… because the deed has been done. According to MLive, EMU football coach Jeff Genyk fired. This is hardly surprising, but I thought I’d pass along a couple of paragraphs I found interesting:
[Athletic director Derrick] Gragg said a search for a new coach will begin immediately. Genyk, who was hired in 2004, will be paid for the remainder of his contract, which runs through 2010.
Gragg also announced that former Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr will serve as an unpaid advisor during the search process. Gragg said the university will also interview for a search firm to assist in the process.
Through 2010?! Jeez. And the way that Michigan played this year, I’m not sure how badly we want Carr’s help….
It’s about time.
Who knows, after this season in Ann Arbor, Rich Rod might be available!!!
Although I’m all for a better football team, sinking nearly $500,000 into a coach to buy out his contract doesn’t seem like a prudent use of university money in this economy. Remember, a new coach will most likely receive a 200k+ salary that the U will pay as well. I’ll need more information on how this will help the university in the long run to be a proponent of this action.
I’d have to agree with almost alum. The fact that Michigan’s team did poorly has little to do with Carr’s leadership. New team, new coach. Carr is very respected in the football community, and will do well to help EMU’s team in a decision.
We can afford to pay off the nearly $360,000. Genyk has 23 months of contract left. The University will pay the contract off from the Guaranteed Funds Account that will be flush in the next few years since Arkansas will pay us $900,00 in two years and Michigan will pay us $800,000 next year.
Get rid of the football program…Education First! Come on Prez, make a gutsy decision and show it is not just a slogan!
Aw Gee Whiz! It’s just a slogan! I’ve talked with the Prez. on the sidelines at football games – I think she likes it!
>>>>>>I think she likes it!
The slogan, yes! It sure is catchy and all:-) But it is as meaningless as corporate mission statements…Wasting so much money on a team that has a winning season once every 20 years or so is an embarrassment and is definitely not Education first. Get rid of it and get rid of Rynearson too, the place will NEVER be filled….and get the savings to fix Pray Harold and student scholarships. Will she do it? Of course not….What will happen we will go out and find a coach who will start from scratch only to do it again after 5 years like clockwork!
I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve said in the past that I don’t think there’s much of any reason for EMU to have a football program anymore.
That being said, hiring Lloyd Carr in an advisory capacity is about the most intelligent thing I think the program has done in probably a decade.
It’s not really fair to pin the failures of U of M’s team on Lloyd Carr. When Carr retired, a lot of his best players opted for the NFL Draft. Another thing is the fact that Carr’s philosophy and style of football is different from Rich Rodriguez. Carr wanted more physical players and more of a power game while Rodriguez opts for a more finesse style with players who have speed. Essentially, Rodriguez has Carr’s players and would need at least another two years before he can cement his foothold into the program.
That being said, what if we are setting ourselves up for disappointment here? If they find a coach who turns the program around and wins a MAC championship, would they be likely to bolt the following year for a program like Michigan’s? I just don’t see us being a place where we can keep a successful coach with a successful program for a sustained period of time.
If you got rid of the football program, what would you tell those 80-100 students that make up the team, practice squads, coaching assistants, administrative interns, marketing assistants, etc. – go somewhere else?
Are we really thinking that we don’t mind sending that sort of message to our student athletes that EMU doesn’t want you unless you can win games?
>>>>>>If you got rid of the football program, what would you tell those 80-100 students that make up the team, practice squads, coaching assistants, administrative interns, marketing assistants, etc. – go somewhere else?
To the players, you keep the scholarships and we want to help you graduate. The ones who were here for football only will move on, the students will stay. To all the others, I am sorry but you need to find other jobs. I support a 6 month severance payment for help but we do not really need to support these kind of jobs. A leader must make tough choices. Education First!
>>>>>>f they find a coach who turns the program around and wins a MAC championship, would they be likely to bolt the following year for a program like Michigan’s?
I agree but I can not remember the last time this happened! Did it ever happen?
Please let me know
I have students who are working two and three jobs to try to put themselves through school; they are also shouldering a portion of the Black Hole of Athletics. What would you tell them about where their hard-earned money goes and for what, ET?
