Athletics spending is irresponsible

[Jacobs4Heisman]

Not a shred of evidence or studies Smurk? I spent 30 seconds and found this article, referencing a study.

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVarticle. ... 3&pid=1310

"Indeed, a 1995 study conducted by F.G. Mixon that was published in the academic journal, "Applied Economics Letters," concluded that althetic success was a very useful marketing tool in attracting more qualified student applicants. To highlight this point, he states that Boston College experienced a 33 percent increase in applicants when Doug Flutie led them to the top of collegiate football. In this manner, the athletic program raises the academic standards of the student body by enlarging and diversifying the University's potential pool of applicants. "


I'm sure if I spent a couple of hours, I could come up with hundreds of "well-done studies" to counter your assertions. It's ludicrous to think that an issue as big as this would only have evidence on one side or the other.

[Falcon52]

It's time to delete this thread and start talking about football again.

Take up your cause somewhere else.

[bgsufalcon24]

I'm convinced that this whole debate boils down to simple economics, along with a consideration of priorities. As has been stated, Bowling Green State University has been trying to position itself as a strong public university for a number of years now. With the state of Ohio cutting back funds to public universities for a number of years now, this has been even harder to accomplish. However, during the reign of Sidney Ribeau, this university has spent a greater percentage of operating expenses on student scholarships (approximately 18% in 2005-06) than any other public 4-year university in Ohio. Most of this money has been in the form of academic scholarships, such as their mandatory $1,500, $2,500, and University Professor's Awards for high school grades. It is because of these scholarships that I am a sophomore at BGSU today, for if not for that money I would likely be elsewhere. Obviously, we think it is important at BGSU to recruit strong academic students like myself. Does this constitute wasteful spending because the rest of the student body has to increase their tuition to pay for students who come here on scholarship myself? I would say no, and I bet you that the people in the high acadamia here at BGSU would contend that the increase in tuition caused by academic scholarships is a very small price to pay for the quality of students generated by their existence.

Now lets apply this same principle to athletics. Like academics, athletics at BGSU are considered an important part of the whole college experience, not to mention a great tool for bringing well-rounded people to the university as well as regional and national notoriety of BG. There are essentially two ways to fund the athletic programs at BGSU:

1.Have everybody pay for the programs as part of the tuition in return for free attendance. This is a socialist view of funding, it implies a greater good created by the athletic programs even for those people who do not attend athletic events. This is the current system used by BGSU.

2.Have fans of Falcon athletics pay for attending sporting events, and don't charge the people who don't attend. Under this system, you would have the people supporting the teams at BGSU solely responsible for funding them. This would be a terrible, TERRIBLE allocation of funding resources because it would virtually ensure that the student population would not have the resources to support the athletic teams, except for maybe whenever Toledo plays us. The athletic department's budget would plummet, causing the destruction of our successful athletic programs. This in turn would endanger the rising enrollment, scholarships paid out, and eventually, student organizations on campus. It's a vicious cycle. We at BGSU cannot simply pursue this type of a course, as it would threaten to turn BGSU into a third rate public university.

[Schadenfreude]

Hyperbole, thy name is youth....

In actuality, the high price of tuition in states across the nation is so high, it's a greater threat than any other we are currently facing. It threatens to kill more of us than terrorism ever will.

While I agree tuition prices are out of hand, to compare it to killing via terrorism is just... well... it's apples and oranges. And, based upon his arguments, we can extrapolate that athletes are terrorists. I thought Maurice Clarett was the only one... I guess they ALL are!

It might be time to update Godwin's Law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Call it the Smurk Corollary.

[Bleeding Orange]

This is some of the most insane sh*t I have read in a long time. And he doesn't know it, but I knew Matt Clark while I was at BGSU and got along with him very well. PM me if you're curious, but Matt, you are much, much smarter than this.

[Schadenfreude]

... as we are all well aware, the administrators and coaches at these universities are convinced -- despite all the evidence to the contrary -- that every dollar put into athletics will benefit the university in dramatic ways. We now know this is wrong for many reasons that I have listed and encouraged you to go check out.

No, We don't know.

You've appealed to authority now and again. You've also steadfastly avoided lines of reasoning that don't conform to your particular world view.

