What is Burman's plan...

[ragtimejoe1]

to cover cost of attendance now that it has passed? I would hope we are doing it but where will the money come from? Are we going to take from an already thin budget or does he have other money sources? Anyone know?

[Brew_Poke]

I would guess it's to jack up seat donations and ticket prices, plus beg the state to cover it. Do you see anything else he has tried, ever?

[ragtimejoe1]

I think you are right, Brew, and that is what worries me. First, I can't imagine approaching the WYO legislature asking for money to pay college athletes. Secondly, our attendance and donations are already lower tier MWC; jacking the price will make that worse.

That leaves us with taking from our current budget. I wonder what the cost will be? Likely under a million, no?

Come on Papa Shy...get us some tourney money; we could sure use it.

In all seriousness, I think this would be more palatable in a year or two (when the bball team has sustained success and Bohl hopefully has things on track), but we definitely better respond now. It might be an opportunity if we could somehow offer the max while others in the MWC can offer none or very little.

[McPeachy]

TBD

TBA

[Lost Poke]

I think it goes like this, not just for Burman but for any non-5 conference AD:

1 - Wait for a similar school to do it, then
2 - Panic

[SnowyRange]

Are we going to take from an already thin budget or does he have other money sources?

Your question reflects what every AD outside of the richest schools has to think about, worry about, and also lobby about in this area of the arms race.

Leaving aside the whole giant headache of feeling the need to build ever more grandiose facilities -- 3 story windows to make the weight room look like a modern cathedral, lounges with 20 big screens for playing Call of Duty! -- there is this whole topic of employee-type benefits....pay of some sort, travel issues, long term insurance, etc.

Every school is going to have to decide where to draw the line, whether they can draw the line, whether its a death spiral, or whether they can carve out with their conference a place to draw the line.

But, to answer the question, every school only has basically only three sources of funding: 1) revenue from fans, including tickets, CJC-type donations, and licensing revenue; 2) money given them from their university operating funds (subsidies); and 3) money from big donors (including, in our case, the legislature).

UW is no different.

[ragtimejoe1]

Destroying our bball program hurt a bunch. A few tourney creds would go a long way right now; hopefully Papa Shy and company can get to the tourney and win at least a round.

Does anyone know what it would cost WYO if we offered the same COA as the big dogs?

This is the dividing point in college sports; the next 5 years are critical. Do we step up or step down? Like I said above, COA might give us the recruiting edge we need if we can somehow swing a big COA.

[ragtimejoe1]

It looks like top end COA will be somewhere around $5-6K per athlete per year. How many student athletes are at WYO?

[PokeFan1980]

Snowyrange, I would add under your source number two "subsidies" that student fees are a big part of that. People on this board of been critical at CSU's budget jumped ours. It came solely on the backs of student fees. That is one area that other members of the MountainWest have a huge advantage. Because other institutions have tens of thousands more students, they can generate millions on the backs of their students. The other source of revenue would be from the conference by way of TV contracts. That's where the power five schools have such huge contracts their TV revenue makes up a huge chunk of their overall budget.

Ragtime, I know there's proposed legislation for an increase in matching funds to cowboy Joe. So when you guys say there is no plan, I have a friend on the CJC board, and the matching funds have been a process that is taken well over a year. If it passes, it could be an additional 4 million revenue to athletics that would help pay for full cost of attendance and the deregulation of meals.


I can agree with you on one thing, let's go make the tournament! But not because just of revenue. The tournament share would be a nice chunk but it doesn't sustain in an annual budget. I guess unless you're Kentucky and you can count on making the tournament every year… So let's get to that level where we can count on it every year!

[ragtimejoe1]

Is the plan to be in the middle of the MWC as usual or is the plan to actually be the top of the MWC in this regard?

[ragtimejoe1]

Found the answer...

