Dear AD Benedict/UConn BOT: Spend Some Goddam Money On Football

[whaler11]

Honest question - what exactly has women's basketball done for UConn? They've lost like 10 games the past decade and it still doesn't even cause a blip on the P5 radar.

in cr its a net negative because it has made us a square peg

 

[Dooley]

That wouldn't help FB. It would just leave UConn with no games of any kind on ESPN.

Cutting the WBB budget doesn't change the fact that we are not "operating on level footing with our traditional geographic enemies - Syracuse, BC, Rutgers (!), Pitt, etc." Not one bit. A new conference affiliation is the only thing that would. I'd slash everything but FB MBB, hockey, WBB, baseball (plus the necessary Title IX sports to offset) before I'd cut WBB. WBB is one of our few successful brands. It is crazy to cut that. You can find far more compelling candidates in the upper half of this list.

Re-distributing $500K/yr from WBB to football would have raised Dunn enough for him to stay.

I agree that other programs are much higher on the cut list than WBB. My frustration is completely tied to us outspending the entire country, by a pretty substantial margin, to pay our WBB coaches but falling to the bottom quarter of our own G5 conference to pay our football coaches. Not smart money management whatsoever.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

in cr its a net negative because it has made us a square peg

Not to mention divided the fanbase 3 ways between women's hoops, men's hoops and football.

Connecticut is legitimately the only state in the nation where you could say "Geno and da girls, would give the boys a run for their money!" and not only have people not think you're insane, but actually agree with you.

 

[Dooley]

That's why I'm at. Make what is hopefully a temporary slash and hope to get into the P5. If they don't someday make it to the P5, the programs will be permanently closed anyways. At least this gives it hope.

Yup! Do what we need to do to fix football before 2025. After 2025, do what we need to do to balance our AD budget.

 

[CL82]

Honest question - what exactly has women's basketball done for UConn? They've lost like 10 games the past decade and it still doesn't even cause a blip on the P5 radar.

Off the top of my head? It was a big part of ground swell for UConn 2000. It dramatically raises our profile by giving us more ESPN and CBS games than the vast majority of men's programs. It gets higher ratings for big games than most men's programs. It enhances our national profile.

What has it done for our conference realignment bid, about as much as 4 time national championship men's program has done... absolutely nothing, or at least close enough to nothing that it doesn't matter.

 

[Dooley]

Honest question - what exactly has women's basketball done for UConn? They've lost like 10 games the past decade and it still doesn't even cause a blip on the P5 radar.

I'm sure if we polled our entire fanbase, the majority of responses would be in favor of cutting football over cutting WBB. I will never understand it either, not with so much money (and a self-sustaining AD that can support WBB and every other sport) on the line.

Again, I'm not advocating for dropping WBB. I'm just advocating for UConn to properly fund football and using WBB as an example of where we could find money to do it.

 

[Waquoit]

Honest question - what exactly has women's basketball done for UConn?

Besides the new basketball facility? The big donations came from WBB fans and players. And don't forget UConn 2000. The good feelings and pride generated from the WBB team at that time is what propelled that initiative into reality.

 

[CL82]

in cr its a net negative because it has made us a square peg

Lol, who gives a rat's ass about the woman's basketball program for conference realignment? No one. It's definitely not net negative though.

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

Exactly. We have "fans" here bragging that they're not buying season tickets while at the same time insisting that they spend more money.

I don't think anybody here is bragging about it. It's just hard to justify spending that kind of money on a terrible product that can easily be had for a much cheaper price.

Like yeah we should all spend $15/month on HBO Go but also you can use your girlfriend's password.

 

[CL82]

Re-distributing $500K/yr from WBB to football would have raised Dunn enough for him to stay.

I agree that other programs are much higher on the cut list than WBB. My frustration is completely tied to us outspending the entire country, by a pretty substantial margin, to pay our WBB coaches but falling to the bottom quarter of our own G5 conference to pay our football coaches. Not smart money management whatsoever.

Wrong target. WBB actually delivers value for us. That's not the first place to cut.