If you weren't so interested in throwing bombs, I bet you could get a meeting with a guy like Chris Dalton or Greg Christopher or someone else who could explain a few things to you.

In fact, if you would bother to ask -- my guess is that you would discover our university would probably wholeheartedly work with other universities in support of NCAA legislation that would reduce the cost of competing at the Division I-A level.

That's just a hunch. But I think I'm right. Why wouldn't Bowling Green -- or just about any MAC or Sun Belt or WAC school -- support lowering the cap on football scholarships at all divisions of college football? Why not bring the I-A cap down to 65, bring the I-AA cap down to 45 and so on?

That would be a huge cost savings for programs like ours -- more than it even looks like on paper.

Problem is, I don't know if you will ever get that meeting with Chris Dalton or Greg Christopher. I know if I were in the AD's shoes or a finance guy's shoes, I certainly wouldn't meet with you.

Why? You are a bomb thrower. Worse, it is obvious you have absolutely decided exactly what you think and you are absolutely uninterested in hearing other points of view except to the degree they conform to yours.

Generations of Bowling Green students and alumni and faculty and administators have gradually come to the conclusion that Division I-A is where we ought to be, that it meets our institutional goals and fits our aspirations. That's why Bowling Green has been playing sports at the top level of the NCAA since before your parents met.

Yet you have decided to singlehandledly wage a campaign to drive us down to Division II or wherever -- leaving all of us to try to work up an appetite for a homecoming with Saginaw Valley State or West Virginia Wesleyan, all the while trying to convince future employers that, no, Gannon is not a peer school.

This is your hill, and you are prepared to die on it.

Your vision of Bowling Green State University is certainly not mine and it isn't the vision shared by anyone here at AZZ.com.

You think Bob Sebo would be plunking down his money at BGSU if we were playing the likes of Slippery Rock or Bluefield State? He wouldn't. I wouldn't.

In fact, this Web site wouldn't even exist.

Bowling Green's general fee is lower than four out of the other five Ohio MAC schools, and it's about on a par with Cincinnati. Yet we still had the chops to open our season in an NFL stadium on regional television with Wisconsin... to beat Northwestern in a nationally televised bowl game... to play our regular season finale every year in front of a nationally televised audience.

But I can see the size of Bowling Green's general fee continues to be source of deep concern for you.

Why don't you transfer to Shawnee State?

The general fee is very inexpensive there.

And they do have sports. In fact, Shawnee State has a game this Saturday.

Against Pikeville.

In soccer.

I'm sure you'd love it. Really.

[SmurK]

BGDrew: Not sure why I decided to come off that way, but critical thinking is actually quite encouraged at BGSU. The mere fact that these columns have been published is good evidence for that. I just meant that the breakdown of general fee spending should be more widely available. I don’t see any good reason why it shouldn’t and having it more widely available would encourage critical thinking. This is an issue that I will definitely be following up on.

Jacobs4Heisman: BG charges its students more than $8 million. That means that they lose $8 million. Yeah, OSU makes $10 million on a $100 million budget, but come on they’re OSU. They graduate 10s of thousands every year.

I’m not sure what it costs us to get on television. If we are paying for it at all that is bullshit, because ESPN wants to cover this stuff. They need content and we’ve got it. I don’t see any reason why we can’t cut scholarships and salaries all across our division simultaneously while keeping all the publicity. In the end, all I see is the students saving money. No other changes whatsoever.

Warthog: OK, so the hypothetical is a bit overblown. But the point is that without oversight on the current cost of education, and more funding from Ohio/Washington, we will find ourselves in that situation.

1987alum: BG was by far the best choice for me. All the other journalism schools I was accepted into in the state charge the same fees. I was not, however, looking at the use of the general fees. In hindsight it supports my conclusion that the fees should be made more visible.

A lot of the facts and figures and theories and conclusions stem from previous conversations with Ribeau, Dalton, Krebs and Rockovich, among others including athletes.

TG1996: I can’t believe anyone would say that I am not thinking outside the box. You’re outside your mind.

Jacobs4Heisman: While you have indeed proved me wrong and found a study on the other side of the issue, the only problem is that it supports my plan. The study said that a successful athletics program is an effective marketing tool. My plan does not undermine the success of BGSU (or any other division I-A schools’) teams. It does not reduce the number of TV contracts or sponsorships. The study you found only proves that this athletics arms race has led us down an awful path were students are billed more and more year after year to compete with money, not recruiting skills, on the field of play. Set maximum salaries, set maximum scholarships and do it in all the divisions at once. There will be no change in publicity. Try again.