“I would say we can probably handle some of it without any incremental dollars. But if we were to do it right, we can’t," Burman said. "If they were to do full cost of attendance, that’s roughly $3,300 dollars per full scholarship at UW. That’s high. You take $3,300 times the number of kids that are on full scholarship, and it’s like $700,000. Could we do some of it? Yeah. Could we do all of it [without state support]? It would be difficult.

"We’re going to need help. And my thought is, you know what, we’ve got one school in our state. We can afford it. This state is not broke.”

http://trib.com/sports/college/wyoming/ ... 190c0.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

$3,300 is not a bad goal. However, what would bring better recruits/athletic success over the next 10 years: a facility that cost 10 mill or paying athletes $1 mill per year (roughly $6,000K per athlete)?

There is a real opportunity to overcome our recruiting limitations. I can see Burman's plan is primarily asking the State. We have more than adequate facilities. We need to invest in people; athletes and coaches.

[SnowyRange]

Snowyrange, I would add under your source number two "subsidies" that student fees are a big part of that. People on this board of been critical at CSU's budget jumped ours. It came solely on the backs of student fees. That is one area that other members of the MountainWest have a huge advantage. Because other institutions have tens of thousands more students, they can generate millions on the backs of their students. The other source of revenue would be from the conference by way of TV contracts. That's where the power five schools have such huge contracts their TV revenue makes up a huge chunk of their overall budget.

You're right, and I omitted those two things.

1. Student fees are another serious source of money. (I got totally slaughtered here a while ago for pointing out that CSU, with 20,000 more students, of course for that reason is going to have a higher athletics budget. We spend a lot more per student.)

2. Television revenue is also critical, and teams in our conference are always at a disadvantage there. And even though I try to follow this stuff, I'm always shocked at how huge our disadvantage is compared to the P5 schools. Just for the hell of it, I looked at what Purdue -- a struggling Big 10 program, though certainly with a nice athletics history -- gets from TV. It looks like it's about $26 million this year. In a couple years it's expected to be $35 million. Good god.

[ragtimejoe1]

1. Student fees are another serious source of money. (I got totally slaughtered here a while ago for pointing out that CSU, with 20,000 more students, of course for that reason is going to have a higher athletics budget. We spend a lot more per student.)

2. Television revenue is also critical, and teams in our conference are always at a disadvantage there. And even though I try to follow this stuff, I'm always shocked at how huge our disadvantage is compared to the P5 schools.

So then, in your opinion, is State money our only option and if it doesn't come in FCS here we come? In your opinion is FCS a better option for WYO?

I think State money is Burman's only vision.

[SnowyRange]

So then, in your opinion, is State money our only option and if it doesn't come in FCS here we come? In your opinion is FCS a better option for WYO?

No, all the funding sources mentioned above are in play.

As for how college football shakes out over the next couple decades....I have no idea.

Maybe the current model is sustainable over that stretch: 40 teams or so with a realistic chance of making the 4-8 team playoff, with everyone else squaring off in bowls for fun and glory. Maybe the non-big 5 conferences also have a 4-8 team playoff for themselves (besides feeding the bowl system). Maybe all schools but the very richest say screw all this and come up with something entirely different.

I don't think Wyoming is in any worse -- or better -- position than about 60-80 other schools, and like them is just going to have to keep fighting this fight that involves balancing money with return on investment with fan desires with university necessities.

It's not going to be easy.

[TSpoke]

Found the answer...

“I would say we can probably handle some of it without any incremental dollars. But if we were to do it right, we can’t," Burman said. "If they were to do full cost of attendance, that’s roughly $3,300 dollars per full scholarship at UW. That’s high. You take $3,300 times the number of kids that are on full scholarship, and it’s like $700,000. Could we do some of it? Yeah. Could we do all of it [without state support]? It would be difficult.

"We’re going to need help. And my thought is, you know what, we’ve got one school in our state. We can afford it. This state is not broke.”

http://trib.com/sports/college/wyoming/ ... 190c0.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

$3,300 is not a bad goal. However, what would bring better recruits/athletic success over the next 10 years: a facility that cost 10 mill or paying athletes $1 mill per year (roughly $6,000K per athlete)? There is a real opportunity to overcome our recruiting limitations. I can see Burman's plan is primarily asking the State. We have more than adequate facilities. We need to invest in people; athletes and coaches.

