Fenway, I've heard that Alabama is building a brand new $30 million+ baseball stadium. I doubt that money came from the baseball team. 

 

And just to pull a quote from their announcement...

 

In Friday's Board meeting, trustees were careful to note that the project will be funded by gifts, loans and money from Athletic Department funds, not general UA funds. 

The more I learn about the inner workings of college athletics, the more obvious it is that a school's overall athletic budget tends to turn on the financial success of its football program; and, to a lesser extent, its basketball program. When schools lack neither, budgets tend to become very strained. 

 

It's becoming increasingly difficult for the "have nots" to fund what we've known traditionally as a well-rounded athletic program. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to see an escalation of the number of schools considering the elimination of baseball; or, at the very least, a reduction in the number of funded baseball athletic scholarships over the next few years.

 

I agree with those thoughts Prepster.  It will be my suggestion, to my son, to at least look at schools that have well-funded and attended football and/or basketball programs if he pursues baseball in college.

 

 

I think the most immediate change in the landscape will be the much-hinted redefinition of "D1" by the NCAA. Quite possible that the NCAA will carve out a super-division that includes the top 4-5 conferences from the former six BCS conferences where schools would be allowed to pay athletes beyond the value of scholarships.

 

For the rest of the "new" (current) D1, there could be a reduction in the number of allowed football scholarships....currently 85 I believe....which could be spread over other sports. Or as Prepster says, there could be reductions in the number of scholys offered by schools in other sports or the elimination of some sports.

 

Title IX is also at work here, making a reduction in men's scholys more convenient than reductions in women's scholys. That is a statement, not an opinion, no intention to debate the merits of Title IX here.

 

Schools such as Oregon and Oklahoma State have special dynamics working. Uber-wealthy donors who are pouring money into facilities. This operates outside any NCAA rules that currently exist or that I can currently anticipate.

 

Interesting that some of the schools that offer the widest array of varsity sports are the Ivies, where there are no athletic scholarships. (And Stanford, but they are special). It is getting harder for garden-variety D1s as we currently know them to afford existing levels of scholarship money for athletes, that's for sure.

GreenLight,

 

The author brought up your first statement about carving out the FBS schools to create another Division under the purview of the NCAA.  It was her opinion, based on all the finances she reviewed, that it wasn't a question of "if" but "when".  It is almost a certainty this will happen, and soon.

 

It amazes me that the Ivys can have as broad a spectrum of athletics as they do.  But their model is different with need based financial aid and self funded programs.  35 total mens and womens athletic programs are offered across the Ivys.  No other conference even comes close.  I guess what the Ivys lack in depth, they make up in width.

 

I'm looking forward to reading the book.

I think FCS football is already capped at something like 65 scholarships; the 85 figure applies only in FBS.

 

Because of the 11.7 cap in baseball, it is still possible for a mid-major to make a splash in the NCAA tourney, so I don't see the need to further divide Division I in baseball.  Any more than in basketball, where doing that would've cut schools like Butler, VCU and George Mason out of the Final 4.

 

That being said, overall, colleges have continued on a spending spree throughout the last 6 years of recession and stagnation, and they are on a path that pretty much everyone acknowledges is unsustainable.  But as with Congress, people seem to have decided to enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts, instead of taking action now to start curtailing it and thereby avoiding a later collapse.  "I'll get mine, and that will be someone else's problem later on."

 

Also -- colleges always make a big point of saying no taxpayer dollars went into this or that sports expenditure.  What that overlooks is that colleges have prospective donors that they go after.  If they get that donor to give for a new baseball stadium or whatever, that is money that now isn't going to the college's core academics program and facilities, and therefore money that has to be replaced from other sources such as taxpayer money.  So, you're kidding yourself if you buy into the PR.  Taxes are paying for this, albeit indirectly, at least at state-supported schools.

 

What the schools really like about big time sports is that it increases their applicant pool, and allows them to fill all their slots while maintaining or even improving their freshman class profiles.  (The Final 4 appearance spiked applications to George Mason through the roof, as one example.)  We are heading for an era when many colleges will be forced to close, so it does behoove administrators to recognize big time sports as a life line to the future.  They understand that, which is why many college presidents are fiercely defensive of their sports programs.  Even pointy-headed academics who probably never played sports in their lives can appreciate where their bread is buttered.

If you don't know why Ivies have so much money check their endowments.

fenway, this is a very interesting topic, made more so by the recent challenges within the athletic department of UC Berkeley.  Thank you for starting it.

