President Kennedy Message on Athletics

[southpaw]

7 hours ago, SiouxVolley said:

Lax teams like to get two games on a weekend trip like wbb, so UND and NDSU would be ideal travel partners for the MPSF which will be looking for teams as the PAC12 is splitting off or a future Midwest oriented single sport lax league.

If anyone thought UND was an outlier in the Big Sky, it would be even more so in the MPSF.  The MP conveniently stands for Mountain Pacific, which Eastern North Dakota is close to neither. 

The travel costs with non-Pac12 schools plus the Dakota schools would be ridiculous. Rosters are around 29 players plus staff. At this point, the MPSF teams only play each other once so only one opportunity to do two games on the road in a weekend. The non conference schedule would need to be doubleheaders on the road because it will be very difficult to get teams to fly into Fargo. There are many cheaper places to go for teams to get doubleheaders. 

Additionally, if you take a look at most rosters for D1 lacrosse, it is girls from the coasts for the most part. That's a lot of recruiting expenses. 

While it would be nice to add LAX for both men and women, it would be a huge money drain for both schools. 

[CMSB95]

7 hours ago, Rebel_Sioux said:

That article really doesn't cover why those two sports were chosen over any other sports. The simple answer is that they were the two most expensive sports. But considering they were both much more successful than tennis, soccer and softball...I still question the choice to cut both programs.

I don't blame Kennedy for this he inherited a mess and it got worse once he got here, and he had to make a tough choice. I just want to know the other options he realistically had and what reasoning he ultimately used to make his choice.

As I understand the reason for s/d cut is after cutting WH, they needed to get title ix compliant while also cutting enough money to cover additional scholarships for the Summit League requirements.  They also had to look at what other sport they could cut without cutting core sports for Big Sky which we are part of for another year.  The only teams they could cut would have been softball and soccer.  Cutting those two teams would have caused a title ix problem without cutting a men's sport.  S/D I believe costs more than soccer and softball combined.  Plus no one really knows what kind of conversations UND had with Summit.  They may have expressed a desire for one sport over another?  We will never know but I believe it came down to putting the most money back into the budget and staying compliant with tittle ix, and having to put money into the scholarships offered  once we get to the Summit. 

[SiouxVolley]

U of Buffalo just cut four sports:

Baseball, Men's soccer, Men's Swimming, and Women's rowing.  Brings them down to 16 from 20.

Buffalo still doesn't have a M lax team or a men's Ice hockey team.  They could be powers in those sports and actually get attendance too.

[Rebel_Sioux]

9 hours ago, CMSB95 said:

As I understand the reason for s/d cut is after cutting WH, they needed to get title ix compliant while also cutting enough money to cover additional scholarships for the Summit League requirements.  They also had to look at what other sport they could cut without cutting core sports for Big Sky which we are part of for another year.  The only teams they could cut would have been softball and soccer.  Cutting those two teams would have caused a title ix problem without cutting a men's sport.  S/D I believe costs more than soccer and softball combined.  Plus no one really knows what kind of conversations UND had with Summit.  They may have expressed a desire for one sport over another?  We will never know but I believe it came down to putting the most money back into the budget and staying compliant with tittle ix, and having to put money into the scholarships offered  once we get to the Summit. 

Just doesn't add up to me. There wasn't much of a difference between men's and women's S&D...and after cutting baseball and (funding for) men's golf they should have been cleared to cut just WH. Admittedly I could be wrong as I am not a Title IX Lawyer but the whole thing would be easier to accept for cutting both sports if the administration would be a little more transparent with their reasoning. 

[The Sicatoka]

Let me help folks understand how they made the choices. 

They made sure:

- revenues and expenses (when they are in the Summit) match -- that's called "a balanced budget"; I know it's crazy-talk in some quarters
- Title IX equity is met -- that's called "not losing in court"

The Summit requires 85% or more funding of seven conference sports. UND wasn't doing that. They had to add scholarships to at least three sports to get to just that level. UND cut more than they had to so they were sure they could meet future obligations. 

[The Sicatoka]

I have acquired through unnamed sources the FY2016 revenue and expense statement to the NCAA that UND filed. I've been quoting numbers from previously acquired copies of the same but for FY2014 and FY2015. 

I'm pleased to report that the REA expense in FY2016 has been spread across MBB, WBB, MIH, WIH, VB, and Soc. It appears 1% was charged to Soccer; nominally 33% to users of the Betty (MBB, WBB, VB), 18% to WIH, and 48% to MIH. 

That's nominally a $1.16 million expense not footed by MIH; it added a (real) $398k expense to WIH. 

[gfhockey]

Care to share the spreadsheet?

[The Sicatoka]

What you want to know is (FY2016):

WIH: -$1,919,980
MSD: -$266,763
WSD: -$589,140

[gfhockey]

What's losses for each sport? How much is big sky revenue sharing?

[The Sicatoka]

You think I'm going to dig through 73 pages of PDF for those numbers? Uh, no. Revenues and expenses by sport are on two pages of the 73. 

