RU still throwing money at football dream

[TRest]

Didn't see it posted here so worth a read for those who care:http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/despite_success_on_the_field_b.html

I can't pretend to know the intricasies of the stadium expansion financing, etc., but do recall many RU fans claiming increased ticket sales would pay for it. This article states that ain't happening.

 

[FDNY99]

And it also states who is going to foot the bill...and it isn't going to be the athletic department anymore. From what I understood from that article Pernetti is going to shift the debt from the bonds used to expand the stadium from his budget to the school's budget. Now if he can only start selling tickets instead of giving most of them away he can get his $10,000 bonus!

 

[whaler11]

If it's true.. the fact that the professors don't have office phones is almost hard to believe.

 

[coachRD]

Didn't see it posted here so worth a read for those who care:http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/despite_success_on_the_field_b.html

I can't pretend to know the intricasies of the stadium expansion financing, etc., but do recall many RU fans claiming increased ticket sales would pay for it. This article states that ain't happening.

Crazy the penis-envy that the entire population of RU decision-makers had with the move to go big time at RU, long-term planning be damned.....Some of my favorite parts of that article include:

1) Their AD saying (paraphrasing) "Well, if you don't count the stadium expansion cost, and the millions of interest on the stadium expansion, then the football team turned a modest profit." Riiiight....because that's how it works-Discount the huge cluster-$K horrible financial decision to expand beyond TRUE demand that is a storm cloud hanging over the entire University, and things don't look so bad! Kind of like saying "Hey, if you take away those plays our team got torched on, they played great!"

2) Their school President saying that not a dime of school money would be diverted to pay for the stadium expansion....I guess by "not a dime" he ACTUALLY meant "a Crap load of school money" would be used. Same difference.

I am a believer in you reap what you sow, and I think it's appropriate in this case as well for RU. However, I'm not heartless. I hope their next University President has some brains and stops their train from completely going off the tracks. The only thing worse than their gigantic mistake of paying Schiano 2.5M per year and this insane stadium expansion is the fact that they are digging the hole even deeper even though it's clear they made a mistake. It's like they are digging in their heels, refusing to acknowledge they screwed up. Enough is enough. Rival or not, they are a good local school with a lot to offer. Don't F it up anymore than you already have!

 

[upstater]

And it also states who is going to foot the bill...and it isn't going to be the athletic department anymore. From what I understood from that article Pernetti is going to shift the debt from the bonds used to expand the stadium from his budget to the school's budget. Now if he can only start selling tickets instead of giving most of them away he can get his $10,000 bonus!

Unless bond funds are insane, who would buy a bond from Rutgers football? The school issued the bonds in the first place, so it only makes sense that the school foots the bill.

I've been saying this quite awhile now. When people figure out how much revenue/profit an AD brings in, they never look into the bond interest that the school is servicing. Someone who looked at UTexas noted they are holding over 250 million in debt for athletics, all being serviced by the school. Granted, UT athletics brings in a ton of money, but servicing that much debt is not easy.

 

[upstater]

If it's true.. the fact that the professors don't have office phones is almost hard to believe.

I'm sure the professors don't mind. This is only a problem for students.

 

[UConn9604]

I've been saying this quite awhile now. When people figure out how much revenue/profit an AD brings in, they never look into the bond interest that the school is servicing. Someone who looked at UTexas noted they are holding over 250 million in debt for athletics, all being serviced by the school. Granted, UT athletics brings in a ton of money, but servicing that much debt is not easy.

One could say the same thing about us -- The Rent (entirely) and Shenkman/Burton (mostly) were built with State-bonded funds.

 

[mattp]

i love how the article calls West Virginia a long time rival. it's like saying chum is the shark's rival. i can't believe it says only 59% of the fans paid for their tickets, whereas before it was 76%. how can that be right? talk about gorilla math. they would crow about their waiting list, while 25% of their stadium didn't even pay for a ticket? it seems to me that even a monkey could figure out the easiest way to juice up revenue would have been to stop giving all those tickets away, but instead they expand and give away more tickets. judging the numbers it doesn't seem as if their ticket sales have increased at all as a result of the expansion. (76% of 40k is 30k; 59% of 52k is 30.6k, and thats assuming sellouts). only in New Jersey does that math make a project necessary

 

[mattp]

One could say the same thing about us -- The Rent (entirely) and Shenkman/Burton (mostly) were built with State-bonded funds.

but we spent 90m to build 40k seats, rutgers spent 100m to add 11k seats. the math is a lot different, especially since apparently there was zero increased sales as a result of the added seats. it was pretty much a 100m charity set up to help people watch Rutgers football.

i love at the end where they say starting next year they'll no longer count the $6 million in debt service as an expense so they'll appear more profitable. remember this when next year we hear articles trumpeting that they made $1 million in profits. talk about fuzzy accounting

 

[upstater]

One could say the same thing about us -- The Rent (entirely) and Shenkman/Burton (mostly) were built with State-bonded funds.

