Is there a breaking point?

[Rightupinthere]

The Go UTEP thread raised a question in my mind.

Is there a point when college football will become so large as to collapse under its own weight?

In other words, is there a point when university administrators nix a program or demote a program in order to control overall university expedatures?

I should add: What if the cutback decision become the prevailing trend (or would it)?

Just getting discussion going on this. I would like to hear some opinions.

[BGSU33]

The Go UTEP thread raised a question in my mind.

Is there a point when college football will become so large as to collapse under its own weight?

In other words, is there a point when university administrators nix a program or demote a program in order to control overall university expedatures?

I should add: What if the cutback decision become the prevailing trend (or would it)?

Just getting discussion going on this. I would like to hear some opinions.

I can't see it ever happening. A lot of schools are who they are and are known for who they are because of their sports. In many cases, kids actually pick where they want to go to school simply based on their football team. Same can be said about some schools and their basketball programs. Many schools wouldn't be known the same way they are today without their athletic programs.

[UK Peregrine]

Is there a point when college football will become so large as to collapse under its own weight?

Perhaps.

In other words, is there a point when university administrators nix a program or demote a program in order to control overall university expedatures?

Again, perhaps.

I should add: What if the cutback decision become the prevailing trend (or would it)?

Then perhaps even more.

How's that?

[1987alum]

Could God himself create an NCAA athletic program so big and so greed-driven that even He couldn't keep it clean?



RUIT ... Following the time-honored American tradition, I suspect we are in for more, rather than less.

[h2oville rocket]

Is there a point when college football will become so large as to collapse under its own weight?

Perhaps.

In other words, is there a point when university administrators nix a program or demote a program in order to control overall university expedatures?

Again, perhaps.

I should add: What if the cutback decision become the prevailing trend (or would it)?

Then perhaps even more.

How's that?

Is it the BG education that inspires the decisiveness?

[UK Peregrine]

Is it the BG education that inspires the decisiveness?

That must be the explanation for my post. I'm glad to see your deductive reasoning skills have not failed you. Kudos to you.

[Falcons4Life]

I think it is definitely a valid thought. There will eventually come a point when the cost, financial and otherwise will get so great that universities will begin to control athletic department spending. After all, if university presidents have an opportunity to vote on the BCS system, they definitely have a say on what their own university does.
Presidents are academics who hate to study, after all bad professors end up being great administrators! They obviously do a cost benefit analysis of the situation, and should that not balance, they will make that decision. These people arent football gurus, they are bookworms.

Perhaps this is going against the grain, but why is it that an institution of higher education has athletic events in the first place. Sure it started as friendly games between schools, but this multi-billion dollar business does not belong at a University. When people make comments like, kids choose schools because of their football team, it makes me wonder how many fewer kids would go to college at all if there were no March Madness, or no Fall gridiron match-ups.

It is scary. I love my falcons as much as the rest of you, and I went to more games than I could count if i tried, and went through over a gallon of orange face paint in one year, but if you ask me....university is just that! Education should trump sports in any decision that is made at any University in the world. Including Bowling Green!

[transfer2BGSU]

...is there a point when university administrators nix a program or demote a program in order to control overall university expedatures?

It will take more than Gordon Gee to stop the madness.

[BGSU33]

As many of us would agree, college is much, much more than a place you go just to get an education. Now before anyone thinks I'm suggesting education isn't important, I'm not saying that at all. But going to college is so much more than just getting grades. Where in the world besides college can you go for four (or five!) years and live the way you do, make the choices you get to make, and have the fun you get to have, anywhere else? Unless you’re independently wealthy and can just travel around the world and do what you want when you want, I can think of many other ways to duplicate the college experience. It's why we all miss it so much, because when we're done, we realize just how good it was to be a student because reality is usually nothing like it.

I spent the past eight years at the University of Virginia, which is ranked either #1 or #2 in the country with Cal-Berkeley as the top-rated public institution in the country, and a #25 school for both public and private institutions. One day I asked one of our student assistants there how he chose UVa for where he wanted to go to college. His answer? Virginia was one of the only schools in the country his senior year in high school that was ranked in the Top-25 in both football and basketball. He wanted to go to a school with good athletics. I can’t knock the decision, because he graduated from one of the top schools in the country and landed a plush job because he went to UVa, and he got to enjoy lots of bowl games, NCAA Tournament appearances and several national championships by some of their Olympic Sports teams.

Sports are a big part of why some schools are popular, known, liked and attended. Virginia Tech has reaped the benefits tremendously because of the success of its football team and its enrollment figures and applications have skyrocketed ever since Michael Vick stepped foot in Blacksburg. Some schools like Duke and Indiana have poor football team, but great basketball teams and that attract certain students. I’m not saying sports are the sole reason for a decision, but they can be a big reason.

