nodak651

Is UND's new partnership with Space Force a big deal? https://news.yahoo.com/und-become-first-university-nation-003100045.html

I disagree with the stadium issue. Given the current size, they can leverage ticket scarcity by keeping ticket prices high while still bein able to effectively sell out every game and have an awesome atmosphere. I don't see how a bigger stadium is needed at all when they already generate more ticket sales than any school in the MAC, Sun Belt, or CUSA, not to mention half of the MWC. They can renovate the dome to add suites or club seats as well, so $200 million for a new stadium seems like a hell of risk to me -- for what reward? I'd really like to see a hypothetical financing/business analysis on this. Also, disregarding any financial risk, the home field advantage at the new stadium would undoubtedly be worse, which I believe would actually cost NDSU W's at some point. It's a TOUGH place to play at for a road team... we've all seen it. I'll refrain from comparing the Fargo Dome to the basketball arenas at Gonzaga or Duke, but you get the point.

Not sure if it's a hot take, but I think BOTH lines are going to be better.

https://knoxradio.com/2021/08/03/gg-council-keeps-aquarium-plans-afloat/ With some hesitancy the Grand Forks council voted last night (Monday) to continue discussions with a company looking to locate an ecosystem aquarium at the Grand Cities Mall. The proposed site for the 17,000 square foot SeaQuest would be the former Kmart building. One of the hurdles is a potential $1 million dollar subsidy to seal the deal. Mayor Brandon Bochenski says it’s a big “ask” that needs more assessment. “I am not a huge fan of having public money involved in these projects but something has to start the growth.” Continued....

What would Brown do?

I think you can add ISU. They aren't really a cakewalk and they put up some good offensive numbers this spring. Nearly beat EWU and UC Davis and their other two losses were to Weber. Not sure who they have returning. https://isubengals.com/sports/football/schedule/2020

NDSU is having a similar problem to UND with students not showing up. This comparison here is between NDSU football and UND hockey, to be specific. Both have top programs in the country and both are having student attendance issues. I believe NDSU recently removed one of their student sections like UND did for hockey at the Ralph. A lack of students could partially account for reduced attendance. I don't have a point here - it's just an interesting comparison to me. I think part of NDSU's issue is that their success has come almost too easy, which makes winning less rewarding, which can cause complacency and also hinder attendance. This is part of the reason I like following UND football more than hockey... a lot of people like rooting for an underdog, or at least accomplishing a feat that isn't pretty much pre determined. In regard to the Fargo Dome, I don't think a new stadium is needed for NDSU to be successful at the FBS level. It provides a HUGE home field advantage, and ticket scarcity in comparison to a new stadium allows NDSU to support higher ticket prices. If it's hard to get a ticket, people are more likely to go when they get the chance as well. Just look at the dozens of half empty FBS stadiums around the country to prove my point... a lot of these schools are also selling tickets for about half the price. NDSU doesnt need the bigger stadium when their annual ticket sales are already much higher than most G5 schools as it is. They could instead take that stadium money and put it into travel costs and women's sports. The Dakota schools, Montanas, UNI, Illinois State all have athletic departments that fit the FBS profile. These schools generate more ticket sales and donations on average than most G5 schools, the main difference is the smaller buy-game payouts, no CFB championship revenue, and no TV deal. If any of these schools move FBS, they will always have conference stability issues unless they are in the same conference. They are all very similar schools in the North, and the only reason they aren't all FBS already is Geography. The rivalries are important for NDSU's fan base as well. The Dakotas playing together at the same level as the G5 schools is inevitable - it may not happen tomorrow, but geography and finances = G5... together, though it may take ten plus years to play out.

For anyone interested in the finances for the athletic departments at the D1 schools around the country (fbs & fcs), this list is GOLD. Matt Brown, who broke the news on the Southland/WAC realignment, put together a directory that contains the athletic department financial reports for nearly every school in the country. These are the reports that schools are typically obtained through FOIA requests, which schools are required to send to the NCAA each year. The reports contain a bunch of detail on revenues and expenses for each sport at most of the schools. Disclaimer: some of the data occasionally needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Posting this now because it is relatively new, but it's also very relevant, given the potential for conference realignment. https://www.extrapointsmb.com/foia-directory/

Montana and Montana State. Montana State has surpassed Montana as THE school in the state. MSU is trending towards doubling the enrollment of Montana. I think both together, rather than Idaho, would be most likely in this scenario.

UND has some significant challenges when it comes to FBS. The first is the Alerus center capacity - I'm pretty sure the sound end can be blown out and renovated, but not sure on the cost or how much additional attendance it would net. The second is its deal with the REA, and the REA taking such a huge cut of ticket sales, with no clear guidelines on how much profit gets sent back to UND after the REA puts most of it in it's piggy bank. Did anyone see any announcements on how much money the REA allocated to UND this past year, by the way? Pretty sure it's supposed to be a minimum of 500k annually, but I don't recall seeing an announcement. Football revenue needs to flow back to football if UND ever does move to FBS. UND also needs to do a better job of marketing - why is everything available for purchase either hockey apparel (without the hawk logo) or a generic UND/Fighting Hawks shirt? UND has got to do a better job of marketing it's football program, and apparel is a huge part of that. There's no reason my high school has more football shirts for sale than a D1 football team with nearly a 10k attendance average. Also, PHASE TWO!! Phase two appears to have stalled, similar to the Gateway project when Chaves was at EWU. Not a fan of Chaves at the moment.