I don't think that is how it works. I think the COA is a fixed number that is decided by a number of factors. You might be able to fudge the numbers a bit but I don't think you can just set whatever COA you want or the big boys would be spending more than they are planning to right now. I could be wrong but that is the way I understand it.

[WestWYOPoke]

Snowyrange, I would add under your source number two "subsidies" that student fees are a big part of that. People on this board of been critical at CSU's budget jumped ours. It came solely on the backs of student fees. That is one area that other members of the MountainWest have a huge advantage. Because other institutions have tens of thousands more students, they can generate millions on the backs of their students. The other source of revenue would be from the conference by way of TV contracts. That's where the power five schools have such huge contracts their TV revenue makes up a huge chunk of their overall budget.

You're right, and I omitted those two things.

1. Student fees are another serious source of money. (I got totally slaughtered here a while ago for pointing out that CSU, with 20,000 more students, of course for that reason is going to have a higher athletics budget. We spend a lot more per student.)

2. Television revenue is also critical, and teams in our conference are always at a disadvantage there. And even though I try to follow this stuff, I'm always shocked at how huge our disadvantage is compared to the P5 schools. Just for the hell of it, I looked at what Purdue -- a struggling Big 10 program, though certainly with a nice athletics history -- gets from TV. It looks like it's about $26 million this year. In a couple years it's expected to be $35 million. Good god.

Not to mention that CSU has fewer athletes than us. CSU doesn't have Men's Swimming & Diving or Wrestling, but they do have softball. So while it may only be 20-30 more athletes at UW, that is still more pieces to the pie.

[WestWYOPoke]

Are we going to take from an already thin budget or does he have other money sources?

Leaving aside the whole giant headache of feeling the need to build ever more grandiose facilities -- 3 story windows to make the weight room look like a modern cathedral, lounges with 20 big screens for playing Call of Duty! -- there is this whole topic of employee-type benefits....pay of some sort, travel issues, long term insurance, etc.

You bring up a good point here. I know that UW athletic department employees that aren't coaches do not make very competitive salaries. In fact, some of them are much closer in salary range to D2 institutions than they are to fellow D1 institutions.

[ragtimejoe1]

I don't think that is how it works. I think the COA is a fixed number that is decided by a number of factors. You might be able to fudge the numbers a bit but I don't think you can just set whatever COA you want or the big boys would be spending more than they are planning to right now. I could be wrong but that is the way I understand it.

I think there is some wiggle room based on the factors used to calculate COA. Big 12 is estimating up to 5 K while SEC is estimating up to just over 6K (obviously less is also an option--these were the upper ends that I've read).

For us, we could state that isolation often necessitates travel for shopping, entertainment, etc. Long, cold winters = greater living expenses for heating. etc.

I just hope we are able to maximize the amount and be, at minimum, the top of the MWC.

[WestWYOPoke]

Really doubt we will be top of the MWC. I would think that UNLV and SDSU will both be higher due to the higher cost of living in those cities. CSU will probably be in the same ballpark as us, so I could see UW being around 3-5 in the MWC.

[ragtimejoe1]

Really doubt we will be top of the MWC. I would think that UNLV and SDSU will both be higher due to the higher cost of living in those cities. CSU will probably be in the same ballpark as us, so I could see UW being around 3-5 in the MWC.

That wouldn't be terrible as long as the MWC is above the other G5 conferences. As big of headache as this is, it really is a recruiting opportunity for those in the G5 that can afford it.

If there was ever a time to experiment with return on investment in athletics (i.e. spend more and evaluate return), it is now.

Tourney creds and Access Bowl will go a long ways to recovering money. On the flip side, spend money and fail would be a financial disaster.