Who says renewing football at Marquette would cost $100 million?

[ChicosBailBonds]

I'm from Dayton and go to a lot of those games...  but students don't.

Maybe not now, but when they were winning national titles I went to a few games, there were definitely some decent crowds there.

BMA, yes, thanks for the reminder.  FCS it is then....can be done relatively cheaply.

Here are some other FCS schools that have a football team

Dayton
Butler
University of San Diego (small Catholic school)
St. Francis (PA)
Duquesne
Fordham
Georgetown
Sacred Heart
Holy Cross
Valporaiso
Villanova
Wagner
Marist

Etc

[Dr. Blackheart]

So, Chicos, you in for $25 mil for Directv Field?  4Never has the naming rights to the halftime show--Art's Performing Center Marching Band for $5mil in tips.  Potawatami is in for $15mil to change the mascot to "Bingo Warriors".  MU Scoop?

[bma725]

  We should look at how a similar school such as Villanova brings back football.

Villanova brought back football 25 years ago.  They already had a stadium and had only ended their program 5 years earlier.  Not exactly comparable to MU's situation.  

[Boozemon Barro]

24 starters and 22 backups = 46 male student athletes that need female counterparts because of Title IX. Unless you want to shut down mens soccer, track & golf.

Plus housing and feeding them. Coaching staff. Stadium. Training facility. Training staff. Increased athletics staff for ticketing, marketing, facilities.

And this is before playing 1 game. Getting close yet?

Well if you are only going to have 46 scholarship players you might as well not even play. Division 1 has a 85 man scholarship limit and every team is right at that point. I for one think football would fail miserably at Marquette. In order for anyone to really care about the team they would need to be Division 1. The team would be horrendous for the first what, 20 years? Marquette does not have the student population or alumni base to support big time football. No one would go to the after a couple of years and we would always play second fiddle to Wisconsin.

[77ncaachamps]

As a CA boy, it wasn't until I arrived at MU did I realize how big football was in Wisconsin.

In no way would MU compete for the best WI has to offer (FB recruits) especially in the heart of Big Ten country.

But it would be nice to see some WI kids play for a Marquette team.

Or TX kids, for that matter.

[kryza]

If creating a football team means establishing Womens Lacrosse and Field Hockey, I am ALL for it 

[Les Nessman]

People are also underestimating another factor.  Who is your audience?  In a town that loves the Packers and has plenty of Badger football support, MU IMO would have a tough time finding an audience.  I disagree with Chicos...I think non-scholarship D1 football is a joke.  It will do nothing for the University.

So you have no stadium...a limited audience...Title IX issues...

No thanks.

+1

[Brewtown Andy]

Did anyone else get the feeling that Joe True was tweeting about this thread earlier this evening with his series on the goals of the Blue & Gold Fund?

[GGGG]

Maybe not now, but when they were winning national titles I went to a few games, there were definitely some decent crowds there.

That was different.  That is when the NCAA allowed D1 schools to play D3 football.  They don't allow that anymore, so you have a bunch of schools that are D1 non-scholarship.  They play in one of two conferences (Butler's is the Pioneer League...can't remember the other.), against one another and schedule non-conference games against D3 schools.

I'm sorry, but having schools like Carthage, Valparaiso, etc. come to town for a football game would be of no interest to me, and I doubt I'm alone in that regard.

As for the scholarship FCS level, you are talking about 60 some scholarships, and as bma and Chicos have pointed out, we cannot cut any additional men's sports.  That means we have to fund similar women's sports to be Title IX compliant.  And it would be years before we are competitive.  Sorry, but it's just not in the cards.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Spoken like a Badger and Packer fan.  


Not in a million years am I saying it would replace the football fix that the folks in Wisconsin have over those two professional teams ( ), all I'm saying is it would be great to have a team.  Would love to have some pigskin on campus that wasn't of the Club variety.  Having attended a few Dayton games in my life, it was quite fun, something for the alums to do along with the students on a Saturday afternoon in the Fall. 

You're right that it would be fun.

But, I'm afraid it just wouldn't work.

We already talk about how MU hoops has to compete against other forms of entertainment to get fans. MU hoops does well when they are good, they don't draw great when they aren't. ("not great" is a relative term in this instance).

