Our spending on this football program is outrageous!

[dinosaurbbq]

According to this report on Syracuse.com, we spent $23.6 million on the football program last year, 2013-2014. It then states that is only behind FSU, Clemson, Miami and part-time affiliate Notre Dame in the ACC.

http://www.syracuse.com/orangesport...mpact_on_the_football_progr.html#incart_river

I cannot comprehend how that could be true. We've invested very little in infrastructure over the years and our facilities are way below average in the ACC. We spend very little on our coaching staff in comparison to the average ACC school. Where is the money going? I can't believe its true and if it is, how can someone up high (hint, hint 2 phones) not have gotten fired for poorly allocating that money?

Now SU disputes the accuracy of that figure, which was supplied by the federal government, but won't give numbers it believes are more accurate. If only out of pride and an incomprehensible inability to explain how, if a similar amount was spent this year, SU supposedly got a victory for every $7.9 million, I'd much prefer SU to provide an alternate figure. Maybe a figure I could even believe. I want SU to start spending money. Am I wrong?

 

[Moontan]

Different bookkeeping systems are used by each school. Do SU's numbers include the cost of 85 scholarships? Do they include maintenance of the Dome? Do they include costs of conference change? Do they include funds appropriated for the IPF? We'll never know.

 

[dinosaurbbq]

Different bookkeeping systems are used by each school. Do SU's numbers include the cost of 85 scholarships? Do they include maintenance of the Dome? Do they include costs of conference change? Do they include funds appropriated for the IPF? We'll never know.

Gotcha. If they include cost of 85 scholarships at SU's private school tuition rates, the cost is much higher than the cost of 85 scholarships at large state universities. Its not a true cost because its a lack of revenue rather than a cost outlay, so it likely shouldn't be included in any comparison of schools anyway. I didn't consider that as even possibly being included in operating cost figures.

 

[Finwad32]

According to this report on Syracuse.com, we spent $23.6 million on the football program last year, 2013-2014. It then states that is only behind FSU, Clemson, Miami and part-time affiliate Notre Dame in the ACC.

http://www.syracuse.com/orangesport...mpact_on_the_football_progr.html#incart_river

I cannot comprehend how that could be true. We've invested very little in infrastructure over the years and our facilities are way below average in the ACC. We spend very little on our coaching staff in comparison to the average ACC school. Where is the money going? I can't believe its true and if it is, how can someone up high (hint, hint 2 phones) not have gotten fired for poorly allocating that money?

Now SU disputes the accuracy of that figure, which was supplied by the federal government, but won't give numbers it believes are more accurate. If only out of pride and an incomprehensible inability to explain how, if a similar amount was spent this year, SU supposedly got a victory for every $7.9 million, I'd much prefer SU to provide an alternate figure. Maybe a figure I could even believe. I want SU to start spending money. Am I wrong?

Not being contrarian, but, SU's facilities are not way below average in the ACC. 6 years ago, yes they were. Since then, the locker room, offices, meeting rooms, cafeteria/lounge and football wing in general have been given significant upgrades. The Dome, whether you attribute it to football or not has had significant monetary investments. The fields outside of Manley have been fitted with field turf in the same timeframe. And, finally, the IPF.

We've put more money into the football program than at anytime in recent memory.

Again I'm not disputing your original claim, just stating that SU's facilities are in no way below average compared to most of their peers. The football factories do and always will have more, but, those aren't as commonplace as many think.

 

[Alsacs]

85 scholarships x 60k = 5.1 million(a lot of schollys endowed)
IPF = 12 million
Scott Shafer's salary= approx 1.5 million
Other 9 assistant coaches = approx 2.5 million
Big East buyout 5 million
Total 25.1 million

However we brought in
5 million from MetLife
20.8 million from ACC
Whatever donations they receive.
Ticket money

 

[CuseOnly]

85 scholarships x 60k = 5.1 million(a lot of schollys endowed)
IPF = 12 million
Scott Shafer's salary= approx 1.5 million
Other 9 assistant coaches = approx 2.5 million
Big East buyout 5 million
Total 25.1 million

However we brought in
5 million from MetLife
20.8 million from ACC
Whatever donations they receive.
Ticket money

