82SiouxGuy

Which marketing strategy are you talking about? Playing cupcakes? Your marketing strategy is a straw man argument. Do you think that winning the national championship every year is a marketing strategy? This is about hurt feelings and nothing more. Winning the national championship is a great marketing tool, but it doesn't work every year. Having a rivalry series does work every year.

There is a difference between marketing strategy and finances. One of you said that NDSU would make more money paying big dollars for cupcakes every year than they would for having home and home with UND. Several of us have outlined how NDSU would make more money with UND on the schedule. Now you want to use marketing strategy as an excuse. Teeder pointed out that UND-NDSU rivalry games may be one of the easiest marketing strategies on the planet. The NDSU "marketing strategy" wouldn't be disturbed at all, other than possibly losing 1 home game every 4 years. And as we have pointed out multiple times, they would make more money with this new strategy. It comes down to hurt feelings in the NDSU athletic department. That is the only real reason, the rest are excuses. And I don't need to know the NDSU marketing strategy details to figure that out.

Let them prove it on the field. That's the only score that counts, the one at the end of an actual game. None of the NDSU bluster actually counts. So a UND fan can claim their team would win a game just as much as an NDSU fan. The only way to know for sure which team would win is to have the teams actually play.

I have gone through the financials several times that prove NDSU can actually make more money playing home and home with UND than paying $200K or more for outside teams. It isn't difficult. Gene Taylor doesn't want anything to do with the UND football team. That is the bottom line.

I'm not the one on the opposing school message board trying to talk about how good my school is. I'm sure that you realize that this is a UND fan site. That is another example of the difference between the school's fans. NDSU fans are constantly on this board telling us how much better their teams are. Not a lot of UND fans doing that on Bville. I go over and read some posts, but I have never even joined the board, so I don't try and correct some of the pure fantasy that happens over there. Yet here you are trying to correct me on SiouxSports.com, along with Herd, Bison Dan, Jheria, and many others.

The crimes committed by the NDSU football players are a big deal and would have been widely reported whether NDSU was undefeated or if they hadn't won a game in 3 years. You and some of the other NDSU fans don't grasp that this is actually a serious matter. UND's handling of the hockey team had nothing to do with showing up NDSU, that was just a side benefit. I would guess that UND did learn what not to do by watching NDSU and Gene Taylor. UND's actions were all about protecting the school and the athletic program, while teaching life lessons at the same time. I guess that some NDSU fans can't understand those concepts, they are more concerned with wins and losses. And it would be harder to win games if you had to suspend 10 players that have been charged with a class A misdemeanor for voter fraud. like the 10 players from NDSU.

I'm pretty sure I pointed out in an earlier post that the State's Attorney is reviewing reports from the police. As I said in that earlier post, that means the police were involved in some way, and it also usually mean that the details of the investigation can't be released to the public until the investigation is complete. The State's Attorney is the office that decides whether charges will be filed or not. You should be familiar with that fact after the 10 NDSU football players and 3 former NDSU football players were charged through the Cass County State's Attorney office for their voter fraud. Obviously the UND AD has a pretty good idea about what happened. If the police are involved, the AD can't release details. Plus there are limits to the information that anyone from UND can release because of student privacy laws. But I'm sure that more information will come out whenever the investigation is completed and decisions are made about whether to file charges or not. You may not be aware of this, but this isn't TV or a movie and things don't happen immediately in the legal system. It usually takes some time. I'm pretty sure that I pointed that out to you in an earlier post also, maybe you have some memory issues. But the real difference is that UND got out front of a situation, unlike the case in Fargo where NDSU has decided it is more important to win football games rather than teach life lessons to students. Those 10 current NDSU football players that have been charged with voter fraud for forging hundreds, or even thousands, of signatures on petitions and then certifying that the signatures are valid. You might remember that they have been charged with class A misdemeanors, which is just 1 step short of a felony, for their actions. And all reports say that every one of the players admitted to the forgery to investigators. But nice try to derail the topic.

The NCAA looks very closely at medical records for medical redshirts. The player has to be injured enough to not be able to play again that season. This injury isn't going to make that level. The mere fact that Hanson is going to be in uniform this week as a backup would probably eliminate any chance of getting the medical redshirt. There isn't any creativity in medical redshirts.

Unfortunately, NDSU fans have that attitude and treat other people just as poorly when NDSU is 3-8 as they do when they win the title. NDSU fans have built a tradition of these attitudes. That is one of the things that separate NDSU fans from any others.

