Great...

[IthacaBarrel]

Isn't the MAC commonly referred to as "the cradle of coaches"?

Edit: you beat me to it CousCuse

Stop... no place for facts here

 

[O-pulse]

Lets get real here; the out-of-pocket expenses do not really account for tuition; student-athletes are placed in courses that already exist. The real out-of-pocket costs are room and board; books and supplies; and the costs of running your football operation.

 

[MadNY3]

Yeah. Gross said it in an interview when he was grilled on it. Anyway, the general concept is common knowledge amongst anyone who has taken anything higher than accounting 101. I think ESPN even ran a story on it (not SU-specific) about a year ago.

A media interview is not the best proof point on these things.

Even if they are in the red,meh should say what he said to the most influential sports business outlet in the world.

 

[AirForceOrange]

I'll let the department head I know that says the home school gets docked for the scholie, is FOS. And yes, we've been in the red. The BE buyout had nothing to do with any of it since each university department shared the costs. Now with the ACC money I can see the schools pushing for the AD to fund all scholies.

Bees...I would give up...apparently he knows everything...which means you must be wrong...

 

[sufandu]

Like I said, none of these guys have had success at a high level. I'm ok with a mix of proven and unproven, but when there's only one proven guy, there are problems.

We haven't been good enough to draw anyone that has already had success at a high level. Who do you think we should be stealing coaches from? No coach from a successful power 5 school is looking at SU as an upgrade unless they're moving into a different position like McD did. We need to find guys at lower levels that have coaching talent. It's just as important to have a good eye for lesser known coaching talent as it is for under the radar recruits.

 

[nzm136]

Bees...I would give up...apparently he knows everything...which means you must be wrong...

No. I'm just not a moron. Type "who pays for athletic scholarships" into google. There are a couple hundred million hits that explain that athletic departments generally pay the bill. Most of those stories are from goofy sites, but some are from sites like ESPN, which have a degree of credibility (at least in this matter which is pretty objective). That's further substantiated by DoE filings (search "equity in athletics" if you don't believe me) which are required by Title IX (although admittedly DoE filings don't definitively prove anything other than the fact that the AD is in the black because they're done on an organizational level, not a departmental level - they just suggest that the AD foots the bill). And interviews with various athletic directors. Specifically, I think VT's AD has an interview on the matter 1-2 years ago, and Dr. Gross (which is definitive proof) has an interview on the matter, which he gave around '07-'08. In fact, the myth that SU athletics loses money didn't really gain traction until the AD wanted to get out of paying the entire BIG EAST buyout. Weird coincidence, no?

Beyond that, all you have to do is grasp the concepts of fixed costs and variable costs, and you're pretty much there. Any payments in excess of the marginal cost of adding a student (i.e. the variable cost of that student) is a subsidy that artificially overstates the cost of the paying party. That isn't conplicated accounting/econ, and it isn't contraversial. That's just the application of definitions into a logical truth.

I only seem like a "know it all," because I'm arguing against someone who doesn't believe the DoE filings which show us deep in the black, who doesn't Dr. Gross interviews which explain that the AD is in the black and that it pays for scholarships, and who doesn't believe general industry trends and/or basic principals of econ/accounting apply to Syracuse, but won't and/or can't explain why. The guy is so bent on portraying Syracuse as hopeless, he is willing to sound like a conspiracy theorist.

The fact of the matter is that Suracuse is far from hopeless and the SU AD has deep pockets and resources to spend if it needs to. Right now those resources are being diverted to a combination of A) the school, B) no revenue sports, and C) a rainy day fund. I believe that we need to hangs our priorities and back football more. If you disagree, then fine. That's a matter of opinion. Whether or not we have the money and how the money flows isn't.

 

[rrlbees]

