UAB to the MVC?

[Wufan]

Iowa is 16-1 vs UNI in football. I don't think you've shown them you can compete.

You'll get the warm tinglies from fall football if you dropped the scholarships or went club just the same, right? What does it matter if you're beating Murray State or Drake? Either way you're just the tallest midget and everybody knows it. Might as well pour those dollars into basketball so maybe you can get to the next weekend in March while America is paying attention.

**** or get off the pot.

Just curious what you think axing our football team and pouring the supposed savings into basketball would do for us? We have the coach we want, we're paying him well, flying to games we should be flying to, we're going to pay our players like the big boys, we have a new-ish arena, upgraded locker rooms and team area, we pay our assistant coaches very well, and we've had sustained success?

What more should we be doing?

I agree that it wouldn't do anything for UNI in the here and now.

[uniftw]

Iowa is 16-1 vs UNI in football. I don't think you've shown them you can compete.

You'll get the warm tinglies from fall football if you dropped the scholarships or went club just the same, right? What does it matter if you're beating Murray State or Drake? Either way you're just the tallest midget and everybody knows it. Might as well pour those dollars into basketball so maybe you can get to the next weekend in March while America is paying attention.

**** or get off the pot.

Just curious what you think axing our football team and pouring the supposed savings into basketball would do for us? We have the coach we want, we're paying him well, flying to games we should be flying to, we're going to pay our players like the big boys, we have a new-ish arena, upgraded locker rooms and team area, we pay our assistant coaches very well, and we've had sustained success?

What more should we be doing?

I agree that it wouldn't do anything for UNI in the here and now.

I'll see if I can dig the study that was done in 2008/2009ish regarding football. UNI paid an outside firm to look at what to do with football. At that time the NCAA was within a year or two of lifting the moratorium on moving from FCS to FBS and was kind of the peak of the previous ADs budget issues. Since then things have gotten better.

The study looked at 5 options for UNI football:
1. Stay FCS
2. Move FBS should an invite happen
3. Stay FCS but go non scholarship (see Drake)
4. Move D2 (would mean all sports move D2)
5. Drop football


I might be misremembering but I'm pretty sure the report but I'm pretty sure it said if football was dropped you may as well drop D3 because donations and enrollment would suffer an immediate and nearly catastrophic. I believe the order the report suggested was:
1. Stay FCS
2. Move FBS
3. Stay FCS but go non sholarship
4. Move D2
5. Drop football

I'm also pretty sure the gap between 2 and the rest was large.

The thing with UNI football is that it might not have a B1G fan base. It might not beat the Iowa's of the world. It might not make millions of dollars. It might not get nationally televised. It is, however, vitally important to the alumni and donor base. Iowa is a football crazed state, especially college. UNI has had football since 1895 (sans 2 years in World War 2 when most programs were shut down and the 1905/1906 season). That's 115 seasons of football. Basketball is going to get what it wants and have first choice of what it wants and makes more money. Football is what drives the entire bus though. In bad years UNI still brings 12-13k people to the Dome. It draws people from all over the state on those Saturdays. Every single UNI game was broadcast in HD across the entire state last season.

The donor base isn't going to just dump money into a university that dropped it's biggest and longest standing sport. There was a loss of donations with baseball dropping. It might eventually come back, deacades later after the generations that were alive at the time of the drop are dead. It's tough to look at schools that have never had football and say "See...do what they do when you drop football" but it doesn't quite work like that.

I'll be completely honest, the day UNI drops football is the day I quit caring about UNI athletics.

[Wufan]

Not a basketball fan I guess?

[uniftw]

http://www.uni.edu/senate/sites/default ... _study.pdf


That's the report. Done in 2009, released in 2010. Keep in mind there has been some large shifting, and growth of money since that point. Numbers projecting to this year are 6 years old at this point.

Some bullet points if you don't want to read the whole thing...