 

[Dooley]

Wrong target. WBB actually delivers value for us. That's not the first place to cut.

To be clear, I'm not saying WBB is my top target. Just an example of us outbidding ourselves in a sport that the bidding, as a whole, is relatively low.

Hypothetical question - if Geno retires tomorrow, do we continue to spend $2.4M/yr on his replacement? Or do we hire in the $1M/yr range that most of the country sits in?

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Besides the new basketball facility? The big donations came from WBB fans and players. And don't forget UConn 2000. The good feelings and pride generated from the WBB team at that time is what propelled that initiative into reality.

Maybe you're right - I don't happen to know who donated what to the facility. Who made the biggest donations? I guess I'll have to concede the other points. I don't care about the team, but some people truly do, so you win that.

Off the top of my head? It was a big part of ground swell for UConn 2000. It dramatically raises our profile by giving us more ESPN and CBS games than the vast majority of men's programs. It gets higher ratings for big games than most men's programs. It enhances our national profile.

What has it done for our conference realignment bid, about as much as 4 time national championship men's program has done... absolutely nothing, or at least close enough to nothing that it doesn't matter.

The only reason we were even discussed by the ACC was due to the men's hoops program. It's a zero sum game with CR, but we've been the runner-up multiple times entirely due to men's hoops in spite of football.

I guess my rub is that people think of UConn as a women's basketball school and actually is a detriment when talking CR.

As I said above, I'll concede other people do like it and support it in ways that I don't.

 

[CL82]

To be clear, I'm not saying WBB is my top target. Just an example of us outbidding ourselves in a sport that the bidding, as a whole, is relatively low.

Hypothetical question - if Geno retires tomorrow, do we continue to spend $2.4M/yr on his replacement? Or do we hire in the $1M/yr range that most of the country sits in?

Great question. I don't know enough about it to answer intelligently except to say that we shouldn't pay Geno's successor HOF 11 time nat'l champ money just because they follow a HOFer 11 time nat'l champ.

 

[CL82]

Maybe you're right - I don't happen to know who donated what to the facility. Who made the biggest donations? I guess I'll have to concede the other points. I don't care about the team, but some people truly do, so you win that.



The only reason we were even discussed by the ACC was due to the men's hoops program. It's a zero sum game with CR, but we've been the runner-up multiple times entirely due to men's hoops in spite of football.

I guess my rub is that people think of UConn as a women's basketball school and actually is a detriment when talking CR.

As I said above, I'll concede other people do like it and support it in ways that I don't.

Well and because we play football right?

The reasons we didn't get in? Well once because another school was afraid to compete, but once because we are considered a MBB school, once because NJ has the same population density as Calcutta and once because BYU's administration doesn't want visible signs of gay relationships on their campus.

But not one of those lost opportunities was due to our having a successful WBB program. Not...one.

 

[Dooley]

Great question. I don't know enough about it to answer intelligently except to say that we shouldn't pay Geno's successor HOF 11 time nat'l champ money just because they follow a HOFer 11 time nat'l champ.

That's definitely a fair point. Trust me, I hope he doesn't retire.

UConn has to make some very tough decisions in the coming years. We need to figure out how to spend less as an AD as a whole while figuring out a way to spend more in football.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Well and because we play football right?

The reasons we didn't get in? Well once because another school was afraid to compete, but once because we are considered a MBB school, once because NJ has the same population density as Calcutta and once because BYU's administration doesn't want visible signs of gay relationships on their campus.

But not one of those lost opportunities was due to our having a successful WBB program. Not...one.

It's never a negative I suppose, but given where the AD is right now, it just seems wasteful.

We've hired our 2nd OL coach to be our OC, whose never called a play in their lives, in 4 years, while paying our womens basketball coach $2M+ to lose money.

Something doesn't seem right with that.

 

[CL82]

That's definitely a fair point. Trust me, I hope he doesn't retire.

UConn has to make some very tough decisions in the coming years. We need to figure out how to spend less as an AD as a whole while figuring out a way to spend more in football.

