Hammersmith

I'm just wondering star, where does that $160M current figure come from? The last number I saw was about $90M. Did I miss a news release or speech or something? I try to keep on top of stuff like that(it's a hobby - exciting, I know), so I'm honestly curious.

Speaking objectively, I'd realistically look for a VP from one of the successful schools of the Big Sky, Mid-Con, or Missouri Valley conferences. Considering UND's mission, a VP from the University of Montana would seem to be a good bet if Montana has one that's ready for a presidential gig. CK is leaving you at a pretty bad time and a leader from one of those conferences would give you the quick start toward personal relationships with the presidents of the schools you'll need in your corner in a few years. I would really hesitate to promote from within or hire someone with UND connections unless they had experience at a mid-major school. Just my $0.02. Speaking as a Bison fan, I'm torn. With CK gone, relations with NDSU can now improve and the rivalry is sure to resume(I think this is a good thing). On the other hand, CK was one of the better things to ever happen to NDSU. Oh well, life goes on.

The east side addition was pretty significant. It included a new, large lobby on the first floor and a set of meeting rooms and offices on the second.

I don't think there's any legal question about using the dome tax money for an attached basketball arena. Those issues would have been worked out when some of that money was used for the east side lobby/conference room addition. Sorry, but I think that dog won't hunt. Regarding the Forum's website, I think there was one about the arena when it was first proposed, but I'm not 100% sure. If there was one, it probably aged out; the Forum only keeps the most recent discussions. I would hope that when the next decision comes up, a new topic is started. Right now, we're in a lull with little real information, so a discussion doesn't mean much for now. The arena timeline looks something like this: Now: There is a survey currently going on to study the maintenance costs of the dome over the next 15-20 years. Very Soon: An architect will be hired to put together some rough proposals to determine approximate costs for the new arena options. Mid-2007: Once the maintenance report comes back, the FD Authority will know how much money needs to be saved from the tax proceeds for future maintenance. Mid-2007: The architect's report will come in and the Authority will learn how much money the arena will cost. Sometime in 2008: The final figures from the tax will come in and the Authority will know how much money they have to work with. During this period, NDSU will approach its donors to learn how much money they can expect to raise. During this period, city leaders will contact local businesses to determine if anyone will buy the naming rights and for how much. Once all this information is collected, the final decisions can be made. There are many points in the future where discussion will flare up and people will get to have their say. The next one will be when the maintenance report comes back and we have some hard figures to work with rather than the boatload of variables we have now.

It's still in the earliest planning stages and nothing is certain yet. If it happens(and that's still a big if), it should seat between 6000 to 8000 and it will adjoin the Fargodome on its west side. The very tentative money figures are a $30-45M facility with $10-15M coming from the excess Fargodome sales tax, $10-15M from NDSU, and $10-15M from naming rights/outside monies. An architect is being hired to put together some rough proposals to see what could be built at the different price points. We probably won't get to see any drawings until late-spring/early-summer.

I think the return of the doubleheader next year will be a big benefit to NDSU and SDSU. Last year we had just two, and this year we had none. Next year we will have the opportunity for 5(if the AD chooses to schedule them that way). In contrast, the NCC schedule has allowed UND to have 9 doubleheaders this year and 11 last year. The regularity of the Mid-Con schedule will also help attendance. Currently, games are played on an almost random day of the week making it hard for fans to work the games into their weekly schedules. The Mid-Con plays men's games on Thursday and Saturday and women's games on Saturday and Monday. The Saturday games can either be scheduled as a doubleheader or an afternoon/evening. That kind of regularity should help attendance somewhat. I'm not saying our average attendence will double overnight or anything, but I do expect a 25-75% increase over this year's numbers. Also, if we win the regular-season championship, that should guarantee a NIT berth. Games that have post-season implications typically draw better. I look at it this way: NDSU currently has a crappy facility, little tradition(men's), a struggling women's team, no conference, no post-season hopes, an irregular schedule, no doubleheaders, and lackluster home opponents(exceptions: Kansas St & Minnesota). With all that against us, we're still drawing almost 2500/1500 a game(Star's numbers are wrong/old). We're currently building tradition and a better women's team, next year we'll have a conference, post-season hopes, a regular schedule and five doubleheaders, the schedule will be a little better, and we may have a new home soon. By the 2008-2009 season, I expect averages of 4k/3k and 5-5.5k/4k for the first year in a new arena(if it happens). As for UND, it all depends on the quality of your teams during the transition. If things stay as they are, the men's attendance will take a big hit once the doubleheaders disappear, and women's will take a smaller hit, but should stay in the same ballpark. If the men's team takes off, or the women's team falters, all bets are off.