Find the 73 page PDF and dig.  

[gfhockey]

Link?

[The Sicatoka]

It's in the minutes of the last #gobc meeting. 

[The Sicatoka]

I'll let the person who gave the information to me decide if they want it to go beyond. 

Honestly, it's a simple FOIA request. I'm surprised some media jackals aren't all over it already. All you'd have to ask for is the FY16 NCAA report as submitted by UND to the NCAA*. 

 

*Yeah, I just flat out taunted every media member reading this thread. Let's see who's interested in reading the real data. 

**Conference distributions were about $300k. I assume that's all (BSC, NCHC, WWCHA) total. Found it by accident in the PDF. 

[The Sicatoka]

My source just told me it's now on the public web site.

http://www.undsports.com/fls/13500/Athletic Dept/BusOps/FY16 NCAA Report as Submitted 01.17.17_FINAL.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=13500 

[Siouxphan27]

13 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

My source just told me it's now on the public web site.

http://www.undsports.com/fls/13500/Athletic Dept/BusOps/FY16 NCAA Report as Submitted 01.17.17_FINAL.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=13500 

did you forward it to Schloss? 

[The Sicatoka]

Just now, Siouxphan27 said:

did you forward it to Schloss? 

Like he'd run with it.

[Siouxphan27]

1 minute ago, The Sicatoka said:

Like he'd run with it.

lol

[nodakvindy]

I'd say this shows if you are going to up funding anywhere it's basketball and that FCS football is nearly the money pit that women's hockey is. 

[AJS]

How is it possible that Men's hockey only only has $3.7 million in ticket revenue? Taking out student tickets lets just say they average 7,500 a game (understatement), lets say the average ticket is $30 (understatement) that's $225,000 per game. 19 home games in the 15'-16' schedule, that's $4.275 million. That's going on the low end ($40 tickets Friday, $50 Saturday for adults). I know there are youth tickets for $25, but for a Saturday night game for a full house, it's easy $100,000 more than my per game estimate. 

[UNDvince97-01]

2 minutes ago, nodakvindy said:

I'd say this shows if you are going to up funding anywhere it's basketball and that FCS football is nearly the money pit that women's hockey is. 

So you want to compare the 2 huh?,,,,100 student-athletes vs 25....just start there...

[MafiaMan]

5 hours ago, SiouxVolley said:

U of Buffalo just cut four sports:

Baseball, Men's soccer, Men's Swimming, and Women's rowing.  Brings them down to 16 from 20.

Buffalo still doesn't have a M lax team or a men's Ice hockey team.  They could be powers in those sports and actually get attendance too.

This is an outrage!  It's 2017...hasn't anyone heard of Title IX?  

[lawkota]

4 hours ago, AJS said:

How is it possible that Men's hockey only only has $3.7 million in ticket revenue? Taking out student tickets lets just say they average 7,500 a game (understatement), lets say the average ticket is $30 (understatement) that's $225,000 per game. 19 home games in the 15'-16' schedule, that's $4.275 million. That's going on the low end ($40 tickets Friday, $50 Saturday for adults). I know there are youth tickets for $25, but for a Saturday night game for a full house, it's easy $100,000 more than my per game estimate. 

At least 90% of tickets at the Ralph are season tickets. $420 each (less for staff and students) for 16/17.  

[UND1983]

7 hours ago, nodakvindy said:

I'd say this shows if you are going to up funding anywhere it's basketball and that FCS football is nearly the money pit that women's hockey is. 

The Champions Club would like to hold a brief informational meeting with you at your convenience.

[UND-FB-FAN]

7 hours ago, nodakvindy said:

I'd say this shows if you are going to up funding anywhere it's basketball and that FCS football is nearly the money pit that women's hockey is. 

A money pit that actually atttacts over 1000 people per contest ...

Oh, and it happens to be the most popular sport in the country. 

And it has 4x the student-athletes and coaches. 

And it has a significantly larger alumni base.

I do agree that basketball has the most pure potential at UND, particularly if the REA could be used somewhat regularly - could be a beautiful basketball facility that would skyrocket UND in terms of facilities. 

[Siouxperfan7]

http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/4245071-womens-hockey-cut-mishandled-students-say

Anthony Rice, a UND freshman, said he understood the university’s budgets were tight, but thought the loss of the team had happened too abruptly.

“They didn’t expect to see it coming and there was no forewarning,”

 

Talk of sports being cut has been going on for almost a year.  Even when initial cuts were done last summer, I think everyone knew there would be more.  One thing that really bugs me about the womens hockey team especially being cut is how completely oblivious they were to the potential of their program being cut.  At very least in January when Kennedy announced that more sports were to be cut in March, Idalski needed to bring this to his players and tell them that losing womens hockey at UND was a possibility.  They narrowly survived the initial cuts last summer, and were top of the list for these cuts.  Judging by the shock from the players, he obviously didn't share that info with the players.  Idalski knew that there was a good chance womens hockey would be cut.  Not preparing his players for that scenario is is fault.