Mark Coyle on 60 Minutes

[jgeorge322]

Which means that the football doesn't pay for the other sports.

It was an honest question. My impression is it does turn a profit

 

[Cusefan78]

It was an honest question. My impression is it does turn a profit

It’s a government ran entity, fiscal responsibility doesn’t exist to them

 

[DownTheField]

If we’re only keeping sports that are profitable how long is it before the only men’s sports are football and basketball (and in SU’s case, maybe lacrosse)? It seems like the majority of profit comes from conference payouts and while olympic sports are part of these conference, it all gets funneled to football programs and they claim they can’t afford the other sports. The Big 10 distributed like $55 mil to each school last year.

SU was able to keep olympic sports when they were getting like 3 million bucks a year from the Big East. The smaller sports wouldn’t have these funding issues if they were playing teams within their region but unfortunately they don’t have that option because they’re wrapped up in these big conference television contracts that end up paying for football.

 

[OrangeAl]

I went to SU in the 70s and thought the Olympic sports enriched my undergrad experience (as a spectator).

 

[Scooch]

Can we all at least agree that Coyle is a chump?

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

Did you watch it. Coyle wouldn’t even let men’s gymnastics try and fund itself. He just cut it

I haven't watched that show in years. It used to be a news show, now it's agenda tv.

 

[dollarbill44]

That's a tough line to walk. When you do that are the sports really connected to the schools anymore? Without school affiliations, do people really care about them anymore?

Exactly. If/when that happens, there really isn't even a need for the FB and hoops programs to be connected. The programs essentially become minor league teams and quite possibly lose their school affiliations.

 

[dollarbill44]

That is so far from the truth. We are directly recruiting with schools who have invested a lot more into their programs then Syracuse has. Kids want to be wowed and we have not done that. It started back in the 80s. They built the dome which worked to attract talent then stopped there. The we are the only horse in town line said it all. The issue is Nys killed high school football so the only horse starved with lesser and lesser local talent. Compound that with any real connections in hotbed areas. So you have mediocre facilities no outside connections and the result is an awful record, a coaching carousel and a university that is just starting to properly fund. Is it too late though.

NYS killed hs football? It's still being played at a high level in many places, so it's more likely that other factors (population loss, lack of interest among teenagers, long term health concerns, etc) are behind the deterioration of the sport in western and central ny.

 

[Halfmooncuse]

You are a good person. And you mean well. But you wouldn't be a A.D. long. Being in a leadership role is about making very tough decisions. In short order, you would find, because of the lack of success of the revenue producing programs, the money dry up to support the non revenue programs. And it wouldn't be just the programs you were going to cut that would have to go. Life sucks this way. In my life, I once took over the investment sales of a large financial institution. In one of the states I took over, I had to fire half of the sales force. After doing that, sales ROSE close to 80%. Did I like letting those people go? No. I hated it. But I had to take a losing situation and make it a winning situation. We work with limited resources. Athletic programs have already made the decision that you don't want to make. Syracuse university doesn't have a d-1 hockey team. We don't have a baseball team. We don't have a wresting team. At one time, we had both a baseball team and a wrestling team. And at one time, they were both real good. They were cut. Do we really miss having them now? I wish we still had them but I understand that we don't. Limited resources. If you someday want to be a public servant, get used to that. We just can't afford to give everyone everything they want. Wish we could. But someone has to pay for all of that. Nothing is ever free. Someone pays.

Good post. But nothing is free? Joe Namath has been telling me for the last two months that Medicare advantage is free! Oh boy

 

[dollarbill44]

College football should have stayed one platoon, (limited substitution). Everyone who played or coached in that era thought it was a better game. ben Schwartzwalder used to have traveling squads of three dozen players. Players playing both ways have a better chance of making the NFL because they show what they can do on both sides of the ball. Some the NFL's best defenders in the 60's when I started watching them were more famous as offensive players in college. As one post here says, college is about creating possibilities, not limiting them. Linemen would have ben 250 pounds instead of 300 or even 350, which isn't healthy. The sport would cost much less but be just as popular. Under Title IX, the football team would not be mathematical dead weight for the men, (because of no female equivalent). That might save some of the men's Olympic sports.

I know that's not going to happen but it could be done if you set a future year as the conversion date and it be a good thing to do. let the NFL specialize players.

Even at that, they say 52 layer play in an average game under the current rules. Do we need 85 scholarships? 100 man rosters?

I would love to see that. Frankly, it might save the game by potentially reducing the frequency of debilitating injuries/cte that stand as the biggest threat to the future of football.
And I agree that it probably wouldn't impact the game much from a fan perspective.

 

[Hoo's That]

It’s a government ran entity, fiscal responsibility doesn’t exist to them

Sports at state schools are not "government-run entities". Just about every state has a law which forbids using state tax money for athletics. Every athletic department, regardless of whether it's at a state school or private school, is run on an "equal basis", that is, it has to find funds from non-government sources every year to operate. Obviously there are different levels of success in finding those funds. About the only state funds that go to athletic departments is a small component of coaches' salaries so the president can fire the coach for cause. For Nick Saban, it's $100K of the several million he's paid. I imagine Gus Malzahn at Auburn has a similar Alabama state budget line item component of his salary as well.

 

[Hoo's That]

I went to SU in the 70s and thought the Olympic sports enriched my undergrad experience (as a spectator).

They also enrich the school. UVa has found that Olympic Sports alumni donate more money on an absolute and per capita basis to both the academic and athletics sides of the house than revenue sports alumni do. I'm sure that other schools have found that to be true as well.

 

[texascpa]

When a football coach makes 4 million dollars and the three sports saved cost less then half of that a year is that not a problem. He wouldn’t even let the coach try and raise money for the program. Didn’t even give it a shot. Shows it wasn’t money

No, it's not a problem. It's like how any other business (let's not kid ourselves, college sports is a business) handles it's product lines. Those that don't make the required return on investment usually get axed.

 

[FloridaFan]

No, it's not a problem. It's like how any other business (let's not kid ourselves, college sports is a business) handles it's product lines. Those that don't make the required return on investment usually get axed.

The point I’m trying to make is it should not be a business. It’s not there to make money