Saving Private Baseball

[northernraider]

I was really hoping for an outcome similar to this...

[The Sicatoka]

On April 27, 2016 at 10:12 PM, The Sicatoka said:

I see they need roughly a half million by August 30 and another half million by February 2017. Quite frankly, I just don't see it happening unless there is some great unknown sugar daddy.

No sugar daddy. And I didn't win Saturday's PowerBall or last night's MegaMillions. 

On a related note, apparently Mr. Faison used his time correctly when he ignored the email that so riled everyone up.

I'm sorry for baseball, but I'd rather have a balanced budget and flexibility if future opportunities arise. 

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

UND ATHLETICS: UND announces baseball program won't be saved

http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/local-sports/4030511-und-athletics-und-announces-baseball-program-wont-be-saved

I've gone to 2 baseball games this season and going to try make the last one ever for the SIOUX! C U @ D ballgame.

"If lessons are learned in giving up, I hope our flag ship U is getting a great education?"

 

[UNDBIZ]

Just curious, how are club teams financed at UND?

[petey23]

8 minutes ago, UNDBIZ said:

Just curious, how are club teams financed at UND?

Mostly by the Athletes themselves I believe although they may get a small chunk from student fees through student government.

[jdub27]

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.

[The Sicatoka]

7 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

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). 

If they wanted to count players' tuition as revenue, would they include the academic costs of players in the baseball budget analysis, or just direct baseball related expenses? 

You want to claim the revenue, you take the expense also. Baseball revenue; baseball expense. If you include academic tuition, you must also include the academic expenses in the accounting.

I'm no accountant, but I understand "T-accounts" enough to know if you want the credit on the books you also get the debit. 

[jdub27]

19 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

If they wanted to count players' tuition as revenue, would they include the academic costs of players in the baseball budget analysis, or just direct baseball related expenses? 

You want to claim the revenue, you take the expense also. Baseball revenue; baseball expense. If you include academic tuition, you must also include the academic expenses in the accounting.

I'm no accountant, but I understand "T-accounts" enough to know if you want the credit on the books you also get the debit. 

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.

[82SiouxGuy]

19 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

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.

The other question in this area is how many of those students would come to school without playing baseball and are only playing baseball because it is available. I have known several students in the past that would have attended UND with or without the sport they played (baseball, track, swimming). Having the sport available to them was a bonus. This number may have gone down with the move to Division I, but I'm sure that there are still some of those in many of the lower funded sports.

[The Sicatoka]

44 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

... you're left with a net of about ~$189K loss of tuition.

And eliminate a ~$500k expense. It doesn't net out in baseball's favor. 

[petey23]

24 minutes ago, 82SiouxGuy said:

The other question in this area is how many of those students would come to school without playing baseball and are only playing baseball because it is available. I have known several students in the past that would have attended UND with or without the sport they played (baseball, track, swimming). Having the sport available to them was a bonus. This number may have gone down with the move to Division I, but I'm sure that there are still some of those in many of the lower funded sports.

Different story when we were D2. I am going to say very few of the non-scholarship guys on the baseball team didn't just show up on campus without the coaching staff being aware of it.

[UNDvince97-01]

17 hours ago, The Sicatoka said:

On a related note, apparently Mr. Faison used his time correctly when he ignored the email that so riled everyone up.

Yeah....

I'm really glad our AD ignored the September 15th, 2015 email....thank gawd....good stuff there....

Hope we see more of that in the future from our leaders.

[82SiouxGuy]

31 minutes ago, petey23 said:

Different story when we were D2. I am going to say very few of the non-scholarship guys on the baseball team didn't just show up on campus without the coaching staff being aware of it.

The coaches usually were aware of the student-athletes before they got to school, and even recruited them to play. But the school was the driving force for those students attending UND, not being a baseball player or swimmer. I have to believe that there are still some of those on teams at UND. Those tuition dollars would not be lost by eliminating the baseball team.