Per the Washington Post, Big ten postponing/canceling the fall season

[NoSaint]

10 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

The Power 5 conferences generated $2.9B last year. There is no English Department at these massive institutions without that revenue. Football subsidizes these universities not the other way around. 

football puts more in than it takes at many big schools but there’s definitely a tipping point where that doesn’t hold true as you work down the rankings. And those schools still have English departments.

[Mr. WEO]

But do they still have to take classes?

[hjnick]

Unless athletic departments are going to go into debt, the ripples of NO college football will be felt in all college sports.

 

College Football and Men's Basketball are the only sports* that actually make money for the athletic department.  Every other sport LOSES money.

 

No income from Football will sink almost all women's sports.  They will be cancelled for the fall and spring.  The 'lesser' mens programs will also be cancelled.

 

No college football will basically halt all sports for most athletic departments.

 

 

 

* - There might be a couple of exceptions, but 99.99% of all income is from football and mens basketball.

[hjnick]

47 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

The Power 5 conferences generated $2.9B last year. There is no English Department at these massive institutions without that revenue. Football subsidizes these universities not the other way around. 

 

Each university is different, but this really isn't true.

 

MOST athletic departments are separate from the educational part of the university.  Or in other words the athletic departments are stand alone entities.

Some universities subsidize the athletic department because most athletic departments break even or LOSE money.  Only the 'cream of the crop' programs truly make any money (or income).

Running a successful athletic department takes alot of money and stretching that money as well as you can. 

 

[LB3]

 

 

 

 

[Punching Bag]

1 hour ago, HardyBoy said:

 

Do you know how much money goes to the general fund of schools from football by any chance (not an exact number, more if it's a significant amount). If I'm the dean of the english dept, is football substantially improving my dept? You could argue football takes the focus off education and there are likely people who are not at all sad by this.

 

To be fair, how many people that support football would be ok with cuts to the English dept if it meant more focus on football.

 

No one pays attention to English anymore.  Even newspapers and magazine have stopped editing articles for I assume to save money.  

[TheBrownBear]

There's going to be a ton of new "club" sports when college students return to school. 

[Kirby Jackson]

1 hour ago, lookylookyherecomescookie said:

perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. Do you mean that these schools would not be able to fund english departments without football revenue? what about all the fine division 3 schools that seem to have english departments without football revenue? What about SUNYAB?

 

1 hour ago, NoSaint said:

football puts more in than it takes at many big schools but there’s definitely a tipping point where that doesn’t hold true as you work down the rankings. And those schools still have English departments.

We are talking power 5 and obviously no English departments was hyperbole. In 2019 college football’s 25 most valuable programs made a profit of $1.5B. Football is subsidizing the other sports (not kidding this time) and is the catalyst for their biggest donors. 

There are plenty of small D 3 schools that manage without the football revenue. At the same time do you think the University or Texas is better off or not with the $223M generates by their athletic program. They aren’t looking to become SUNYAB. The highest paid public employee in 40 states is a college coach!! That should tell you all that you need to know. This isn’t some ancillary benefit that is nice for the students. This is where the universities directly and indirectly generate the majority of their revenue.
 

T Boone Pickens wasn’t sending what he did to OSU without athletics. As a side story that I think will resonate the larger donor at Auburn had pledged like a $50M donation. $7M of it was earmarked for Gus Malzahn’s buyout. His donation to the University, the largest in it’s history, was contingent on the football coach getting fired. It was all or nothing. He didn’t get fired and now it costs $33M to dump Gus and his staff. This is BIG business. 
 

This is one of those things that’s probably difficult to comprehend unless you are in that environment. I used to go to every BC game when I was in college but clearly didn’t get it. It’s not something I really grasped until I started attending big time college football games. When LSU played Bama 7 or 8 years ago they estimated 300,000 people were on the LSU campus. The population of Baton Rouge is 216,000. 
 

The point being that big time college sports aren’t an extra. They are driving revenue and entire economies in some places. Auburn is a perfect example. The entire economy from restaurants, to bars, stores, hotels, etc... are completely dependent on these games being played.

 

[YoloinOhio]

Sounds like big 12 is next. 
 

 

[Peter]

The athletic departments are really hurting.  They already took a big hit with the loss of the NCAA basketball tournament money.