There are a lot of comments in this thread that I'd like to respond to, but I don't want to create a whole string of messages or a long nested post. Instead, I'll break things down into sections and I hope you'll be able to tell who I'm responding to. 1. I don't believe RT was the NCC's commissioner when the SU's and UNC made their decisions. I believe he was still the UND AD and advised CK to keep UND DII. 2. Had UND supported a DI NCC back in 2002, I think there was a good chance that UNO, SCSU and, maybe, Mankato might have been persuaded to move. A conference of 7 or 8 members would have kept travel costs down and provided half-completed schedules before the first phone call. Add in a couple of local DII games and you'd have quick, cheap schedules. Whether that would have kept the NCC alive forever is open to debate, but I think it would have kept it around at least a littte longer than what has happened in reality. 3. As a Bison fan, I'm glad now that what I wrote above never happened. The lack of a DI NCC forced NDSU to make some uncomfortable choices that have benefited us greatly. 4. Why can't the U's have the same success as the SU's? They might. The problem is the difference between skill and opportunity. UND can control the former but not the latter. No one could confidently predict four years ago that Chicago State would choose to go independent the same year that Valpo would join the Horizon, or that WKU would go FBS just as a 12-game season became possible. If UND had gone DI with the SU's, they could have taken advantage of these opportunities. Might there be a new set of opportunities in four years for the U's? Yes, but there are no guarantees. You can't control when or if these opportunities happen and you can't take advantage of them once they've passed. I've always liked the saying: "Fortune favors the bold." NDSU was bold and Fortune smiled down on us. UND was initially timid and we have yet to see what Fate has in store for you/them. 5. The GWFC won't fold if the SU's leave. The GWFC could add the U's in 2008 if absolutely necessary. You would be strongly encouraged to schedule at least three other DI teams so that you would count as a DI to UC Davis and Cal Poly, but they would let you in to keep the conference alive. No autobid until 2014 at the earliest.

Actually, it's a combination of everything you said. The NCAA deadline was changed twice, but it was from Dec15? to Sep 1 to Jun 1. The Jan 1 date comes from the NCC. That was changed after the 2003 exodus.

You didn't ask me, but I just want to see this debate die; so... Conference Championships over last 10 years: NDSU: 3; UND: 6 Conference Championships over last 25 years: NDSU: 10; UND: 10 NCC Tourney Championships over last 6 years: NDSU:0; UND: 6 (nice job BTW) NCAA DII Championships over last 10 years: NDSU: 0; UND: 3 NCAA DII Championships over last 25 years: NDSU 5; UND: 3 notes: The NCC Women's BB tourney was only restarted in 2001, that's why that record only goes back 6 years. As the years go on, these numbers will mean less and less since our two teams are in different conferences. The 10 year is really 8/10. Next year it will be 7/10, and so on. Next year your 3 NCs will drop to 2, since the first was ten years ago this year. In two years and a couple months, all three of your NC's will age out of the 10 year category. After looking at the records, I would have to say that the Bison were pretty much neck and neck with the Sioux during the last 8 years together in the NCC. Only in 1998(rebuilding year) and in 2002 was NDSU more than 2 games out of first in the NCC when they didn't win it. NDSU was even the regular season co-champion(with SDSU) for our final year in the NCC. Last year was bad; I don't deny it, but what can you expect when your star prospect gets homesick a couple of weeks into the year and quits, and your expected team leader goes down early with a season-ending injury. Stuff happens(just look at our volleyball team last year). Do I think the Bison would win a one-game matchup with UND this year? Probably not. But I wouldn't bet against a split of two games. Records and statistics and predictions all go out the window for a rivalry game and one game out of a pair might just end up an upset. On a different subject, could somebody tell me if Sioux basketball ticket prices are different for single games vs doubleheaders?

I was basing my interpretation off the response you recieved from Julie Ward a few months ago. My thoughts were that, since a ticket is issued to a suite holder or a SRO attendee, they would be counted in the attendance. My question would be: How many SRO tickets were sold for those games and were the risers used? You could well be right that the suite holders are not counted. The rather low attendance figures for those sellouts is a bit suspicious.

Actually, they are counted. Currently, UND is reporting paid attendance. It won't even matter when they switch to actual attendance; people in the suites will still be part of the count. Where the suites don't count is towards the 12,300 capacity. Since UND does not sell those tickets (the Alerus does), they don't consider them part of the regular capacity. I don't think that's the right decision and I'd add in the ADA stands as well. As long as they're in place for every game, they should be counted as a part of the standard capacity. All your other ideas are very good. I would add in a better marketing campaign as well. Maybe it's just me, but every time I see or hear the "Force of the North" slogan, I think of a marching band. Fargo had a drum and bugle corps a few years back called North Force. Doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart.