I say turn Rynearson into a demolition derby facility and have the Convo Center host the kabuki theatre known as professional wrestling. Should make a bigger profit sooner, you betcha. Also. Too.
Oh. And I’d tell the marketing assistants that phrases like “mens basketball” and womens basketball” in the recent sports blurb indicate a need for additional junior high spelling/grammar lessons.
alum,
Your rationale that we have the money to pay off genyk from contracts with other schools softens the blow, but we’d still get that money anyway, right? So essentially, it still costs us. There needs to be a number of clear reasons shown how the university benefits from sinking 360k into the program. I’m not saying it is not worth it (and I can think of some positive reasons), but I need to know specifically the positive result you’ll guarantee by this action. Winning more games is not an acceptable ROI for me. I want to hear from the university all the positive things that can happen by supporting the football program.
I have to agree with Mr. Tirebiter a bit on this one. I don’t know if we should close down the football team or not, though I don’t think we should do so just because our most recently former coach wasn’t very good. But I do know that I have many MANY students who are working pretty dang hard to pay for school and who aren’t getting a football scholarship or kid glove treatment.
I had one student this semester who was doing quite well in my class who all of a sudden stopped showing up. When I emailed and asked what was the scoop, this person explained to me that the slow-down in business at the place where they worked required more shift hours to simply pay the bills, and it left not enough time to attend classes. So, given the choice of food and shelter versus my class, this person decided to go with the food and shelter, which meant they were also out the tuition money they had already spent.
So no, I don’t want to throw football players et al out onto the street, but I really don’t want to throw any of our students out. And let’s keep in mind the students who are really suffering right now.
FWIW, here’s a link to an article on MLive about all this: http://www.mlive.com/eagles/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/122762762698420.xml&coll=2
Oh, and EMU will play Michigan next year. It’s a shame it wasn’t this year; EMU might (with big emphasis on the word might) have had a chance in that game that didn’t take place this fall, but I have a feeling they will be fodder next fall.
“… unpaid advisor during the search process. … will also interview for a search firm to assist in the process.”
It’s disconcerting that the university isn’t taking upon itself the sole responsibility of finding the next football coach.
That aside, it would be a pleasant change of pace if the university would try to find someone who has proven he can win as a head coach — someone who has won a national championship in I-AA, or II, or III.
I think it was Central that hired a coach who had won a national championship at Grand Valley State, and he immediately turned the program at Central around. (Having proven himself successful once again, he was of course hired by another program farther up the food chain.)
Ohio State got its current coach from a I-AA school where he had proven he could win as a head coach. I think he had 4 national championships to his credit when he was hired away. In 8 years with the Buckeyes, he’s 7/8 against Michigan, has played in 3 title games, and won numerous Big Ten championships.
Looking upstream for a coach hasn’t worked at Eastern. By looking downstream, the school can’t do any worse.
The football program and all sports programs for good or for bad bring “brand recognition” to your school and degree. Do not become a “I work three jobs” student body! If you want to be a major respected university then you must have major sports programs. There are plenty of people including myself that made a decision in part to come to Eastern because of their major D-1 sports program. and I dont even play!
Carterman, your claim that “plenty of people” come to EMU for our Div-I sports program, and don’t even play, is a new one on me. Could you cite any sources to support this?
My observations is that barely half of EMU students attend a single game, and far fewer than that consider EMU athletics an important part of their college experience. The most avid sports fans among EMU students tend to be fans of teams not affiliated with EMU. Admittedly, my observations here are based on the anomalous data source of a professor talking to hundreds and hundreds of students over the years – it’s anecdotal. But when in the past, ADs, VPs for enrollment, student affairs, the now fired Admissions Director, and a couple of utterly failed University Presidents, asserted at various times in my presence that EMU athletics was vital to the university’s recruitment of students and to its identity, I asked them to provide data on which their conclusion rested. None of them were able to do so, on the spot or later when I followed up and requested it.
