At what cost is it viable? WCBB article about Louisville

[UcMiami]

The NCAA sells two major products for TV rights - The Men's tournament (CBS/Turner) is one 'product', and the other product is '24 other tournaments (ESPN)' So while I suspect the actually revenue for the women's tournament is positive between gate and what a network would pay for it stand-alone, the number is never calculated because the other 23 tournaments that are losing lots of money get partially funded by that combined contract.

 

[HuskyMJ]

This is correct.....women's basketball coaches are paid disproportionately more than other non-revenue sports. I'm guessing this is because it simply looks bad if men's coaches are all making over a million/year while women's coaches are making just a couple hundred thousand per year, especially if the women's coach is better than the men's. IIRC, UT always made sure Pat Summitt was the top paid coach at Tennessee out of respect even though men's basketball made more money for the school. I'm not sure if she paved the way for women's basketball coaches to be paid so much, but the end result is that the women's coaches are paid more at most schools than they deserve from an economic standpoint.

Its interesting because I was reading the article about Louisville WBB losing a ton of money, but instead of giving coaches more money just because MBB coaches are paid so much, why not fund the program more in areas where the KIDS benefit? Louisville MBB spends more than 3x the money on travel than WBB team. How is this possible? Do they charter every flight while WBB maybe flies commercial? Do they stay in 5 star hotels while WBB stays in maybe 3-4 star hotels? For equipment, uniforms and supplies, Louisville MBB spent $600k to WBB's $14k. These are direct areas where kids can benefit. So yeah if WBB coaches were paid more like volleyball coaches I would not mind, because then this money could be used on the kids. Its just backwards to keep spending more and more on coaches when there is no money being made. Now at least some universities make a lot of money on athletics but many are doing poorly. Here's an article on Oregon State, since the original poster who disagreed with me on the money thing is AN OSU fan.

In 2017 Scott Rueck got a big raise. He's done great work at Oregon State, I get it. Source: Scott Rueck to net more than $4 million as part of 5-year extension

Rueck eared $1,245,004 during his first five years at Oregon State. He will earn $4,094,216 during the final five-year period of his current deal, a difference of more than $2.8 million.

But is this raise prudent economically speaking?

Some 15 years later, however, Oregon State’s athletic department sits more than $40 million in debt. OSU will operate in the fiscal year 2018 another $6.5 million upside down.

Source: Canzano: Why Oregon State should be more upset with the Pac-12 than anyone

 

[brownale]

Its interesting because I was reading the article about Louisville WBB losing a ton of money, but instead of giving coaches more money just because MBB coaches are paid so much, why not fund the program more in areas where the KIDS benefit? Louisville MBB spends more than 3x the money on travel than WBB team. How is this possible? Do they charter every flight while WBB maybe flies commercial? Do they stay in 5 star hotels while WBB stays in maybe 3-4 star hotels? For equipment, uniforms and supplies, Louisville MBB spent $600k to WBB's $14k. These are direct areas where kids can benefit. So yeah if WBB coaches were paid more like volleyball coaches I would not mind, because then this money could be used on the kids. Its just backwards to keep spending more and more on coaches when there is no money being made. Now at least some universities make a lot of money on athletics but many are doing poorly. Here's an article on Oregon State, since the original poster who disagreed with me on the money thing is AN OSU fan.

In 2017 Scott Rueck got a big raise. He's done great work at Oregon State, I get it. Source: Scott Rueck to net more than $4 million as part of 5-year extension

Rueck eared $1,245,004 during his first five years at Oregon State. He will earn $4,094,216 during the final five-year period of his current deal, a difference of more than $2.8 million.

But is this raise prudent economically speaking?

Some 15 years later, however, Oregon State’s athletic department sits more than $40 million in debt. OSU will operate in the fiscal year 2018 another $6.5 million upside down.

Source: Canzano: Why Oregon State should be more upset with the Pac-12 than anyone

Maybe the OSU athletic dept is part of the business school courses - "How not to operate a corporation"

 

[Ozimoto]

The whole college athletic model as it exists now makes no sense economically. It is certainly true that exposure for the school from the success (or not) of athletic teams helps with name exposure. Successful athletic teams "might" encourage general students to go to a particular school because they want to be part of the atmosphere surrounding successful athletic teams. However, I doubt that the economic impact to the overall health of the school is of any real significance. With the ridiculous cost of a college education, the success of sports teams is going to have even less impact on the number of general student applications a school receives. When my kids started looking at schools they thought the idea of going to a school with big time athletics would be a cool thing to do, but they quickly realized that what was most important was cost and the programs the school offered, not the school's success on the athletic field.

