Interesting stat from our AD

[hammb]

Who says we have to be part of the NCAA?

Or, more realistically, what are we really gaining by being "Division 1"?

I'm not bitching or moaning, but legitimately asking. I don't think Flip's suggestion of starting a football conference without NCAA jurisdiction is really reasonable, but certainly we're not tied to Division 1 athletics. And of course we could still pick 1 sport (hoops or hockey) and continue playing that at Division 1 while dropping to a lower division in other sports.

Or maybe we (and many other schools) could challenge the NCAA on what a behemoth cash sink football has become for those outside the massive revenue producers and they could allow schools to maintain D1 without participating in football at all.

I make no bones that these decisions are easy, they most certainly are not. I just know that the status quo of upping athletics spending continually, most specifically football spending, without increasing revenues accordingly is eventually going to crash the whole thing. And personally upping the student fees subsidies to keep upping the spending does not qualify as increasing revenue, IMO.

Maybe the NCAA will start to mandate what portion of a ticket revenue must go to the visiting team, or maybe non power 5 teams could band together to force that to go up (I don't believe "payday" revenues have gone up at the same rate as ticket/TV revenue has risen for the power5 teams). I honestly don't know what the end game solution to all this is. I just know that it's a problem. And it becomes a more glaring problem when we're sinking this much into the program and people don't even seem to care...

[jpfalcon09]

Dropping to the FCS level for football would likely doom the program far more than staying at D1 will. There's only four total FCS programs in Ohio (Dayton, YSU) and Indiana (ISU, Valpo), none in Michigan, meaning you'll still incur costs in travel while likely seeing a decrease in gate revenues and buy-in games. Doesn't make sense to me.

College football right now is what it is. It'll end up going the way of the NFL once the same 4-8 programs establish dominance year after year, people will begin to slowly lose interest.

[dforde]

I really doubt the BGSU athletic department run by an AD who played Baseball here is going to cut baseball.

[Flipper]

It's all about the ROI...return on investment. Right now the best case scenario for us is to make that sweet New Year's day bowl game which gives the conference a big pay day...how that money is divvied up would remain to be seen. Although NIU didn't get to keep all of the 2013 Orange Bowl pay out and made 250k by one report... But...in order to pay for a team that might be at that level, we have to play two money games a year. Most years that puts us in an 0-2 hole and removes us from contention as the highest ranked non P5. Every few years we'll catch lightening in a bottle and go 2-0...but then you have to run the table to make that Bowl Game. We didn't do that last year.... We've haven't gone unbeaten in the regular season since 1985. That's 31 years...that's a long time...Miami Vice was popular.........Miami Vice.

We haven't been a one loss team since 1991. Rico Suave......RRRRRRRRiiico Suuuuaaave. That's along time. I wonder if he still tours?

I'm as tired of typing thois as you folks are of reading it...we are working in a system that...for us..isn't sustainable. We need to be proactive and plan for the next era of college football. Because NCAA D1 isn't realistic for us

[Flipper]

Double post

[FalconTurf]

NCAA Division 1-A (FBS) FOOTBALL might be unrealistic for us (and really the entire MAC) but I can't see us dropping the other sports to join this list of Ohio schools at the D2 level:
Ashland University
Cedarville University
Central State University
University of Findlay
Lake Erie College
Malone University
Notre Dame College
Ohio Dominican University
Tiffin University
Urbana University
Ursuline College
Walsh University

[Schadenfreude]

NCAA Division 1-A (FBS) FOOTBALL might be unrealistic for us (and really the entire MAC)

So much gloom in this thread. The MAC has been playing Division I football since the 1960s. We won the MAC two out of the last three years. Six losses, and all of a sudden some fans are suggesting a move to the GLIAC?

Come on. Let's not be silly.

Bowling Green has been in the MAC for more than 60 years. The MAC has been playing Division I football for more than 50 years. Bowling Green is one of the best football programs in the MAC. None of this is going to change anytime soon.

[Flipper]

Take off the blinders...the sport we played in the 60's, 70's, 80's 90's..even the early 2000's is gone. We're trying to compete at a level that is financially and competitively unworkable going forward. Set aside the emotional attachment to the concept...and it's becoming more conceptual than actual every year... that we're D1 and focus on what could be if some thought were put into the process.

If the current set up doesn't work for us...it doesn't work for others. Let's make up our own

[FalconTurf]

NCAA Division 1-A (FBS) FOOTBALL might be unrealistic for us (and really the entire MAC)

So much gloom in this thread. The MAC has been playing Division I football since the 1960s. We won the MAC two out of the last three years. Six losses, and all of a sudden some fans are suggesting a move to the GLIAC?

Come on. Let's not be silly.

Bowling Green has been in the MAC for more than 60 years. The MAC has been playing Division I football for more than 50 years. Bowling Green is one of the best football programs in the MAC. None of this is going to change anytime soon.

I certainly don't see us playing in the GLIAC (and that is why I listed those schools I do NOT see as our peers) but I also realize that the money brought in through television and the explosion in ticket prices and licensing by the big boys leaves little chance for us to compete financially in the current DI-A system. The reality is that the MAC and other small DI-A conferences need some reform in the system to survive. We can compete in the MAC but at what cost in the future. Playing 2, 3 or 4 money games played at Power 5 schools? Either we push the issue to share in TV contracts and championship money or go broke trying to compete. I suspect the comments by the AD on our budget, or lack there of, is a glimpse into some conversations you might not want to hear occurring by administrators at BGSU. I see what you term as negative comments as constructive conversation. I hope our administrators are prepared and proactive about this fast moving issue as needed so we don't find ourselves in an embarrassing position in the near future.

[Schadenfreude]

We're trying to compete at a level that is financially and competitively unworkable going forward.