I will repeat this one last time. Faison had nothing to do with losing the nickname. The lawsuit and the agreement with the NCAA were completed before Faison was hired. He works for the President of the University, who works for the State Board of Higher Education. Faison did what his employer wanted him to do, just like good employers are expected to do. UND would have been damaged by the NCAA sanctions. Keeping the nickname would have been poor business and a poor decision. You have an unreasonable expectation of what could have been done to deal with the NCAA. The voters of North Dakota made their decision and it was the right decision. Move on. Faison has done a great deal to help the UND Athletic Department. First and foremost is getting the majority of the teams into the Big Sky Conference. UND athletics would not have survived long term without conference affiliation for its teams. Look at the discussions about Idaho and New Mexico State. That would be UND if they didn't have a conference home for football, basketball, and the other sports. And UND hockey, the only sport that you care about, can't survive without the rest of the athletic department. The television contract is a work in process. But there is one major factor that you and others seem to recognize about the new deal. UND is actually going to get paid. UND hasn't gotten any money from this "revolutionary" TV deal with Fox College Sports. The exposure has been great, but you can't spend exposure. $200,000 per year helps pay a lot of bills. Midcontinent will continue to work on expanding their reach with the Midco Sports Net. Making any decisions or assumptions about what the deal will mean for exposure in future years is very short sighted. But the money that UND is receiving will be very useful for the athletic department. The WCHA is in the middle of great change. Losing Minnesota and Wisconsin meant that the small schools were going to be in charge of the league. That isn't good for the stronger programs like UND and Denver. UND and the other schools, with people that know a lot more about running sports programs than anyone on this board, made a decision to start a new league. The fans, again people that don't know a great deal about running sports programs or conferences, may not like the decisions that have been made. But if the league is successful, the fans will forget all about these decisions by the time the league starts playing. We get it. You don't like anything that's happening. Your whining isn't going to accomplish anything. UND is moving forward. Excitement is growing for football, basketball and other sports. The hockey team has a chance to be very successful this year. If you don't like what's happening, quit paying attention. Many of us are happy that good things are happening. This is a new era in UND sports. UND is now a full Division I school with a great deal to look forward to. You can believe that the sky is falling, many of us know that blue skies are here again.

It was an over the top statement to reflect the over the top attitude of NDSU fans. Many NDSU fans believe that their football team is superior to everyone, and they belittle almost everyone else. Especially UND, often for no real reason. The constant attacks on any school or team not named NDSU has more than gotten old. Especially when it constantly bleeds over to this site. Some UND hockey fans are over the top also, but it doesn't compare to NDSU football fans.

NDSU fans think Bison football is bigger than God. Bringing them back to reality just means showing them that others can compete with them.

I don't think it's desperation. But the games were almost always great events no matter who won. They bring more attention to both programs on a regular basis than almost anything else either school could do on their own, other than winning National Championships. And no one wins National Championships on a regular basis. If the schools are on a level playing field it only makes sense to have them play on some kind of a regular basis.

That must be very hard for those people.

Did you miss where I said SINGLE COMMENT in that post? I actually said it TWICE to reinforce. SINGLE comment means ONE comment. So my position didn't change. I originally said if one person makes a comment. The second comment said if anyone makes a single comment. Obviously your reading comprehension skills are very weak.

Thanks for trying to keep this on track.

Any time anyone makes a comment that one of you could in some way believe is anti-NDSU someone shows up to either put down UND or say something to defend NDSU. All it takes is a single comment. NDSU fans are so sensitive that they can't let a single comment go by.

Bville can't let anything go that has happened at UND, yet there are few UND posters that get involved at Bville. One person makes a comment here about NDSU and Bison vultures show up here. Is it any wonder that people don't like dealing with Bison fans on message boards?

I think it was somewhere in the $50-75,000 range.

NDSU isn't going to go broke paying $200,000 for games as long as they are getting 19,000 for games. NDSU will make money off the game. They could make more money off of a home and home series with UND if they used a different ticket structure, but NDSU fans don't want to hear about that.

And you should be proud of getting a minor. My point was that we don't have all of the information yet because it is still under investigation. It is still early in the process. Players might still get charged with something. Yet, even without charges of any kind, the team is being punished for being stupid. See how that works.

