Athletic $ per Full-time Undergrad

Aquila_Viridis · June 12, 2016

Full-time
Undergraduates Athletic Expenses Ath $ per FTU

Florida 30,314 $125,384,443 $4,136
LT 6,585 $21,849,418 $3,318
Marshall 8,268 $27,397,209 $3,313
OD 15,102 $42,780,118 $2,832
USM 10,841 $24,546,909 $2,264
WK 13,382 $30,212,548 $2,257
Chattanooga 9,066 $17,359,207 $1,914
FA 15,891 $29,794,361 $1,874
MT 17,381 $31,671,166 $1,822
Charlotte 18,309 $28,573,920 $1,560
NT 23,669 $31,268,741 $1,321
UTSA 20,033 $26,177,864 $1,306

FTU #s are from US News 2015. Expense $ are from USA Today 2014-2015 Finances page.

I used to think that NT's enormous size is an advantage, but I have come to realize that it's only a potential advantage in the long run. With our current obesity, it is a huge disadvantage and challenge in the near term. Look at it this way: if a really big fat guy (that's us) and a somewhat out of shape small guy half his weight, lose the same absolute number of pounds, the small guy is still going to beat the big guy bad in a race. Only when the big guy loses twice (or more) as much weight are his long legs going to help him win the race. In the situation above, losing weight means spending money.

Universities love to benchmark. Above is a benchmarking exercise that shows how woefully underfunded NT leadership has allowed NT athletics to be. It is a serious disservice to the students, alumni and community, because the results of the major sports on the fields, courts and TV sets all say that NT is a crap university. That is not true, and people need to know it. For now, this September, I expect as usual that we'll be announcing to the 20 million people in the state Florida that the U of NT is a joke. I'll make a score prediction based on it: 41-13.

In the column on the right above you can see exactly how bad it is. I threw in our upcoming P5 powerhouse opponent and FCS Chattanooga, home of the Mocs, to give a broader sense of scale than just some of our conference foes. Not only do we have no hope of competing against Florida; based on this, I'd wager we would not compete consistently against Chattanooga or several other FCS teams.

If we are going to stay at this terrible level of funding, we need to be somewhere where we don't have to play the other teams in the top half of this list. Instead, I sincerely hope our institution's leaders would commit to getting competitive in the ratio on the right. And they can't just put it off on the many apathetic alumni. We few who do already care, need the university to take leadership to address this funding issue. They and their staffs can do far more about it in their day jobs than we few can. Most people who are 'apathetic' are that way because they have never been approached by the university on a specific basis about this and told what a major problem there is and why and what needs to be done
about it.

A coaching change, an AD change by themselves will not do it alone. I know all public universities are facing budget challenges, but hardly any other schools are finding less money for their athletics programs on a per capita basis. At a minimum, NT leadership must find a way to match FCS Chattanooga, or the major sports will continue to struggle. A more reasonable goal would be to double the current amount. Imagine where NT would be with that! So yes, it is - objectively, based on benchmarking - reasonable to expect, that our athletic budget should be $60,000,000 per year.

Obviously that's not going to come from TV or the NCAA or from 17 people. NT leadership has to get out there and find it from thousands of people and businesses in the North Texas region and from internal reallocation. It's not easy, but the results will be worth it many times over. It is time for NT leaders and staff to pound the pavement and beg for money, in a very specific way with explanation (not just 'we need money'), and to find a part of it by reprioritizing from some programs that have enjoyed relative overfunding. If the current leaders (the regents and the politicians included) are not willing to take and require such measures, then out they should all go.

oldguystudent · June 13, 2016

$60 million is a pretty lofty goal, but I'll give you kudos for not putting that entirely on the backs of the students.

New AD definitely needs to be out there sell, sell, selling.

Chris Del Conte was able to do it at TCU with his own version of the 17, but while the small pool of large donors has certainly raised UNT up to a different standard, it isn't enough to get us over the hill.

I've mentioned before, but got shot down (I forgot why, probably something to do with state employment), that I'd like to see tiered incentive bonuses for the AD staff responsible for bringing in donations. One of the issues I see with general staff in the AD is that they get paid peanuts. Without incentives, well, you get what you pay for.

Trend out attainable, annual growth. Employ people driven to achieve it. Profit.

Wag Tag · June 13, 2016

17 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Full-time
Undergraduates Athletic Expenses Ath $ per FTU

Florida 30,314 $125,384,443 $4,136
LT 6,585 $21,849,418 $3,318
Marshall 8,268 $27,397,209 $3,313
OD 15,102 $42,780,118 $2,832
USM 10,841 $24,546,909 $2,264
WK 13,382 $30,212,548 $2,257
Chattanooga 9,066 $17,359,207 $1,914
FA 15,891 $29,794,361 $1,874
MT 17,381 $31,671,166 $1,822
Charlotte 18,309 $28,573,920 $1,560
NT 23,669 $31,268,741 $1,321
UTSA 20,033 $26,177,864 $1,306

FTU #s are from US News 2015. Expense $ are from USA Today 2014-2015 Finances page.