From the keep FCS as is section

The percentage amount of institutional subsidy (the combination of GEF Support and
the Student Athletic Fee) will remain constant at approximately 50.5% of the athletics
budget over the next five fiscal years. The current institutional subsidy of $5,841,818
will grow to $6,969,575 from FY 2010 through FY 2015.


The ability of the UNI Department of Athletics to generate approximately half of its
budget from external sources in FY 2010 through FY 2015 is among the best for
institutions at the FCS level and is to be commended; however, it also indicates that
the ability to generate additional external funds is extremely limited.


Playing FCS scholarship football is a middle ground approach that permits significant
overall revenue generation while reasonably limiting expenses. The result is that the
institutional subsidy or net expenditure for this option is less than the subsidy
required to play FCS non-scholarship football ($6,969,575 vs. $7,401,374) and
significantly less than the institutional subsidy or net expenditure required to play at
the FBS level ($6,969,575 vs. $10,416,025). It is also not much more than the
institutional subsidy required if the football program was discontinued ($6,969,575
vs. $6,133,533). The table below illustrates the institutional subsidy required for each
option:
Football Option Subsidy Required
FB FCS with Scholarships $6,969,575
FB FCS Non-Scholarships $7,401,374
FB FBS $10,416,025
FB Dropped $6,133,533

From the non-scholarship option section

Revenue opportunities at the FCS non-scholarship level are virtually non-existent. Ticket
sales and corporate sponsorships at this level are limited. Ticket sales in the Pioneer
League range from $50,000-$250,000. For the purposes of this option ticket sales have
been projected to drop 70% in year one and then grow by 5% per year thereafter.
Fundraising and corporate sponsorship revenue sources have been estimated to decline
significantly as well over the next five years.

The financial projections for this option lead to the following conclusions:

The percentage amount of institutional subsidy (the combination of GEF Support and
the Student Athletic Fee) will grow from approximately 50.5% of the athletics budget
in FY 2010 to approximately 64% in FY 2015. The current institutional subsidy of
$5,841,818 will grow to $7,401,374 from FY 2010 through FY 2015.


The ability of the UNI Department of Athletics to generate approximately half of its
budget from external sources in FY 2010 will decrease to 37% by FY 2015.


The total athletics budget will only grow to $11,605,523 in FY 2015, rather than
$13,803,697 under the current FCS scholarship option, but the institutional subsidy
will grow.


The expense savings realized by playing non-scholarship football will not offset the
loss in external revenue sources, which will result in a net institutional subsidy
increase of $431,799 in FY 2015 when compared against the FCS scholarship option.
Although FCS non-scholarship football is an economically comparable alternative it will
actually increase the institutional subsidy. The continuation of the football program,
although in a non-scholarship format, would allow the institution to continue utilizing its
excellent football facility, while reducing the size of the overall athletic budget.
This move, however, is not without other problems as well. By moving to this level game
guarantee revenue would drop significantly. Ticket sales and fan interest would
significantly decline. Sponsorship revenue would significantly decline because it is
largely driven by FCS scholarship football and its historical competitive success
nationally. As a large state institution, UNI may find it difficult to locate an appropriate
football conference at this level.

So as it would turn out, going non scholarship would actually cost UNI money and would lead to more money needing to be put into football. Meaning, less money for other sports...like basketball...turns out the pouring money into other programs simply wouldn't happen.


Dropping football would cause our budget to fall below 10 million and it's debatable that the savings would offeset the lost revenue.


Since that study things are MUCH better for UNI, and the state of Iowa, financially. If this study was done today it would be interesting to see what the results would be. Dropping football isn't an option. The study talks about Northeastern and Hofstra dropping football to save money, however, it fails to note the difference in alumni base and regional support for college football - which is almost non-existent in New England.

Basically, football isn't going anywhere at UNI. UNI has done a great job of balancing football with other sports. Most football schools can't/don't do that.


This is why I asked, which started this whole thing, what if UAB wanted to bring FCS football back. Would that scare others away from them in this league?

