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So, I read the Troll of an Interim President's comments on the upcoming cuts to athletics, and I was surprised to NOT see any discussion on it on ZNO.  I don't subscribe to the Beacon and only got to read the article as one of my X amount of free reads on line, but it sure sounds like some sports are gonna get whacked, or some of the staff that works "Game-Day experiences" are gonna be gone, or have to work for free.  But I really was concerned with his comments regarding teams that don't need to have as a goal to work towards national titles., and comparing the new baseball arrangement as a be-all-end-all to the budget crunch.  How can you realistically recruit college age kids and their parents or guardians, if you have hanging over your head that the University Administration doesn't give two hoots if you gain national prominence at your level?  And I thought the baseball arrangement was temporary until they could fund some scholarships?  And Green's comments that by not giving scholarships and bringing in local non-scholarship student-athletes, we would increase attendance at games because people would like to come see their kids and neighbor kids play was simplistic at best and just plain stupid at worst.  I'd be hard-pressed to let my son or daughter come to U of A no matter what sport they played, as long as this attitude of funding only national caliber sports persisted.  Except, of course, our national championship e-Sports team!  I think Green thinks this is the way all sports should be played.... 

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The article clearly states he's not cutting sports or jobs in the near term. I'm guessing there's a ton of cost in the "game day experience" within the InfoCision tower, yet very few suites used.  I am certain football, basketball and soccer will continue to get most of the bucks. I do think he's naive to believe increased football revenue will make up for half the difference each year.  Akron has not shown it will support the Zips in adequate numbers and I'm not sure that will ever change.  I find it particularly naive in the next year or two, which will be rebuilds in many respects.

 

The killer in all of this is that the cut increases by $1 million every year for eight years.  

 

But who knows, maybe some other MAC programs will follow suit.  They all subsidize their programs to a great extent.  Only difference is Akron's debt level is a lot higher thanks to President Proenza and the board's decision making.

 

If you've read Green's strategic plan, you may know that increasing the number of foreign students is a big part of closing the revenue gap over the next decade.  Unfortunately, our country's leader has done everything he can to make U.S. schools less attractive. Student visas down.

 

  

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We're all sports fans here, but we have to remember the University is an institution for higher learning, not a factory for producing amateur athletes. If we're needing to cut expenses to make our budget balance, cutting some of the fat out of the athletics budget only makes sense. 

 

The administration always sees more optimistic about their goals compared to what ever actually gets done. I wouldn't be surprised if this $8 million reduction in reality only becomes a $3-$5 million reduction. That would put us more in range of what Kent is spending per year on athletics.

 

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I was talking about this with my parents the other day because they kinda have become "honorary" Zips fans because of me.  :lol:

I've got a solution for football that would hopefully cut-down on expenses/increase revenue.  Keep making schedules like that of 2021.

-Make YSU and Dayton the "FCS" team we play every-year.  I don't think YSU would complain, and I much rather watch Akron play YSU and Dayton, Ohio Schools, than "Howard" or some other nonsense.


-If you can't get YSU or Dayton every year, get one of the closer FCS teams.  (this already appears to be what they are doing btw when they scheduled St. Francis U which is in Pennsylvania). 

-Schedule 2 pay games per year.  In 2021 the Zips will play both Auburn and Ohio state.  I haven't found any numbers on the 2021 contracts, but last year OSU paid Tulane $1.5-million, and Auburn paid UMass $1.9-million.  The Zips had two "payday" games this past season as well with Northwestern ($1.2 million) and Nebraska ($1.17million, albeit reduced as the game was cancelled).

This should be a directive TBH moving forward in my opinion as scheduling TWO "big-name" pay-day teams gives you another roughly $1-million in revenue, and hopefully by scheduling the closer FCS team you save money.

Whatcha think?

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Playing Dayton wouldn't make sense. In order for an FCS opponent win to count towards bowl eligibility they would need to have 57 scholarship players (90% of the 63 total that FCS teams are allowed). Dayton has 0 scholarships. I do agree we should be playing 2 paycheck games per year at least until we can stabilize the budget. While at it we should also play fewer SWAC, MEAC, and NAIA teams in basketball and in their place allow ourselves to be bought 2-3x more times per year. 

