Spin

Very touchy subject. But judging by the feedback, a very relevant Zips topic IMO.

The community is going batshit crazy over the closing. My question is, why haven't they been paying for it? Why is it the college student's job to subsidize a venue for the community that only a handful ever use (until graduation)? And when was the last time they were in it? I hear stories of concerts and shows from the 70's and 80's, well, have they been there in the last 30 years? And if you haven't been there in 30 years, why cry because it's gone? Again, college students paying for a museum that these people don't visit. I guess they should pay for street cars too, because some nostalgic old farts miss them. They're never going to pay to ride them, but we must keep them there!!! It's the same with the Rubber Blow. And if it's that important to the community, why doesn't the community get off its ass and save it? Maybe because half of them live in Arizona or Florida now?

That's what I thought about the baseball program. When Cleveland State dropped wrestling, the program was given a chance to continue if they funded themselves. Well, with the help of the local wrestling community, it did just that. I still think "cold weather" college baseball needs to be restructured to cut down on travel in March and all the other expenses in hopes of a first round superregional thrashing. But who cares, Akron won't be part of it. The best we can hope for is a successful club team http://zipshockey.weebly.com/

Someone listed the University of Akron on Craigslist Of course it got pulled.

I'm hearing his shoulder issues are not going to completely resolve.

Coach Rembielak has placed almost all of his players with other programs as he himself is on his way out. Great guy. Most Zips fans will never know what they missed.

http://cleveland.cbslocal.com/2015/07/23/scott-scarborough-you-cant-be-all-things-to-all-people-you-have-to-make-tough-decisions/ Podcast is available

Casual fans are more familiar with winners in those conferences (heck all conferences) than they are the cellar dwellers and would be more inclined to go see a team they saw in the highlights. Name recognition goes a long way when deciding to attend a game. I brought up the idea a couple years ago to schedule home games against schools that had familiar names in football that we could be competitive with in basketball. Auburn. Nebraska. V Tech. USC. I don't think playing cupcakes after the first or second game of the season does anything good for your team, and makes you look bad when you lose the dang game.

I don't think the Infocision Stadium itself was a mistake. With the renovation and foundation repair costs of the Rubber Bowl, the naming rights (five different organizations) of the stadium and the field, and the other advertisers who came on board, a new stadium of similar size made sense. And still does today. Now the seven story monstrosity with sections that sit empty most of the time, that's a different story.

I thought the state making the decision for us (and everyone else) was a different topic, but you're right. It'll just be the same chest thumping and rhetoric.

I know a lot of guys are going to get their shorts in a bunch whenever someone mentions dropping down, but it may not be a choice. What if the governor decides to force all non-(actual) revenue producing football programs (everybody but tOSU) to Division FCS? Akron. Bowling Green. Ken+. Miami. Ohio. Toledo. That's half of the MAC... If most or all non-tOSU programs are downgraded, there goes the travel cost argument. One might argue that would help with travel expenses by saving the state university in Youngstown piles of money by not travelling to North and South Dakota for league games. Dayton isn't s atate school but they travel to Florida and California for conference games... Sound far fetched? Our attendance was just 1k above the FCS average http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/Attendance/2014.pdf It would be interesting to compare attendance of Zips football during the College Division and Division I-AA eras to the FBS era.

One more reason I'm glad I didn't major in economics at Akron.

Agreed. This could be its own topic, right alongside the ACC and Spring Football fantasies.

I met several faculty members who are very jealous of the athletics spending, and were not afraid to make that known. Some were staunch tOSU fans (speaking of SPENDING) and it remined me the old saying about who butters your bread.

How could we charge people to go to that middle school playground?

What was the attendance when they played at Canal Park? The only 251 people who knew there was a game that day?

That's a heck of a point. It's obviously not about winning...

I guess that's all college sports are for. That's like considering basketball and football as "revenue sports". There's a L O T of "fans" who have their priorities in the wrong places.

They cut baseball to save money. Not spend it somewhere else.

GJ, Chris went 7 1/3 innings giving up 7 hits and 2 runs, missing a W by 1/3 inning. I didn't get to watch the game (at work). JD Brubaker got his first professional win Thursday night at Lowell, going 5 innings with 0 ER and 5 K's. After a rough couple of starts he got it together against the Spinners. No, they're not named after me.

So the big question is, is elimination of some sports the answer? Or cutting the budgets of all sports and stop pretending to mount a Division 1 effort? Wooster and Baldwin Wallace and CWR and heck Wayne College can have these sports without spending all that money. The popular opinion is we're not going to attract Joe Sportsfan to our games, and/or can't afford the marketing campaign it would require. I would bet 90% of the paying fans would be paying fans if we were D2. So why pay out all those scholarships and expenses? Advertisers who like to advertise in front of the number of fans we have now, would they think the same way? Would a different baseball model work better for cold weather schools? One where you don't travel cross country the whole month of March. One where you don't pretend you're going to go deep in NCAA Superregionals. Maybe a fall season and a spring season, like was proposed for college soccer. And no out-of-state overnight travel... Just throwing out ideas.

Those ramifications COULD have been done silently, where the media wouldn't have had a field day of it. You could slowly and quietly cut jobs, for instance, show that to the State, and avoid any and all of the ramifications. That was my main point. I understand baseball was the easiest target. I brought that up as sort of an apology for going off last night, I needed to vent. But my main points were the impact on enrollment, and on the effects the other sports will see. Whether or not their budgets get cut or eliminated.

^very thought provoking

So you're answering my questions about negative ramifications with "No. There won't be any".

CSU Wrestling was able to fund itself through contributions from the wrestling community. Which has me thinking. If club baseball comes back, are they able to accept contributions from fans? That's something I never thought of when I worked with the club hockey team.