jdub27

While I agree with you, it becomes confusing why they are proposing a 58,000 square feet facility, which is over 50% bigger than the currently one.

"Made" as in that was their revenue from the postseason, not their net profit.

Goes back to my comment that they have mismanaged it from the start. The first time it when to a vote, they wanted $21 million with no real plan to speak of. They've done their best to fix that since then, but they continue to be very guarded in a lot of details and costs, not to mention they still can't agree on a site.

Cratter is correct, there would need to be a referendum to fund it. The newest idea is to put both the referendum and location to a vote. The first question is a Yes/No on whether it should be built. The second question is whether it should be at midtown (in front of the Grand Cities Mall) or downtown, with the caveat being that you only get to vote on the second question if you voted Yes on the first one. I see there being some issues in shutting those against the library out on the location decision if it did get the needed support. My observation is that I'm not sure the library and library board could have mismanaged this thing whole thing more from the start if they tried. It has been one constant misstep after another and they've ruined any goodwill and/or trust they have built up to the point that even though there is probably a need for a new structure, no one really trusts their recommendations.

It seems that FargoU fans are the ones spending their time trying to make them important.

Are half of BV's posts still just a group of guys who monitor this board and then copy and paste things over there? Also thought it was funny they their smack board to the public because of some of the gems that were posted in there.

It's fine in the Twin Cities as long as UND makes it. Otherwise it will be the pretty similar to what the WCHA and B1G tournaments looked like.

You mean you can't take him at his word?? May 1: Since then May 9: Bradford's Philadelphia happy face is good news for former Bison quarterback Wentz May 12: Former Bison star Hansen can attest the feeling of the big NFL pay day as Wentz signs May 13: Scheels upgrades Wentz's Bison jersey, prominently displays his No. 11 Eagles jersey May 17: A Wentz in Goff's hometown wonders if she's related to former NDSU star

I would guess around $400k if not a bit more. Last available net numbers are from 2013 and that was about $378K. Both their total gross handle (before prizes/taxes/expenses) and the gross proceeds (before expenses) up about 10% from the 2013 numbers, safe assumption that the net would be up a little bit from that as well. So around 10-11% of the Team makers total contribution to NDSU.

That is correct, I should have specified that 16 relates specifically to forward looking opportunities and keeping that dream alive. Dropping below 16 absolutely kills that.

As for Wayne's last comment: Since the transition and up to right now, the Big Sky is literally the only conference option that provides what UND requires. There has been no other acceptable options offered up without leaving football to hang out to dry making those choices a non-starter. Until that changes, his last question is an absolute moot point.

Typical Caillou, touching on a couple things that would actually provide some insight but failing to go into them because it might be uncomfortable for him or NDSU and he doesn't want to lose his privileges again. States that an increase outside funding will be necessary as they expect state funding to stay flat (but not decrease?). Then mentions that part of that plan was the doubling of student fees that was rejected but doesn't have any quotes or answers on how they will go forward bridging that $1.5 million gap. All that plus some more fluff to basically take a shot at UND stating that NDSU won't be dropping any sports like they did. Of course he fails to mention the actual reason that NDSU won't be dropping any sports: they can't. They are at the D-1 minimum, which is a pretty important factor in why it isn't on the table and won't be done regardless of budget situation. I will say it is impressive that their football success has basically allowed Teammakers to cover almost all scholarships NDSU offers. They don't have their AUP report publicly available so it is tough to see if their sports are fully funded on scholarships. Safe bet they are on the women's side, guessing they aren't quite on the men's side.

Typical Caillou, touching on a couple things that would actually provide some insight but failing to go into them because it might be uncomfortable for him or NDSU and he doesn't want to lose his privileges again. States that an increase outside funding will be necessary as they expect state funding to stay flat (but not decrease?). Then mentions that part of that plan was the doubling of student fees that was rejected but doesn't have any quotes or answers on how they will go forward bridging that $1.5 million gap. Also takes a shot at UND stating how NDSU won't be dropping any sports and then fails to mention that NDSU is in a position where they are unable to a sport because they are at the bare minimum for D-1 requirements, which is a pretty important reason that you wouldn't want to drop a sport regardless of budget situation. Impressive that their football success has basically allowed Teammakers to cover almost all scholarships NDSU offers. They don't have their AUP report publicly available so it is tough to see if their sports are maxed out on scholarships. Safe bet they are on the women's side, guessing they aren't quite on the men's side.

Even as someone who is a fan of the Big Sky and not particularly fond of the Summit/MVFC leadership, I have no problem stating that this has a better chance of happening than UND moving up to FBS and/or joining the WAC and it probably isn't all that close. The only thing that would change that would be a seismic shift by the P5 causing mass chaos among conferences. If that happens, all bets are off, but I still wouldn't be surprised to see the 4 Dakota schools reunited somewhere under those circumstances. However, the P5 currently seem to be fine with having their cake and eating it too.