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2 buy games a year would bring in 1 million extra in cash and lose possibly as much in other costs.. we're setting ourselves up for 2-2 at absolute best going into MAC play with no momentum and probably a good amount of injuries. I'm not a fan at all. The year coming up @ OSU and @ Auburn is going to be ugly.

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It cost Akron $165k to travel to Nebraska, including flight. If OSU is paying us anything close to that Tulane ~$1.5 figure, we're likely netting something in the neighborhood of ~$1.3+ million after expenses busing ourselves to the game. I'm going to go ahead and pencil us in for an FCS win each year. If we can't go 5-3 in the MAC despite playing in what is by far the worst division in all of FBS, we have no business going bowling anyways. Also, I don't think we need to schedule two blue bloods each year. We can schedule 1 blue blood and another mid to lower tier P5 program.

 

Quote

UA was due to collect $1.17 million for the game. It cost approximately $165,000 for the trip to Lincoln, Neb. Nebraska hasn’t yet indicated whether it will pay UA.

https://www.ohio.com/sports/20180921/university-of-akron-football-zips-still-awaiting-payment-confirmation-from-nebraska-athletics

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On 6/11/2019 at 8:46 AM, zippy5 said:

I think playing Dayton every other year is one of the dumber posts I've read. They don't have scholarship players, not gonna happen. YSU also has to agree to play at Akron every other year, also not gonna happen

 

For Fucks Sake...it was only a suggestion, and the article I read listed it as an FCS team.  But with your attitude we might as well go ahead and scrap the football team.  It will never be close to solvent and students are going into debt to support a bullshit athletics team that's not worth supporting.  And sorry for trying to get some conversation going here.  Asshole.

 

On 6/11/2019 at 9:20 AM, kreed5120 said:

Playing Dayton wouldn't make sense. In order for an FCS opponent win to count towards bowl eligibility they would need to have 57 scholarship players (90% of the 63 total that FCS teams are allowed). Dayton has 0 scholarships. I do agree we should be playing 2 paycheck games per year at least until we can stabilize the budget. While at it we should also play fewer SWAC, MEAC, and NAIA teams in basketball and in their place allow ourselves to be bought 2-3x more times per year. 


I read a list of FCS teams and it listed both Dayton and YSU as the only two FCS teams in the state.  So I apologize for on the spot trying to come up with a cheaper more sensible option than brining Howard or some other bullshit FCS team here.

 

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On 6/11/2019 at 10:13 AM, zippy5 said:

2 buy games a year would bring in 1 million extra in cash and lose possibly as much in other costs.. we're setting ourselves up for 2-2 at absolute best going into MAC play with no momentum and probably a good amount of injuries. I'm not a fan at all. The year coming up @ OSU and @ Auburn is going to be ugly.

 

You're talking as if the Football team and the University aren't in dire financial straights.  Yeah...you're going to have to set yourself at 2-2 absolute best going in to MAC play.  You freaking don't have much of a choice financially.  It's not 1974 anymore.  Akron football has been irrelevant forever.  Stop trying to beat the joneses and find a way to be semi-not-even-halfway more solvent.

Edited by Balsy
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I bet Tom Arth and Chris Sabo are having second thoughts now. And if you think Jim Groce is having trouble keeping players now...

 

Well, someone has to pay for the crimes of the previous generation.

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Someone brought up dropping back to FCS awhile back, would they save a lot of money with 22 less scholarships, figuring in the higher travel costs?

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2 hours ago, Spin said:

Someone brought up dropping back to FCS awhile back, would they save a lot of money with 22 less scholarships, figuring in the higher travel costs?

 

It would reduce expenses some, but the revenue loss would probably meet or exceed the expense savings. Akron is going to have to continue paying ~$4.3 million for Infocision per year for the next 20 years regardless of if they stay FBS, drop down to FCS, or disband football altogether. Dropping out of FBS means we're likely to be booted out of the MAC. That means we'd see an increase, not decrease in travel costs as the MAC is a pretty compact conference. We'd lose out on ~$800k in annual tv revenue. We'd miss out on ~$1.5 million per year from the college football playoff G5 distribution. P5 schools pay G5 schools ~$1.3-$1.5 for buy games. Many P5 don't schedule FCS opponents and the ones that do only pay $300k-$600k so that's another loss or reduction to a revenue source. You can also add in reduced advertising and ticket sales. I'm sure there are other things as well that I'm not accounting for.

