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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Josh Lowe added to this discussion on July 18, 2007

Here's some stuff from an article summarizing EADA data for the 2003-04 school year. Football programs:

ACC schools - 9 at time - 8 of them made money on football (one marginally, Maryland); 1 lost money (marginally, Wake Forest)

Big East (this is the "old" one) - 9 schools - 1 even (Temple, but I think that's budget rules); 7 made money (one marginally, UConn); 1 lost money (Rutgers)

B10 - all 11 programs made money, the least money making program was Indiana and Northwestern (appx 5M each)

B12 - 2 programs lost money (Baylor and TTech)

CUSA - 11 programs - 3 marginal profits (S. Floirda, UAB, E. Carolina); 4 losses (Southern Miss, Memphis, Houston, Cinci); 4 profits

MAC - 14 programs - CMU, Ohio, and Miami OH were even because of university reporting structures. Every other program lost money.

MWC - 8 programs - Air Force did not report; 3 lost money (Col. State, UNLV, Utah)

PAC-10 - Stanford was the only program to lose money

SEC - 12 programs - they all make money (Vandy was @ 1M, Miss State @ 5M)

Sun Belt - 8 programs - MTSU even by reporting structure; Utah State and Idaho only ones to make profit

WAC - 10 programs - most were basically even, 3 made > 1M, 2 lost > 1M



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Ken Ramsey Sr. added to this discussion on July 18, 2007

According to the "MAC Report On Line" the last report available for financial standing in college football was 2003, the 2004 report is due this fall. The 2003 report says that 57% of D1 PBS schools were in the red. The MAC compared the 5 BCS Coalition Conferences to the Big 10; some interesting facts follow: The 5 conferences combined had revenues of almost $194.5 million/$4.1 million average (Conf. USA-12 teams, Mountain West-8 teams, MAC-12 teams, Western Ath.-9 teams & Sun Belt-11 teams). The Big Ten-11 teams had revenues of $276.8 million/$25.2 million average. The expense to revenue ratios were; C-USA (1.06), MT-W (.835), WA (.979), MAC (1.76), SB (1.15) & B10 (.410). The B10 gets $44 million for BCS and Bowl ties; the Coalition gets $1.05 million each team for BCS ties and $2.25 million to nothing for conference bowl ties. The report list salary averages for coaches and assistants, but they look very low as compared to published reports (The report shows the average salary of a B10 head coach as $254,771, must not include any perks or bonuses.) This is revenue of almost a half billion dollars for only 6 conferences and does not include the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, or PAC 10; who are all comparable to the Big 10. If those conferences average a conservative $250 million each D1 football is about a 2 billion dollar business. Losing scholarships is not going to happen.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on July 18, 2007

i guess each of us will believe what we think the truth is, i am not going to beat this horse to death.

obviously there is some playing with numbers going on by those colleges doing the reporting. This statement quoted by Ken from a report proves it: "The report shows the average salary of a B10 head coach as $ 254,771 ", what a joke that is, even if that report is a few years old.

Even excluding what coaches like Paterno, Tressel, Carr, Ferentz and others get in shoe deals, endorsements and for TV shows, base pay plus bonuses is ALOT higher than $254,000 ----even for the coaches at Indiana and Northwestern. The Michigan St coach John Smith who was just fired actually was hired at more than Tressel made until Tressel renogiated last year.

as long as football gets 85 fulls, wont be much left for the rest of mens sports. And don't need 85 fulls to put the same caliber of product on the field and on TV. The NFL does it with 49 "Fulls".



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Mary Thoburn added to this discussion on July 19, 2007

Bob - you are right, the "average head coach" salary simply fails the smell test, imo.

There was a great article in CFO magazine last year....http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3870/is_9_22/ai_n16690336/pg_1 It's about 7 pages long, but worth the read if you are a financial junkie like me.

It was about college athletic departments and spending. The article claims that most D1 departments operate in the red, augmenting the deficits with student fees and general fund money.

It also addresses how these athletic departments report their financial data. The NCAA collects this data, and guards it like a state secret. The article says there is a move to standardize the financial reporting with established accounting rules, and such data should be audited by a third party. Which blows my mind. Can you imagine, such HUGE numbers and basically no accountability or transparency for public funds? Apparently, schools are very inconsistent in how they report, with some including debt service in their expenditures and some not. So even if you could see the info, which you can't, there is no real comparablility.

If universities and colleges are required to become more "transparent" in their financial reporting, you are going to see more cuts to show at least that they are covering costs. Title IX is merely political cover.