Wasn't there a report a short time ago that stated the scholarship got tagged to the department of the student athlete's major and not the AD? And that is where the cost was allocated. And I also thought that very few if any of our scholly's endowed, where did you get that from? No mention of endowment in the report below with regard to scholarships.

http://syracusefan.com/threads/syracuse-budget-report-and-athletics.83891/

Athletics cost shift

The committee was told that some of the financial costs of having student/athletes on campus have been shifted to the home college of each athlete. This creates an interesting budget issue in our opinion. For example, if a football player on a full scholarship resides in the College of Arts and Science, the tuition revenue is allocated to A&S, but there is a corresponding offset to the revenue because of the scholarship being counted in the expenses of the A&S budget.Yet, the tax is applied to the gross revenue, and participation is applied based on A&S’s overall revenues to total revenues. In effect, A&S will pay a tax and participation for the student/athlete, but get no corresponding cash flow offset for having done so. This results in a net cost to the school instead of just being revenue and expense neutral. The revenue that is generated by athletics remains in the Athletic Department’s budget. Although the cost shift makes some sense from an accounting perspective, what this effectively does is shift some of the cost of the athletic program to the home school or college thereby freeing funds to be spent on other athletic needs.

 

[Crusty]

Wasn't there a report a short time ago that stated the scholarship got tagged to the department of the student athlete's major and not the AD? And that is where the cost was allocated. And I also thought that very few if any of our scholly's endowed, where did you get that from?

The way I read that report was that the scholarships were charged to the school and then backed out but they left the tax, which was charged on the gross and not rebated. As I understand it, only the tax remained at the school level.

 

[CuseOnly]

The way I read that report was that the scholarships were charged to the school and then backed out but they left the tax, which was charged on the gross and not rebated. As I understand it, only the tax remained at the school level.

Exactly how I read it. I know that schools have endowed coaching position and some may have endowed player scholarships but I have never heard of this at SU as Alsacs stated.

EDIT: What the school is not mentioning is the priceless exposure that the Football and Basketball team give the university that can't be measured. You can't measure the impact of 2 hour (basketball) and 4 hour (football) "commercials" on 21 times a year. There was an article written about Alabama and School enrollment figures and the difference when they are good (now) and when they are bad. The difference in revenue for the school was something like $100 million more a year totally attributed to the football team. I will find it if I can and post it.

 

[Scooch]

In my opinion it's a complete waste of time trying to parse the data in these kind of reports. Everyone accounts for their "spending" in radically different ways. It's a near-worthless dataset.

 

[Millhouse]

In my opinion it's a complete waste of time trying to parse the data in these kind of reports. Everyone accounts for their "spending" in radically different ways. It's a near-worthless dataset.

yep. there's no market for this data, no one uses it for anything, it's simply compliance so everyone does it their own way just to get it done

 

[javadoc]

In my opinion it's a complete waste of time trying to parse the data in these kind of reports. Everyone accounts for their "spending" in radically different ways. It's a near-worthless dataset.

The only reliable data are the aggregate numbers for expenditures, so that men's and women's programs can be compared for Title IX purposes. That's all the feds care about, I think, except possibly for some very mundane things like participation numbers. Those numbers (expenditures) are essentially sworn testimony to the feds for the purpose of Title IX obeisance.

 

[rrlbees]

In my opinion it's a complete waste of time trying to parse the data in these kind of reports. Everyone accounts for their "spending" in radically different ways. It's a near-worthless dataset.

Agree. It's such a worthless exercise trying to figure out numbers since all these different reports ask for something different. The accounting methods and reports can be sliced six ways to Sunday.

 

[Bayside44]

Not being contrarian, but, SU's facilities are not way below average in the ACC. 6 years ago, yes they were. Since then, the locker room, offices, meeting rooms, cafeteria/lounge and football wing in general have been given significant upgrades. The Dome, whether you attribute it to football or not has had significant monetary investments. The fields outside of Manley have been fitted with field turf in the same timeframe. And, finally, the IPF.

We've put more money into the football program than at anytime in recent memory.

