kreed5120

The city isn't going to buy Infocision or take over the debt payments. The city taxpayers balked at building a downtown arena and that would have been much more versatile and easier to get events for than Infocision would be. Who would even rent it out besides Akron and the occasional high school game? At $100k per rental the city would need to rent out the stadium 50 times per year just to break even. That's not even factoring in annual maintenance or paying staff to manage the property. There is next to no demand for renting it. If there was Akron would be doing it to reduce its burden. Perhaps if Blossom didn't exist it would be useful for outdoor concerts, but Blossom does exist.

I believe Akron has Groce under contract for $650k for each of the next 4 seasons. His contract is I believe fully guaranteed so they can't cut him to bring in someone cheaper. The only threat is if he does well enough to attract bigger offers. His salary makes him I believe the highest paid coach in the MAC. I'd think it would be tough for many A10 programs to come in and offer him a $900k+ salary given the current climate, especially if it meant paying their current coach a buyout. If Groce does well enough that a B1G or SEC comes along then there really isn't anything we can do. On the plus side that also probably likes means somewhere along the way Akron picked up their first tournament win.

People are acting as though this pandemic is going to last indefinitely. We already have 2 buy games scheduled between the years 2021-2023 and 1 scheduled in 2024 and 2025. Our 2024 and 2025 schedules still has room for more games. 4-5 years from now this coronavirus thing is going to be a distant memory. Schools like OSU will be having 100k people packing their stadiums and the SEC & B1G will be looking for filler content for their networks. The reason programs like Clemson, OSU, Alabama, etc. pay $1.3 million is because between ticket sales, concessions, parking, tv rights, etc. they're making several times that amount for each home game. They could instead agree to a home and home with another P5 school, but then they'd have to split the revenue ~50/50 instead of keeping the vast majority of it for themselves. The general admission price for an OSU - Akron game is the same as an OSU - Missouri game. It's the scalpers who profit on the secondary market for those higher profile games, not the schools. 2021 at Auburn at Ohio State 2022 at Michigan State at Liberty 2023 at Temple at Indiana 2024 at South Carolina 2025 at Nebraska

There are 350+ D1 schools. There are much smaller schools with much smaller enrollments and endowments than MAC schools in D1. If MAC schools are saying they can't keep up with the NCAA D1 requirements, conferences like the MEAC, Southland, Northeastern etc. are probably even facing worse problems. The NCAA isn't going to let 100 or so schools drop from D1. I expect to see system wide changes.

Yep, people are talking about dropping down to D2 or D3, but it's not like those divisions come without costs. Eliminating the football program in its entirety would shave ~7.7 million from the budget. 4.3 million of that 12 million cost is for Infocision so that's not going away. I did the math in a thread a few years back about how much revenue the football program generates. I really don't want to have to do the research again so I'll just use @DannyHoke numbers. I'll even round his 6.85 million in revenue down 6.5 million. That was with Akron playing 1 buy game. If Akron plays 2 buy games, we're back even. If Akron plays 3 buy games, like Kent, we're +1.25 million. That's without even getting into cutting overhead costs related to the program, which we should definitely be doing. Frankly, I quit caring about the football program 2-3 years ago. That being said, if Akron gives the program bare minimum funding and schedules 3 OSU, Bama, Wisconsin type games per year the operating revenue may exceed operating expenses in excess of $2 million, perhaps more depending on how much expenses get cut. The time to cut the football program would have been before Infocision was built. Hindsight is 20/20 though. Edit: If we were to decide to drop down in football, I'd think non-scholarship FCS would make more sense than D2 or D3.

Groce has seemed to rely heavily on transfers and JUCO players. I could have the stat wrong, but something like 40% of players transfer before their junior year. I can't blame any coach going with the non-traditional route. Hawkins kept trying to build the traditional way, but his best players kept transferring as juniors or seniors. Now he's without a job.

That 12 million includes 4.3 million for the football stadium. Eliminating the football program in its entirety reduces 7.7 million in expenses, not 12 million. A buy game is going for 1.25 million. We could and should be scheduling 2 of those per year. That would be an additional 1.25 million in revenue above the numbers you posted. I also mentioned cutting coaching salaries. Edit: Not to mention the additional travel costs for the other sports If we left the MAC as no other conference is as good as a regional fit for us as the MAC.

If you cut football, you're also cutting all the revenue that comes with football (cfp money, tv deal, buy game guarantees, ticket sales, advertisements, etc). Football probably is responsible for 70%, if not more, of the athletics non-subsidy revenue. Outside of Infocision, which we're stuck paying regardless of what we do, football is the closest thing we have to a revenue neutral sport. There is still plenty of fat to trim from the football program though. For one our coach shouldn't be making $500k. Assistant salaries are bloated too. At a $500k salary a coach should be packing Infocision. We haven't been getting that. The athletic student aid section is heavily inflated IMO. The school charges the athletic department the full cost of attendance, but the marginal cost of rooming and boarding ~400 extra scholarship athletes is less than ~30k per student. Besides schools are in the business of educating. What bothers me is the money that gets blown on coaches, administration, and over the top facility upgrades.