BGSUfalcon24: It does come down to economics. While our teams have the highest GPA in the MAC, I will still claim that athletes are robbed of their BG Experience. They are trapped in the bubble of their team. They are allowed to miss a lot of things that other students enjoy dearly and they have little time to sit in leadership positions on campus. Scholarships for regular-old students are in many cases better spent and I think we should seriously consider cutting the athletics ones given the current/pending tuition crisis.

Also, my plan does not constitute a complete eradication of student, fee-based funding. I think it should be about $50 per semester. I think that is fair. I do not think students paying $50 a semester should get free admission to games. Maybe we could offer two different fee plans, one for just athletics funding and the other for athletics funding with season tickets. Interesting.

Schadenfreude: It seems that you are correct, sir. Get wikipedia on the line.

I am, in fact, meeting with Greg soon. I am very interested to hear what he thinks of the columns and to pick his brain about the operations of the NCAA, because the fact is I know very little about that governing body.

I said very plainly in my column that coaches and Ads would not help reduce scholarships in salaries, but in hindsight I was wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if BGSU and other MAC schools proposed such legislation. In fact, I will encourage them to do so, but it would have been because of a student raising the concern, mind you. Haha, well, maybe.

Actually, Schady, I think our visions are quite similar, as I have said again and again. I see no difference except that there would be less student funding for all teams in the division. The only exception would be OSU-type schools that make a profit. We would have to put them in their own special division or something. I'm not sure. Or we would force them to cut their program. Who know's. That is something that would have to be compromised if this hypothetical plan ever made it to legislation.

And yes, I am sure that game on Saturday would blow. Not interested. In fact, yeah, it makes me sick. I don’t ever want BGSU to be like that. That is not what I have come to know BGSU as.

[TG1996]

TG1996: I can’t believe anyone would say that I am not thinking outside the box. You’re outside your mind.

Sorry about that, its kind of an inside thing from a year or so ago, there was a string of posts about how we need to "think outside the box, people!". I've only skimmed this thread, but that was the first thing I thought of.

Carry on.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

A couple things:



I guess I'm a little "blurry" on how you plan to cut almost all funding for the athletic department but "not change anything else". Money makes things possible -- without it, things go away. Outline a plausible (that's an important word because I haven't seen a plausible suggestion from you yet) way to cut the athletic budget by 90% across the board and still keep the same quality we have now, and I'll be the first to jump on board with you.



In your original article, you stated that even though the facts say that the average college grad will be $15,000 in debt, "we all know" that most BG grads will be $40,000 in debt. So let's say that the wild 267% jump in debt you seemingly pulled out of mid-air to make the situation seem more desperate is anywhere near accurate. So that makes the $2,000 you want to cut out of the poor BG grad's debt exactly 5% of their total debt.

Do you actually contend that lessening student debt by 5% will solve all of their problems? When you look at it in terms of percentages, it seems to me that you're intentionally blowing this whole thing unbelievably out of proportion. I mean, really -- $2,000? That's what this whole thing is about? Even if I did agree with the principle what you're saying, and I most definitely don't, the process you want to avail of taking on the system is not worth the end reward. The ends simply wouldn't justify the means. By the time a student got done taking on the world to cut 5% of their debt, their grades have slipped, and they had to quit their job to spend more time calling congressman, writing letters to the NCAA, and picketing football games.

I guess after thinking about this a little more, I really don't see what all the fuss is about. In the grand scheme of things, $2,000 is not going to put a college graduate in the poorhouse. You're acting like a sensationalist, and it's pretty irresponsible in my opinion.


Take a campuswide survey of all undergrads, and ask them if they (or more likely, their parents) would rather pay $2,000 less over 4 years, or have D-1 athletics to enjoy.

[Tricky_Falcon]

He said in a column in March of 2006 he doesn't like athletics. But also said, "The money I spend on our athletics program, I feel, is put to good use."

http://www.bgnews.com/media/storage/pap ... bgnews.com


He also wrote a story that same day about the athletic dept.

http://media.www.bgnews.com/media/stora ... lisher.com

[SmurK]

All,

It is true that I have written an article about this topic.