Not UConn funds however.

 

[UConn9604]

but we spent 40m to build 40k seats, rutgers spent 100m to add 11k seats. the math is a lot different, especially since apparently there was zero increased sales as a result of the added seats. it was pretty much a 100m charity set up to help people watch Rutgers football.

Oh, I definitely agree. We spent about $125 million ($91 for The Rent and $34 for the facilities, ballpark), and bought a Division I-A, Big East Champion football program, which we didn't have before.

They spent $110 million to buy... something they already had. New Jersey might as well have wrapped their bonds around a cardboard tube and installed them in the rest rooms at the RAC.

 

[mattp]

Oh, I definitely agree. We spent about $125 million ($91 for The Rent and $34 for the facilities, ballpark), and bought a Division I-A, Big East Champion football program, which we didn't have before.

They spent $110 million to buy... something they already had. New Jersey might as well have wrapped their bonds around a cardboard tube and installed them in the rest rooms at the RAC.

not only that, but the Rent is the only large stadium located in central CT so it'll attract a lot of non FB related events like concerts, USA soccer, etcetera. New Jersey already has the Meadowlands (newly built mind you) 30 minutes away that takes all the Bon Jovi and Springstein concerts, state fairs, etcetera that could provide ancillary income. it was a boondoggle, and Ito's rekick against Louisville in 2006 has ended up costing the state of NJ a lot of money.

 

[Dann]

sooooo could uconn fans buy up all the bonds and own rutgers? kind of like china?

 

[freescooter]

I guess I have two problems with this type of analysis. First and foremost is the idea that college athletics should be profitable. I'm not sure where it comes from and it is relatively recent. If the university doesn't think athletics are valuable enough to make a finacial contribution, they should simply drop their programs. It really is that straight forward. Lots of D-3 programs operate at much smaller budgets, too and they make no pretense of covering their costs. Those schools have made a determination that having football, or basketball or baseball or whatever is something positive for the college and they fund athletics.

My second problem is facilities costs. Generally speaking, I believe that capital spending is a university responsibility (and depending on the state and the nature of the speciific state's budget, the state government responsibility). An expanded football stadium is a university responsibility every bit as much as a new physics building is. And ought to be paid for the same way. As a practical matter, the typical undergraduate probably gets as much direct access to some new high tech physics lab as he does to the football stadium. Maybe less. It would also mean that football stadiums (and basketball practice gymnasia for that matter) would have to compete for funding with physics buildings and that would require them to demonstrate their value on a regular basis.

 

[upstater]

I guess I have two problems with this type of analysis. First and foremost is the idea that college athletics should be profitable. I'm not sure where it comes from and it is relatively recent. If the university doesn't think athletics are valuable enough to make a finacial contribution, they should simply drop their programs. It really is that straight forward. Lots of D-3 programs operate at much smaller budgets, too and they make no pretense of covering their costs. Those schools have made a determination that having football, or basketball or baseball or whatever is something positive for the college and they fund athletics.

My second problem is facilities costs. Generally speaking, I believe that capital spending is a university responsibility (and depending on the state and the nature of the speciific state's budget, the state government responsibility). An expanded football stadium is a university responsibility every bit as much as a new physics building is. And ought to be paid for the same way. As a practical matter, the typical undergraduate probably gets as much direct access to some new high tech physics lab as he does to the football stadium. Maybe less. It would also mean that football stadiums (and basketball practice gymnasia for that matter) would have to compete for funding with physics buildings and that would require them to demonstrate their value on a regular basis.

You're equating things that shouldn't be equated. What is the university's mission? If it's education first, that gets the priority.

Here we have a school cutting academic programs and losing money bigtime on football. Rhode Island loses $3 million a year on all their sports, Rutgers loses $30 million. That's the difference.

But if you're cutting programs, and if (as happened at Oklahoma st.) you can't bond out the new facilities that need to be built in support of a massive research grant you won, because your big donor's donation for the building of a football stadium fell through, then you see athletics eating into the school's core mission.

That's what's going on at Rutgers.

Mention of more applications and 5 point rises in SATs is just total rubbish.

