UNT Spends Least in the State on Recruiting

AustinFromUNT · April 9, 2018

Christopher Walker · April 9, 2018

Still the most concerning part of articles like these:

Quote

Even with the low recruiting expenses, UNT's 2016-17 report showed the Mean Green operated at a $4.2 million deficit during the previous year, the largest among the state's public FBS universities with football programs (private schools are exempt from the Texas Public Information Act).

UNT spent more than $4 million on paying off each of several athletic facilities, including Apogee Stadium, and on direct overhead and administrative expenses. Sensing the need for more funds, the university campaigned to raise the student athletic fee, a proposal the student body voted to approve in February. According to the Denton Record-Chronicle, it will result in a net increase of $3.5 million.

Salsa_Verde · April 9, 2018

So how can this be fixed? I was under the impression that most schools not named A&M and UT operate at a deficit?

meangreenJW · April 9, 2018

I still would like to see our budget in the UTSA range. But I think these expenses are just actual travel, hosting of recruit, kind of expenses. No personnel. For instance, we added Brett (graphics) and the new recruiting guy. I don't think that's factored in. What I hope is that our coaches get whatever they need/want(within reason) for recruiting. It truly is the lifeblood.

meangreenJW · April 9, 2018

6 minutes ago, Salsa_Verde said:

So how can this be fixed? I was under the impression that most schools not named A&M and UT operate at a deficit?

Pretty much all group of 5s do. UNT's deficit is larger because the fan base (think tickets sold) is still low. Growing but low. Yet, we are paying our coaches at a higher rate than most of those schools. Salaries are your highest expense. So when your top is expense is high and your top revenue is low, that's going to be a hole to dig out of.

Wren

Edited April 9, 2018 by meangreenJW

greenminer · April 9, 2018

54-32
69-31
41-17

Who's satisfied with just "getting by"?

Edited April 9, 2018 by greenminer

MGNation92 · April 9, 2018

And people wonder why Littrell's classes are among the worst in CUSA, despite two straight bowl games and explosive offensive numbers.

forevereagle · April 9, 2018

1 hour ago, meangreenJW said:

I still would like to see our budget in the UTSA range. But I think these expenses are just actual travel, hosting of recruit, kind of expenses. No personnel. For instance, we added Brett (graphics) and the new recruiting guy. I don't think that's factored in. What I hope is that our coaches get whatever they need/want(within reason) for recruiting. It truly is the lifeblood.

And there is the question. These numbers for different schools may be allotted differently depending on who is doing the counting. It is hard to truly compare the two numbers because we may not include salaries where A&M does. We may include the school paid for vehicle and travel in the coaching cost expense where UTSA includes it in the recruiting budget. Without being able to see each line item in the budget, it really is hard to get a full view of the expense and how comparable they are.

All that said, we need to increase the recruiting budget, but by how much is really the question.

oldguystudent · April 9, 2018

Sounds to me like it's about time to raise the student fee again.

Wag Tag · April 9, 2018

A negative $4.2 m with $4m paying off facilities and now having an additional $3.5 m a year additional! Uhhhh what’s the problem?

meangreenJW · April 9, 2018

5 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

A negative $4.2 m with $4m paying off facilities and now having an additional $3.5 m a year additional! Uhhhh what’s the problem?

Great point on facility. We bonded out almost the entire Apogee costs. It's now included in the expenses of the football program. That really skews it as well. No other G5 in Texas has that expense included.

Cerebus · April 9, 2018

1 hour ago, meangreenJW said:

Pretty much all group of 5s do.

Majority of P5 as well. I know different schools/states have different reporting methods, but there are only about 20-25 AD's that actually make more money than they spend in any given year.

UNTLifer · April 9, 2018

Not a terrible concern when you take in to account that Denton is easy to get to as opposed to say La Tech and has reasonably priced hotels, etc...

NorthTexan95 · April 9, 2018

I'm not that worried about the overall athletic budget shortfall for two reasons. First, comparing large budgets can be like comparing apples to oranges. Each school will do things a little different (such as the stadium cost coming out of the athletic budget). It reminds me of people trying to compare the costs of new stadiums. One stadium might be $30 million more but because it also includes land and infrastructure costs the amount actually spent on the stadium is less.

