Vegas odds to win the MAC

[Schadenfreude]

I only chime in to say that a Division II school cannot field Division I football or basketball.

Incorrect. A school may "play-up" a division in one men's sport and one women's sport. I believe right now, they are no longer allowed to sponsor scholarships in that sport (many schools were grandfathered in when that rule changed).

Yes, a Division II school may "play up" in one men's sport and one women's sport. But those sports cannot be football or basketball.

I believe you are correct about scholarships, although this doesn't apply to the Division II schools playing up in men's hockey because there is no Division II men's hockey championship. Right?

[hammb]

Yes. I fully agree we pay coaches too much in the MAC. Keeping with with the Jones's is not a game this conference can or should be playing. Sadly the Fleck and Candle raises raised the bar for everyone.

Six of the bottom ten in reported head coach salaries are in the MAC. Only two are in the top 100 out of 122 reported. In my opinion, the issue isn't that coaches are paid too much, it's that the athletic departments aren't funded well enough to pay an adequate salary. I can't remember which article it was, but I saw where BG only gets about $1.9M in private donations annually. I have worked at much smaller athletic departments that get that with their annual fund alone, not even counting the major gift donors. I think the issue across the MAC is that they haven't done well enough with private support.

I don't completely disagree with your point. Clearly MAC sports are underfunded to be competing D1 across the board and FBS in football. However, I do think given that reality the MAC football coaches are as a whole largely overpaid. Yes, they may be the lowest paid in FBS, but if those other programs have the funding to pay those salaries, that doesn't mean we should. It's sort of the equivalent of driving the only Mercedes in a block full of Ferraris and Lambos. Sure, we may have the "lowest priced" car on the block, but if all we can really afford is a Toyota, we should be driving the Toyota, not the Mercedes.

Being said, I'm in agreement that our inability to build revenue streams through donations and ticket sales is the major issue. For a myriad of reasons MAC alumni seem to have little to no connection to their alma mater in terms of supporting the athletics. Personally, I think the rise of "MACtion" weeknight games has made it worse. Now that we've been playing these weeknight games for 20 years, I think we can safely say it's definitely not part of the solution, even if it isn't part of the problem. Sharing a nearly identical footprint with the Big10 doesn't help, but the MAC seems to struggle even more mightily than other similarly positioned G5 conferences.

I have no idea what the answer to the finding the donations or building the fanbase to properly fund the Athletic Dept. is. I just know for our current funding level the expenses are way too damned high. It's also interesting (to me) that we just flat out don't get large gifts for football. Sebo obviously put forth a ton of money over the years, but it's been awhile for any "headline grabbing" donation to the football program. Baseball had their stadium deal, and now has a group trying to revive them. Basketball got tons of money for the Stroh, then further donations from Frack, etc. Hockey got their arena deal, and other big time donors stepping up. Football hasn't had that same level of major donations coming forward in a long time. I'm also curious if that $1.9m in donations number includes things like the Frack endowment for hoops. If so that alone should account for about $700k of that private funding.

IOW if football wants to continue spending more than 1/3 of our Athletic Budget they damned well better start finding some donors to justify it.

[BillyLP]

Being said, I'm in agreement that our inability to build revenue streams through donations and ticket sales is the major issue. For a myriad of reasons MAC alumni seem to have little to no connection to their alma mater in terms of supporting the athletics. Personally, I think the rise of "MACtion" weeknight games has made it worse. Now that we've been playing these weeknight games for 20 years, I think we can safely say it's definitely not part of the solution, even if it isn't part of the problem. Sharing a nearly identical footprint with the Big10 doesn't help, but the MAC seems to struggle even more mightily than other similarly positioned G5 conferences.

I have no idea what the answer to the finding the donations or building the fanbase to properly fund the Athletic Dept. is. I just know for our current funding level the expenses are way too damned high. It's also interesting (to me) that we just flat out don't get large gifts for football. Sebo obviously put forth a ton of money over the years, but it's been awhile for any "headline grabbing" donation to the football program. Baseball had their stadium deal, and now has a group trying to revive them. Basketball got tons of money for the Stroh, then further donations from Frack, etc. Hockey got their arena deal, and other big time donors stepping up. Football hasn't had that same level of major donations coming forward in a long time. I'm also curious if that $1.9m in donations number includes things like the Frack endowment for hoops. If so that alone should account for about $700k of that private funding.

IOW if football wants to continue spending more than 1/3 of our Athletic Budget they damned well better start finding some donors to justify it.

I also agree with what you're saying, for the record. I like the Mercedes/Toyota example. I have a lot of thoughts on the development office at BG. It's too small, not segmented enough, under resourced, etc. It's proven time and time again by literally every fundraising consulting group that the bigger your fundraising team, the more money you raise. I think there are 4 people on the team at BG? When I was with at a university with 4,500 students, our department had 10 fundraisers, plus people who did development specific communications and marketing. It's a bit of a Catch-22, though. You have to spend money to make money, and that's hard when there isn't any money to be had.

[FalconTurf]

Hold it, Sebo is a football guy and that facility built for football serves the whole department but probably isn’t built without a football program.

Now as far as fundraising, and interaction in general from the department, they have gone backwards. At one time I felt like people recognized my face at events and even engaged me in conversation. Now they are so focused on the big fish, I can walk into a season ticket holder event and never interact with a single coach or administrator. The culture has changed and unless the big fish have generous life insurance the future looks rough

[Class of 61]

Hambb,
Thanks for the possible answer to how to get more of Blade articles etc. unfortunately, my tech sense/ skills hardly understood what you’ve suggested. I never did think to bounce it off my wife who might understand it as she’s WAY more tech savvy than I am. Thanks for the suggestions. How’s the little guy doing?

