Open letter from Moose

[Flipper]

Give me a break...look at the facilities at any P5 school and the look at ours and tell us that's a hypothetical line. Take a look at the budgets while your at it...check how much the students are paying for Purdue to play at D 1

It's great that you want to play big boy football...even if we don't. In 5-10 years when the student fees have taken another leap forward why don't you check in with the kids to see if they mind chucking another several thou onto that student loan balance so you can indulge your fantasy

[Schadenfreude]

It's great that you want to play big boy football...even if we don't.

Who do you mean "we," kemosabe? Most of us want Bowling Green to keep playing FBS football.

The MAC is a great football conference. Just today, Chuck Landon of the Huntington Herald-Dispatch mused that maybe Marshall should never have left. "The MAC, he said, "has moved ahead of C-USA in virtually every aspect."

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/sports/m ... bc507.html" target="_blank

Good things are happening.

[Flipper]

You're citing a guy from Marshall as a credible source...you really need to take a step back and evaluate where you are in life....

[Schadenfreude]

Conference USA observers are extremely unhappy with the new TV deal. This reporter in Southern Mississippi suggests dissolving the conference.

http://www.sunherald.com/sports/college ... 99052.html" target="_blank

[apollo]

BG and MAC football is extremely irrelevant despite our recent conference championships...look at our wins and losses against teams with a winning record since 2008...we beat bad teams. The MAC is nothing more than midweek games to gamble on and a springboard for coaches. All this is fine...but basically bankrupting your athletic department to support football is silly and the MAC has bought in hook line and sinker.

[mscarn]

With that line of thinking, why maintain an athletics department at all?

If you don't like football, there are forums for basketball and hockey here, but your existential questions are just as valid in those places.

I love beating Big Ten schools. It's one of my favorite aspects of Falcon football. If you don't enjoy that, I'm not sure how to explain it to you.

Absolutely, and football isn't bankrupting any department. At minimum those bowl games people like to sneer at expose millions of people to Bowling Green State University. Forget the student experience, admissions, alumni donations, et. all...the massive advertising value alone makes it worth its weight in gold which is why virtually every major national and regional institution does it.

[transfer2BGSU]

Absolutely, and football isn't bankrupting any department. At minimum those bowl games people like to sneer at expose millions of people to Bowling Green State University. Forget the student experience, admissions, alumni donations, et. all...the massive advertising value alone makes it worth its weight in gold which is why virtually every major national and regional institution does it,

And that is exactly why we play midweek games in November! The Presidents of the MAC institutions see the PR value and advertising dollars they cannot afford to spend. Those midweek games play to a cable audience between 800,000 - 1,000,000 viewers.

This is not an ADs decision, but a Presidential decision.

[apollo]

With that line of thinking, why maintain an athletics department at all?

If you don't like football, there are forums for basketball and hockey here, but your existential questions are just as valid in those places.

I love beating Big Ten schools. It's one of my favorite aspects of Falcon football. If you don't enjoy that, I'm not sure how to explain it to you.

Absolutely, and football isn't bankrupting any department. At minimum those bowl games people like to sneer at expose millions of people to Bowling Green State University. Forget the student experience, admissions, alumni donations, et. all...the massive advertising value alone makes it worth its weight in gold which is why virtually every major national and regional institution does it.

Respectfully disagree...football does hamstring the rest of the athletic department...P5 schools love the fact that the MAC tries to compete in football...it helps those schools keep the mid majors from competing nationally in other sports...with a few exceptions.

[Flipper]

Oh yeah...all those mid week games have lead to our enrollment skyrocketing....we've been playing mid week games for so long, I'll bet by now our enrollment is like 45-50,000.

Yes..CUSA is a mess...a dumpster fire...and 90% of the country couldn't tell them from us

[It's the Journey...]

I hope the MAC is keeping an eye on what the collegiate landscape would be without football being king. I believe we are getting close to a time when the Power 5 will be permitted to break from the NCAA in football and shut the rest of FBS and all of FCS out of their party. The NCAA will allow it if it's only for football and the NCAA basketball tournament (the real NCAA cash cow) remains able to select Power 5 teams. If that happens I could see quite a bit of realignment with the focus being more regional and basketball related. I could see there being only 1 Division 1 grouping with 65 scholarships. The top talent will still go the Power 5 so we will not miss out there. As we have seen, even with that top layer scraped off there is so many great players out there the talent coming in would remain consistent. We would save, or be able to reallocate those 20 scholarships and that helps the bottom line. You might also see the new D1 start to cap salaries and bring some sense back to collegiate athletics. That would help most schools be able to balance their budgets and do it with less general student dollars while remaining competitive. AND, the new D1 could actually do a playoff and start naming a real National Champion instead of chasing smoke like we continue to do.

BG is in a better position than we were 20 years ago, but something will have to give concerning funding in the very near future. We are going to need a large capitol campaign that is focused on facilities. We will also need to make endowing EVERY scholarship in the department a top priority to help bring the budget in line. In my mind, the ideal situation would be only depending on on a MAX of 25% support from the general fee (I believe it is just over 50% currently). That is a large mountain to climb but if we do the department will be on very solid financial footing for the long haul.