Secondly, I trust this administration to handle the budget properly. The way Smatresk handled the accounting fiasco that greeting his hiring tells me he would not be down for any kind of shady accounting practices or unsustainable budgets. Also, Baker has hired a very experienced staff to handle the athletic finances. Under RV that person did not even have an accounting degree.

TreeFiddy · April 10, 2018

Not sure how I feel about the amount spent. If the coaches were not able to pursue recruits or have recruits in on visits because of budget constraints then let's address the issue. If the amount spent is low because we didn't need to spend more then there is no need is blowing money just because it is there to spend.

Other notes:

$0 media rights for UNT? Assuming the numbers are correct, either conference TV contract is not included or the contract did not cover expenses (ouch).

UNT football + basketball revenue is roughly ~$12M and the same for Houston is ~$13M? Surprising.

Houston contributions are 10X that of UNT? Ouch...

UNT should at least match every dollar the students pay in fees in the form of institutional support. If the fees are going up by $3.5M then the total student paid fees is going to be somewhere north of $14M. Let's see the university match that figure and then we would be in the $28M range from students and university. Add in ~$13M in revenue + contributions and we are over $41M in 'revenue'. Seems like a reasonable goal to have all three sources of support contributing at least as much as the students so the university and alumni need to kick it up a notch or two.

If the budget crosses over $40M, that should be more than enough to support baseball and still be able to attract top coaches. A $40M+ budget would also put us firmly in the middle of MWC budgets if there was mutual interest in pursuing that option.

ETA: this is based on 2016-2017 data so the institutional support and revenue/contribution numbers may be a lot different for 2017-2018, but the numbers won't be available for a while.

Edited April 10, 2018 by TreeFiddy

GrandGreen · April 10, 2018

9 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

Not sure how I feel about the amount spent. If the coaches were not able to pursue recruits or have recruits in on visits because of budget constraints then let's address the issue. If the amount spent is low because we didn't need to spend more then there is no need is blowing money just because it is there to spend.

Other notes:

$0 media rights for UNT? Assuming the numbers are correct, either conference TV contract is not included or the contract did not cover expenses (ouch).

UNT football + basketball revenue is roughly ~$12M and the same for Houston is ~$13M? Surprising.

Houston contributions are 10X that of UNT? Ouch...

UNT should at least match every dollar the students pay in fees in the form of institutional support. If the fees are going up by $3.5M then the total student paid fees is going to be somewhere north of $14M. Let's see the university match that figure and then we would be in the $28M range from students and university. Add in ~$13M in revenue + contributions and we are over $41M in 'revenue'. Seems like a reasonable goal to have all three sources of support contributing at least as much as the students so the university and alumni need to kick it up a notch or two.

If the budget crosses over $40M, that should be more than enough to support baseball and still be able to attract top coaches. A $40M+ budget would also put us firmly in the middle of MWC budgets if there was mutual interest in pursuing that option.

What do you think institutional support is? It comes from the University, but is generated primarily from student tuition and fees. NT just increased the student athletic fees, advocating even more from the students is questionable.

TreeFiddy · April 10, 2018

3 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

What do you think institutional support is? It comes from the University, but is generated primarily from student tuition and fees. NT just increased the student athletic fees, advocating even more from the students is questionable.

The way I read the numbers in the link were that the students supplied $10.5M from student fees and the total university + student support was ~$21.4M so roughly 50/50 at the time. However, we know that the students just agreed to pay an additional $3.5M so my point was that I hope the university is prepared to step up and match the increase.

Maybe it is not such a great stance since in the 2016-2017 year there was a $4.2M shortfall and I assume the university had to cover the shortfall (?)

The real point is that I am hopeful that the university and alumni (through ticket sales and contributions) are meeting or beating the amount the students are paying in fees. If so, we should be in very good shape.

MGNation92 · April 10, 2018

19 hours ago, MGNation92 said:

And people wonder why Littrell's classes are among the worst in CUSA, despite two straight bowl games and explosive offensive numbers.

Lol Y'all sure get triggered anytime anybody has any remote criticism of Littrell. I'm not going full 90 here, but to say recruiting has been excellent under Littrell is false, recruiting rankings are there for a reason. Is it a catch all? No, we've had lower rated players be big contributors, I'm not questioning that. The teams that are consistently ahead of us in recruiting will pass us by unless we continue to improve.

