President Kennedy Message on Athletics

[dakotadan]

23 minutes ago, Sioux>Bison said:

Men's football and women's hockey is no comparison. One has fans and one does not. One has huge national exposure potential and one does not. Football will never go from UND. Women's hockey is a huge waste of money and should be cut because colleges should start focusing on their main mission, educate students. I could care less if UND had less student athletes because in the end it doesn't affect the education of students.

To say that one has fans and the other doesn't is false. From a football standpoint getting 8-9,000 fans at home games is nothing to brag about. Pretty sad actually. Women's hockey draws virtually the same as men's basketball, women's basketball, and the volleyball programs. 

To say that one has huge national exposure potential and one does not is also false. NEITHER program has huge national exposure potential.

Women's hockey is a huge waste of money and should be cut because colleges should start focusing on their main mission, educate students.[\quote]

Then UND should cut all varsity sports. 

[SWSiouxMN]

Decided to crunch the numbers attendance wise for the last 5 years. Take whatever you want out of it

Mens bball

2015-16: 1850

2014-15 1700

2013-14 1839

2012-13 1625

2011-12 2045

Womens bball

2015-16: 1548

2014-15  1738

2013-14  1569

2012-13  1469

2011-12  1608

Volleyball

2015-16 969

2014-15 1038

2013-14 1131

2012-13 735

2011-12 853

Women's Hockey

2015-16 1009

2014-15 1122

2013-14 1263

2012-13 Not available (given senior year of Lammy twins, i'd say similar attendance to 2011-12)

2011-12 1485

[UND1983]

They are getting a 1,000 people a game but aren't taking tickets next year.  Please explain.....anybody?

[Hayduke]

1 hour ago, Sioux>Bison said:

Men's football and women's hockey is no comparison. One has fans and one does not. One has huge national exposure potential and one does not. Football will never go from UND. Women's hockey is a huge waste of money and should be cut because colleges should start focusing on their main mission, educate students. I could care less if UND had less student athletes because in the end it doesn't affect the education of students.

I agree. 

The Ivy League won't participate in the FCS playoffs because it takes away from the academic mission. 

I am happy to report that UND has followed their lead. 

[fightingsioux4life]

6 hours ago, NoiseInsideMyHead said:

Neither of the A's in NCAA stands for attendance.  I would like to hear from student athletes who came up through non-revenue, non-spectator-other-than-parents-and-friends sports to see if any of the NCAA's stated ideals have merit.  Either college sports are a good philosophical idea AT THEIR CORE--and thus deserving of funding and investment--or they aren't.  An empty arena is irrelevant IF the student athletes are being fulfilled through education, character, integrity, personal growth, development, etc.  A lot of views expressed on this subject focus more on the entertainment value to the individual, and not on the bigger picture. 

You are describing the mission statement for high school athletics. But this isn't high school athletics. It's collegiate athletics.

[fightingsioux4life]

4 hours ago, 82SiouxGuy said:

The biggest money losing sport at UND and at most schools is football. UND lost more than $2.5 million on football in the last reported year. If you are making decisions based on losing money you eliminate football like Omaha did.

This is a fair point to bring up. However, the time for UND to drop FB would have been at the beginning of our transition, like Omaha did. Now with Bubba and his staff in charge and the program on the upswing, it isn't going to happen.

I think the point people are making is that women's hockey doesn't have the future potential in terms of revenue and on-ice success that other programs on campus have.

[dakotadan]

55 minutes ago, UND1983 said:

They are getting a 1,000 people a game but aren't taking tickets next year.  Please explain.....anybody?

Idk. Maybe their goal is to offer free admission for a season or two to increase the fan base then go back to charging $5-7. Maybe their goal is to get the attendance numbers above Duluth's and closer to Minnesota's and Wisconsin's to help in the recruiting battles. 

I personally would charge $7 adult, $5 teens, 12-under free. Offer $3 tickets to groups of 15+ and market it towards high school teams, community groups, etc. 

[Nodak78]

http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/4103129-und-athletics-big-sky-reacts-unds-budget-announcement

 

 

[NoiseInsideMyHead]

46 minutes ago, fightingsioux4life said:

You are describing the mission statement for high school athletics. But this isn't high school athletics. It's collegiate athletics.

http://www.ncaa.org/about/ncaa-core-values

[CMSioux]

2 hours ago, dakotadan said:

To say that one has fans and the other doesn't is false. From a football standpoint getting 8-9,000 fans at home games is nothing to brag about. Pretty sad actually. Women's hockey draws virtually the same as men's basketball, women's basketball, and the volleyball programs. 

To say that one has huge national exposure potential and one does not is also false. NEITHER program has huge national exposure potential.

 

UND was right around 39 out of 123 schools in home attendance for football last year. Room for improvement but far from "Sad". 

[Corella]

1 hour ago, UND1983 said:

They are getting a 1,000 people a game but aren't taking tickets next year.  Please explain.....anybody?

They aren't selling 1000/gm. They may "average" 1000/gm, but for all gms but 2 the attendance is closer to 800. The 2 Gopher gms inflate the yearly "average attendance" tremendously.

Champions Club members get into gms for free. Kids Club members get into gms for free. UND students get into gms for free. Coaches families get into gms for free. Player families & opposition families get tickets for free. Given all of that, REA might actually sell 150-200 tickets per gm. That may be high. 