So i have a hypothesis – not a conclusion, but a hypothesis that ought to be tested with data and analysis: EMU maintains its 21 sports out of inertia, not due to a hard-headed assessment of the value and costs of EMU athletics; further, the belief that EMU’s recruiting of students and “reputation” are both favorably enhanced by our athletics programs reflect an assumption – even a dogma – not sustained by contemporary conditions or recent experience. For instance, the EMU football team, as able as those players are, regularly gets EMU put in the undesirable category of “loser” and in the SE Michigan market, among real sports fans, EMU is often the butt of jokes. (A related hypothesis is that too many EMU administrators, over the years, have known too little about higher education generally and too much of what they know is based on watching televised sporting events, rather than from broad experience in higher education…)
Being targeted for ridicule and/or being regularly categorized as a “loser” is – my hypothesis further stipulates – detrimental to recruiting students and to the university’s reputation. At best, according to this hypothesis, EMU’s football and basketball teams, in the complex and dense sports market of our region, serves to define EMU as “bush league,” minor, not a serious place. Maybe the hypothesis is wrong. What evidence exists to refute it?
And here’s the fiscal reality that college sports fans and promoters rarely confront: college football and basketball are very expensive, and will continue to become ever more expensive to operate on a competative basis, and paying those costs most certainly does not assure a shot at a winning team. And a wining team for one year is not likely, outside of a few schools, to be repeated year after year. The UofM experience with a losing team this year is enough to dismay countless fans over there, but their long record of winning year after year is the exception to the rule. EMU is not likely to ever become another long running exception to the rule, but we could spend tens of millions per year trying to do so.
Bottom line: There is no way athletics at EMU can pay for itself, especially not when we field more teams than any other school in the MAC. We field too many teams and underfund most of them. Those in the know say we set our teams up to fail by fielding too many. But even if we cut back on teams, and keep football and basketball, we’d still be bound to have more losing years than wining ones. What good does this accomplish, for EMU students or the state of Michigan and its taxpayers? Hypothesis: It harms EMU’s reputation and puts money into activities less urgent than academic activities.
So the real question is, what do we want from EMU athletics? To answer that, we need to admit the truth: EMU athletics programs constitute the single most expensive form of publicly subsidized entertainment in Washtenaw County. What is the purpose served by this subsidy? Maybe it’s worthwhile, maybe not. But we should discuss this. We should define what the purpose of that subsidy is in realistic terms. And with all due respect Carterman, I think your assertions rest on assumptions, not a realistic analysis of the place of sport in higher ed today.
But I could be wrong. Let’s have a debate.
Real sports fans at EMU should take Prof. Steven Ramold’s course on the history of sports in America. Great class by all accounts. It puts our love of the games into historical context. (My opinions stated here should not be confused with Dr. Ramold’s)
Sorry to go on so long. Happy Thanksgiving! GO GREEN!
Mark,
I don’t think the VP for Enrollment Services was fired. Didn’t he step down and moved back to N.J. to be with his wife.
Warpath:
The reason that Kelly left CMU is because a few CMU football players took part in the murder of another student. He was blamed by the administration and moved on.
I have seen Rynearson full and the benefits that a winning football program can bring to a school like Eastern. Eastern is still stuck in the normal school mentality that participation is more important than winning. That’s why we have 21 sports. The most in the MAC, with the smallest budget. Football has always had one of smallest budgets in the MAC and the least competitive facilities, so what do you expect. Put the money in so they can compete on a level playing field and you will see results. This has happened at Ball St., Akron, Buffalo, Western, Central, etc. What is so different about us? We expect that our coach wins without proper resources. A simplistic approach is to eliminate football, then the other olympic sports can not be in the MAC or Division 1A. Eliminating athletics entirely also has implications for enrollment. It makes up approximately 5% of enrollment. After this thread runs it course the University will still be hiring a new head coach and next years team will bring in over $1million in guarantees that will remain within the Athletic Department. I believe that money basically pays for the football program and then some.
>>>>>>>I have seen Rynearson full…
Really??? When was that? It must not have been a football game! Maybe it was 1987?
>>>>>…a winning football program can bring to a school like Eastern.
I do not think we ever had one!!!!!Yes, I agree that it can bring benefits but when you have a winning season once in a generation or so it really makes you wonder if Rynearson was built on top of Huron cemeteries or something…like a curse exists here!
>>>>>>>Put the money in so they can compete on a level playing field and you will see results.
