Top 25 talk

[WUPHF]

Really? I know that many schools add or maintain football to add to male enrollment. But most every athletics department (even D1) lose money on athletics. Those that make money are who you'd expect, but even the Power conferences have money losing athletics departments.

But if sports went away, enrollment may shift from school A to school B but I don't think anyone would shut their doors.

Definitely, recruiting male students is part of a larger recruitment strategy for most institutions and the use of athletics is a big part of that strategy.  Athletic departments lose money, but the overall net revenue gain for the institution is significant.

If you think about a small private college in Missouri, for example, they may have a sticker price of $25,000 with a room and board in the $10,000-15,000 range.  Let's say they have 20 players on the Men's Basketball team.  That is $700,000 in revenue.  Even if we assume that everyone on the team is a high need student and the institution discounts the tuition heavily, take the $5,815 in Pell, $5,500 in Stafford Loans and say $1,000 in Perkins, that is $12,315 per person or $246,300 in revenue per year for 20 players.  Not a lot, but that would be the absolute minimum revenue that a 20 player basketball team would generate, though I think the vast majority of Division III institutions bring in significantly more revenue per 20 player team than that.

Certainly some of those 20 players would consider the institution even if they could not play sports, but I do think a significant number of both men and women would gravitate to the larger state institutions without the option to play sports.

[Drake Palmer]

Somehow, I feel like I accidentally wandered into the old Liberty League football board circa 2008 or so.  The last 4-5 pages or so has been highly entertaining reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T-VAi2Xqq8

[sac]

Really? I know that many schools add or maintain football to add to male enrollment. But most every athletics department (even D1) lose money on athletics. Those that make money are who you'd expect, but even the Power conferences have money losing athletics departments.

But if sports went away, enrollment may shift from school A to school B but I don't think anyone would shut their doors.

Definitely, recruiting male students is part of a larger recruitment strategy for most institutions and the use of athletics is a big part of that strategy.  Athletic departments lose money, but the overall net revenue gain for the institution is significant.

If you think about a small private college in Missouri, for example, they may have a sticker price of $25,000 with a room and board in the $10,000-15,000 range.  Let's say they have 20 players on the Men's Basketball team.  That is $700,000 in revenue.  Even if we assume that everyone on the team is a high need student and the institution discounts the tuition heavily, take the $5,815 in Pell, $5,500 in Stafford Loans and say $1,000 in Perkins, that is $12,315 per person or $246,300 in revenue per year for 20 players.  Not a lot, but that would be the absolute minimum revenue that a 20 player basketball team would generate, though I think the vast majority of Division III institutions bring in significantly more revenue per 20 player team than that.

Certainly some of those 20 players would consider the institution even if they could not play sports, but I do think a significant number of both men and women would gravitate to the larger state institutions without the option to play sports.

Adrian College President Jeffrey Docking wrote a book about it  http://adrian.edu/about-us/from-the-president/crisisinhighereducation/

Adrian has gone from being closer to closing its doors than people realize to having a future of some kind for the foreseeable future.   

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

It wouldn't surprise me if the membership wanted to reduce games played further. D3 has always been a tyranny of the majority in that way -- there are more schools that would be fine with athletics being glorified intramurals than there are schools that have real interest in athletics as a part of their mission and the improvement of their business.

Not true at all... Most Division III schools use athletics as part of a recruitment strategy.  A lot of institutions need athletics to keep the doors open.

Really? I know that many schools add or maintain football to add to male enrollment. But most every athletics department (even D1) lose money on athletics. Those that make money are who you'd expect, but even the Power conferences have money losing athletics departments.

But if sports went away, enrollment may shift from school A to school B but I don't think anyone would shut their doors.

I mentioned in a football board regarding enrollment that most people at NYU don't even know they had athletics, and someone chimed in that it was the same at Carnegie - Mellon.

No, it's right. Maybe not for NYU or Carnegie-Mellon, but IIRC more than half the students at Mount Union for example are intercollegiate athletes. I forget where I read that.

While Mount does make an effort to be competitive in most if not all sports (probably in part because of the sports culture in NE Ohio), having a team and a roster does not in any way imply an attempt to be competitive.

I know that tyranny of the majority is what drove the reduction in the effective max games in baseball. Some programs were willing to legally schedule 50+ regular season games per year, which you could do with a very small impact on class time missed, and the ones that didn't wanted to limit the ones that did. What this effectively means now is that if you schedule at the hard limit now and get a rainout, you have to scramble to replace that game, whereas if you had that happen before and you had like 55 games scheduled or something, then if you lose a game or two to weather, maybe not that big a deal.

[Gregory Sager]

Somehow, I feel like I accidentally wandered into the old Liberty League football board circa 2008 or so.  The last 4-5 pages or so has been highly entertaining reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T-VAi2Xqq8

When I think of the Liberty League football board circa 2008, Apocalypse Now isn't the Brando movie that comes to mind. It's Last Tango In Paris.

[Greek Tragedy]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVE COLLINGE!!! 🎁🎂🎈

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVE COLLINGE!!! 🎁🎂🎈

Where's mine?  I turned 35 yesterday.