At major programs, especially for football, the students can't attend the games easily (they get their tickets through a lottery system) as a large portion of the stadium seating is set aside for season ticket holders who have to pay a fee for the privilege of buying those season tickets.

 

[j66kicker]

Rueck eared $1,245,004 during his first five years at Oregon State. He will earn $4,094,216 during the final five-year period of his current deal, a difference of more than $2.8 million.

But is this raise prudent economically speaking?

Some 15 years later, however, Oregon State’s athletic department sits more than $40 million in debt. OSU will operate in the fiscal year 2018 another $6.5 million upside down.

Source: Canzano: Why Oregon State should be more upset with the Pac-12 than anyone

Only if they want to retain Rueck and have a winning program. It's supply and demand, the foundation of our nation's capitalistic economy. If they started capping the salaries of WCBB coaches that would solve the problem (??) of men coaches coming over to take the jobs of potential woman WCBB coaches.

 

[HuskyMJ]

Only if they want to retain Rueck and have a winning program. It's supply and demand, the foundation of our nation's capitalistic economy. If they started capping the salaries of WCBB coaches that would solve the problem (??) of men coaches coming over to take the jobs of potential woman WCBB coaches.

I'm not saying there should be a cap, but you bring up economics. If an athletic department is tens of millions of dollars in debt, why are they outbidding themselves to raise the salary so much of a coach whose program loses money? There are athletics departments like Stanford that make enough money to rationalize overpaying for a lot of sports coaches in the non revenues. But a lot of schools don't have that money.

In fact, many of these schools are using money from students or taxpayers to run their athletic department. I think those universities should have some responsibility to be good stewards of that money.

At a time of tight budgets throughout higher education, even the nation's few financially self-sufficient major-college athletics departments are continuing to receive subsidies in the form of student fees, school or state support, a USA TODAY Sports analysis finds. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/05/07/ncaa-finances-subsidies/2142443/

 

[j66kicker]

In fact, many of these schools are using money from students or taxpayers to run their athletic department. I think those universities should have some responsibility to be good stewards of that money.

At a time of tight budgets throughout higher education, even the nation's few financially self-sufficient major-college athletics departments are continuing to receive subsidies in the form of student fees, school or state support, a USA TODAY Sports analysis finds. Most NCAA Division I athletic departments take subsidies

When the taxpayers are tired of their state universities being competitive in sports, a political process is available if the majority would rather stop paying for it.

 

[HuskyMJ]

When the taxpayers are tired of their state universities being competitive in sports, a political process is available if the majority would rather stop paying for it.

Not paying millions in coaches salaries for non revenue sports, if an athletics department is having financial issues, does not equate to not being competitive in sports. That's a huge leap you are taking but ok.

 

[j66kicker]

Not paying millions in coaches salaries for non revenue sports, if an athletics department is having financial issues, does not equate to not being competitive in sports. That's a huge leap you are taking but ok.

Not paying millions in coaches salaries for non revenue sports, if an athletics department is having financial issues, does not equate to not being competitive in sports. That's a huge leap you are taking but ok.

Not paying competitive coaching salaries in non-profitable sports, such as WBB, means not being competitive for sure. Maybe all public universities can do it and we'll just leave all the winning to Stanford, Notre Dame and Baylor.

Plus Title IX forces schools to spend as much money on women's sports as men's sports. So scaling back coaching salaries in WBB just means a university would have to do more scholarship stuffing like they already do with women's rowing, etc. That might benefit some mediocre student athletes with a free education, but I don't feel more obligated to support that with my tax dollars than I do a competitive WBB team.

 

[bennyskid]

So . . . figure that the B/W ad rate for a typical big city newspaper is $200/inch or more. Small-town papers, about $20/inch. USA Today is about a quarter-million per page (or about $2500/inch). So just the PRINT coverage of, say, the UConn-ND game - which was multiple column-inches in USA Today, several major newspapers, and every little paper in New England - is worth some tens of thousands of dollars to the schools. Probably more - free positive press is generally far more effective than conventional advertising.

And that's just print.

 

[Zinethar]

Bean counters and statisticians can make numbers do what they want. I'm a bit surprised at some of the comments here. National Parks lose money. High schools get tax payer money. Most people value things for reasons other than money.