Ahhh, the problem is not enough money was poured in….Take a look next door, the big money was brought in and they got the worst season EVER! Again, no guarantees that money will bring success here. I am naturally a very optimistic person but I have been around this movie way too many years!
>>>>>>>A simplistic approach is to eliminate football, then the other olympic sports can not be in the MAC or Division 1A.
Is this true? A former athlete told me that today and I just do not believe it? That would be a bummer and it may make me change my mind…I would hate to see the swimming and track teams move down! How about basketball? Anyone who has an answer for sure?? What happens if we dropped the football program? Please answer.
>>>>>>After this thread runs it course the University will still be hiring a new head coach…
and we’ll be having the same discussion in…five years:-)
>>>>>>next years team will bring in over $1million in guarantees that will remain within the Athletic Department.
Great….So we get blown away 55-0 in a few games playing warmup to the big teams to pay for the program…Does wonders for school pride, huh? And I doubt $1 million comes even close to pay for the football program….I would love to see an income statement JUST for the football team if anyone could produce one…we would be BLOWN away for sure by how much money it takes to operate it!!
1994
The reason Eastern is using Lloyd Carr and a consultant is to put the blame somewhere else if the selection does not work out. What are we paying the AD to do? There are some great coaches from smaller schools right here in Michigan. Look at Grand Valley and Wayne State. Don’t forget John Banaszak who has been a winning head coach at a smaller school and would love to coach at Eastern where he played. They also need to keep the Wilbanks and his Ypsi mafia out of this. I just hope they don’t pick some asistant coach from a larger school with no head coaching experience. Fans will come back if Eastern can start winning again.
Dear Professor Higbee,
Please do not close your post with “Go Green!” when it in obvious that you wish there were no teams for which to cheer.
Upon a quick search of articles, I found a plethora of data that supports that not only do undergraduate applications fluctuate with the success of their high profile sports programs (i.e. football, basketball.) but non-athletic donations do as well. I also found that over 22% of students said that the quality of a schools athletic teams were “very important” in their college selection.
You were right that I had made an assumption with my original post but within 5 minutes and one quick google search it was easily affirmed.
I believe you are a history professor and obviously not involved with marketing because as bad as the past product has been you must envision its potential as well as realizing some underlying truths about EMU’s position in the marketplace.
I have attended a Big Ten school in the past and have witnessed first hand how unifying successful sports programs can be. Even at a commuter school it can be a point of pride for students and a great rallying point for student organizations.
It can tie alumni together with current students and bring together a community.
Just because this has not happened at EMU does not mean it cannot!
I agree with your assessment that upon talking to students they seem disengaged in regards to the sports program. I was extremely dissapointed when I discovered that as well. However, that could be changed. If there is no excitement then others tend to take on the similar malaise.
I have found that similar feeling from students regarding their enrollment at the university. WHY?
Hypothesis: The lack of attendance and support of the school’s sports teams is the symptom of a larger problem, A lack of pride regarding EMU.
I have heard all the “Ypsitucky” and “Teacher college” crap regarding EMU.
My assertion is that we need to collectively get together and renew the excitement and spirit at EMU. Sports have always been a easy point for us to rally.
As that support grows then too will the success of our programs and the overall pride at our university.
How would that not bring more students and donations?
I’ll mention three things about all this that I and others have mentioned before over the years (this is hardly a new topic at EMUTalk.org):
* There is no way that the football team or any other sports program comes close for paying for itself, and this is the case at almost all college sports programs. There have been many articles/studies about this. The only college athletic departments that come close to self-funding are the really giant and well-known ones, like U of Michigan or something.
Having said that, I’m not sure the expense alone is a reason to cut a program. After all, I don’t think the history/philosophy department is a “money maker,” and I am sure that it’s expensive for EMU to have bands, orchestras, artists, etc. But I wouldn’t want to cut any of those things.
* There are LOTS of colleges/universities that do quite well without a football team and/or barely any sports. Off the top of my head the morning after Thanksgiving: Marquette, U of Chicago, St. Johns in NY (since EMU recently lost to them in basketball), U of Illinois of Chicago, Wayne State (they play a division down in football, right?), all the ivy league schools (where they play sports of course, but I’m pretty sure the players don’t get any sort of scholarship), etc., etc. Football does not automatically equal “real university,” and vice-versa.