No. I'm just not a moron. Type "who pays for athletic scholarships" into google. There are a couple hundred million hits that explain that athletic departments generally pay the bill. Most of those stories are from goofy sites, but some are from sites like ESPN, which have a degree of credibility (at least in this matter which is pretty objective). That's further substantiated by DoE filings (search "equity in athletics" if you don't believe me) which are required by Title IX (although admittedly DoE filings don't definitively prove anything other than the fact that the AD is in the black because they're done on an organizational level, not a departmental level - they just suggest that the AD foots the bill). And interviews with various athletic directors. Specifically, I think VT's AD has an interview on the matter 1-2 years ago, and Dr. Gross (which is definitive proof) has an interview on the matter, which he gave around '07-'08. In fact, the myth that SU athletics loses money didn't really gain traction until the AD wanted to get out of paying the entire BIG EAST buyout. Weird coincidence, no? Beyond that, all you have to do is grasp the concepts of fixed costs and variable costs, and you're pretty much there. Any payments in excess of the marginal cost of adding a student (i.e. the variable cost of that student) is a subsidy that artificially overstates the cost of the paying party. That isn't conplicated accounting/econ, and it isn't contraversial. That's just the application of definitions into a logical truth. I only seem like a "know it all," because I'm arguing against someone who doesn't believe the DoE filings which show us deep in the black, who doesn't Dr. Gross interviews which explain that the AD is in the black and that it pays for scholarships, and who doesn't believe general industry trends and/or basic principals of econ/accounting apply to Syracuse, but won't and/or can't explain why. The guy is so bent on portraying Syracuse as hopeless, he is willing to sound like a conspiracy theorist. The fact of the matter is that Suracuse is far from hopeless and the SU AD has deep pockets and resources to spend if it needs to. Right now those resources are being diverted to a combination of A) the school, B) no revenue sports, and C) a rainy day fund. I believe that we need to hangs our priorities and back football more. If you disagree, then fine. That's a matter of opinion. Whether or not we have the money and how the money flows isn't.

Yes, I'm telling you facts, because it's a conspiracy.

I don't care about interviews. They mean nothing and always tell a happy story. I also wouldn't take those DoE numbers at face value. Last time I looked at them it showed rutgirls as breaking even. Why? Because their yearly shortfall gets covered by the state. There was an article one year where they were $20m+ in the hole but it was covered by NJ taxpayer money.

As to SU, since you like quotes, Marcoccia, the CFO, has even said some years athletics makes money, some years they lose money. I'm sure with the new ACC money, we should always make money. The new chancellor has also asked his faculty senate to make SUAD finances a focus item. The BOT supposedly did something similar.

 

[rrlbees]

Yes, I'm telling you facts, because it's a conspiracy. I don't care about interviews. They mean nothing and always tell a happy story. I also wouldn't take those DoE numbers at face value. Last time I looked at them it showed rutgirls as breaking even. Why? Because their yearly shortfall gets covered by the state. There was an article one year where they were $20m+ in the hole but it was covered by NJ taxpayer money. As to SU, since you like quotes, Marcoccia, the CFO, has even said some years athletics makes money, some years they lose money. I'm sure with the new ACC money, we should always make money. The new chancellor has also asked his faculty senate to make SUAD finances a focus item. The BOT supposedly did something similar.

Oh BTW, hopeless is your word, not mine.

 

[nzm136]

We haven't been good enough to draw anyone that has already had success at a high level. Who do you think we should be stealing coaches from? No coach from a successful power 5 school is looking at SU as an upgrade unless they're moving into a different position like McD did. We need to find guys at lower levels that have coaching talent. It's just as important to have a good eye for lesser known coaching talent as it is for under the radar recruits.

There are lower level P5 coaches who are good. IU has a sick offense, and they aren't exactly the cream of the cream of the football world. SU is middle of the pack right now, not bottom of the pack. There are P5 schools below us. Anyway, look at our last staff. Our two best coaches came from Michigan (HCSS) and Tennessee (Greg Atkins). Admittedly HCSS didn't set the world on fire at Michigan, but he did at Stanford. We *can* get high quality talent. We just have to pay for it. Right now we are dead last in the ACC in coach salaries. That puts us behind Duke, Wake, NCSU, UVA, BC, and so on. That's our problem. We should be ahead of *all* of those schools.

 

[nzm136]

Oh BTW, hopeless is your word, not mine.

I never said we were hopeless. I said the exact opposite. And, although you might not have said it, you described it.

 

[nzm136]

Yes, I'm telling you facts, because it's a conspiracy.

I don't care about interviews. They mean nothing and always tell a happy story. I also wouldn't take those DoE numbers at face value. Last time I looked at them it showed rutgirls as breaking even. Why? Because their yearly shortfall gets covered by the state. There was an article one year where they were $20m+ in the hole but it was covered by NJ taxpayer money.

As to SU, since you like quotes, Marcoccia, the CFO, has even said some years athletics makes money, some years they lose money. I'm sure with the new ACC money, we should always make money. The new chancellor has also asked his faculty senate to make SUAD finances a focus item. The BOT supposedly did something similar.