 

As others have mentioned, college football essentially supports everything else.  Without that income, everything else (except men's basketball) will suffer.  As an aside, when the US women won the World Cup last summer, I realized that was because of the tremendous support the US gives to women's college athletics.  In large measure, that is because of Title IX and Title IX would not be nearly as impactful without the college football revenue that supports all of the other sports (both men and women) other than men's basketball.

 

P.S. I noticed that others have mentioned that college football players do not get paid.  I get that.  Nevertheless, tell that to those students and parents who have to pay (in some cases) $80,000 +/- in after tax dollars per year or $320,000 for four years.  For the vast majority of college football athletes, getting a free education is a pretty darn good deal - especially given that the value of what they receive also is not taxable.  There also will be additional opportunities for college athletes to make money with the laws that have been passed in Florida and California.

[Rocbillsfan1]

4 hours ago, CaptnCoke11 said:

Terrible decision

Oh no what ever will you do with your Saturdays. Maybe get off the couch. 
 

Also it’s not like we aren’t in a full blown nation wide pandemic or anything. 

Edited August 12, 2020 by Rocbillsfan1

[Don Otreply]

48 minutes ago, LB3 said:

 

 

 

 

This is because people are, well, shall we say, lacking in cognitive capacity...

Or more plainly stated. They lack a sense of community and an obligation to there fellow man, that and they are stupid. Just sayin,  ?

 

Go Bills!!!

[Rocbillsfan1]

10 minutes ago, Peter said:

The athletic departments are really hurting.  They already took a big hit with the loss of the NCAA basketball tournament money.

 

As others have mentioned, college football essentially supports everything else.  Without that income, everything else (except men's basketball) will suffer.  As an aside, when the US women won the World Cup last summer, I realized that was because of the tremendous support the US gives to women's college athletics.  In large measure, that is because of Title IX and Title IX would not be nearly as impactful without the college football revenue that supports all of the other sports (both men and women) other than men's basketball.

 

P.S. I noticed that others have mentioned that college football players do not get paid.  I get that.  Nevertheless, tell that to those students and parents who have to pay (in some cases) $80,000 +/- in after tax dollars per year or $320,000 for four years.  For the vast majority of college football athletes, getting a free education is a pretty darn good deal - especially given that the value of what they receive also is not taxable.  There also will be additional opportunities for college athletes to make money with the laws that have been passed in Florida and California.

So let’s all sacrifice college football players because of money for someone else. Just another reason why school should be for students and sports should be separate or at least you should get paid to do so. 

[YoloinOhio]

21 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

Sounds like big 12 is next. 
 

 

Never mind, they are still playing 

[Warcodered]

14 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

This is because people are, well, shall we say, lacking in cognitive capacity...

Or more plainly stated. They lack a sense of community and an obligation to there fellow man, that and they are stupid. Just sayin,  ?

 

Go Bills!!!

I might not agree with Trevor Lawrence but it's not like he needs this season with college football cancelled he's pretty well the slotted in #1 pick.

[Kirby Jackson]

1 hour ago, hjnick said:

 

Each university is different, but this really isn't true.

 

MOST athletic departments are separate from the educational part of the university.  Or in other words the athletic departments are stand alone entities.

Some universities subsidize the athletic department because most athletic departments break even or LOSE money.  Only the 'cream of the crop' programs truly make any money (or income).

Running a successful athletic department takes alot of money and stretching that money as well as you can. 

 

Oh, I know. We are talking strictly Power 5 here. The football revenue sharing floats pretty much all other sports. That also doesn’t account for the indirect revenue attributed to the university because of their program. This is where donors are entertained or entertaining. This is a sense of pride for them and a reason that they open their wallets like they do. The indirect impact is massive.

[NoSaint]

1 hour ago, Kirby Jackson said:

 

We are talking power 5 and obviously no English departments was hyperbole. In 2019 college football’s 25 most valuable programs made a profit of $1.5B. Football is subsidizing the other sports (not kidding this time) and is the catalyst for their biggest donors. 

There are plenty of small D 3 schools that manage without the football revenue. At the same time do you think the University or Texas is better off or not with the $223M generates by their athletic program. They aren’t looking to become SUNYAB. The highest paid public employee in 40 states is a college coach!! That should tell you all that you need to know. This isn’t some ancillary benefit that is nice for the students. This is where the universities directly and indirectly generate the majority of their revenue.
 