Ben Gooding · April 10, 2018

1 hour ago, MGNation92 said:

Lol Y'all sure get triggered anytime anybody has any remote criticism of Littrell. I'm not going full 90 here, but to say recruiting has been excellent under Littrell is false, recruiting rankings are there for a reason. Is it a catch all? No, we've had lower rated players be big contributors, I'm not questioning that. The teams that are consistently ahead of us in recruiting will pass us by unless we continue to improve.

An emotional bunch indeed.

People on this same board grew infatuated with McCarney (And even RV, but we won't go there now). If people throw even a constructive critique at Littrell it's World ending for some. Like, how dare you?

GMG24 · April 10, 2018

26 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

An emotional bunch indeed.

People on this same board grew infatuated with McCarney (And even RV, but we won't go there now). If people throw even a constructive critique at Littrell it's World ending for some. Like, how dare you?

What are your top 3 constructive critiques of Littrell?

Edited April 10, 2018 by GMG24

untjim1995 · April 10, 2018

52 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

An emotional bunch indeed.

People on this same board grew infatuated with McCarney (And even RV, but we won't go there now). If people throw even a constructive critique at Littrell it's World ending for some. Like, how dare you?

It’s very true—part of the problem for so long was that the university left us in the desert for decades. Along came RV and he told us he knew how to get us to an oasis, but it was really just wandering along the desert for the better part of his fifteen years.

Littrell has been great so far, as has McCasland. And Wren Baker has done lots of great things here. But they make mistakes and errors in judgment, too. It’s a good thing that people care enough to bring those errors to the attention of the fan base. Otherwise, you get the media coverage we currently have, which basically acts like winning here is impossible and we should be thankful for the Dickey years and McCarney years, since we saw Bowl victories in their tenures. By and large, those tenures were bad, just not Todd Dodge awful.

Ben Gooding · April 10, 2018

35 minutes ago, GMG24 said:

What are your top 3 constructive critiques of Littrell?

Image result for POINT MISSED GIF

GMG24 · April 10, 2018

1 minute ago, Ben Gooding said:

No I didn't. But, I did ask a question.

Ben Gooding · April 10, 2018

41 minutes ago, GMG24 said:

No I didn't. But, I did ask a question.

The very conversation topic should be an area of concern. A rather big one.

0-3 in Postseason play. 0-1 to solidify the opportunity for post season play. 0-1 in determining home field host in post season play. 0-2 vs SMU. 1-1 vs UTSA. So, maybe not a big game coach? Though I would say that both regular season games vs Amy were big as well. So, 3-8 in "big" games.

Negligence of the defense. Or for a better reference, see #1. If some guys don't pan out and/or if some key cogs don't improve/get healthy, this might be the making of a historically bad defense in 2018....Todd Dodge type stuff (OK, not that bad, but bad)....We were 116th in ppg last year. So, most would think that there is nowhere to go but up. But nothing really suggests improvement.

Ah, yes...To make it constructive...

This staff has done well, but these are some areas I would like to see improvements moving forward.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Ben Gooding

GMG24 · April 10, 2018

20 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

The very conversation topic should be an area of concern. A rather big one.

0-3 in Postseason play. 0-1 to solidify the opportunity for post season play. 0-1 in determining home field host in post season play. 0-2 vs SMU. 1-1 vs UTSA. So, maybe not a big game coach? Though I would say that both regular season games vs Amy were big as well. So, 3-8 in "big" games.

Negligence of the defense. Or for a better reference, see #1. If some guys don't pan out and/or if some key cogs don't improve/get healthy, this might be the making of a historically bad defense in 2018....Todd Dodge type stuff (OK, not that bad, but bad)....We were 116th in ppg last year. So, most would think that there is nowhere to go but up. But nothing really suggests improvement.

Ah, yes...To make it constructive...

This staff has done well, but these are some areas I would like to see improvements moving forward.

What team have we played in the postseason that we should have beat? How can you assert he isn't a "big" game coach when he was coaching with an FCS roster in his first year? I agree we've got to be better in those games, however we lost to FAU who has a loaded roster one I can only hope we can get one day, and Troy who beat LSU in LSU.