Again I'm not disputing your original claim, just stating that SU's facilities are in no way below average compared to most of their peers. The football factories do and always will have more, but, those aren't as commonplace as many think.

Not to be a contrarian to you being a contrarian - but have you visited all the other schools? We removed crappy metal lockers with nice wooden ones, but it's still organized as a maze. The cafeteria / lounge was stuck in the mid 80s before so anything is an upgrade.

Was at UNC a couple of weeks ago - they had this massive football complex glued to the side of their stadium, place looked pretty nice. Lots of new donor suites, etc all over the place (granted they got crushed by NCSU on the same day).

 

[GoSU96]

I posted this information weeks ago.

The DOE report does include scholarship costs. One thing confirmed is that it includes rental costs for the Dome.

The facilities use and capital costs can be the big swinger on all of this stuff.

 

[Finwad32]

Not to be a contrarian to you being a contrarian - but have you visited all the other schools? We removed crappy metal lockers with nice wooden ones, but it's still organized as a maze. The cafeteria / lounge was stuck in the mid 80s before so anything is an upgrade.

Was at UNC a couple of weeks ago - they had this massive football complex glued to the side of their stadium, place looked pretty nice. Lots of new donor suites, etc all over the place (granted they got crushed by NCSU on the same day).

I've been to Cinci, BC, Rutgers, UConn, WV, Wake, NC St., UNC, Duke, USF and a number of FCS schools that I wont list because they're not our peers. Ours stack up just fine to the majority. I was at UNC in 2006 so my point of reference is probably lacking, but, regardless I stand by my opinion that our facilities are on par with the majority of our peers. I've read multiple recruit interviews, that have visited other peer institutions, reference our facilities as being a positive, and not just the IPF.

It doesn't matter what was there before and how crappy it was, upgrades have been made. Maze or not, the football wing is nice to walk through and be in. And, the main room or auditorium in the football wing just had the leather seats with the embroidered S logo put in with individual desk tops. That's at the very least on par with what everyone is doing.

I've done the virtual tours of the football factories, it's awe inspiring. But, Phil Knight is not walking through the door. Hell, Oregon and Alabama probably have better facilities than a 3rd of the NFL.

My main point is that we're not way behind. We were, but we're not right now. We may be in 5 years, but, it's yet to be seen how they'll balance their budget in the future with the new money coming in.

 

[shandeezy7]

One thing confirmed is that it includes rental costs for the Dome.

Yeah, Chris Carlson was talking about the article on local sports talk radio last night. He mentioned this about individual teams having to "rent out" the Dome, which I'm sure is not a cheap expense and is most likely calculated into this spending figure. As others have said, lists like these are irrelevant, because you are almost never comparing apples to apples, as every school runs their accounting department differently.

 

[Bayside44]

I've been to Cinci, BC, Rutgers, UConn, WV, Wake, NC St., UNC, Duke, USF and a number of FCS schools that I wont list because they're not our peers. Ours stack up just fine to the majority. I was at UNC in 2006 so my point of reference is probably lacking, but, regardless I stand by my opinion that our facilities are on par with the majority of our peers. I've read multiple recruit interviews, that have visited other peer institutions, reference our facilities as being a positive, and not just the IPF.

It doesn't matter what was there before and how crappy it was, upgrades have been made. Maze or not, the football wing is nice to walk through and be in. And, the main room or auditorium in the football wing just had the leather seats with the embroidered S logo put in with individual desk tops. That's at the very least on par with what everyone is doing.

I've done the virtual tours of the football factories, it's awe inspiring. But, Phil Knight is not walking through the door. Hell, Oregon and Alabama probably have better facilities than a 3rd of the NFL.

My main point is that we're not way behind. We were, but we're not right now. We may be in 5 years, but, it's yet to be seen how they'll balance their budget in the future with the new money coming in.

I'll agree that we took a big jump this week. What was obvious the last time I took a tour of SU's is that football < Melo Center by a lot (this was a couple of years back).

 

[Finwad32]

I'll agree that we took a big jump this week. What was obvious the last time I took a tour of SU's is that football < Melo Center by a lot (this was a couple of years back).

It's funny, I've actually been in the football wing a handful of times, but I've never seen the Melo Center. It's always been football related.