'Athletics currently spends something in the neighborhood of 30-35 million. A 20% reduction would mean we're needing to trim $6-$7 million. Some costs like infocision and the field house we're stuck with long-term. I believe Groce and Arth both have 4 years left on their guaranteed contracts so we can't do anything about those costs either. Wouldn't most coaches be locked into multi-year deals? I think it's going to be real challenging to hit that threshold in cuts this year. We can make cuts, but some of those cuts will take a few years to recognize some of the cost savings.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe those were lump sum payments. I believe we're getting paid that money over 7-10 year payments. The university is paying ~$5 million per year to service the debt, but certainly the Infocision and Summa money is reducing the amount the university is really paying towards it.

Infocision was financed with I believe a 30 year bond issuance. We're paying about $5 million per year, but the early years you're paying mostly interest. We maybe have the principle 1/3 of the way paid off. I've posted in great detail previously that football (excluding Infocision which is a sunk cost) is pretty much a break even sport given all the revenue streams it produces. If we actually scaled back spending on coaches and supporting staff, it could actually turn an operating profit.

I think you're just going to see the MAC/C-USA/Sunbelt programs run an FCS budget program at the FBS level. This allows them to save face by not having to move down, but also allows them to greatly reduce costs. Akron's program has been running at an FCS level on the field for 3 decades now. All this does is lets us save some money in the process.

FCS is already D1A. D2 is what Ashland and Walsh compete at. I don't think Akron will drop to FCS, but I do see them drastically reducing funding for the program. If all the other MAC schools are doing the same, the status quo will remain the same. Athletics at the G5 level has only been able to spend at the levels they have been because of the universities willingness to subsidize them. Take away or greatly reduce those subsidies and all coaches would be making significantly less. Also, schools will spend quite less on facility upgrades.

I've been arguing for a leaner, more focused university for years. Akron and Kent are 10 miles apart. They both should be focusing on what they're best at and eliminate programs the other school is far superior at. Kent should be focusing on becoming an elite liberal arts school for the NEO region and Akron should be looking to do the same in STEM.

I at least like to see we're going after players programs like Colorado St and Temple are interested in. Belmont I'd say is about on par with us as a mid-major. The only one that I don't like seeing is us losing a player to BGSU, especially given his offer lost.

Georgia Tech actually had a postseason ban this year. Not that it mattered any since there was no postseason.

He has displayed pretty good footwork in the post, but has lacked touch finishing near the rim. Perhaps playing against smaller front courts will help. Overall, he didn't play big minutes for us, but down the stretch he played with lots of effort on both ends when you did get in. I think it says a lot because a lot of other upperclassmen would pout and look to transfer midseason if they weren't getting the minutes they were wanting. In the American East I can see him averaging something along the lines of 8 points and 6 boards if he's able to get 20-25 minutes of playing time.

I agree those schools will be fine long-term. In the short-term losing 10s of millions of dollars is going to put a hurt to them. They have a larger TV deal sure, but they have significantly higher overhead as well so that TV money gets eaten up fast. They pay their head coaches nearly 8 figures and top assistants are making 7 figures. They spend significantly more on non-revenue sports and on facilities. Not to mention if they eliminate games at the start of the season, the TV networks are going to cut what they make. Akron already doesn't generate much in ticket sales so it's really not losing much there. If anything this should help slow down the escalating athletics arms race. A race Akron wasn't able to keep up with.

Those big schools actually fill their stadium though. An Alabama or Michigan likely generates more ticket revenue from 1 home football game than a school like Akron generates in ticket ticket revenue for all sports combined. It would certainly be a big blow to them.

Not all that surprising. I said on a post back in January or February that I felt Sayles would transfer because he's good enough to be a 25 minutes guy in a conference like the American East. Coincidentally that's exactly what conference he ended up going to.

Not to mention Sayles who even though he didn't play much provided extra depth.

While we're at it let's get Pistol Pete, Bill Russell, Jerry West, and Larry Bird...

Teams are realizing it's better to have a 6'8 big that can run the floor and guard multiple positions than a 6'11 big who has cement legs. While we're at it maybe the MAC should ban point guards. Preston was probably the only true ball distributor in the MAC last season. All the others were pretty much either combo guards or 2 guards. As the game evolves the positions reinvent themselves. The center position as many of you know it from the 70s or 80s is slowly going extinct.

I don't know if what Jupiter posted is accurate or not, but the current trend of athletic budgets soaring and enrollments shrinking isn't sustainable long-term. It's not just an Akron issue either.

The article states that Cincy has been considering dropping soccer for years. I found this below quote from the article to be pretty spot on. This seems like the opportune time for AD and university presidents to slash sports without public backlash.