I realize you have been saying this. But I don't see where you have demonstrated that this is true.

I see a conference that continues to grow stronger in football. It's night and day compared to the way it was back in the 1980s (for example).

Back then no MAC games were televised except for maybe one single bowl game in Fresno against the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference champion. Now the MAC has access to as many bowl games as we can qualify teams for. Now every single MAC game is televised, and instead of MAC paying ESPN or to get these games on television, it's the other way around. ESPN now pays the MAC, and it's a pretty lucrative deal compared to other G5 conferences. In addition, the MAC also gets revenue sharing from FBS. And our teams are more competitive against the rest of FBS than we were back then. Just last year, Bowling Green went 2-0 against the Big Ten. This year, Western Michigan is nationally ranked. A few years back, Northern Illinois played in the Orange Bowl.

I don't see the reason for doom and gloom. Overall, the outlook for us seems a whole lot better than it was back then.

[thewebboy]

I've said this for years... it bothers me that BG football plays in a Division (or whatever you call it) where they could win all their games... and still have no shot at a national championship.

This does not happen in any other sport or any other division in college.

I'd rather have a "Group of 5" playoff and crown a "Group of 5" champion.

I've wondered if we could do this without all dropping down to FCS.

Am I crazy?

[BGSU33]

Teams at the FCS level struggle even more financiallly than G5 teams at the FBS levels do. Yes, they have less scholarships to offset, but that cost savings gets eaten alive and then some by those teams making way, way, way less money when they play a non-conference road games at a Power 5 schools. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars a game difference in most cases. I've seen current examples where G5 FBS teams are being paid anywhere from 1.0 to 1.5 million in the same season where an FCS opponent playing the same team was only getting $400,000 to $500,000. The FCS conferences also don't have the television contracts that the FBS teams have too, which is more money. And if that part doesn't tell you how much better it is to be an FBS team over and FCS one, simply take a look at the number of FCS teams themselves that have made the jump up to the FBS level or that are still trying to. And we're not just talking about all the run of the mill programs either. We're talking about recent multiple championships teams, the marquee schools of the FCS, like Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Marshall, etc. They traded being FCS powerhouses to become G5 FBS members. If that doesn't speak volumes than nothing does. The bottom line is, if you're playing D-1 football, unless you are North Dakota State (FCS's darling) or Idaho (going to be the first team to move down in a long, long time), you want to play at the FBS level and not the FCS.

[Flipper]

The MAC is stronger...if you take a 30 year view..yeah..that's reassuring. If you take a ten year view...it's not stronger. That 2000-2004ish period when the conference had a number of teams that could compete on a national level are over and done with. We're conference champs two of the last three years...a standard bearer of sorts. What's happened to us when we play good teams that are also non P5? We get hammered.. Generally speaking... the conference fares poorly OOC and has for years now. You want to hang your hat on beating Maryland and Purdue? Go ahead..they were terrible teams and in the end neither win mattered because we couldn't beat Memphis...or Toledo. Had we done that...maybe we make that New Year's day bowl....so what? The conference makes $$$ and we get to keep a little bit?

So..we should stay at FBS D1 because we'll make more when we play money games. That amounts to saying we should incur the expense of FBS football so we can be a tackling dummy...or that little electric rabbit that dogs chase around the track. Why are we D1 at anything? To massage the egos of some alums? There isn't a sport on campus that has D1 level interest from the University population...or most of the alums. What's our reward for being "big time"?

As it sits...the football program is the property ESPN more than the University...we need to figure out a way to cut that cord. Don't think outside the box...ask why you're in a box in the first place.

[hammb]

When we are talking about our glorious ESPN contract I think it is worth noting how hush hush it all is and how much money it may (nobody discloses it) be costing us.

We can find from public balance sheets that the universities seem to get a bit over $800k/yr from espn revenue, but the total value of the contract is hush hush since the Mac itself is a nonprofit. But what most don't realize is that our contract, that gets all these games on espn3 (wooohooo) required the individual universities to produce and upload them all to the espn3 network. The production costs, including the production staffs, are incurred by member institutions. Those people are university employees, the equipment is all university equipment.

So yeah, we're getting $800k in revenue, but how much of it is offset by equipment and employee costs? Reality is we don't know because the Mac has not only kept this secret they've gone to lengths to tell member institutions to spin all talk about the contract to how much exposure and raw revenue we get.

Who really knows what the net gain is but basically ESPN is paying us for prepared co tent so all they have to do is push the stream out. They're buying a lot more than just the games, and we're all in the dark to what we actually are getting.

It's also worth noting that espn is very overextended of late and has been firing on air talent right and left. Why? Because as cable subscriptions have gone down their revenues have gone down with them, and they've started to realize that they've been paying way too much for broadcast rights. The Mac nunoed at the right time to get some long term stability but when this contract is up in 2027 or whatever I would not be surprised at all if the next one is going to be similar dollars or less. Even if it does grow we're not ready to renegotiate for another decade or so. TV rights are going to be a stagnant revenue number while costs continue to skyrocket. And the TV exposure has actually led to much less actual attendance.

How is this sustainable again? And I'm not even really talking on the field competitiveness. That is largely irrelevant to me in this discussion. You're talking 20 year old kids. Their on field play will always be volatile enough for major upsets. That doesn't mean we should still continue to hemorrhage money (or rather discreetly funnel it from students).

[hammb]

To flips point, beating the lower tier of the power 5 conferences is fun, but not that satisfying anymore because those teams are not really on the same level anymore either.

Yeah they get the big cuts of conference money but they don't have the massive revenue streams of the big boys either.

They're close to us, on the field, than they are to their conference big boys, but they at least get to suckle at the teat enough to stay alive. They're the runts of the litter but at least there is a teat for em. We're lapping up puddle water and hoping to get the same nutrition...