Punctuation is key here.

This would be a great "get" for grand forks - especially with the lack of things to do during the winter - although I would rather see them build at the Columbia mall. The grand cities mall should be torn down and redeveloped, imo. Sea Quest is popular and well liked a the Rosedale mall in the Twin Cities. My wife was there recently and she commented on how busy it always is. It has an impressive google rating at 4.7 stars with almost 3.5K reviews. Not sure anything in Grand Forks can match that except maybe the Ralph.

is anyone able to load the seat location map for season tickets on ticket master? Not sure if it's just me or not because I can't get the GF Herald login screen to work either (and havent for months... just refreshes page and sends me back to home page).

This would be awesome for college hockey with the potential of Big Ten teams at USC, Oregon, Colorado, Washington. Expanding with programs like this out west would be huge for the growth of the game, and 10x more likely if a Big Ten landing spot was guaranteed.

I think there is a pretty good chance that not a single g5 moves up as a result of this. The P5 are going to turn into the P4, and each P4 conf will have two divisions with no conf championship game, to allow for an expanded playoff that will include the winner of each division, so each conf will have a minimum of 2 teams each, in the new college football playoff. The biggest change will be seperation between the G5 and P4. With the G5 hopefully realizing where they stand as the end result, but this last part is unlikely because they are delusional. The G5 needs to create their own championship. This is whats best for them although they will never admit it.

Looks like the covid season will pay dividends for ASU... apparently they get a return game from all the Big Ten teams in exchange for playing on the road all year. "Big Ten teams are committed to play return games at ASU, but Powers said that won't begin until the 2022-23 season when the Sun Devils move into their new 5,000-seat campus home currently under construction with the foundation being poured." at the bottom https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/college/asu/2021/03/09/career-scoring-leader-johnny-walker-returning-asu-hockey/6926111002/

Disagree, especially after refusing to speak with potential donors after the decision was made and announced as final, and after they already bragged about how much money they raised. For him now, its win win. (him being the president)

Is that store the same footprint as the old SuperOne? If so, is that space larger than a typical Aldi? I've only seen Aldi's the size of a Walgreens/CVS. Hornbachers must have only used part of the SuperOne footprint, right? Also, Altru is looking to buy the Devils Lake Hospital... has anyone been following that? Not sure if it's been mentioned here yet. Also, is anyone worried about the base with the air force apparently trying to end it's global hawk program?

What's interesting is a significant portion of UND's top 15 all-time recruits never played out their eligibility at UND, for a number of different reasons. Also, on an unrelated note, even though websites like 247 get ripped on for poorly evaluating talent, most of UND's recruits who have had star ratings have turned out to be VERY important players for us.

Roughriders was a great name. Actually, great might be pushing it, but it was still 10x better than Fighting Hawks. I've come to accept it though and happily cheer our teams on under the official moniker.

Because people were gullible enough to think that we would end up with a logo like this (see below) when choosing the new nickname. Voters who picked the current nickname are to blame for the current logo, because they picked one of the most generic and overused nicknames in the country. Logos like the one you show here are a dime a dozen - at least the current und logo is unique, in comparison to other bird logos. Also, whichever logo UND went with was going to be compared to the old Sioux logo - people would have hated the portland winterhawk logo as well. imo

Agreed. And that is good to hear.

I get where you are coming from, but the schools that you want the conference to add make the conference less desirable. Schools being in a football/all sports conference does nothing to help raise the basketball profile of these schools... on the court performance does, and these schools would most likely finish in the bottom half of the league in most years, and a school like Augi would just dillute the recruiting pool in the Twin Cities/Minnesota/Iowa/the Dakotas. Schools like Lindenwood and Augi and UNC joining the conference would just give the better Summit programs more of a reason to bolt (DU/UNC, SDSU/Augi for example).... these schools aren't like minded or well financed, and they do not have huge fan support, and they most importantly do not provide greater access to the markets that they are in. Few people that aren't affiliated with Lindenwood, in St. Louis, actually care about Lindenwood, so adding them would do nothing for enrollment (if a tree falls in the forest with nobody around...). We would however lose a presence in some of our biggest recruiting areas, which association with the MVFC schools provides (paramount for fb recruiting). The MVFC is also the strongest football conference in the country with mostly larger land grant universities... destroying that relationship helps nothing. UND and the Dakota schools need to position themselves for the future by strengthening the Summit and in turn, closing the performance gap with MVC schools, which would give schools a reason to actually stay in the Summit. With the public/private disfunction in the MVC, a strong relationship with schools like UNI and Illinois State could be important if the MVC ever splits.

Not a fan at. all... and why would market size matter if a school doesn't have a national TV deal that pays per subscriber? For example UMKC being in Kansas City doesn't really matter if nobody in KC cares about them.

My vote would be Aldrich. Amazing venue. Only problem is locker room space is less than adequate. Hill just renovated their space there. Not sure how much room is left, especially if UST renovated their own locker room, which would maybe leave 2 public locker rooms? I think that place has 4 rooms but I can't remember.