Here is an analogy - cutting the small sports programs is somewhat akin to the CFO of IBM cutting the budget for postage expense.

Cutting the smaller programs is just a stopgap measure. With tuition increasing every year, those 85 fulls are just going to get more expensive. Combined with all the rest of the costs for shiny new stadiums, etc. I don't see much hope for nonrevenue sports in the long term.

Finally - if AD's polish their resumes with how much they spend, why wouldn't the average AD choose to spend the money on higher profile sports and sports facilities? What would look better - "I continued to support wrestling, swimming, track (fill in the blank)", or "I spearheaded the drive to add 30,000 more seats to our football stadium capacity"?



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Ken Ramsey Sr. added to this discussion on July 19, 2007

Bob:

On second thought, I believe what is considered a coaches salary is only the money the institution pays the coach, the balance would be additional income and comes from other sources (TV, radio, shoe/clothing endorsements, camps, incentive bonuses, etc.)



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Ken Ramsey Sr. added to this discussion on July 19, 2007

Mary:

Your thoughts say what I was trying get across much better. No matter what happens the minor sports are going to pay into their extinction before anything happens of major consequence to a major sport.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on July 19, 2007

Ms Thoburn,
you may enjoy Jason Bryant's op/ed piece today on InterMat website re the new AD at Oregon who just cut wrestling---- he is a multi, multi millionairre businessman contributor to the school with no college degree himself.

most Big Ten football coaches are each guaranteed from 1/2 million $$$ on UP per year base pay from the University itself , not counting any bonuses and monies from TV/Radio shows, endorsments, shoe contracts.

and any way u stack it, costs associated with fielding college football teams are ENORMOUS, regardless of how much TV money is brought in.
And the TV money is Not distribubuted evenly, the already rich conferences and Notre Dame get most of it.

Ohio st is one of the very very few colleges that has a self-supporting Athletic Dept. Thats why they were on the cover of Sports illustrated this year !!!



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Mary Thoburn added to this discussion on July 20, 2007

I think this will keep getting worse until collegiate athletic departments are forced to keep amateur sports. Which requires a political solution, "Title IX-type" legislation.

Framing the issue as a consequence of Title IX is a political loser. A better political strategy is to legally protect amateur sports, to counteract the corrupting influence of money at the college level. Not too many politicians could resist leading that parade.

The other thing I can't understand - why hasn't someone tried to organize the various nonrevenue sports association/people into a larger, louder group? It's not like wrestling is the only sport suffering cuts. We spend a lot of useless time wringing our hands, when the people making the decisions could care less. The unions figured out a long time ago how to fight those with influence and deep pockets - if you don't organize, you have no power.

And speaking about corruption, I read Jason Bryant's article on InterMat. I suppose we can expect other major universities to start bidding out the AD job to boosters. Let the inmates run the asylum. It's an object lesson in corruption. The irony is, because he is not taking a salary, he is feted and celebrated as a selfless public servant. Makes me wanna hurl.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Ken Ramsey Sr. added to this discussion on July 21, 2007

Mary:

Sounds to me like you might be a leader with some great ideas, let's get started, others will follow.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Dan Ransick added to this discussion on July 21, 2007

Big 10 coaches like Bob said make huge money just on base pay alone. Dantonio left UC for Michigan State and was getting like $600k there.

It is said to see this happening to our sport. Oregon had a big year in 2006 with Webster winning the title putting some spotlight on them. They have money for them to spend at Oregon for God sakes look who there biggest donor is at the school. They have the money there no matter what they say to keep wrestling and bring back baseball too.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Leo Zimmer added to this discussion on July 21, 2007

Thought this information might add to the conversation... It is the number of scholarships permitted per sport. This information is printed in the 2006-2007 NCAA Division I and Division II Guidelines Manuals. Please visit www.NCAA.org for specific details.



Division I Men

Baseball 11.7
Basketball 13
Cross Country/Track and Field 12.6
Fencing 4.5
Football (Division I-A) 85
Football (Division I-AA) 63
Golf 4.5
Gymnastics 6.3
Lacrosse 12.6
Rifle 3.6
Skiing 6.3
Soccer 9.9
Swimming 9.9
Tennis 4.5
Volleyball 4.5
Water Polo 4.5
Wrestling 9.9


Women

Archery 5
Badminton 6
Basketball 15
Bowling 5
Cross Country/Track and Field 18
Equestrian 15
Fencing 5
Field Hockey 12
Golf 6
Lacrosse 12
Rowing 20
Rugby 12
Skiing 7
Soccer 14
Softball 12
Squash 12
Swimming & Diving 14
Synchronized Swimming 5
Team Handball 10
Water Polo 8


WOW!!! Look I understand the idea of Gender Equity.... But womens rowing gets 20 scholorships???? Equestrian gets 15????