[Mr. Ypsi]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVE COLLINGE!!! 🎁🎂🎈

Where's mine?  I turned 35 yesterday.

You're practically a teeny-bopper.   Much too young for us long-timers to bother with!

But happy 35th anyway.  (I think I have some shoes and sweatshirts older than you. )

[mailsy]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVE COLLINGE!!! 🎁🎂🎈

Where's mine?  I turned 35 yesterday.

You're practically a teeny-bopper.   Much too young for us long-timers to bother with!

But happy 35th anyway.  (I think I have some shoes and sweatshirts older than you. )

I know I have a Cabrini shirt that's close to that age. 
Happy Belated Birthday Ryan!
Happy? 

[smedindy]

Really? I know that many schools add or maintain football to add to male enrollment. But most every athletics department (even D1) lose money on athletics. Those that make money are who you'd expect, but even the Power conferences have money losing athletics departments.

But if sports went away, enrollment may shift from school A to school B but I don't think anyone would shut their doors.

Definitely, recruiting male students is part of a larger recruitment strategy for most institutions and the use of athletics is a big part of that strategy.  Athletic departments lose money, but the overall net revenue gain for the institution is significant.

If you think about a small private college in Missouri, for example, they may have a sticker price of $25,000 with a room and board in the $10,000-15,000 range.  Let's say they have 20 players on the Men's Basketball team.  That is $700,000 in revenue.  Even if we assume that everyone on the team is a high need student and the institution discounts the tuition heavily, take the $5,815 in Pell, $5,500 in Stafford Loans and say $1,000 in Perkins, that is $12,315 per person or $246,300 in revenue per year for 20 players.  Not a lot, but that would be the absolute minimum revenue that a 20 player basketball team would generate, though I think the vast majority of Division III institutions bring in significantly more revenue per 20 player team than that.

Certainly some of those 20 players would consider the institution even if they could not play sports, but I do think a significant number of both men and women would gravitate to the larger state institutions without the option to play sports.

Adrian College President Jeffrey Docking wrote a book about it  http://adrian.edu/about-us/from-the-president/crisisinhighereducation/

Adrian has gone from being closer to closing its doors than people realize to having a future of some kind for the foreseeable future.

I think students go where their academic programs match their interests,and where they can get the best deal on tuition and aid at a school that matches their interest. Adrian's strategy worked for Adrian, and having a good wellness facility is key for everyone. But other schools may have other ways to get students in the door.

What really needs to happen is these small schools promote themselves and the benefits of a liberal arts education.

For some colleges, athletics is just another activity. Many schools have music and theater programs, but a few schools recruit heavily for music and theater and make it a priority, and others just have it as a student activity. Coaches sometimes don't have the ability to recruit much because of budgetary constraints.

Also, there needs to be a case made to fund endowments and scholarships at these schools. Spend money to improve fundraising and alumni outreach - and you can get a big bang for your buck over and above what a class of basketball players would bring.

But the recruitment and retention of male students is paramount to this all, and I think as a society we've failed a little bit on making a case for liberal arts education, and the benefits of critical thinking and reasoning.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Really? I know that many schools add or maintain football to add to male enrollment. But most every athletics department (even D1) lose money on athletics. Those that make money are who you'd expect, but even the Power conferences have money losing athletics departments.

But if sports went away, enrollment may shift from school A to school B but I don't think anyone would shut their doors.

Definitely, recruiting male students is part of a larger recruitment strategy for most institutions and the use of athletics is a big part of that strategy.  Athletic departments lose money, but the overall net revenue gain for the institution is significant.

If you think about a small private college in Missouri, for example, they may have a sticker price of $25,000 with a room and board in the $10,000-15,000 range.  Let's say they have 20 players on the Men's Basketball team.  That is $700,000 in revenue.  Even if we assume that everyone on the team is a high need student and the institution discounts the tuition heavily, take the $5,815 in Pell, $5,500 in Stafford Loans and say $1,000 in Perkins, that is $12,315 per person or $246,300 in revenue per year for 20 players.  Not a lot, but that would be the absolute minimum revenue that a 20 player basketball team would generate, though I think the vast majority of Division III institutions bring in significantly more revenue per 20 player team than that.

Certainly some of those 20 players would consider the institution even if they could not play sports, but I do think a significant number of both men and women would gravitate to the larger state institutions without the option to play sports.

Adrian College President Jeffrey Docking wrote a book about it  http://adrian.edu/about-us/from-the-president/crisisinhighereducation/

Adrian has gone from being closer to closing its doors than people realize to having a future of some kind for the foreseeable future.

I think students go where their academic programs match their interests,and where they can get the best deal on tuition and aid at a school that matches their interest. Adrian's strategy worked for Adrian, and having a good wellness facility is key for everyone. But other schools may have other ways to get students in the door.

What really needs to happen is these small schools promote themselves and the benefits of a liberal arts education.

For some colleges, athletics is just another activity. Many schools have music and theater programs, but a few schools recruit heavily for music and theater and make it a priority, and others just have it as a student activity. Coaches sometimes don't have the ability to recruit much because of budgetary constraints.