* Finally, EMU has two “cultural” conditions that make us quite a bit different from a lot of other campuses, certainly different from places like Ball State, Central, and BGSU (I’m reasonably familiar with at least two out of three of these schools), not to mention the U of M and my alma mater, U of Iowa.
First, we have a very large number of commuter/working students, the kind of folks who are driving in for their classes and then driving home, and/or trying to make ends meet by working some kind of service job for 30-40 hours a week, much of it on weekends. These folks don’t have the time/interest/luxury of turning out in big numbers to football games or basketball games. It is not a priority in their lives, and while the crowds would probably be bigger if those teams won some games, we’re never ever going to have the kind of sports enthusiasm/fandom that you have at places like U of M, U of Iowa, or even a place like BGSU or Ball State. Why? Because students at those schools are more likely to be “full-time” and “traditional” college students, the kind of folks who are getting support from parents and such, and the kind of folks who more or less have the luxury to be a fan.
Second, EMU’s blessings in geographic location are also its curse. It’s fantastic being right next to Ann Arbor, one of the great college towns in America. But U of M is also a curse because EMU is inevitably and unfairly compared to it in all sorts of different ways, and the extremes of fandom on that campus simply overwhelm anything that could happen at EMU. We could have a full (or nearly full) football stadium and a winning (or at least break-even) football team, and I honestly don’t think anyone in southeast Michigan would care or notice. U of M has the worst football season in its history, and they still sell out ever game, the money still pours in, they still are in the national media, etc.
That’s just the way it is, and dumping a bunch of money into the football program is simply not going to change the realities of our students and our geography. Which is why, if we were to spend money on any particular sport, I personally favor basketball. But that’s another post….
Wayne St. plays two divisions down and the University of Chicago was one of the original Big Ten members.
And EMU has one of its best days of football ever for a 56 -52 win over
Central. Hope you were there!
President Martin was on the sidelines today watching the game.
Warpath: THe Central Coach, Brian Kelly, was forced out because several of his players committed murder off campus. There was a grand jury and both players and students were indicted for lying. A few ended up in prison.
Carterman: It has happened at EMU. I have seen Rynearson full several times.
And we had a winning team. If EMU starts putting out a good product fans will start coming again. I have photo’s of a full stadium, at that time around 20,000+, over 20 years ago. Back in the late 80′s and early 90′s we filled the stands with community people who could not afford U of M’s ticket prices and we will do it again. If you were at the game today, what you saw was exciting college football!! The fans loved it!
Basketball will be nothing without Division 1A and the MAC. No football, no MAC. Basketball and the other olympic sports fade from the Michigan sports
scene. SOme of our olympic sports may fade out anyway since most MAC schools don’t have swimming and track.
I was there today! What an incredible game! Who could ever want to go without that!
I wish more people could have seen it! But if we start to win and more people start to talk about enjoying attending games we can get it back to what ALUM has seen in years past.
Why not!
GOOOOOOOOOOOO Eagles!!
Caterman hit the proverbial nail on the head. There is a great deal of students lacking pride in the university. That needs to change and once it does, be it a year from now, two years form now or even five years from now; things will be different at EMU. The commuter status is another impairment to the success of the athletic programs. That and the lack of some colleges not having classes on Friday’s.
There are plenty of changes that need to take place in order for the athletic programs to prosper. Being close to the U of M campus and not far away from Detroit, Lansing, Flint, Saginaw and Grand Raoids is also a problem. The key will also be to get those coming from some of the feeder school districts to want to stay on campus and get involved in the campus community. College will have to be more than just going to class and then going home for them.
Alum,
I wasn’t aware of the circumstances under which you mention Kelley left CMU. I don’t think any basketball or football program should bring in players who don’t make you proud by reason of their behavior both on and off the field.
Regardless of why he moved on, he still went up the food chain to the University of Cincinnati. With 2 games remaining, he’s 9-2 so far with victories over some very good teams.
Both CMU and Cincinnati hired him from a school downstream from their schools because he had proven he could win as a head coach. In that regard, he hasn’t disappointed either school.
