the types of non con games necessary to be in contention for an at large.

But hey we got that FCS football program that loses money right and left and by Nov/Dec is drawing 5-6000 fans to watch the likes of Western Illinois and Youngstown St. come to Springfield. Now that's exciting. Truthfully , I'm not blaming everything on Football though I sound it I know. My point is that when resources are limited you have to get the most bang for your buck and know who you are. MSU entered the Valley in the early 90's with two nationally recognized basketball programs, and solid top 50 baseball and Volleyball programs. That's who we were and that's who we could be if we were smart. God knows how Keith Guttin [baseball]and Melissa Stokes[Volleyball] have maintained their programs as competitive as they have, given how little we support their overall efforts.

[mvfcfan]

The attitude of football on this board really irritates me though and thank goodness the public football playing universities in the MVC don't feel the same way. The Missouri Valley the past few years in football is probably the best it has ever been in history and no one on here even seems to even care. Everyone just dogs it on here because it is not FBS.

Like in the 2014 season, out of every single MVFC school, the conference only lost 2 games to other FCS opponents and one of those losses was in the playoffs (INST to Chattanooga in the second round). Then we had the MVFC / National Championship game on ESPN2 which is a pretty big deal. I'm just not too sure how you can hate football so much whenever our member schools are having a lot of success in it. I'm also not sure why people don't want NDSU and SDSU as full MVC members. Yes they are football schools, but they also have pretty good basketball. Just because you have football or don't have football doesn't mean anything. There are lots of schools out there that don't have football and are terrible at basketball.

[glm38]

The attitude of football on this board really irritates me though and thank goodness the public football playing universities in the MVC don't feel the same way. The Missouri Valley the past few years in football is probably the best it has ever been in history and no one on here even seems to even care. Everyone just dogs it on here because it is not FBS.

Like in the 2014 season, out of every single MVFC school, the conference only lost 2 games to other FCS opponents and one of those losses was in the playoffs (INST to Chattanooga in the second round). Then we had the MVFC / National Championship game on ESPN2 which is a pretty big deal. I'm just not too sure how you can hate football so much whenever our member schools are having a lot of success in it. I'm also not sure why people don't want NDSU and SDSU as full MVC members. Yes they are football schools, but they also have pretty good basketball. Just because you have football or don't have football doesn't mean anything. There are lots of schools out there that don't have football and are terrible at basketball.

I think Bearz said it best when he said if you are going to play FCS football then play it well. Most of our members (not my Bears) do play it well. And we are definitely rocking it as the best FCS conference in the country. However there is just no comparison between FCS football and NCAA basketball in terms of monetary reward and name recognition. We will continue to slide as a conference unless several Valley schools step it up in men's basketball.

[uniftw]

The attitude of football on this board really irritates me though and thank goodness the public football playing universities in the MVC don't feel the same way. The Missouri Valley the past few years in football is probably the best it has ever been in history and no one on here even seems to even care. Everyone just dogs it on here because it is not FBS.

Like in the 2014 season, out of every single MVFC school, the conference only lost 2 games to other FCS opponents and one of those losses was in the playoffs (INST to Chattanooga in the second round). Then we had the MVFC / National Championship game on ESPN2 which is a pretty big deal. I'm just not too sure how you can hate football so much whenever our member schools are having a lot of success in it. I'm also not sure why people don't want NDSU and SDSU as full MVC members. Yes they are football schools, but they also have pretty good basketball. Just because you have football or don't have football doesn't mean anything. There are lots of schools out there that don't have football and are terrible at basketball.

The last 7 years, or so, the MVFC - while supplying 22 less scholarships - has ranked with/a head of the MAC, CUSA, MWC and SBC

Looking at current computer models we have 5 MVFC (of the 10 teams total) in the top 100 of ALL of college football. That goes to 7 of the top 110.

There are 129 FBS teams and 255 total D1 teams.
There are 7 MVFC teams in the top 110

By comp here are the number of CUSA, MAC, SBC and MWC in the top 110
CUSA: 6
MAC: 5
SBC: 4
MWC: 4


Current Massey ratings has the MVFC tied with the MAC and MWC. A head of CUSA, SBC. Tied with the G5 as a whole in that ranking, actually.

Here's another computer ranking that I really like - ranks D1-NAIA. MVFC is 9th
1 Big 10 Conference ( 29- 8) 149.62 0.541 1.00
2 Southeastern Confere ( 26- 6) 149.55 0.538 1.00
3 Big 12 Conference ( 19- 10) 149.30 0.454 1.00
4 Pacific 12 Conferenc ( 26- 7) 148.05 0.606 1.00
5 Atlantic Coast Confe ( 22- 9) 147.96 0.567 1.00
6 American Athletic Co ( 18- 10) 138.54 0.591 1.00
7 Division I FBS Indep ( 5- 9) 135.23 0.374 1.00
8 Mountain West Confer ( 15- 19) 135.07 0.604 1.00
9 Missouri Valley Foot ( 18- 8) 130.61 0.482 1.50
10 Mid-American Confere ( 18- 17) 129.36 0.604 1.00
11 Conference USA ( 16- 20) 125.66 0.615 1.00
12 Colonial Athletic As ( 21- 10) 122.14 0.711 1.50
13 Sun Belt Conference ( 9- 18) 121.84 0.566 1.00

The FCS, in many ways, is what it is made out to be here. However, the reality is that the G5 could easily be seen as a much bigger money waste than the FCS. They offer 22 more scholarships - meaning 44 more scholarships. They pay their coaches 3-6 times what the FCS does - with larger coaching staffs. They play in 60% empty stadiums that cost millions per year to upkeep. It is well known how much money bowl games end up losing programs.

Each fan base/school has their own feeling on football. Schools that currently have football will not see the benefits those without football assume they will by dropping the program.

[uniftw]

It is interesting to see schools like WSU, Dayton, Gonzaga, etc... used as examples that not having football helps in a big way.

Doing some quick research on RPIs from last year using RealtimeRPI.com

Of the final top 100
75 had football of some form - 4 FCS programs
25 had no football (I included VCU's club team as a no)

Teams 101-150
37 had football of some form
13 had no football

I decided to carry this out to see when non-football schools started to "take control" of a ranking group before we got too far into the D1 schools with no business being D1

151-200
33 had football in some form
17 had no football****
UAB was counted as a "no" here but their football program being cut is well documented and it actually restarted this year so we can call it 34 yes and 16 no just accurately

201-250
32 had football in some form
18 had no football

I cut it off there because after that it's 99% schools, football or not, that shouldn't be D1.

Interesting to see there is a direct correlation to % of a group of 50 with football to it's grouping.

1-50 - 78% had football
51-100 72% had football
101-150 74% had football
151-200 66% had football
201-250 64% had football

Does that many anything? Who knows. Just some interesting numbers