The big money in basketball is the tournament and the NCAA uses it for a variety of things not basketball related .
They wouldn't care how much money we spent if we didn't suck. We spend enough to be competitive. Can't change our region to a recruiting hotbed
“We spend enough to be competitive” is relative and I would pretty easily argue that 2 bowl games in 12 years says that we do not spend enough to be competitive with our existing schedules.
But we spend as much as teams that are competitive
That is the issue. You want results before investment.
There's a vocal and misinformed minority of basketball fans who don't give damn what goes on with the rest of the athletic department and think the basketball program operates in some kind of magical vacuum. I'm guessing we have one of the only major fanbases in college athletics where people actively root against their own school's programs.
Yes I think nowadays if we were good, people would be happy because it would give them hope of joining a power conference. At this point all of the influential people understand the need to be in a power conference. And you can't compare our spending to teams bringing in 30mm+ on their media deals. It's unreasonable.
It's not something to brag about.
I think you are wrong when you say if football was good people would be happy to get in a power conference. I think there is a sizeable
Jim. That is true, and that started a war at end of Hathaway regime that Manuel had to try and fix
If UConn football was dominate in the AAC we would have already been poached .
Given this year's tournament selections snubs to Seton Hall, and St. John's, you have to wonder whether Connecticut is in a "power basketball conference". When you have the Selection committee chairman saying no team in a major conference with 13 conference wins didn't get selected for the tournament, even even though Seton Hall did, it sure seems like that is not the case. We will have to see if this year was a one off.
You've said this often over the years. I find it hard to believe. People may prefer basketball to football. People may think that football draws off resources from basketball and want to drop the program. But I think, if any actually wants to have a football program that loses.
Why do you say that when, as said here, most of the original AAC members got into a Power 5 conference? We failed to take it seriously.
I agree, that was a comment from someone who seems like they had too many concussions over the years
I know several, and I just don't understand their mindset.
Everyone I know supports both
I dont think it's a sizable minority. I think it's a loud minority and I doubt any of them are decision-makers. There are a lot of apathetic people but I don't think many are left that are actively against the football program. The people that have a say understand the stakes. Saying we don't provide resources is just untrue. We're competing at the top of the G5 for resources. We'd be middle of the pack for "P4" spending if we had the media dollars. You can't compare our spending to the programs that bring in over $30m just on media alone. I'm not sure how that's hard to grasp.
There are those who have wanted to kill off the football program for decades. In the mid-70s it was the soccer crowd. UConn had a home game at Memorial Stadium against the St. Louis Billikins (then a national powerhouse) & fans of the men's soccer team were calling for the demise of the football team & the redirection of resources to the soccer program.
I agree that they didn't spend enough on football, but I disagree with your analysis. UConn's media revenues declined when they went to the AAC and so did revenues for tickets from football, basketball, and women's basketball. Thus, the AD deficit went up. And, the AD was flailing in the AAC even though football spending was still higher than basketball spending due to the poor football coaching hires. Ollie ended up not working out and there was the large financial settlement with him and they hied Hurley. When it became apparent that Hurley was successful, they dramatically boosted his salary. Between the Ollie payment and the payment for success, the basketball spending ballooned at the same time that men's basketball revenues increased. When UConn moved to the Big East, virtually all media revenues and NCAA money came from men's basketball so it made sense to invest in basketball. Football revenues have been static and so has investment. The only way for football investment to go up would be for sponsors and donors to increase investment and the AD has to get moving on that.
I wonder what's the outlier between UConn, NC, Kansas and Duke?
This was clear when Warde and Sue, told everyone that UConn fans needed to learn to support FB whether they were winning or losing. The losing had yet to really get rolling, but the crowds were starting to get smaller toward the end of Ps 2nd year.
Oh, I get the argument, though I think it's misplaced, that people would rather see the money spent towards football applied to other programs. But I don't think anyone wants us to continue to have a football program that loses. That would be the worst of all possible worlds. So the notion that people are actually rooting for Connecticut football to lose, I think is ill founded.