 

[mattp]

. An expanded football stadium is a university responsibility every bit as much as a new physics building is..

it is a responsibility, and therefore should be done responsibly. the RU stadium expansion is not the equivilent of replacing Arjona and Monteith, it's the equivilent of building a brand new state of the art physics lab when you don't have a physics department, and have no intention of adding one in the foreseeable future

 

[UConn9604]

not only that, but the Rent is the only large stadium located in central CT so it'll attract a lot of non FB related events like concerts, USA soccer, etcetera. New Jersey already has the Meadowlands (newly built mind you) 30 minutes away that takes all the Bon Jovi and Springstein concerts, state fairs, etcetera that could provide ancillary income. it was a boondoggle, and Ito's rekick against Louisville in 2006 has ended up costing the state of NJ a lot of money.

This point is particularly valid, too, with respect to football: if they were really, really confident that they would soon see a massive expansion of their fan base after 2006, they could have gone with a hybrid model in which they played one or two games a year at the Meadowlands, and the rest on campus (like Gampel and the Civic Center, or like what Cincinnati is starting to do with Nippert and Paul Brown), before breaking ground on the boondoggle.

This would have allowed them to play a home game or two in a market that they supposedly own and to demonstrate their ability to fill a bigger arena before actually building one.

Our transition to I-A certainly saw its share of bumps and bruises, but I am thankful for (and pleased with) just about every major decision we've made.

 

[coachRD]

i love how the article calls West Virginia a long time rival. it's like saying chum is the shark's rival. i can't believe it says only 59% of the fans paid for their tickets, whereas before it was 76%. how can that be right? talk about gorilla math. they would crow about their waiting list, while 25% of their stadium didn't even pay for a ticket? it seems to me that even a monkey could figure out the easiest way to juice up revenue would have been to stop giving all those tickets away, but instead they expand and give away more tickets. judging the numbers it doesn't seem as if their ticket sales have increased at all as a result of the expansion. (76% of 40k is 30k; 59% of 52k is 30.6k, and thats assuming sellouts). only in New Jersey does that math make a project necessary

Too true to be "funny" but very funny opening line and sadly-accurate as well throughout the entire comment.

 

[freescooter]

You're equating things that shouldn't be equated. What is the university's mission? If it's education first, that gets the priority.

Here we have a school cutting academic programs and losing money bigtime on football. Rhode Island loses $3 million a year on all their sports, Rutgers loses $30 million. That's the difference.

But if you're cutting programs, and if (as happened at Oklahoma st.) you can't bond out the new facilities that need to be built in support of a massive research grant you won, because your big donor's donation for the building of a football stadium fell through, then you see athletics eating into the school's core mission.

That's what's going on at Rutgers.

Mention of more applications and 5 point rises in SATs is just total rubbish.

upstater, I think we actually agree on this. It should be a university responsibility, but it shoud have to compete with the new physics building, should have to justify itself. In the current system, where athletic facilities are not part of the overall university "system" but are funded on their own, at least in theory, you have a huge potential for a Rutgers Stadium or an Oklahoma State. In effect a situation where the university has to "bail out" the athletic department. I want a situation where the university plans for and decides when to fund and build both.

 

[upstater]

upstater, I think we actually agree on this. It should be a university responsibility, but it shoud have to compete with the new physics building, should have to justify itself. In the current system, where athletic facilities are not part of the overall university "system" but are funded on their own, at least in theory, you have a huge potential for a Rutgers Stadium or an Oklahoma State. In effect a situation where the university has to "bail out" the athletic department. I want a situation where the university plans for and decides when to fund and build both.

I don't think we agree actually. You wrote that it should have equal interest in funding a physics building or a football stadium. I totally disagree with that. One is part of the university's core mission. The other isn't.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Gotta laugh at this quote from Pernetti:

"The success of the football team has been the biggest single thing for the university in the last 10 years," Pernetti said.

 

[FDNY99]

There were some poster's either here or on TOS before The Boneyard was moved; that argued with me about the fact that the bonds were not really sold by the state but an agency that was self sufficient. My argument was that if it was a state agency, and the project was done on university property...that the state of NJ was ultimately responsible for the bonds...and that like you said would come out of the general budget at Rutgers.

Unless bond funds are insane, who would buy a bond from Rutgers football? The school issued the bonds in the first place, so it only makes sense that the school foots the bill.

I've been saying this quite awhile now. When people figure out how much revenue/profit an AD brings in, they never look into the bond interest that the school is servicing. Someone who looked at UTexas noted they are holding over 250 million in debt for athletics, all being serviced by the school. Granted, UT athletics brings in a ton of money, but servicing that much debt is not easy.