***
Before Schembechler was hired at Michigan, he had been the head coach at Miami of Ohio where he was 40-17-3 with 2 MAC titles and 2 second place finishes. He had proven he could win as a head coach, and he didn’t disappoint the fans at Michigan.
Before Woody Hayes was hired at Ohio State, he had been head coach at Denison College where he was unbeaten in 1947 and 1948. He was then hired up the food chain as head coach at Miami of Ohio where he went 9-1 and also had a post-season bowl victory before being hired by the Buckeyes. He had proven he could win as a head coach, and that’s one of the best reasons to hire someone.
***
Just because a coach who is successful at Eastern might be hired away, that’s no reason not to shoot for a successful program. Success breeds success, and if Eastern has to continue that success by repeated hires of successful coaches from downstream, so be it. At least each successive coach won’t be starting from scratch. (EMU’s basketball coach, Ben Braun, was hired away by the University of California because he had shown at Eastern that he could win as a head coach — but that’s the way it goes — so enjoy the success of the good coaches while you can!)
Dear Alum,
I think I wrote about a fired admissiions director, not a fired VP for enrollment. Former Pres. Fallon told me face to face that he had ordered our last admissions director fired (and she should have been fired years earlier). Our last two VPs for enrollment services did, as far as i know, leave for their own reasons (and both moved to NJ – one to be VP at Rutgers, the other to be close to his spouse). Only the first of those VPs boasted to me of sports as being vital to EMU recruiting, but when pressed, he said it was how we recruit athletes and its impact on non athletes could not be measured.
Dear Carterman,
If you found some citations relevant to the questions i posed, could you please post a link to them or at least cite them? I’m an academic: the custom of academics is to look at the actual evidence, rather than relying no second hand summations of the evidence. My questions were about EMU students and the reasons for their college choices. You assert that there are “plenty of people” who come to EMU largely for our Div-I sports program, and don’t even play on an EMU team, and I’d like to see evidence to support that assertion. In the past, I’ve tried but failed to get EMU officials to support similar assertions. Can you support your assertion with evidence from EMU?
Also, Carterman, you are mistaken in thinking I wish EMU had no teams. Not true at all. But like most academics, I want the advantages and disadvantages to be assessed realistically, not just on some fantasy basis. A winning team can make a real difference to a school….but geography, the radically altered sports market place (ESPN had changed everything!), and the fast increasing costs of college sports make it unlikely that EMU will ever be able to field money making winning teams year after year. What is the cost of pursuing such a dream? Not cheap. Maybe worthwhile, but not cheap. Ypsi is never again going to be a college town of the 1950s when ‘going to the game’ was a real draw. Most of our sports loving students are not eager to attend EMU games – they are fans of teams unrelated to EMU.
There are HOPES that EMU may in the future have consistently winning teams, and there are also HOPES that such winning teams might help recruit students to EMU. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence that EMU athletics currently attracts lots of students, or even any, who are not athletes. If anyone has evidence – actual evidence – please bring it forth. Let’s debate based on facts.
I was very pleased to see EMU beat Central last night. A great game. Wonderful. GO GREEN!
I say “GO GREEN” sincerely Carterman. You don’t know my heart or my interests.
I do believe that facts rather than emotions should govern public policy decisions – and how much money a public university subsidizes its athletic programs with, and what is achieved or given up as a result, are public policy decisions, in my opinion.
I’ll buy you lunch Carterman if you can provide substantial and verifiable evidence to support your claim that “’plenty of people” come to EMU for our Div-I sports program, people who aren’t on EMU teams. I am not talking about what students who go to MSU or Purdue say about why they go to such schools – most college students in the US do not go to universities with such storied athletic programs. They mostly go to regional state schools and community colleges. What’s the value of ever more expensive athletics programs for these students? To suggest that this is a question worth debating is not to denigrate our teams, it is being fiscally responsible.
GO GREEN for each of EMU’s 21 money losing sports! Go Green for all 20,000 EMU students trying to make ends meet as they pursue their educations! Education First!