Given how many tickets are actually sold, a good question is why are the gms staffed by REA? Staffing gms but only selling 200 tickets most likely means the REA loses $. So why even sell tickets? No tickets = no (or at least far less) staff to pay. REA has a bottom line too. Not ripping, just stating facts.

If I had to guess, that's your answer.

[Goon]

1.) Minnesota 20 games - 42,501 average 2,125 searts 3, 4006 

2.) Wisconsin21 games - 42,398 average 2,019 seats 2,400 

3.) Minnesota-Duluth16 games  - 21,293 average 1,331 seats 6,600

4.) North Dakota 16 games  - 16,143 average 1,009 seats 11,6348

So, not one single woman's program draws more than 3,000 fans per game. Incidetly, last season, UND was ranked fourth in the country for attendace. 

 

[Cratter]

Sounds like a nice perk offered to be able to go.to women's hockey games if your in these certain UND clubs....those packages become less valuable when it replaces women's hockey with women's soccer.

The entire community gets into women's soccer games for free. What's it average?

[UND1983]

56 minutes ago, Cratter said:

Sounds like a nice perk offered to be able to go.to women's hockey games if your in these certain UND clubs....those packages become less valuable when it replaces women's hockey with women's soccer.

The entire community gets into women's soccer games for free. What's it average?

what's its budget?

[nodakvindy]

4 hours ago, fightingsioux4life said:

 

I think the point people are making is that women's hockey doesn't have the future potential in terms of revenue and on-ice success that other programs on campus have.

I'm guessing something similar would have been said about women's basketball in 1988. Women's hockey is one of 3 sports that has a realistic possibility of winning a national title and one of two that can produce Olympic athletes. Cutting it would be idiotic. A change in coaching however might be logical, especially to someone with local roots and more charisma.

As mentioned football actually loses more money and its presence has required us to be in a conference that a total geographic mismatch with vastly higher travel costs and results in virtually zero revenue from opposing fans. 

Cutting sports should be the last option. And I think you have to take all the reported budget numbers with a grain of salt. What is undeniable is that marketing and promotion need to improve across the department and that doesn't necessarily require more money.  I'd also love to see a lot more transparency from REA regarding budget figures. 

[Cratter]

1 hour ago, UND1983 said:

what's its budget?

Doesn't lose as much as football?

[UND1983]

20 minutes ago, Cratter said:

Doesn't lose as much as football?

Whats the budget?

[Cratter]

8 minutes ago, UND1983 said:

Whats the budget?

I'm not sure what the budget is of the third most popular women's sport at UND. I hope it's very high being it's so popular at UND. 

[UNDBIZ]

How many other women's sports have drawings for free tuition at their games? Women's hockey does. How many other women's teams have the marketing in an entire season the women's hockey team receives just for the gophers series? Weird that of the female sports, UND spends the most money on the 3rd most popular sport, and that's without allocating any facility costs to it. 

[Cratter]

If women's soccer and diving had any sort of attendance they'd probably give out free tuition there too.

If the gophers played at und in women's soccer there wouldn't be enough stands to support the people wanting to attend.

[farce poobah]

Schlossman, as he usually does, hits it out of the park.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/4103211-brad-schlossman-unds-athletics-committee-problematic

 

[UND-1]

6 hours ago, farce poobah said:

Schlossman, as he usually does, hits it out of the park.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/4103211-brad-schlossman-unds-athletics-committee-problematic

 

Article was good, overall.  The point about Women's Hockey holding back Football was a complete swing & miss and obviously meant as some sort of weak pot shot at football fans.  

He has his job to do and part of that is to appease the people at The REA.  That's fine.  If Miller wrote same article it sure wouldnt take a shot at football, which really doesn't have a dog in this fight.  

The premise about the committee being partisan and it turning into an arrow slinging session was a good one.  We will know who has the power when cuts are made.

[Tangolou]

7 hours ago, farce poobah said:

Schlossman, as he usually does, hits it out of the park.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/4103211-brad-schlossman-unds-athletics-committee-problematic

 

Relax Hockey fans, they aren't going to cut women's hockey. But all this Olympic sport talk gets old. Trap shooting is an Olympic sport, I'm sure there is a school somewhere that has nationally ranked trap shooters, does anybody but their parents care? For perspective, I believe a few years ago the women's Olympic hockey team lost to Warroad high school boys team. UND's team is not all Olympians so when you are watching them it's essentially a Red River JV team. That doesn't mean you shouldn't support it or that it's not worth having, but calm down with the Olympic talk.

 

[homer]

1 hour ago, UND-1 said:

Article was good, overall.  The point about Women's Hockey holding back Football was a complete swing & miss and obviously meant as some sort of weak pot shot at football fans.  

He has his job to do and part of that is to appease the people at The REA.  That's fine.  If Miller wrote same article it sure wouldnt take a shot at football, which really doesn't have a dog in this fight.  

The premise about the committee being partisan and it turning into an arrow slinging session was a good one.  We will know who has the power when cuts are made.

We know he reads the board.  I haven't read anyone say that all the resources from women's hockey should get dumped into football.  

It was a good article, glad he wrote it.   The message of that the AD and president should be able to make these decisions without input from the med and aerospace colleges is the main point and one everyone.   

[UNDBIZ]

Yeah, I've always thought the people getting paid $250,000 per year were paid that much to make decisions and should take the heat/praise that goes with those decisions.