I was at a restaurant in Fredericksburg, Virginia this summer and had a BG t-shirt on. A man stopped me as I was leaving and said “Hey, Bowling Green – they have a good football team there.” I smiled and answered back “yeah” and was happy as hell to get an out-of-state compliment about my school, but he didn’t speak a word about BG’s academics or professors. In today’s society, sports are huge.

[FalconAwesome]

RUIT, good topic.

33, there have been many studies done on student recruitment. Many of them rank quality of intercollegiate athletics as being the least important thing in the survey, behind intramural sport options and quality of rec center. I will look for some specific studies to quote.

There have also been many studies that say that # of applications go up when a school is successful in athletics, but the yield or the stats of the average incoming freshman does not improve. Would a school really want someone to go there only to watch the football team? UT has been good in football for quite sometime, but yet they are closing dorms left and right.

Athletics is a great tool to generate awareness for the name "Bowling Green", but to bring in the kids, the school has to back it up.

When I see these schools moving up to I-A in football, it makes no sense to me. In my mind, there is a stronger argument to move to DIII.

[orangeandbrown]

Awesome--is it possible that students just don't want to admit athletics played at least some role?

A few years ago, the New York Times ran an article in its Sunday Magazine entitled "how football can crash a college." Its about South Florida, and the staggering costs they were paying to have a top flight DI program. From the standpoint of BG and the MAC, we never catch up....we build a SEBO Center, and the major schools just improve their facilities, too.

Will College athletics go away? No. But I believe the DI football in partcular will become harder and harder for small schools to support.

[MACMAN]

There are those who make decisions based soley upon educational programs and those who base part of thier decision on sports. Both of which are impacted by the success of the Football program.

i see a time in our not so distant future where the "super Schools" of D1...ie the floridas, Ohio States, MI etc you all know the BCS major players. Make a change in conjunction with the NCAA to again create a divisional separation.
iknow this flairs tempers, it even fires me up, but when looked at objectively it is needed. Yes we as an example, can and have played with the best in the nation, WI, OSU, OK, but we did not win. I see us playing WI this upcoming year and having a hell of game at it, but wining is realy a low probablitiy. Not to mention playing OSU again a low probablitiy. Where by our only real chances of wining these games are hinged upon no one getting hurt as we are not competitve with these schools in depth. It is a huge difference, and one that makes a difference. i hope we win, it would begreat, we can, beat them, but its hard. Harder than playing an equally matched MAC team.

Schools and football teams that are succesfull instill pride in the student body and comunity. Even if your not a "football fan" you know your team is special, and you in some way are a part of that, and everyone enjoys beging a winer. And this is as much a part of acidemic recruiting as it is for sports.

[FalconAwesome]

O&B, Great points. Think about the University of Miami and UNLV. These are two pretty good academic institutions, but the general public normally thinks of athletic scandals first. I would argue that sports has probably done more harm than good at some places like this.

MACMAN, I could see that scenario as well, but in reverse. The smaller schools could fall back and decide that athletic spending could be better used elsewhere. When does Ohio U decide that the 9 million dollars (estimated) it loses on athletics each year might be a little too much?

Even if your not a "football fan" you know your team is special, and you in some way are a part of that, and everyone enjoys beging a winer. And this is as much a part of acidemic recruiting as it is for sports.

This is nuts. If you think academic students pick schools to be part of a "winner", you are out of touch. Sure a winning football team could make going to the games more fun, but we often to complain about student attendance on this board(although it has improved in recent years) If athletics is so important in a college choice, why aren't our games jammed with our students?

[Rightupinthere]

This is nuts. If you think academic students pick schools to be part of a "winner", you are out of touch.

I read that as MACMAN saying that having a winning program was a PART of the decision.

The quantification of that part is left as an unknown. I believe that athletics may be a "deal maker" and not a "deal breaker" in a matter of speaking. In that regard, I agree with his line of thought.

[FalconAwesome]

RUIT, I can see the line of thinking there. I did misunderstand. Nonetheless, I think there are scant potential students whose choices are affected by the quality of ICA.

Getting back to your original point, College athletics is really the arm of the university that is supposed to to be self sufficient. At many schools, administrators are expected to run the programs to generate 100% of the neccesary revenue. Other areas of these universities are not expected to do this, i.e. the english department. These areas are free to do they are intended to do - educate students. If athletics are truly an integral part of a university, why are they funded so differently at many institutions?

The "breaking point" will come when universities have to decide whether athletics is truly as important as an academic department. The english department may lose just as much money as the athletic department each year, but it is far more important the university. With the state of educational funding in our state, those decisions may come rather quickly.