I don't competely disagree, but the problem is that the Alerus doesn't have the room for the kind of growth NDSU has seen. Using NDSU's growth percentages, the Alerus would have hit capacity in 2005. Now, a sellout season is a great thing and generates an excitement all its own(I'm hoping NDSU starts seeing them in 08 or 09), but they do limit your ticket revenue. Still, I'm as excited as anyone else to see what happens in the next few years. I'm not wildly optimistic of UND's chances to equal NDSU's growth, but I certainly don't wish UND ill.

I'm not going to disagree with what you say, fighting sue; you make some good points. I'll make a couple of small corrections that don't really affect your conclusions. 1. There are 141 teams in DI-FCS, not 120. 2. I like the 12,300 number for the Alerus and 19,200 for the Fargodome. Those numbers actually support your capacity arguments, changing them to 77.9% and 85.3%, respectively. The most interesting attendance statistics for me are the trends over time. These numbers are not so attractive for UND. Here are the five year figures(regular season games only): UND 2002: 9,488(-6.7%) 2003: 9,424(-0.7%) 2004: 9,555(+1.4%) 2005: 10,126(+6.0%) 2006: 9,578(-5.4%) Five year change: +0.9% NDSU 2002: 10,620(-12.3%) 2003: 11,567(+8.9%) 2004: 13,269(+14.7%) 2005: 14,160(+6.7%) 2006: 16,377(+15.7%) Five year change: +54.2%

No, I should have been more specific when I posted the proposed legislation. On 6 Jan, there will be a Legislative Forum. After that meeting, there will be two override votes on legislation that was rejected by the DI Board of Directors. One of those two votes will be on the 12 game season. Only CS schools will vote on that one. On 7 Jan, the DI Management Council will meet and break the proposed legislation into three groups based on the DI MC Legislative Review Subcommittee's recommendations. The three groups are: 1. Approve and forward directly to the Board of Directors without further review. 2. Defeat. 3. Forward to the membership for review and comment. On 8 Jan, the DI Board of Directors will meet and vote on the proposed legislation sent to them by the Management Council. In April, the Management Council will make a final decision on any proposed legislation that was sent to the membership for review and comment. What does this junk mean? Some of the bills will be thrown out before they reach the BoD(I think the reclass. exception will be one of these), some will go to the BoD and be adopted, a few will go to the BoD and be regected. and some decisions will be postponed until April. A few bills only apply to BS or CS schools, but the vast majority apply to all DI membership; that includes the reclassification exception bill. NDSU grad is correct in that the GWFC does not satisfy the requirements of the proposed legislation. The Mid-Con and the Big Sky do, however. As I said before, I think this would cut one year off of NDSU's and SDSU's transition, but I'm not certain. I do believe it's a moot point, though, since I highly doubt that this piece of legislation will make it out of the Management Council on 7 January.

I think so. I think we've passed, or will pass, all the requirements layed out in the motion. Still, don't get your hopes up on this one. This is only being pushed by the Southland Conference, and the Committee on Athletics Certification and the Management Council Membership Subcommittee both oppose it. I'd give it a 10% chance of passing max.

It's penance.

You're right; my bad. I was lazy and didn't double-check the info. Since I was in the agenda for the meeting, here are a few other motions that could affect UND: NO. 2006-92 DIVISION MEMBERSHIP - PROVISIONAL MEMBERSHIP PROCESS AND REQUESTING RECLASSIFICATION - EXPLORATORY YEAR - SPORTS SPONSORSHIP AND FINANCIAL AID REQUIREMENTS Intent: To specify that provisional and reclassifying members shall satisfy minimum sports sponsorship and financial aid requirements during the exploratory year of the applicable membership process.[as opposed to requiring the same during Reclass. Year 1] Rationale: This change would ensure that institutions making the transition into year one of the reclassification or provisional process are making the necessary commitment prior to engaging in the process, thereby enhancing the opportunities for studentathletes to compete successfully at the Division I level. Big one (in more ways than one). NO. 2006-93 DIVISION MEMBERSHIP - CHANGE OF DIVISION MEMBERSHIP - EXCEPTION TO RECLASSIFICATION PERIOD FOR DIVISION I CONFERENCE MEMBER Intent: To specify that a reclassifying institution that accepts an offer of membership from an active Division I conference may complete the reclassifying process after the second year, provided all requirements in the exploratory year, first year and second year are met, and provided the institution successfully completes an NCAA athletics certification orientation during the second year and a self-study and evaluation visit during the first year of active membership. Rationale: The current legislation governing change of division membership requires an institution to complete an exploratory plus four-year transition period to ensure the institution is appropriately prepared for Division I. If an institution joins a Division I conference that satisfies core and continuity-of-membership provisions and the institution is able to meet all requirements for reclassification in a condensed time period, it is practical for the institution to be granted full Division I status following year two of the reclassification process. Division I conference membership provides the additional administrative oversight and support for a reclassifying member; therefore, years three and four of the reclassification process are effectively completed by virtue of membership in the conference. Further, a reclassifying institution and its student-athletes are ineligible for NCAA championships during the four-year transition period. Denying a class of student-athletes the opportunity to participate in championships runs counter to the ideals of intercollegiate athletics and negatively impacts the student-athlete experience. Only a limited number of institutions transitioning to Division I have received and accepted offers of full Division I conference membership by the end of the first year of reclassification. Accordingly, this limited exception will not significantly increase the number of new Division I membership applications. This is the committee that chooses who gets autobids. NO. 2006-98 COMMITTEES - NCAA FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SUBDIVISION COMMITTEE - COMPOSITION Intent: To reduce the size of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Committee from eight to five members; further, to specify that the committee shall include one member from each NCAA Football Championship Subdivision region. Rationale: The eight conferences that satisfy the requirements for and receive automatic qualification to the NCAA Division I Football Championship are equally distributed among the four NCAA Football Championship Subdivision regions. Reducing the committee size to five members will ensure that the eight qualifying conferences and all NCAA Football Championship Subdivision institutions receive adequate and equal representation on the committee. This is consistent with the Association