MU adding any sort of low-level football isn't really going to work. There aren't enough alums around to attend games, students (God love them) aren't the most consistent when it comes to sports attendance.

Now, add in all of the Title IX rules, administrative costs, etc. and I'm just afraid it wouldn't work.

HOWEVER...

If MU wants to capture some of the great "autumn on campus" feeling that everybody loves, they could do some sort of homecoming style parade/event for midnight madness. It won't be 50K people, but they might be able to do something cool by closing off Wells st. for the afternoon and doing some sort of block party the day of midnight madness.

[Henry Sugar]

I generally agree that FB is too difficult to start for Marquette, especially with our weak endowment.

However, the most disheartening thing is that I consistently hear that football drives everything, and eventually without football, MU will get relegated to second-class status.

Basically, we're DOOMED?*

*hoping someone has something inspiring

[Litehouse]

HOWEVER...

If MU wants to capture some of the great "autumn on campus" feeling that everybody loves, they could do some sort of homecoming style parade/event for midnight madness. It won't be 50K people, but they might be able to do something cool by closing off Wells st. for the afternoon and doing some sort of block party the day of midnight madness.

That's actually a pretty cool idea.

[GGGG]

I generally agree that FB is too difficult to start for Marquette, especially with our weak endowment.

However, the most disheartening thing is that I consistently hear that football drives everything, and eventually without football, MU will get relegated to second-class status.

Basically, we're DOOMED?*

*hoping someone has something inspiring

The very worst thing that can happen to MU basketball is that the BE leaves us behind...or at least the football schools of the BE leave us behind...and we get stuck in some sort of blended conference with BE basketball schools and A10 schools.  IMO, that would be sucky, but it would hardly DOOM us.

The nightmare scenario would be if the BCS football schools leave the NCAA entirely, but I don' think that will happen.

[PBRme]

Yes, and the numbers they looked at when investigating how to do it the right way are way more than the $125 million that Cottingham was quoted talking about.

If the goal is to build a competitive program in FBS football you can't do it half assed.  You can't just jump in try to get to the FBS level right away, you've got to build a FCS program for a few years, then go up to the independent level and then to a BCS conference.  That means you've got to have a ton of money up front just to even entertain the notion because you're probably going to have to fund 10 years of football on your own.

FCS teams are allowed 65 scholarships per year.  With MU's tuition and room and board, that's $2.6 million.  But you can't build a program that is going to get a BCS conference invite in a year, it just won't happen.  You need a few years to build the infrastructure, build the facilities etc before the Big East will even take a look at you.  In all honesty, it would probably be about 5 years. So assuming no rise in costs, you're looking at $13 million.  But then you've got to double it to be Title IX compliant, so we're talking about more like $26 million....and that's just to get a FCS program that would get a sniff from a BCS conference.  In all likelihood, you need to have money to cover the scholarships for the first few years of FBS football as well.  The big boys get 85 scholarships, so that's $3.4 million for just one year.  But again, you can't just have the money for one year, you've got to have it for 4 or 5, because you're spending your first two years as a transitional independent due to NCAA requirements.  So you'll need more like $17 million, which again has to be doubled because of Title IX to get $34 million.  

So you're looking at needing something like $60 million just in scholarship costs up front and that's assuming costs stay the same.  That's half of Cottingham's number....and you still haven't built a stadium, you haven't hired coaches, you haven't built practice facilities and a weight room, you haven't purchased the equipment and training supplies needed....and don't forget you have to do all of that stuff for the women's teams your adding as well because MU doesn't have any of the facilities for them either.  And you've got to find a place to house another 160 students, because that space doesn't really exist.

So $125 million is really just a starting point.  To get it built, you've got to go much higher than that.

They're public school with much lower costs than MU.  Look at the private schools still playing FBS football and compare their endowments with what MU has.  There's a reason most private schools got out of the football business long ago.

The annual commitment is closer to $20 million/yr.  If you take the 60 and divide by 5 you are at $12 mill.

Add $65 mill for stadium and facilities amortized over 30 yrs you have another $5.5 mill

Plus $2-3 Mill for coaches, travel, etc

But this is offset by some revenue say 4000/game and 5 games a year at $10 head equals $200,000 so you are down to finding $19.8 million a year 

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

The annual commitment is closer to $20 million/yr.  If you take the 60 and divide by 5 you are at $12 mill.