There is an amazing amount of waste in the AD. I'd love to be able go through it line item by line item. I'm confident that there is millions of waste that could be weeded out. I've taken that much out of far smaller budgets.

That said football needs time. Throwing money at it right now isn't going to help much. We've got to stem the hemorrhaging and get a watchable product back on the field. That's on Randy. I'll tell you that this morning, I'm not confident it will happen.

 

[CL82]

It's never a negative I suppose, but given where the AD is right now, it just seems wasteful.

We've hired our 2nd OL coach to be our OC, whose never called a play in their lives, in 4 years, while paying our womens basketball coach $2M+ to lose money.

Something doesn't seem right with that.

There's something you are missing in your analysis:

I've got no issues with rewarding success.

 

[Dooley]

It's never a negative I suppose, but given where the AD is right now, it just seems wasteful.

We've hired our 2nd OL coach to be our OC, whose never called a play in their lives, in 4 years, while paying our womens basketball coach $2M+ to lose money.

Something doesn't seem right with that.

Agree. We could pay Geno a gazillion dollars a year for all I care as long as we didn't have to hold bake sales to keep assistant football coaches. We keep losing our top assistant coaches for lateral (or worse) jobs and refusing to increase our pool...yet expecting to improve.

 

[Dooley]

There is an amazing amount of waste in the AD. I'd love to be able go through it line item by line item. I'm confident that there is millions of waste that could be weeded out. I've taken that much out of far smaller budgets.

That said football needs time. Throwing money at it right now isn't going to help much. We've got to stem the hemorrhaging and get a watchable product back on the field. That's on Randy. I'll tell you that this morning, I'm not confident it will happen.

Agree. Even if we have to pare down to running an AD that only supports a half dozen or so sports, so be it. We can restore programs after we start to make more money.

 

[CL82]

Agree. We could pay Geno a gazillion dollars a year for all I care as long as we didn't have to hold bake sales to keep assistant football coaches. We keep losing our top assistant coaches for lateral (or worse) jobs and refusing to increase our pool...yet expecting to improve.

Agree but the FB vs WBB is a false choice.

 

[CL82]

Agree. Even if we have to pare down to running an AD that only supports a half dozen or so sports, so be it. We can restore programs after we start to make more money.

Do administrative cuts first. It doesn't penalize the athletes and the AD is very top heavy. If people want to criticize Benedict, this is the place to start. It doesn't eliminate the deficit but it is a very significant amount of money.

 

[uconnell]

Leave the 3primary revenue producing (such as that may be) alone and shutdown the non revenue producing sports (temporarily. We must bite the bullet to save the other sports.
I don’t care if the AD has to dig ditches, go find the $$ somewhere! Anywhere to pay gOOD football coaches the going rate.
Would you feel comfortable working for a company when your boss has to give you a raise out of his own pocket or would you be concerned about the viability of that company?

 

[Dooley]

Do administrative cuts first. It doesn't penalize the athletes and the AD is very top heavy. If people want to criticize Benedict, this is the place to start. It doesn't eliminate the deficit but it is a very significant amount of money.

We've wasted an exceptional amount of money in the last few years alone on hiring Aspire and needlessly shooting ourselves in the foot with Diaco and Ollie buyout terms. Re-addressing our venue lease terms is a must going forward. Makes zero sense to play games at the XL that draws crowds that are much less than what Gampel holds.

 

[Hoophound]

I think the time to throw more money at football will be when we hire our NEXT head coach. I'd normally say Edsall needs the money for his staff to succeed but I feel that he's made some very bad choices this time around. I don't think he can recruit at the level he needs to in order to succeed either. If I am the new President, I get through next season and assess whether or not to fire Randy and make a splash hire or retain Randy and find him the money for a good staff. I have a feeling that another terrible season and the questions that come with it will cause Randy to get pretty grumpy and things may spiral out of control.

At that point, the next coach needs to be someone that is "out of our league". That's what it will take to bring in talent and bring back fans. I'd quietly be planning for it right now by figuring out where to trim the fat in the AD.