T Boone Pickens wasn’t sending what he did to OSU without athletics. As a side story that I think will resonate the larger donor at Auburn had pledged like a $50M donation. $7M of it was earmarked for Gus Malzahn’s buyout. His donation to the University, the largest in it’s history, was contingent on the football coach getting fired. It was all or nothing. He didn’t get fired and now it costs $33M to dump Gus and his staff. This is BIG business. 
 

This is one of those things that’s probably difficult to comprehend unless you are in that environment. I used to go to every BC game when I was in college but clearly didn’t get it. It’s not something I really grasped until I started attending big time college football games. When LSU played Bama 7 or 8 years ago they estimated 300,000 people were on the LSU campus. The population of Baton Rouge is 216,000. 
 

The point being that big time college sports aren’t an extra. They are driving revenue and entire economies in some places. Auburn is a perfect example. The entire economy from restaurants, to bars, stores, hotels, etc... are completely dependent on these games being played.

 

 

I don’t largely disagree with the broad strokes here but the level of hyperbole got a bit out of hand. Even after dialing it I think you are high balling it a fair amount. 
 

on my phone so not deep analysis here but grabbed two fast articles and 1 year was sited as nearly half the power 5 broken even or worse. Another year had 5 of the top 65 in the red.

 

obviously there’s a ton of grey space in how revenues and costs are calculated but what I’m getting at is that outside the top 50ish teams you arent seeing those profits regularly.
 

Heck, outside the top 5-10 it starts to drop quickly with the top 5 carrying 50-100m in profits each and 15-20 all being 30-35m. Not small potatoes but you are talking a very small slice of schools in your argument. 

9 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

Oh, I know. We are talking strictly Power 5 here. The football revenue sharing floats pretty much all other sports. That also doesn’t account for the indirect revenue attributed to the university because of their program. This is where donors are entertained or entertaining. This is a sense of pride for them and a reason that they open their wallets like they do. The indirect impact is massive.

yup. And that’ll see some dip... but won’t disappear completely without games. Boosters still want top prospects in the pipeline etc... and the prestige of being the big man around a town like auburn (to use a recent favorite of yours)

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by NoSaint

[Peter]

31 minutes ago, Rocbillsfan1 said:

So let’s all sacrifice college football players because of money for someone else. Just another reason why school should be for students and sports should be separate or at least you should get paid to do so. 

 

Please quote where I said that we should "all sacrifice college football players."

 

Thanks.

[RiotAct]

4 hours ago, machine gun kelly said:

Spring college ball depends on a vaccine.  So far the ACC, and SEC are still on.  Not sure if it happens, but depends on the pressure from the NAACP.  I don’t know anything so we’ll see.  Selfishly as a devout NFL fan if there is increased revenue that preserves even a part of the overall revenue by adding games, I’m all for it.  I know many are Burge college fans so understood.

 

I don’t see the majority of colleges doing spring ball without a vaccine.  That is an outside chance.  Usually it takes a lot longer than February.

Russia has one already...

[Kirby Jackson]

55 minutes ago, NoSaint said:

 

I don’t largely disagree with the broad strokes here but the level of hyperbole got a bit out of hand. Even after dialing it I think you are high balling it a fair amount. 
 

on my phone so not deep analysis here but grabbed two fast articles and 1 year was sited as nearly half the power 5 broken even or worse. Another year had 5 of the top 65 in the red.

 

obviously there’s a ton of grey space in how revenues and costs are calculated but what I’m getting at is that outside the top 50ish teams you arent seeing those profits regularly.
 

Heck, outside the top 5-10 it starts to drop quickly with the top 5 carrying 50-100m in profits each and 15-20 all being 30-35m. Not small potatoes but you are talking a very small slice of schools in your argument. 

yup. And that’ll see some dip... but won’t disappear completely without games. Boosters still want top prospects in the pipeline etc... and the prestige of being the big man around a town like auburn (to use a recent favorite of yours)

 

I use Auburn because one of my best friends was in charge of sales there. The stories and examples are based on what I’ve been told or he’s experienced. I always try to provide a real perspective based on that.The indirect contributions are impossible to quantify but they are significant.

 

I’m seeing 5 of the  top 65 in the red in 2018.  So 92.3% are making money (and some tons). Those numbers are also trending up not down. If you go right to the middle it’s Illinois and they are making a $29M profit. I stand by most of these programs subsidizing other sports. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/2019/03/who-are-the-richest-and-poorest-power-five-college-football-programs-here-are-all-65-ranked-bottom-to-top.html%3foutputType=amp

Edited August 12, 2020 by Kirby Jackson