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Mary Thoburn added to this discussion on July 22, 2007

Ken - I can give you a roadmap of how it could be done.

First of all, one must develop a strategy - legislation on the state level, which is really hard for a grassroots organization, or on the federal level. All threatened sports need to be represented in the effort, not just wrestling. The more numbers you have, the louder the voice. I would suggest talking to one's state and federal representatives to figure out the best way to do it.

Then form a nonprofit. This involves incorporation, costing about $700 to $800. Find a friendly CPA who will do the tax filings gratis or for a reduced fee, because this is the really expensive part of forming an exempt organization. (One more thing - this is a very time consuming process. Whoever acts as executive director can take a reasonable fee for their efforts. Something that takes this much time and effort is worth some compensation.)

Come up with a snappy name, preferably something with a great acronym.

Form a board with some big names on it. Form an honorary board with some really big names on it, recognizable people like a Dan Gable, and a Mark Spitz, for example. Former Olympians. Put them on the letterhead.

Send out a mass fund-raising letter to every amateur coaches association, every amateur sports organization, anyone who is threatened by this issue. Set up a website, with paypal. There is an enormous population to work with if one includes all sports. Just think of how many amateur wrestling organizations there are across the country. Other sports have this as well.

Avoid, like the plague, the Title IX issue. Politically, it is a better message to promote amateur sports than to campaign on a negative. And it would be very difficult to get politicians on board, because the issue looks like opposition to gender equity. And broaden the base as much as possible, include women's sports. Avoid negativity towards the revenue sports, per se. The only negativity in the message that would have any political traction is the corrupting effect of money, so run with that.

Time the efforts so they peak during the Olympics. Looking at the scholarship list above, the common denominator is that they are largely Olympic sports. Run some easily produced advertising during the Olympics. For instance, during the track events, show a black screen with the number of collegiate track programs from 20 years ago. Then another black screen with the current year and significantly less collegiate track programs. If the US is struggling to medal, this would be especially powerful. And what sports are getting cut? Swimming, track, wrestling, etc.

Anyways, those are some of my thoughts.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on July 22, 2007

a poster says: "WOW!!! Look I understand the idea of Gender Equity.... But womens rowing gets 20 scholorships????"
----------------------------------------------------------

this is merely an effort to balance mens vs womens scholarship number, have to offset footballs effect on the mens side. i read in Wall St Journal years ago that some Colleges seeking to fill their Womens Rowing Teams were advertising in newspapers for women who wanted a full rowing scholarship to try out for the team, no experience needed. Yes its true.

Ms Thoburn,
good plan & ideas, but as always they are nothing without leaders.

and of course the prime time to fight was in the 1970s and 80s, BEFORE we lost all these scholarships. Alot easier to fight to keep what you have--- once its gone much much harder to ever get it back because once its gone now the program is out of the budget, disbanded, out of the picture, no coaching staff or team and have no negotiating power.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Hank Kornblut added to this discussion on July 22, 2007

Mary--Very impressive post and one worth sharing with the leadership of USA Wrestling, NWCA, etc...

As Bob noted, getting started is the hard part. Someone has to take the helm and begin pulling together the coalition of leaders in other affected sports.

Sounds to me like you have a fair amount of experience in the political arena.



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Discussion Topic: Oregon dropping wrestling!
Mary Thoburn added to this discussion on July 22, 2007

Yes, this effort would take a strong leader. As a 50 year old woman paying for 2 college tuitions, I respectfully decline. Hank, I stayed at home with my kids for 16 years. I have always been interested in politics, running for office twice (batting .500), ran a campaign for a guy who won office as state representative. It was a great way to keep the intellectual blood moving while vacuuming up legos. So my life now consists of working from dark thirty to dark thirty and writing large tuition checks.

Spearheading such a large undertaking would take someone with a great deal of passion, who is willing to put in the necessary hours. I know, only too well, how crusades can consume one's life. That is why I added the comment about compensation. No one should be expected to do this without mitigating the personal sacrifices involved. I also know that one person can make a difference.

There is someone out there who could do it. They just have to step forward. I would certainly do all in my power to help.

Bob - I understand your feelings. At what point do we draw a line in the sand and protect the little that remains?



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