Having spent a little time helping a former professor with on of his entrepreneur classes, from what I saw, it is actually a more a well-rounded business degree than a specific business degree. My perception was that it goes a little more in-depth on all aspects of business (finance, marketing, management, etc) than one of those specific degrees would. I don't know what the specific "Entrepreneur" classes teach, but my feeling was that the people that came through it had a good understanding of all portions of running a business instead of what amounts to a specific "department" within that business. Music Therapy was cut for a handful of reasons, one of them being the staff turnover continued to cause a ton of issues and the demand for the major wasn't very big. That being said, there are some other programs I would have personally much rather seen cut but I don't know the difference in financial impact those would have made compared to what was done.

Closing the nano-research center and getting downgraded by Carnegie are two interesting steps to take to reach that goal.

It is possible that part of their ticket sales drop has to do with having at least 1 less home game per year since they will try to sell themselves off to the highest bidder to help balance their budget vs. paying teams to come in or playing more home/homes. Also important to note that there is 1 less game in the FCS regular season than there is in the FBS regular season (most years). The debt repayment is going to be the same since it has to do with a previous buyout of a BC game so they are paying it one way or another. It is only a 1 year thing, which is why it isn't in the "current" column but appears in the two projection columns.

I don't disagree with you and I completely see where the fundraisers were coming from. There is obviously a sunk cost for UND whether those students are there or not however what that is becomes very hard to quantify. I would guess this is the exact sticking point that caused the impasse, there isn't a way to quantify it, so they don't. Even if they were able to, I'd guess it would be a much smaller than they were hoping for because there is a cost on the academic side. Just running quick math, a ballpark on tuition paid by the 29 baseball players would be around $294K (3 in-state, 12 Minnesota, 13 Contiguous/MSEP/WUE, and 1 non-resident) before $105K in athletic aid. The athletic aid likely includes some room/board/other, but ignoring that for simplicity's sake, you're left with a net of about ~$189K loss of tuition.

This whole thing points out how much of anomaly that government and college athletic accounting is from the real world. The fundraisers for baseball wanted to include the players' tuition into the revenue side but athletics gets zero credit for that in their budget, they are only hit for the expenses that it costs to run the team (less a very small amount of revenue). Same thing with something like UND operating Ray Richards golf course, which was revenue neutral or even comes out a little ahead, depending on the year. It was all about cutting the expense side of the equation, even if the revenue side made sense or were very close. If they have someone else operate it, they have just cut out X amount of dollars and are basically in the same place or just a little worse (depending on what fees they'd collect). Even if they are a little behind, they did what they "needed" to cut their budget.

We can? Why exactly does the league need to expand?

So if you remember it, how can you be confused on how someone easily could come to the conclusion that NDSU might be short of funds? It has nothing to do with the explanation and whether you or I are satisfied with it. The athletic department told the students they needed more money and wanted to increase the fees above and beyond what they settled on just 2 years into a 5 year agreement to cover the gap. When the students said no, a logical person would conclude that means if they were short before and their plan to cover the "increase in travel expenses" was denied, they would still be short. And since the request for those fees were completely unrelated to budget cuts, a logical person would also conclude that the athletic department will have to do some trimming on the cuts required for the upcoming biennium due to them being supported by a fairly significant amount of funds directly from the school and in turn state funding ($6-7 million or more last year, depending on how you count it).

While I get the nostalgia, the programs you listed were a big part of the reason that UND left the WCHA. Adding them to the NCHC would be defeating the whole reasoning for the conference being created.

Don't you remember the NDSU athletic department saying they needed to more than double student fees to the tune of an extra $1.5 million per year to cover increases in "travel and equipment"? Seems odd that they would request money 2 years into a 5 year agreement with students if they didn't actually need it.

If I had to guess, I think they would stay where they are at 10 teams and get back to having a balanced schedule unless Douple can convince Patty that UND to the Summit is necessary.

Will be interesting to see McFeely's next article about budget cuts, maybe he can actually do some real reporting on it this time instead of just writing uninformed hyperbole. Guessing it will turn out to show that the rest of the schools within the NDUS aren't in the better financial spot he originally claimed. The difference was UND had someone in charge who went ahead with deeper cuts than were required upfront, that would actually make a difference instead of kicking the can down the road, all with the assumption that more would be coming. Turns out Schafer was right and because of it, UND has put themselves close to where they needed to be with the new mandate, even before it was handed down, getting there by making actual cuts. The other schools within NDUS who were hoping to get by on delayed spending will now likely have to go back through their budget and make real cuts, eliminating things that were deemed safe the first time through. UND did it pretty much all of it the run even though it wasn't easy and was definitely messy but save the trouble of compounding the situation by having to go back and do it again.