Add $65 mill for stadium and facilities amortized over 30 yrs you have another $5.5 mill

Plus $2-3 Mill for coaches, travel, etc

But this is offset by some revenue say 4000/game and 5 games a year at $10 head equals $200,000 so you are down to finding $19.8 million a year 

You forgot maintenance, marketing, sales, additional support staff, offices, etc.

Not huge costs, but certainly enough that it needs to be accounted for.

[GGGG]

The annual commitment is closer to $20 million/yr.  If you take the 60 and divide by 5 you are at $12 mill.

Add $65 mill for stadium and facilities amortized over 30 yrs you have another $5.5 mill

Plus $2-3 Mill for coaches, travel, etc

But this is offset by some revenue say 4000/game and 5 games a year at $10 head equals $200,000 so you are down to finding $19.8 million a year 

Seriously, don't you think that Cottingham et al have a better idea of the costs than you do?

[Brewtown Andy]

Plus $2-3 Mill for coaches, travel, etc

Villanova (just now joining the Big East for football, so I figured good comparison) has twelve coaches.  Pretty sure the cost to Nova (including benefits) for those 12 employees is more than $3 million.  Hell, $3 million is probably how much it costs Marquette for the basketball coaching staff.

[Coleman]

If the Big East football schools left, I think we could get some kind of pretty decent non-football superconference by combining with the A-10. Its not Big East quality, but it ain't that bad...


DePaul
Georgetown
Marquette
Notre Dame (assuming they would want to stay independent for football)
Providence
St. John's
Seton Hall
UNC Charlotte
St. Louis
Saint Josephs
Xavier
Dayton

Of course, there are more teams from the A-10 if we wanted more than 12 teams. I just picked a few of the best. This wouldn't be a bad conference. A lot of tradition...

[goodgreatgrand]

If the Big East football schools left, I think we could get some kind of pretty decent non-football superconference by combining with the A-10. Its not Big East quality, but it ain't that bad...


DePaul
Georgetown
Marquette
Notre Dame (assuming they would want to stay independent for football)
Providence
St. John's
Seton Hall
UNC Charlotte
St. Louis
Saint Josephs
Xavier
Dayton

Of course, there are more teams from the A-10 if we wanted more than 12 teams. I just picked a few of the best. This wouldn't be a bad conference. A lot of tradition...

I dont see any way in which ND would join the non-football schools. Their athletic department is much bigger than any of those schools and wouldnt fit. Plus, you are assuming ND would walk away from their bowl tie-in with the football schools.

From that list, three teams made the tournament last year (excluding ND). That's not that great. You'd have to schedule a tougher non-conference schedule in a conference like that because conference SOS is pretty weak. Of course, Im not even assuming there would be a drop in recruiting.

[PBRme]

Seriously, don't you think that Cottingham et al have a better idea of the costs than you do?

Absolutely, the only thing I think I had within +/-$200,000 was revenue

And there is ZERO chance Villanova is paying 12 coaches a total even fully fringed of $250K each on average.

[79Warrior]

I keep reading that it would cost about $100 million to bring football back to Marquette.

Who says? What costs could possibly total an astonishing $100 million?

I know someone at Marquette, perhaps the Rev. Robert A. Wild, has put the cost at $100 million, but has anyone ever itemized how that figure was calculated?

I am one who would love to see Marquette seriously consider and investigate the possibility of making a return to NCAA football.

Others universities have done it successfully in recent years. Why not Marquette?

howmany schools make money with Football?

[PaintTouches]

howmany schools make money with Football?

14

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/08/25/ncaa-report-shows-many-college-programs-in-the-red/

[GGGG]

You are misreading it  Only 14 profit on intercolligiate athletics in general.  But the linked ESPN article has this quote:

"Sixty-eight FBS schools reported turning a profit on football, with a median value of $8.8 million. The 52 FBS schools that lost money on football reported median losses of $2.7 million."

IOW, if you make money on football...you make a lot of money on football.  If you lose money, you lose a lot of money.

[PBRme]

Not necessarily true.  These are averages, they could range from barely to hugely profitable and from losing a little to losing a lot.  Not all of the schools have to be close to the "average"

[tower912]

How many private schools with enrollment under 10K outside of Texas are making a profit off of football?