nodak651

Lots of assumptions. The Ralph was built twenty years ago.. the status of UND athletics and college sports in general has changed significantly since then. Can we at least stick to the facts please? The current situation is that pretty much all revenue is controlled by an organization other than the UND Athletic Department, supposedly for the benefit of UND Athletics (as a whole). Look at the status of the basketball programs while they were actually playing in the Hyslop, drawing thousands more than the Betty even holds. Thank God the Ralph helped UND Basketball move into a smaller facility. Imagine if UND actually had to pay for it themselves finance it through the alumni foundation or something, right?! In exchange for the Ralph's donation help, the basketball program only had to give up half of their ticket revenue, two thirds of their marketing sales, and all of their concession sales.. AND they now get to play in a modern and well designed gym, rather than an old dump of an arena which would need tons of updating - a dump like Duke's Cameron Indoor comes to mind, but I guess they are lucky enough in that they can at least design the floor however they want, which would maybe help if they have a branding strategy I guess. If UND M/W Basketball still played at the Hyslop, there's no way they would have won their conference tournaments that one time. As for football, how generous of the Ralph to sell Football tickets on Ticketmaster while only taking 52% of the revenue in return. Even if UND received it's full share of football revenue which has mostly nothing to do with the Ralph, UND would totally be too stupid to use it for things such as coaching pay, to help move the football locker rooms out of a hyslop swimming pool facility, scholarships, food, or even safety equipment. UND Sports programs are doing great! We have the money to attract some of the best coaches in their respective conferences! Our Mens basketball coach even hit a six figure income a few years ago, and that program doesn't lose ALL of their assistants every off season. Meanwhile, the football team has only lost two or three assistants to programs within our own league. In seeing how well UND athletics are currently doing, and considering how UND didn't spend much on it's facilities 20,30,40+ years ago, I guess you're right after all - I admit it! In regard to the money UND generates at the Ralph (and Alerus Center), we are truly lucky that the Ralph is willing to spend it for our Athletic Department. The two million they spent on a new scoreboard was probably the best use of those funds and I'm guessing the payback period on that investment will only be a couple years, at which point they can probably look to buying a full-ice video projection system or gold-plating the Ralph's toilets. It's not like UND could have put that money, and/or some of the 4 million in the Ralphs existing Capital Improvements account toward the number one project on UND Athletics master plan. For the best return to UND Athletics, spending that money to replace the best scoreboard in college hockey for an even besterest scoreboard in college hockey was definitely the best use of those funds. I'm glad the Ralph has UND's best interests in mind, as it would be just a shame if UND invested enough in non hockey sports that UND became attractive to other conferences, given the current climate of college athletics. Wouldn't want to pull or SHSU, Jacksonville State or JMU and put ourselves in a situation that could cause hockey to lose some of it's attention. If/when NDSU and SDSU changes conferences, who gives a crap if we are positioned to move with them anyways, I mean moving to D1 FCS ten years after them turned out great!

You're probably right. 2 Million of that, saved from UND Athletics profit, could have gone to where UND needed it most.... look at the state of all the other sports right now.

Thanks for the summary. I just wanted to put the whole thing out there because people just don't understand how much money the Ralph really controls, and people bashed Kennedy for trying to improve this deal... Don't forget 0% merchandise/Sioux Shop. For the record, the Ralph allocated zero dollars profit to UND the past two years.

The UND/REA usage agreement is in the quote box. Quoted myself and deleted the post to prevent anyone from having to scroll through the whole thing every time they go to this thread...

No, it's just a fee.... no big deal!

After covering expenses AND dumping literally as much money as they want into the Ralphs Repairs, Maintenance, and Building Enhancement account. Section 2-4 - Budget/Disposition of Net Income/Audit A) Annually, on or before July 1 REA and the UND Department of Athletics will exchange proposed annual budgets, subject to availability. B) REA will annually, to the extent that funds are available as determined by UND and REA, fund a Reserve for Extraordinary Repairs, Maintenance, and Building Enhancement. There is no cap on the amount that can be funded annually to the Reserve for Extraordinary Repairs, Maintenance, and Building Enhancement account, but UND and REA desire to make an annual minimum deposit of $500,000, subject to the availability of funds. This Reserve will be reviewed annually to determine the adequacy of the funding requirements, such requirements to either remain the same or to be increased or decreased, depending upon the outcome of the review. Expenditure of the reserve will be subject to mutual agreement. At such time as REA (or another management company mutually agreed upon by UND and REA) no longer manages the Sports Complex, the entire Reserve fund will be transferred to UND for the benefit of the Sports Complex. C) One hundred twenty (120) days after REA's fiscal year ending May 31 each year, REA will remit to UND for athletic purposes; a portion of REA's net income as determined by the UAS Board of Directors.

They pay the Alerus rent.

UND doesn't (for the most part) technically pay the ralph rent. If you're looking at UND's financial statement to the NCAA, I would think that they classify the Ralph's cut of ticket sales and marketing revenue, etc, as rent, which is why I believe such a high number is reported.

Nope

False

Actually no.

UND gets absolutely zero percent of suite revenue at the Ralph.

I'd be curious as to what UND ranks for ticket sales. Id guess it's pretty close to 50th

Not really sure what to think because i am in nashville with 15k or more und fans and still couldnt hardley watch the game. !@#$ chaves

Very dissapointed in this.... really sad there isnt an official watch party. We should use this more though: https://undalumni.org/WatchParty

Came here to ask the exact same thing. In Vegas they had the game up on a projector during the pregame binge drinking tailgate thing. Not sure how the times line up for the football game and hockey game this saturday... will we be playing during the binge drinking pre game deal this weekend?

I dont expect they get an offer because thats a heck of a lot off travel for olympic sports.

For the record, the guy who made that post is legit and basically makes his living off of networking with Athletic Directors and the like, and by filing open records requests. I have no doubt that there is some type of communication being made, but he also didn't make any predictions... could be simply that the Ohio Valley put some feelers out to MN State which may or may not have been rebuffed yet.

Agreed. However, If there is a significant number of FCS schools that work their way into CUSA/FBS as a result of this big shakeup, enough to make the FCS undesirable, I think the Dakota's and Montana's (and like-minded schools in the north) should think about applying for an NCAA exemption/waiver for the creation of a new FBS conference. If this group of schools, which have a better profile than a significant chunk of FBS schools, is basically black-balled from FBS simply due to geographic proximity to existing FBS conferences, there would be a serious argument to be made that Anti Trust violations are being made by the NCAA. I think they approve the waiver.

My apologies to Hayduke if it is.

Kickers are often the difference between wins and losses. Look at our game last week. Look at the Vikings history. No matter what kicker we signed, he would have been discussed, as all football commits are, because UND hockey isn't the only program at UND with a fan base. If UND signs one of the best kickers in the country, that is indeed something to be excited about, because it matters, and wins and losses will eventually be decided by this recruit's foot. Turning good news into an opportunity to !@#$ on the football program only hurts. If more fans like you supported the football program instead of dismissing it, we could probably sell out the Alerus more, improve recruiting, and in-turn, improve the program. Good to know you're a realistic band wagon Sioux fan, though.

This is somewhat interesting: https://csnbbs.com/thread-780094-page-12.html

You're the worst type of "UND" fan.

Do you know when the next meeting is?

No argument there. And for the record, I'm not saying criticism is bad - a lot of it has just gotten way overblown lately, imo. That said, if anyone wants to bash the AD I'm all for it .