[Redbird Recon]

Thanks for the info uniftw. Here's how I would order MVC teams in terms of football importance to their individual campuses:

1. Northern Iowa - Long standing tradition, nice facilities, passionate fanbase
2. Southern Illinois - Down recently but new stadium and winning tradition
3. Illinois State - New kid on the block in terms of success, just added $25m renovation to stadium
4. Missouri State - Consistently mediocre but has great potential, best chance to go Sun Belt
5. Indiana State - Awesome accomplishment this year but struggles are known
6. Drake - Non-scholarship, competitive in their conference

[lime]

Northern Kentucky, who I didn't expect to be joining the MVC, is joining the Horizon League (giving them 10 members). The A-Sun is down to 7 members (the autobid minimum) and should be pushing hard to get UAB on board with them.

[rlh04d]

Northern Kentucky, who I didn't expect to be joining the MVC, is joining the Horizon League (giving them 10 members). The A-Sun is down to 7 members (the autobid minimum) and should be pushing hard to get UAB on board with them.

What is there they can really offer them that would qualify as pushing hard?

Unless they offered UAB full take on their NCAA shares, I can't see how UAB would care how hard they'd push, if they could join a better conference.

[uniftw]

Northern Kentucky, who I didn't expect to be joining the MVC, is joining the Horizon League (giving them 10 members). The A-Sun is down to 7 members (the autobid minimum) and should be pushing hard to get UAB on board with them.

What is there they can really offer them that would qualify as pushing hard?

Unless they offered UAB full take on their NCAA shares, I can't see how UAB would care how hard they'd push, if they could join a better conference.

What NCAA shares though?

In their 36 years as a conference

Only a couple different schools have won a tournament title (only bid for that conference) and of those teams almost none of them are still ASun members

Belmont - 5 - 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012 - no longer ASun member
UCFa - 4 - 1994, 1996, 2004, 2005 - no longer ASun member
Arkansas-Llittle Rock - 3 1986, 1989, 1990 - no longer ASun member
Georgia Southern - 3 1983, 1987, 1992 - no longer ASun member
Mercer - 3 1981, 1985, 2014 - no longer ASun member
College of Charleston - 2 1997, 1998 - no longer ASun member
East Tennessee State - 2 2009, 2010 - no longer ASun member
Georgia State 2 - 1991, 2001 - no longer ASun member
Louisana Monroe - 2 1979, 1982 - no longer ASun member
Samford - 2 - 1999, 2000 - no longer ASun member
Centenary - 1 1980 - no longer ASun member
FIU - 1 1995 - no longer ASun member
Florida Atlantic - 1 2002 - no longer ASun member
Florida Gulf Coast - 1 2013 - no longer ASun member
Houston Baptist - 1 1984 - no longer ASun member
North Florida - 1 2015
Troy - 1 2003 - no longer ASun member
UTSA - 1 1988 - - no longer ASun member


Out of the 32 conferences in the NCAA right now the ASun has the fewest all time NCAA bids currently in it's conference with 7...3 less than the next closest team - The Summit. Since the turn of the century the ASun has had victories in only the 02, 13, and 14 NCAA tournaments. Only the 13 tournament involved more than 1 win. Only 1 team with an NCAA tournament win (2013 FGCU) is still in the conference. There are no shares to be had there. I guess UAB cuuld go in and dominate the league being the one bid every year but that gets them no TV games, no ESPN3 games, really nothing. Looking back at the ASun it's really been the temporary stop for teams looking to move up in the world.

If UAB doesn't stay CUSA I really think they are in the MVC

[TheAsianSensation]

When teams leave the A-Sun (or any conference), the tourney shares are left behind.

All that said, UAB students might burn down the campus if they willingly join the A-Sun.

[uniftw]

Slightly back on the football idea but not really.

One way to possibly attract UAB is to say "Hey, if you don't start football now we are a great fit and if you want to restart FCS football in a couple years if things get to that point that's fine as well".

I'm looking at all possibility of getting UAB here to strengthen the conference. I have a strange gut feeling that even if football doesn't come back on the June vote that it doesn't mean it's dead forever at UAB