Den

[Roll Along!]

Being said, I'm in agreement that our inability to build revenue streams through donations and ticket sales is the major issue. For a myriad of reasons MAC alumni seem to have little to no connection to their alma mater in terms of supporting the athletics. Personally, I think the rise of "MACtion" weeknight games has made it worse. Now that we've been playing these weeknight games for 20 years, I think we can safely say it's definitely not part of the solution, even if it isn't part of the problem. Sharing a nearly identical footprint with the Big10 doesn't help, but the MAC seems to struggle even more mightily than other similarly positioned G5 conferences.

I have no idea what the answer to the finding the donations or building the fanbase to properly fund the Athletic Dept. is. I just know for our current funding level the expenses are way too damned high. It's also interesting (to me) that we just flat out don't get large gifts for football. Sebo obviously put forth a ton of money over the years, but it's been awhile for any "headline grabbing" donation to the football program. Baseball had their stadium deal, and now has a group trying to revive them. Basketball got tons of money for the Stroh, then further donations from Frack, etc. Hockey got their arena deal, and other big time donors stepping up. Football hasn't had that same level of major donations coming forward in a long time. I'm also curious if that $1.9m in donations number includes things like the Frack endowment for hoops. If so that alone should account for about $700k of that private funding.

IOW if football wants to continue spending more than 1/3 of our Athletic Budget they damned well better start finding some donors to justify it.

I also agree with what you're saying, for the record. I like the Mercedes/Toyota example. I have a lot of thoughts on the development office at BG. It's too small, not segmented enough, under resourced, etc. It's proven time and time again by literally every fundraising consulting group that the bigger your fundraising team, the more money you raise. I think there are 4 people on the team at BG? When I was with at a university with 4,500 students, our department had 10 fundraisers, plus people who did development specific communications and marketing. It's a bit of a Catch-22, though. You have to spend money to make money, and that's hard when there isn't any money to be had.

You had 10 fundraisers in sports? There are 34 people listed in the University Advancement staff directory: https://www.bgsu.edu/alumni/about-us/st ... ctory.html" target="_blank

[guest44]

You can eliminate a former BGSU football player from that list as part of the cuts.

[Class of 61]

Are you referring to Cal? If so, I’m thinking this would be a big surprise. But then I don’t know what official duties were.

[guest44]

Yes

[BillyLP]

Being said, I'm in agreement that our inability to build revenue streams through donations and ticket sales is the major issue. For a myriad of reasons MAC alumni seem to have little to no connection to their alma mater in terms of supporting the athletics. Personally, I think the rise of "MACtion" weeknight games has made it worse. Now that we've been playing these weeknight games for 20 years, I think we can safely say it's definitely not part of the solution, even if it isn't part of the problem. Sharing a nearly identical footprint with the Big10 doesn't help, but the MAC seems to struggle even more mightily than other similarly positioned G5 conferences.

I have no idea what the answer to the finding the donations or building the fanbase to properly fund the Athletic Dept. is. I just know for our current funding level the expenses are way too damned high. It's also interesting (to me) that we just flat out don't get large gifts for football. Sebo obviously put forth a ton of money over the years, but it's been awhile for any "headline grabbing" donation to the football program. Baseball had their stadium deal, and now has a group trying to revive them. Basketball got tons of money for the Stroh, then further donations from Frack, etc. Hockey got their arena deal, and other big time donors stepping up. Football hasn't had that same level of major donations coming forward in a long time. I'm also curious if that $1.9m in donations number includes things like the Frack endowment for hoops. If so that alone should account for about $700k of that private funding.

IOW if football wants to continue spending more than 1/3 of our Athletic Budget they damned well better start finding some donors to justify it.

I also agree with what you're saying, for the record. I like the Mercedes/Toyota example. I have a lot of thoughts on the development office at BG. It's too small, not segmented enough, under resourced, etc. It's proven time and time again by literally every fundraising consulting group that the bigger your fundraising team, the more money you raise. I think there are 4 people on the team at BG? When I was with at a university with 4,500 students, our department had 10 fundraisers, plus people who did development specific communications and marketing. It's a bit of a Catch-22, though. You have to spend money to make money, and that's hard when there isn't any money to be had.

You had 10 fundraisers in sports? There are 34 people listed in the University Advancement staff directory: https://www.bgsu.edu/alumni/about-us/st ... ctory.html" target="_blank

Yes, 10 front-line fundraisers in athletics. I'm not sure how many there were University wide at that particular place, but the current office I'm at (no longer in athletics) has 70 total staff in Advancement, and a previous stop had around 250.

[BillyLP]

Hold it, Sebo is a football guy and that facility built for football serves the whole department but probably isn’t built without a football program.

Now as far as fundraising, and interaction in general from the department, they have gone backwards. At one time I felt like people recognized my face at events and even engaged me in conversation. Now they are so focused on the big fish, I can walk into a season ticket holder event and never interact with a single coach or administrator. The culture has changed and unless the big fish have generous life insurance the future looks rough

This is a pretty common trend nationwide. All of the consulting firms say to go after the big fish first, then when they are hooked, hire people to focus on the mid-range, then annual fund gifts. That works well for schools that have a lot of big fish, but BG doesn't. In my opinion, BG athletics should have their development director, one principal gifts person, 2 (growing to 4) major gifts people, and 2 annual fund people, plus an in-house communications/marketing person for proposals, mass mailings, etc. That said, I have no idea what the prospect lists look like, what their relationship to university advancement is, what kind of research tools they have, etc.