The CS schools will vote for one of three proposals at the January 6th meeting: 1. 12 game season; 16 team playoff 2. 11 game season; 24 team playoff 3. 11 game season; 16 team playoff (maintain the status quo)

True, but there's a difference between an occasional trip and a yearly one. I'm hoping that they just decide to grumble a bit, but there have been some comments to the media that YSU's people aren't completely happy with the idea of the Dakota SU's in the Gateway. I'm still betting 80/20 we're in. If the CS schools vote to add a twelfth game on January 6th, I'll bet 99/01.

We have three schools we need to worry about: 1. Missouri State - They're looking forward to moving up from the eighth place team to the seventh. Of course that's because the conference will be shrinking. Their program is in such bad shape that some doubt they'll keep football. 2. Youngstown State - They don't shy away from competition, but the trek to the Dakotas is pretty long for them considering how many other CS programs are within a bus ride. 3. Illinois State - Coach doesn't much care for the idea but the AD seems fairly unconcerned. Same article:

D'oh. <head slap> Thanks, that was the problem. I should have double checked that right away. Now I feel like a schmuck. I sent out an email to the pres of Blue Key 10sec before I checked back here. Double d'oh. Thanks again.

I was trying to add to the Nickel Trophy page at Wikipedia when I ran into a problem. Both the NDSU and UND media guides agree that UND leads the series 35-30, but when I list out the years, I can only come up with 34 wins for UND. The series was played from 1938-2003 with 1943 and 1944 off for WW2. That should only allow for 64 games. It was my understanding that neither of the two playoff games in 1994 and 1995 counted towards the record. Can anyone show me where I'm wrong, or is the record incorrect? I'm going to go ahead and make the addition to the NT page(box on the right-hand side) with the 34-3031 figure, but I'll leave the 35-30 figure alone in the text for now. edit: I also just noticed that NDSU and UND played twice in 1945, splitting the games. By my count, that puts the Nickel series at 34-31. Now I'm really confused.

DI-FBS: 85 scholarships/no partials allowed DI-FCS: 63 scholarships to 85 players In DI, partial scholarships are not allowed in FBS football, men's and women's basketball, women's volleyball, women's tennis, and women's gymnastics. Why? I have no friggin clue. Sports that only allow full scholarships are called 'head-count sports' while the others are called 'equivalency sports'.

Next year will be UND's exploritory year. That means UND will still be fully DII, including playoff eligibility and scholarship limits(36). After that, UND can increase scholarships to 63 at will. For a DI-FCS to count as a DI-FBS win, the FCS school must average 57 scholarships(90% of 63) over a rolling two year period. If your AD chooses to, and if the school can find the money, UND could get a FBS money game as early as 2009. Rumor has it that the Gophers have agreed to a game with SDSU for that year and NDSU is scheduled to play Iowa State, so those two are off the potential list. In case any are confused by the FCS and FBS acronyms, remember that I-A, I-AA and I-AAA no longer exist. FBS: Football Bowl Subdivision, formally I-A; also referred to as BS. FCS: Football Championship Subdivision, formally I-AA; also referred as CS.

I think you've pegged it. The only variation I can see is if UND and USD can guarantee the Great West schools that they will have more than 7 DI programs on their schedules in 2008. That should make them DI counters and not adversely affect the playoff hopes of the postseason eligible teams. This assumes that NDSU and SDSU are still in the GWFC at that time. Still, I think the two scenarios you laid out are the most likely.