 

Excluding the cost of Infocision, which is a sunk cost, the football program is most likely breaking even given all the revenue sources that I mentioned above. Men's basketball and men's soccer are probably both slight money losers as well, but mostly pay for themselves. Literally every other sport plus administrative overhead costs is where the athletic program is bleeding money.

Edited by kreed5120
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On 6/14/2019 at 8:33 PM, Balsy said:

 

For Fucks Sake...it was only a suggestion, and the article I read listed it as an FCS team.  But with your attitude we might as well go ahead and scrap the football team.  It will never be close to solvent and students are going into debt to support a bullshit athletics team that's not worth supporting.  And sorry for trying to get some conversation going here.  Asshole.

 

Dang hopefully your weekend has been going better. Sorry my thoughts didn't agree with where you wanted the conversation to go. Have a good day!

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22 hours ago, zippy5 said:

Dang hopefully your weekend has been going better. Sorry my thoughts didn't agree with where you wanted the conversation to go. Have a good day!


I don't care if the conversation doesn't go the direction I want it to go; I care that your first inclination is to insult someone's intelligence, and then go on to only addressing the minutia and not the heart of the argument.  THAT is what I have a problem with.

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1 hour ago, Balsy said:


I don't care if the conversation doesn't go the direction I want it to go; I care that your first inclination is to insult someone's intelligence, and then go on to only addressing the minutia and not the heart of the argument.  THAT is what I have a problem with.

You suggested two options that aren't viable. What's the difference if we beat Dayton by 30 or Howard by 30 anyway? I don't think the 1-AA team we schedule is going to have any difference on the bottom line of the football program

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9 hours ago, zippy5 said:

You suggested two options that aren't viable. What's the difference if we beat Dayton by 30 or Howard by 30 anyway? I don't think the 1-AA team we schedule is going to have any difference on the bottom line of the football program

 

Not viable?  Of course it's viable!  The whole point of bringing up Youngstown and Dayton (which I was corrected by other members isn't the type of FCS team that would get us our one game towards eligiblity...so stop focusing on Dayton it's frankly irrelevant) was to float the idea that there has to be perhaps either CHEAPER or BETTER DRAW opponents that would at least have some sort of meaning for the one FCS game every year.  The whole point was 1 FCS team to guarantee a win, with two pay-day games.  Stop focusing on Dayton and focus on the point.

If that's "not viable" how would YOU propose we make more revenue/cut costs in football?  I mean we might as well scrap football and be done with it.  End this madness right now.  The University HAS to find a way to be more fiscally solvent that isn't raising tuition on students; which would further discourage students from enrolling at Akron.

 

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2 hours ago, Balsy said:

 

Not viable?  Of course it's viable!  The whole point of bringing up Youngstown and Dayton (which I was corrected by other members isn't the type of FCS team that would get us our one game towards eligiblity...so stop focusing on Dayton it's frankly irrelevant) was to float the idea that there has to be perhaps either CHEAPER or BETTER DRAW opponents that would at least have some sort of meaning for the one FCS game every year.  The whole point was 1 FCS team to guarantee a win, with two pay-day games.  Stop focusing on Dayton and focus on the point.

If that's "not viable" how would YOU propose we make more revenue/cut costs in football?  I mean we might as well scrap football and be done with it.  End this madness right now.  The University HAS to find a way to be more fiscally solvent that isn't raising tuition on students; which would further discourage students from enrolling at Akron.

 

Better draw? You think if we played Robert Morris we would have more fans in the stands than if we played Howard or Morgan State? 

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13 hours ago, zippy5 said:

Better draw? You think if we played Robert Morris we would have more fans in the stands than if we played Howard or Morgan State? 

 

Being about 100 miles away, there would be more visitor's fans than from schools 350+ 

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Yes, even if Robert Morris attracted 300 more fans than Howard and each of those 300 fans on average spent $50 between ticket, parking, and concessions that only equates $15k in extra revenue. That really isn't moving the needle. YSU is probably the only FCS opponent that would attract enough fans to make a material difference and they don't seem interested in playing us on an annual basis.