Also, there needs to be a case made to fund endowments and scholarships at these schools. Spend money to improve fundraising and alumni outreach - and you can get a big bang for your buck over and above what a class of basketball players would bring.

But the recruitment and retention of male students is paramount to this all, and I think as a society we've failed a little bit on making a case for liberal arts education, and the benefits of critical thinking and reasoning.

I see it like this. Schools like NYU and CMU (MIT, etc) play D3 because why wouldn't they? It's questionable whether they even need athletics at all. I guess maybe there are a few students that have value to them academically that still want that (like Herb Sendek, for example).

There are other schools that use it as a recruitment/enrollment boost. A few of those have been named on this thread.

There are also schools that seem to emphasize sports because it increases their visibility in their areas of interest -- like the WIAC schools for example.

There might be other strategic positionings, but those are the main 3 that come to my mind. There can be hybrids of those as well -- I would say Marietta is a combination of columns B and C. We do benefit from academic exclusivity particular to petroleum engineering, but in general, it's more the other two I think -- small school, the enrollment boost helps; and it raises the profile of Marietta for local/regional students choosing schools. Football is bad, but football in the region is bad too so it may not matter much.

What I don't understand is why anyone plays D2. You don't get D1 exposure, and you're paying for athletics scholarships that you could be using for academics. The only somewhat cogent answer I've ever gotten is from a friend at a southern D2 school that says it would eat them alive in expenses to move to D3. But then my next answer is ok move an entire conference. He says the bigger state schools aren't interested.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Not sure why they say they would have more expenses in Division III, unless they are in an area no where close to Division III schools - but in the south there are a lot of DIIIs.

What people don't appreciate is that across all NCAA divisions and sports, the base budget to run athletics is very similar for all schools. The differences for many are in how much they want to put into athletics or not. The budgets start to change in DII and DI when the scholarships are added to the budgets. So D1s who are starting to struggle will transfer to D3 because they can drop the millions of dollars of scholarships from their budget and suddenly they aren't underwater anymore. It is the biggest reason Division III continues to grow from D1, D2, and NAIA looking for the same athletic experience, but without the massive financial burden.

And please stop pretending I don't understand the Division III landscape. I work very, very hard to educate myself and then inform people of what is going on in the Division. You keep trying to pretend, apparently, that I don't know anything... yet, I don't think you could find anyone in this Division that feels that way. I do far more than just cover basketball in this division and your constant attempts to disrespect me and what I know is getting annoying. Maybe I should just ignore you for my own sake, but I had to at least say something before I do.

[smedindy]

I can speak about my current D-2 experience at Central Washington.

I used to be a critic of D2 but now I work for a D2 school. In some cases the athletics scholarships do help students afford college when they could not before. Few scholarships are full scholarships, but every little bit helps. The conference up here used to be NAIA before they moved over, and they didn't want to give up athletics scholarships for recruiting purposes. The student athletes here, for the most part, are pretty serious about their grades and degrees too. The instagram pages of athletes during commencement all show them beaming with their caps and gowns.

A lot of the D-2 schools don't have big endowments that they can use for scholarships. It's a different world at state schools that aren't the behemoths, and NCAA D-2 is a lot more structured and cleaner than the NAIA.

The mission here, at least, is to turn the hidden gems and first generation students into scholars and life-long learners. Affordability is the key here. We're trying not to use as many transfers as we have in the past - though the University as a whole does get a lot of transfer students from community colleges in Washington State. But our AD wants more emphasis on freshmen instead of transfers unless there's a true need at a position.

It's not like you're going to get a lot of exposure playing football for a D-1AA school, or hoops for someone like Niagara or Canisius.

However, not all D-2 schools can use all of their scholarship allotments due to budgets. I don't know of a D-1 school that doesn't max out in most of their programs. Maybe some don't. But it seems only Alaska - Anchorage has the ability to use a lot of their allotment in each sport they offer in our conference. (Thank you, Division 1 hockey - though Alaska - Fairbanks also has D-1 hockey and doesn't seem to be able to utilize their allotment.)

Conversely, Western Oregon made the D-2 final four in hoops last year and is usually ranked last in aid given to men's athletes.

Anyway, that's long winded. I know in the Midwest, there's a lot of choices in colleges, but I think the D-2 choice is one of dollars and cents for the athletes if the schools have similar academic programs. 

[smedindy]

If you're interested in studying revenues, expenses, and scholarship dollars for all college sports, I'd recommend the EADA analysis.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

However, not all D-2 schools can use all of their scholarship allotments due to budgets. I don't know of a D-1 school that doesn't max out in most of their programs. Maybe some don't. But it seems only Alaska - Anchorage has the ability to use a lot of their allotment in each sport they offer in our conference. (Thank you, Division 1 hockey - though Alaska - Fairbanks also has D-1 hockey and doesn't seem to be able to utilize their allotment.)

From what I know, those schools grandfathered into multiple division have to keep all the books separate.  They can't use income generated by the D1 program to support programs in other divisions.  Now, I'm not sure how that translates to shared facilities like weight rooms and the like, but a couple of D3 institutions have the same issues.  Maybe that's a good idea for an Around the Nation column?