If the NDSU players actually admitted the crimes it is less likely that they would be allowed to plead to a lesser charge. The penalties are a range, and it is doubtful that they will get the maximum. But they could very well have a class A misdemeanor fraud charge on their record. And the main reason that NDSU got into the PR problem in the first place is the inconsistency of the football coach, followed by the cavalier attitude of both the coach and the athletic director. Bohl has suspended a lot of players for lesser charges, and before the case was heard. Knowing that, the public sees a problem when he does nothing for a more serious legal charge. Bohl could have suspended them for Robert Morris and it would have eliminated most of the chatter. They could have reserved additional punishment if the crime was deemed worthy of further action. And the AD saying that the players had suffered enough was way over the top. NDSU got themselves into the PR problem before anything happened at UND. As far as the company that hired them, it isn't clear at this time whether they committed any crimes or not. Some of the things they did are probably at least in a gray area. And it looks like they did a poor job of training and supervision at a minimum. But they have not been charged with any crimes as of yet, and it isn't clear whether they will ever be charged with any crimes. But even if they do, that doesn't change the fact that the players committed an act of forging signatures that a vast majority of people would realized is a crime of some kind. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. Their punishments should be unrelated to any punishment that their employers may or may not receive. I'm not sure how you can say the violations at UND look similar when none of the details are available yet. The case is still under investigation. There is a process in place and it sometimes takes a little while. The State's Attorney is reviewing information from the police and probably doing some further investigation or questioning. But they normally don't release much for details until they are ready to charge or not charge. And they can't charge for crimes if they don't have evidence. Were the police called to the scene of the party, or to the dorms to deal with loud and drunk college students who had returned from a party? Was the party at another location and were the drunk students just dumped back at the dorms? Was alcohol present where the police were called? If there is no alcohol present it is hard to charge with minor in possession. Who was present at the location where the police were called? If no one of legal age was present and part of the group, it is hard to charge someone with contributing. If the police were called to the dorm they may have to sort out who was involved and who was just there because they live there. If a form of hazing happened, what kind of hazing was it and how serious was it? There are different levels from something that wouldn't be worthy of a criminal charge up to a pretty serious criminal charge. The police and the school may both be trying to sort out that issue. These are just some of the questions that you start with. More information will come out and we will probably get a better idea of what really happened. Until then it is not realistic to say that we know the violations look similar. There is another difference between the UND situation and the NDSU situation. The NDSU players committed the crimes over the summer, the investigation was ongoing by the time school started and the athletic department knew about it at least 1 or 2 weeks before the public heard. That gave them time to gather information and make informed decisions. Their decision was to do nothing. For UND this incident happened last weekend. The investigation is still ongoing, which may be why charges haven't been filed. But UND jumped in and did something. Doing something will normally get you more points than doing nothing.

They were suspended for breaking team rules. At this point there have been no arrests, no charges, and no issues with the police. The States Attorney is reviewing information to see if anything happened that would warrant charges. If charges are filed, it's possible that the players could face other penalties from the team and the school. In addition, the entire team is facing some kind of consequence including mandatory community service and alcohol classes. If other issues arise during the season it is possible that players could lose scholarship money or be removed from the team. Let's review the NDSU situation. 10 current football players have been formally charged with voter fraud, a class A misdemeanor. That is 1 step short of a felony, so it is kind of a serious charge. 3 former players have been charged with the same crime. All have admitted to investigators that they are guilty according to media reports. In response, the Athletic Director and coach have indicated that this isn't a serious crime. The coach said that there will be no suspensions and the Athletic Director states that the players have suffered enough because their names have been in the media and people have been talking about them. So the athletic department has given them absolutely no visible punishment for committing a class A misdemeanor. Sure seems like a lot more transparency a lot earlier in the process at UND than happened at NDSU. It's no wonder that you're proud of your school and want to come over here to brag about how well NDSU has handled the situation. People and media all over the country have been talking about how well NDSU handled the situation. Congratulations. Oh yeah, if this post was on Bville there would be a couple of sentences in a different color.

I got a tour of the Altru NICU last week. They have been slowly upgrading the unit, it has been one of their points of emphasis. They are about 1 level below Sanford right now. That keeps the vast majority of newborns in town rather than making their families travel so much. There are still a few very serious cases that are sent to Fargo and the Twin Cities. It's amazing what they can do right now for babies, even those born very prematurely.

Sorry, I wasn't paying close enough attention. Discretionary income is always an issue that needs to be dealt with. But it isn't just UND hockey versus UND football and/or basketball. If you are talking discretionary income you have to throw in concerts, movies, vacations, lake homes, new vehicles, etc. You also have to throw in activities for the kids, like dance or sports. Lots of things to spend money on for families. You have to give families a reason to spend money on football tickets rather than whatever else is on their list.