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How about Illinois State or Indiana State?  I like the idea of playing FCS schools within closer proximity.  Sure, none will likely draw as well as YSU, but none-the-less...

 

IIRC, if YSU was to become a yearly gig, they wanted us to play in Youngstown on alternating years.  Idk the details of that conversation, but I wouldn't be opposed to playing in Youngstown perhaps once every four years.  For the sake of ticket sales we really need another rival.

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20 hours ago, zippy5 said:

So 300 visiting fans instead of 200? 

 

Balsy posted this

 

Just wondering how that plan would save money is all.


It seems like you're more dedicated to being against FCS teams.  FCS teams are going to be a reality.  Period.

I can't imagine YSU or a closer school would be paid exactly the same as one coming from further away.  Part of the sum paid to the FCS teams is covering the fact that they have to travel/hotel it up.  YSU or a closer FCS I can't imagine would go through the same expense.  It's the payout I'm advocating should be better at saving money.  It's should be possible for both teams to win (FCS get a decent payout, and we save money) if the FCS is close enough to not need the flight. 

But it's also impossible to know without doing a public records request on the contract details.  But again for the sake of the god I don't believe in, I'm spitballing here.  What suggestions do YOU have Zippy5 to make the Football team/University of Akron more solvent without some sort of voodoo economics?  We're all patiently waiting...

Because here's the fact:  The University of Akron's football team costs too much.  Something is going to give on it eventually if a solution to this dire financial situation isn't found.  You can't cut full-time professors/teachers at an institution of LEARNING while fielding a shitty D-1 football team flushing money down the toilet.  It's just stupid.
 

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13 hours ago, Blue & Gold said:

How about Illinois State or Indiana State?  I like the idea of playing FCS schools within closer proximity.  Sure, none will likely draw as well as YSU, but none-the-less...

 

IIRC, if YSU was to become a yearly gig, they wanted us to play in Youngstown on alternating years.  Idk the details of that conversation, but I wouldn't be opposed to playing in Youngstown perhaps once every four years.  For the sake of ticket sales we really need another rival.


I personally wouldn't mind that.  

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42 minutes ago, Balsy said:


It seems like you're more dedicated to being against FCS teams.  FCS teams are going to be a reality.  Period.

I can't imagine YSU or a closer school would be paid exactly the same as one coming from further away.  Part of the sum paid to the FCS teams is covering the fact that they have to travel/hotel it up.  YSU or a closer FCS I can't imagine would go through the same expense.  It's the payout I'm advocating should be better at saving money.  It's should be possible for both teams to win (FCS get a decent payout, and we save money) if the FCS is close enough to not need the flight. 

But it's also impossible to know without doing a public records request on the contract details.  But again for the sake of the god I don't believe in, I'm spitballing here.  What suggestions do YOU have Zippy5 to make the Football team/University of Akron more solvent without some sort of voodoo economics?  We're all patiently waiting...

Because here's the fact:  The University of Akron's football team costs too much.  Something is going to give on it eventually if a solution to this dire financial situation isn't found.  You can't cut full-time professors/teachers at an institution of LEARNING while fielding a shitty D-1 football team flushing money down the toilet.  It's just stupid.
 

Where did I ever even suggest that? You're putting words in my mouth. We need an FCS team for a win each year. Who it is makes no difference.

 

Further, even suggesting paying a team to come to Akron is hypocritical to your argument. If it's all about dollars, why not just play 4 buy games and bring in $6 million?

 

The answer is because you need to win,. The "reality. period." is that we're not dropping to FCS. So we have to make due with what we have at the MAC level. The other reality is, the football program is never going to make money. None of them do unless you're Bama, Texas or OSU. So the next best thing is to win and make it an enjoyable experience for the community to fill the stands and bring in donations as best as we can. How do we win? Hell if I know, I'm not getting millions to figure it out. NIU and UB have proven you can at this level. We're going to lose money, it is what it is. If we turn it around and have a successful program, we lose less, and it's a bearable cost for the University as marketing and student/community experience. You don't win by playing multiple buy games a year and sabotaging your season from the get go, nothing will kill enthusiasm faster than that. 

 

If it's all about money, just say we need to play 4 buy games or drop to FCS. I'd disagree, but at least it's defensible. 

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