I used to think that NT's enormous size is an advantage, but I have come to realize that it's only a potential advantage in the long run. With our current obesity, it is a huge disadvantage and challenge in the near term. Look at it this way: if a really big fat guy (that's us) and a somewhat out of shape small guy half his weight, lose the same absolute number of pounds, the small guy is still going to beat the big guy bad in a race. Only when the big guy loses twice (or more) as much weight are his long legs going to help him win the race. In the situation above, losing weight means spending money.

Universities love to benchmark. Above is a benchmarking exercise that shows how woefully underfunded NT leadership has allowed NT athletics to be. It is a serious disservice to the students, alumni and community, because the results of the major sports on the fields, courts and TV sets all say that NT is a crap university. That is not true, and people need to know it. For now, this September, I expect as usual that we'll be announcing to the 20 million people in the state Florida that the U of NT is a joke. I'll make a score prediction based on it: 41-13.

In the column on the right above you can see exactly how bad it is. I threw in our upcoming P5 powerhouse opponent and FCS Chattanooga, home of the Mocs, to give a broader sense of scale than just some of our conference foes. Not only do we have no hope of competing against Florida; based on this, I'd wager we would not compete consistently against Chattanooga or several other FCS teams.

If we are going to stay at this terrible level of funding, we need to be somewhere where we don't have to play the other teams in the top half of this list. Instead, I sincerely hope our institution's leaders would commit to getting competitive in the ratio on the right. And they can't just put it off on the many apathetic alumni. We few who do already care, need the university to take leadership to address this funding issue. They and their staffs can do far more about it in their day jobs than we few can. Most people who are 'apathetic' are that way because they have never been approached by the university on a specific basis about this and told what a major problem there is and why and what needs to be done
about it.

A coaching change, an AD change by themselves will not do it alone. I know all public universities are facing budget challenges, but hardly any other schools are finding less money for their athletics programs on a per capita basis. At a minimum, NT leadership must find a way to match FCS Chattanooga, or the major sports will continue to struggle. A more reasonable goal would be to double the current amount. Imagine where NT would be with that! So yes, it is - objectively, based on benchmarking - reasonable to expect, that our athletic budget should be $60,000,000 per year.

Obviously that's not going to come from TV or the NCAA or from 17 people. NT leadership has to get out there and find it from thousands of people and businesses in the North Texas region and from internal reallocation. It's not easy, but the results will be worth it many times over. It is time for NT leaders and staff to pound the pavement and beg for money, in a very specific way with explanation (not just 'we need money'), and to find a part of it by reprioritizing from some programs that have enjoyed relative overfunding. If the current leaders (the regents and the politicians included) are not willing to take and require such measures, then out they should all go.

I do not understand the rational of setting an Athletic budget based on number of students at the university. I could see it as it relates to the student fee. If you look at our current budget we are in the top half of our conference which probably means about the same for all G5 conferences . As we have seen with La Tech, limited budget size does not mean a poor product. The whole key is winning and being competitive. $ will follow. JUST WIN!

Aquila_Viridis · June 14, 2016

12 hours ago, Wag Tag said:

I do not understand the rational of setting an Athletic budget based on number of students at the university. I could see it as it relates to the student fee. If you look at our current budget we are in the top half of our conference which probably means about the same for all G5 conferences . As we have seen with La Tech, limited budget size does not mean a poor product. The whole key is winning and being competitive. $ will follow. JUST WIN!

The problem is we are not JUST WINNING. It doesn't just happen. There will not be many wins for '$ to follow', without more spending initially. This fantasy that the thing will grow itself is what has kept our program in the cellar for decades. The fact that we are not even competing consistently with these tiny universities even though spending some more money overall than they are, should say something. Maybe it's dilution; that athletics is not as big a part of the culture at NT as at those smaller schools. Whatever it is, instead of saying 'well we only have to spend $30 million to have a program at all, but not one that wins, so let's just spend $30 million', NT needs to accept that it must find a way to spend more. NT should not be trying to compete with tiny universities. It should be trying to compete with big universities.

As for the student fee, I don't know what it is at NT or at other universities. I do know from the above that $250 more per semester would go a long way to closing the gap in our conference. In that case, then the size SHOULD be an advantage. We have more people to spread it around on, so no one bears too much. Again, wherever you try go get the money from, they need to understand WHY.

13 hours ago, oldguystudent said:

New AD definitely needs to be out there sell, sell, selling.

I agree with this to some extent but honestly when I think of fundraising, it is as more of a Development function. Promotions is important, to build connection with the community, and should bring money from attendance, but that at first will only get a drop of what is needed. What we need must be executed like a fundraising campaign. I don't necessarily think of that as an athletic department function or expertise.