Everytime I've gone in there, something different has been done or is going on.

Just out of curiosity, what are the main differences between the two?

 

[xc84]

 

[Bayside44]

It's funny, I've actually been in the football wing a handful of times, but I've never seen the Melo Center. It's always been football related.

Everytime I've gone in there, something different has been done or is going on.

Just out of curiosity, what are the main differences between the two?

Training / medical side (at the time the football side reminded me of summer camp) while Melo basically looked NBA. The fb locker room although with new lockers was small, the hoop side was size appropriate for the # of lockers it had. Lots of cinderblock on the football side.

In fairness Melo was so new everything was perfect. The football wing was older so the age just showed.

 

[Full_Rebar]

Training / medical side (at the time the football side reminded me of summer camp) while Melo basically looked NBA. The fb locker room although with new lockers was small, the hoop side was size appropriate for the # of lockers it had. Lots of cinderblock on the football side.

In fairness Melo was so new everything was perfect. The football wing was older so the age just showed.

The training room/therapy era was night and day. Haven't seen football since the renovations a couple of years ago, but hoops was so far ahead in that regard. The other advantage is that Melo provides almost 24/7 access for the players (except for vb and wbb practices), while football had to share Manley with every other team.

 

[Chip]

I've been to Cinci, BC, Rutgers, UConn, WV, Wake, NC St., UNC, Duke, USF and a number of FCS schools that I wont list because they're not our peers. Ours stack up just fine to the majority. I was at UNC in 2006 so my point of reference is probably lacking, but, regardless I stand by my opinion that our facilities are on par with the majority of our peers. I've read multiple recruit interviews, that have visited other peer institutions, reference our facilities as being a positive, and not just the IPF.

It doesn't matter what was there before and how crappy it was, upgrades have been made. Maze or not, the football wing is nice to walk through and be in. And, the main room or auditorium in the football wing just had the leather seats with the embroidered S logo put in with individual desk tops. That's at the very least on par with what everyone is doing.

I've done the virtual tours of the football factories, it's awe inspiring. But, Phil Knight is not walking through the door. Hell, Oregon and Alabama probably have better facilities than a 3rd of the NFL.

My main point is that we're not way behind. We were, but we're not right now. We may be in 5 years, but, it's yet to be seen how they'll balance their budget in the future with the new money coming in.

I don't know if being on par with our peer schools is enough. BC for example, has something we can't compete with, which is life in the city of Boston.

If only we had something that stuck out. Something that made talented skill position players who were looking at northeastern schools want to choose us over them. Something that could showcase their talents more than the others. Something, like, I don't know, maybe a Dome. Oh well, dare to dream.

 

[Finwad32]

I don't know if being on par with our peer schools is enough. BC for example, has something we can't compete with, which is life in the city of Boston.

If only we had something that stuck out. Something that made talented skill position players who were looking at northeastern schools want to choose us over them. Something that could showcase their talents more than the others. Something, like, I don't know, maybe a Dome. Oh well, dare to dream.

I agree with what you're saying about something sticking out. The only thing, outside of education, we can really hang our hat on is the Dome. We can't compete with the beautiful climate down south, or a vibrant city. Syracuse is wonderful to locals for a lot of reasons, but, even in the immediate area I prefer Rochester.

The Dome can be an amazing atmosphere, definitely a one-of-a-kind in the college arena, and you should be able to sell it to recruits. I have a feeling it's about to undertake some serious renovations. Hopefully that helps. When I look at selling something, I say take your top asset and maximize it. Now, the housekeeping with all of the other facilities was necessary. The Dome should follow suit.

 

[Scooch]

We even used the Dome as our logo in the not-too-distant past. That's how identifiable it is nationwide. But why use it for actual things that might actually give us an actual differentiation to actually score points and actually win games?

 

[Chip]

We even used the Dome as our logo in the not-too-distant past. That's how identifiable it is nationwide. But why use it for actual things that might actually give us an actual differentiation to actually score points and actually win games?

Now we use a blue and gray shirts, along with a storied number that no one can wear that looks like two axes. Oh, and hard noses.

When it goes wrong, it really goes wrong. We should get credit for that.