It is also true that my letter from the editor at that time more clearly explains how I feel about athletics in general and I do say that the money is put to good use.

I was wrong.

While the money that we are currently spending may be put to good use (and may be comparable to other institutions). In other words, it makes us competitive with the money the other schools are spending, I do not believe any of the schools should be spending so much money that they need to bill their students exorbent amounts, i.e. $250 a semester.

Also, the money we currently spend on athletics makes up six percent of our tuition costs, which, in my opinion, is a lot of money. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel it is. This "whole thing" really isn't a whole lot at all. It's just a little discourse.

To put it a better way, the $250 a semester could be used to set up an endowment that would afford 212+ BGSU students tickets to anywhere (as far as Australia) they wished to study abroad each year. How do you think that would affect enrollment?

Now, I know before I was saying just drop it from the money being charged to students entirely, but when you set up an example like that doesn't it become more clear how this money could be spent in a more educational way?

And, while I don't know a whole lot about the NCAA, I really think that it is possible to cut salaries and scholarships to such a point that we would reduce student fees by as much as half or more. And by reducing those scholarships and salaries all across the division at the same time the playing field will be leveled. The competition will remain the same. The TV contracts/sponsorships will keep flowing.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

You sound like a politician. You keep stating these grand goals you want to accomplish.

One word gets in the way. How?

[Tricky_Falcon]

You sound like a politician. You keep stating these grand goals you want to accomplish.

One word gets in the way. How?

I agree. He also keeps saying he doesn't know how the NCAA operates or how an athletic department operates. If he knows so little or nothing at all how can he honestly claim the athletic department is irresponsible?

My suggestion is quit looking in the library for articles and books that are 20 years old or read books by Murray Sperber (Beer and Circucs), an English prof. at Indiana University who couldn't care less if there was a basketball team there. He doesn't realize that most people attend that school because of the athletics (basketball team)...not because he is/was a professor there.

If you really want know what you are writing about go to the source. Talk to the athletic department. Volunteer and do some work for Jim Elasasser or J.D. Campbell. This will give you a better understanding of how our athletic department is being handled. You will see the budget is tight and that everyone over there isn't laughing in the students faces like you claim. They're probably just rolling their eyes at your column.

[NotoriousCPC]

Hi all,

This is the embattled sports editor from last year. Hope I didn't crush your expectations too much. I know Matt pretty well, he's a nice guy, but sometimes his appetites are bigger than his stomach will allow. And while I see plenty of flaws in Matt's reasoning it does bring to light some interesting questions.

1. How much does the University spend on athletics, and what does it bring in?
2. How much value is there in having a football program be a loss leader for our particular University.
3. Has any study been done that correlates exposure via athletics to enrollment at BGSU?
4. Does it make sense for our University to support baseball, football, basketball and hockey, or should parts be eliminated to increase the health of the others?

It's been nice following the football team this year without having to worry about filing stories and meeting deadlines. And it's much better to actually be able to say what you think about this year's special teams.

Nauseous emoticon.

- Sean

[Zom]

Much like the French and the Canadians, the UK's universitites (apart from Loughbrough, which is a "sports" university), don't "do" sports. Schadenf.. touched upon this earlier. The only varsity competition that attracts any media attention in the UK is the Oxford/Cambridge boat race, and apart from those two universities, I couldn't recite more than say a dozen academic institutions in the UK because I wouldn't know who or where they were. I see over 100 Universtities each week stateside when I check the sports pages.

In my experience as a student and alum of universities stateside and elsewhere, it is evident that the value a US university gets from its sports programs far outweigh the cost. Apart from exposure, the system brings with it a myriad of intangible benefits that are impossible to calculate until you know you do not have them.

I show kids over here the kinds of things that come with a universtiy package sateside, and there is never one that isn't blown away by the facilities, diversity and opportunities. Not too hard to do when the alternative is 3yrs of courses at an institution where "community" is somehow meaningless and facilities = a classroom.

As laudable as it is to forensically means test every penny spent within a school budget, until you know or understand what the rest of the world is missing and which very many wish they had, I'd think twice before I would condemn a sports budget, especially if it only costs $250/sem. It is not an expense. It is an investment.