My understanding is Cal reinstated baseball(and some other sports which had been cut) on the condition they be fully self-funded. They receive little to nothing from the athletic department budget.

While that appears to have saved baseball, underneath everything is a  looming crisis created by an Administration trying to chase the Saturday millionaire model.

Recently Cal remodeled the football stadium, added state of the art athletic training facility(mostly for football) and floated the financing through a bond for the estimated amount approaching $350,000,000.  It was to be repaid using the professional model of PSL'.s

Unfortunately, the program went from very successful to unsuccessful in the last years under Coach Tedford. So, they removed him with a cost estimated to be about $6M to buy out the remainder of that contract. They hired a new coach for 5 years with the contract total of $9.2M..just for the head coach, and right now they might be in the bottom 10 of FBS teams.

But bigger numbers are the PSL issue because they are just not selling and the transparency from the AD has been less than thrilling in some ways.

At this point, the bond is an interest only payment and the PSL's don't seem to even fund that.  Looking out 20 or so years, the principal increases the annual cost to as high as $37M which can end up being paid by the taxpayers if not by the department of athletics.

Here is the link to a recent article which seems to suggest that for all the millionaires, some trying to play in that elite group are doing so by creating massive financial risk:

 

http://www.kqed.org/news/story...tadium_funding_model

 

 

look at Texas A&M,   2 yrs ago Athletic dept having to borrow from endowment to pay stadium expansion bills in their effort to keep up with Texas,   Heisman trophy and top 10 rating and they raise 740mn dollars of private money for athletic dept

Where did that comment come from? Is it directed at me? Thanks for the advice, but I don't really think anyone here needs it.

 

Are you trying to say that the endowments pay the expenses for non-scholarship track and tennis and field hockey teams? I would have thought the point is that the expenses for those sports...without scholarships...is peanuts.

 

If you have the information, can you advise what percentage of Ivy endowments are utilized for:

 

1. Facilities

2. Professors

3. Need-based financial aid

4. Athletics

 

I'd be interested to know the answer to that

 

 

For Brown Univ., FY 2014 operating budget (just as a random example):

 

Faculty compensation--$96.2 mil

Student aid--$95.1 mil

Grad student support--$74.4 mil

Other academic support--$83.9 mil

Sponsored research--$58.8 mill

Facilities--$53.6

Athletics--$14.9 mil

 

$14.9 million for athletics? Don't need a monster endowment for that!

 

To see these numbers scroll to the bottom of this link:

 

http://www.brown.edu/Administr...ittees/urc/URC13.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

I think the point is that the endowments can support the athletic department, and help provide need based and merit based scholarships to athletes. Works the same way at non scholarship D3's. There's also a non scholarship D1 football conference (Pioneer).

 

Some schools have so much money at hand for merit and/or need, that they can sometimes give out more $$ in non athletic scholarships and grants than schools that have athletic scholarships.

 

infielddad,

 

What I got out of the interview and first chapter is that everybody (colleges & states) is doing & reporting things differently.   There appears to be a lot of wiggle room with these numbers internally between the Administration and Athletic Dept.  She de-codes some of that in the first chapter and (supposedly) later in the book in subsequent chapters.  There are big numbers using $B's (TV contracts over many years) that go to these conferences that get divided among many schools and then divided again by the Univesities and their various sports programs.  I did not shed a tear, but I think the author was painting a hard luck situation for these schools that they aren't getting as much money as we think.  I'm going to read the rest of the book and make up my own mind.

 

So, what UC Berkeley did, may be unique to them and very different than what Ohio State (for example) might internally report financially .  I don't fully understand it all yet, but I intend to figure it out. 

Has anyone read the book:

I've read the book (on Fenway's recommendation), and would recommend it to anyone considering a big-time sports school.  It reinforced my desire to help son find a school where the student part of student-athlete is not an afterthought.

I get what you are saying, and would like to note that the Ivies...the context for my points...do not offer merit aid.

 

Anyway, I look at the situation a little differently.

 

Let's say the Crimson Tide eliminates all of their 16 sports. All the money they allocate for athletic scholarships would move from the expense side of the ledger to the income side.

 

Let's say the Crimson (Harvard) eliminates all of their 40 sports. Not one penny allocated for any kind of scholarship would move from expense to income. They are committed to providing those scholarships regardless of athletics.

 

I think the fewer athletic scholarships a school is committed to give, the greater the opportunity to sponsor a larger number of sports.

 

(Stanford notwithstanding)