"I don't care about interviews."
...Or apparently facts and common sense for that matter. Nothing that I have said is controversial. Marginal costs and variable costs are the same thing. When the athletic department pays a scholarship, which they do (I have no idea why you think they don't because no head of a department would EVER let athletic scholarships hit their budget - think about it. Why would they?), and that payment exceeds the variable cost of educating another student, then the athletic department is subsidizing the academic side. Don't believe me. Look up the definitions of those words (make sure you examine marginal/variable costs, not average costs - average cost is probably in excess of tuition, but marginal costs are not). Generally universities reverse some of the subsidy in the form of a payment back to athletics (as I'm sure SU does), but that payment is almost never a realistic estimate of the athletic department's excess payments for several reasons: 1) determining marginal costs is not easy, and 2) academics control the budget (think about it - the vast majority of the university is comprised of academics and where athletics bring in a hundred million dollars at big universities, academics bring in billions of dollars), so any errors are in their favor. SU's athletic department is generally (read "almost always") in the black (although the last several reported years may have been in the red due to building projects, buyouts, and advantageous bookkeeping). As proof of SUAD's strong financial position (not using interviews), why do you think that there is a university-imposed media tax on athletics? Why do you think that the university charges the athletic department for the use of the Carrier Dome? If the athletic department was really in the red, wouldn't it be way easier (and more time efficient - thus cheaper) to waive those fees? That would act as a payment to the athletic department (moving it towards the black), but it wouldn't involve complicated internal accounting (and the man hours that entails).

"Last time I looked at them it showed rutgirls as breaking even. Why? Because their yearly shortfall gets covered by the state. There was an article one year where they were $20m+ in the hole but it was covered by NJ taxpayer money."
No. There are many articles that say that. There aren't with Syracuse. There are a handful, but they only come up when A) the AD is trying to get out of paying for something big that arguably benefits the entire school (i.e. BE exit fee), and B) when we have especially down years and revenue is way below normal (i.e. the height of the Grob years). Notice the schools with big subsidies generally have revenues that match expenditures (i.e. Rutgers matches to the dollar). Then notice how we don't. Our revenue is something like $10mm over expenses. Why would we over-subsidize our athletic program?

"The new chancellor has also asked his faculty senate to make SUAD finances a focus item. The BOT supposedly did something similar." Would you expect differently if money is flowing into the school from athletics? Kent probably wants to reduce the subsidy reverse so as to keep more athletic money in academics. I'm guessing that he is eager to do that because Nancy took on a lot of debt during the recession when labor costs were low and loans interest rates were low, and because the AD is about to get/just got a wave of cash so now is the easiest time to do do it from a political standpoint (especially since he is new and changes are expected).

 

[javadoc]

Yes, I'm telling you facts, because it's a conspiracy.

I don't care about interviews. They mean nothing and always tell a happy story. I also wouldn't take those DoE numbers at face value. Last time I looked at them it showed rutgirls as breaking even. Why? Because their yearly shortfall gets covered by the state. There was an article one year where they were $20m+ in the hole but it was covered by NJ taxpayer money.

As to SU, since you like quotes, Marcoccia, the CFO, has even said some years athletics makes money, some years they lose money. I'm sure with the new ACC money, we should always make money. The new chancellor has also asked his faculty senate to make SUAD finances a focus item. The BOT supposedly did something similar.

The only things that are theoretically reliable on those DoE reports are the expenditures, since that is what Title IX regulates. Schools are free to list their general fund subsidies in order to get the bottom line to zero out, and I think there is even a category for listing such miscellaneous revenue. The revenue side is a shell game. I crunched the numbers on here about 10 years ago and in the resulting debate it was generally agreed that not all schools report revenue the same way, etc.

I agree with you on Gross's interview reliability. I trust what I have heard (and from whom) much more than anything Gross says in an interview, which may be unverifiable to members of the general public. I do not know what the budget situation is for this year, but agree that going forward we should be in the black. There's no way we were bleeding as much per year as the ACC bump-up increased our revenue.

 

[sufandu]

There are lower level P5 coaches who are good. IU has a sick offense, and they aren't exactly the cream of the cream of the football world. SU is middle of the pack right now, not bottom of the pack. There are P5 schools below us. Anyway, look at our last staff. Our two best coaches came from Michigan (HCSS) and Tennessee (Greg Atkins). Admittedly HCSS didn't set the world on fire at Michigan, but he did at Stanford. We *can* get high quality talent. We just have to pay for it. Right now we are dead last in the ACC in coach salaries. That puts us behind Duke, Wake, NCSU, UVA, BC, and so on. That's our problem. We should be ahead of *all* of those schools.

Both coaches you mentioned were out of work at the time. Their stock was a little down. Marrone had a previous relationship with Adkins going back to when he was at UT. We're not getting highly thought of coaches from P5 schools to come here in lateral moves. We have to offer them better positions or take coaches from lower level schools and offer the same positions with us. The latter strategy has worked many times over.

 

[rrlbees]

The only things that are theoretically reliable on those DoE reports are the expenditures, since that is what Title IX regulates. Schools are free to list their general fund subsidies in order to get the bottom line to zero out, and I think there is even a category for listing such miscellaneous revenue. The revenue side is a shell game. I crunched the numbers on here about 10 years ago and in the resulting debate it was generally agreed that not all schools report revenue the same way, etc. I agree with you on Gross's interview reliability. I trust what I have heard (and from whom) much more than anything Gross says in an interview, which may be unverifiable to members of the general public. I do not know what the budget situation is for this year, but agree that going forward we should be in the black. There's no way we were bleeding as much per year as the ACC bump-up increased our revenue.

Exactly. I don't know why someone would think an interview and some DoE numbers that can reflect a shell game and reliability on only one side, would be used as a basis for an argument.

 

[rrlbees]

"I don't care about interviews." ...Or apparently facts and common sense for that matter. Nothing that I have said is controversial. Marginal costs and variable costs are the same thing. When the athletic department pays a scholarship, which they do (I have no idea why you think they don't because no head of a department would EVER let athletic scholarships hit their budget - think about it. Why would they?), and that payment exceeds the variable cost of educating another student, then the athletic department is subsidizing the academic side. Don't believe me. Look up the definitions of those words (make sure you examine marginal/variable costs, not average costs - average cost is probably in excess of tuition, but marginal costs are not). Generally universities reverse some of the subsidy in the form of a payment back to athletics (as I'm sure SU does), but that payment is almost never a realistic estimate of the athletic department's excess payments for several reasons: 1) determining marginal costs is not easy, and 2) academics control the budget (think about it - the vast majority of the university is comprised of academics and where athletics bring in a hundred million dollars at big universities, academics bring in billions of dollars), so any errors are in their favor. SU's athletic department is generally (read "almost always") in the black (although the last several reported years may have been in the red due to building projects, buyouts, and advantageous bookkeeping). As proof of SUAD's strong financial position (not using interviews), why do you think that there is a university-imposed media tax on athletics? Why do you think that the university charges the athletic department for the use of the Carrier Dome? If the athletic department was really in the red, wouldn't it be way easier (and more time efficient - thus cheaper) to waive those fees? That would act as a payment to the athletic department (moving it towards the black), but it wouldn't involve complicated internal accounting (and the man hours that entails). "Last time I looked at them it showed rutgirls as breaking even. Why? Because their yearly shortfall gets covered by the state. There was an article one year where they were $20m+ in the hole but it was covered by NJ taxpayer money." No. There are many articles that say that. There aren't with Syracuse. There are a handful, but they only come up when A) the AD is trying to get out of paying for something big that arguably benefits the entire school (i.e. BE exit fee), and B) when we have especially down years and revenue is way below normal (i.e. the height of the Grob years). Notice the schools with big subsidies generally have revenues that match expenditures (i.e. Rutgers matches to the dollar). Then notice how we don't. Our revenue is something like $10mm over expenses. Why would we over-subsidize our athletic program? "The new chancellor has also asked his faculty senate to make SUAD finances a focus item. The BOT supposedly did something similar." Would you expect differently if money is flowing into the school from athletics? Kent probably wants to reduce the subsidy reverse so as to keep more athletic money in academics. I'm guessing that he is eager to do that because Nancy took on a lot of debt during the recession when labor costs were low and loans interest rates were low, and because the AD is about to get/just got a wave of cash so now is the easiest time to do do it from a political standpoint (especially since he is new and changes are expected).

I'll only say 1 thing instead of responding to all of that. The CFO and a department head say exactly what I have.

 

[AirForceOrange]

I'll only say 1 thing instead of responding to all of that. The CFO and a department head say exactly what I have.

Thanks Bees...i read your whole post...he lost me after thr first two sentences...way too long...overcompensating i guess...