I agree with hiring up the food chain. However, a few comments: -Kelly had verbally committed to come to EMU and then backed out at the last minute. – I don’t think that the commuter status issue is that much of a problem. Thousands of EMU students live on campus and in the area. We were a commuter campus in 1987 and filled the place. Win and create excitement. It will happen again.- Get over how close we are to U of M. It can be done.- One more thing. Notice how there are quite a lot of bulbs out on the score board. The board is so old we can’t get the right bulbs anymore. There are plans for a new Jumbotron next year. Let’s wait and see. – Concessions: Athletics are not responsible for the concessions or lack of them. The idiots ran out of hot chocolate before the half. Student Affairs gets all the proceeds from the concessions – so what’s up with that?
Some one wanted to know how much is spent on football. The football budget has been increased from $500,000+ to a little over a $1,000,000. So, a single game guarantee of $900,000 just about covers it. There are several of those in our future: Michigan, Arkansas, Ohio State, Michigan State.
Mark: Thanks. I do remember who was fired now. You are also correct in the fact that sports are not a primary reason that high school students pick a college – any college or university for that matter.
According to Stamats Inc. of Cedar Rapids Iowa there are what is referred to as the “Big Seven” Reasons why a recent high school grad would choose a college:
Academic offerings the student wants, grads of programs get good jobs and are accepted to grad school, quality of faculty as teachers/mentors, academic reputation, people on campus are warm and welcoming, the school offers a fun college experience.
Alum – thanks for the post. Are you serious, they ran out of hot chocolate at the half???!!! I heard the hot dogs were inedible at a recent game.
And thanks to for the reference to Stamats and that firm’s “big seven” reasons. I believe that Statmats is the firm that has worked for EMU for years and came up with the “Education First” slogan. A good slogan too.
No doubt, “win” and they will come. However, even before they start winning, there has got to be a plan in place to get students, faculty, staff, and the community to the games. I know that it is apples and oranges, but I’ll make the analogy anyway; if the students at MSU or U of M had the opportunity to go to the games free, what do you think they would do? Going free at EMU is not enough and that has got to change. Even for those students that are on campus, if providing transportation is not doing it, then wherein lies the answer to get the students engaged? Win or lose, “school and community spirit” should be enough to get at least 10,000 people to every football game and at the least, a half-filled convocation center for basketball games.
If you want to view winning as a factor influencing attendance in football specifically, I’d suggest looking at the current horrendous season for the Detroit Lions. I know it is a different league, but to fans of the game, football is football, and as a college we’re trying to get any and all football fans to come to the games.
The more they lose (this works for season by season comparison too) the lower attendance gets, until they are even at such a low attendance that they are not able to be covered television within the southeastern MI area, which pisses everyone off who wants to see the Lions play. At least we still get to see EMU play on tv when they play the big games.
Given our losing-season streak parallel with the Lions, next year should be our 0-12 year. It’s all about winning, since winning will indeed equal attendance. The question should be about how we win, not how to do we give up and save money. Once we start winning we can start doing the logistics for how we get people there from campus.
Another supporting fact is that when the Women’s Basketball team was on the verge of winning the MAC championship and making the NCAA tournament (I believe it was 04-05, but I’m not sure), there were tons of students at games, and I remember all the student groups organizing carpools to go to Cleveland to watch the MAC tournament games, and there definitely was a new excitement in the air. That was one time where winning led to more butts in the seats, and I think that it can be done for football as well.
A friend of mine, an EMU staffer who is a serious football fan, has a theory that she asked me to post here: Rynearson stadium has more seats than there are actual football fans in “the entire EMU community that is in easy driving distance.” Her theory excludes alumni who’d have to drive more than an hour. She also adds that most EMU community members who are football fans probably prefer watching on TV to attending games in person, regardless of the teams they follow. My friend really really loves football, and would love to have a winning EMU team to root for; but she argues that the potential of EMU football to “fill the house” is minimal, given the very limited pool of potential ticket buying fans in the EMU community. That pool is properly estimated based on the # of football fans in the EMU community, not on the size of the EMU community.
In a word: The potential market for EMU football tickets is very small, especially if looked at over any serious length of time and not on anomalies.
If her theory has merit, it means that the hurdle faced by those who claim EMU football can succeed — success being 1) winning on the field, 2) filling the seats, and 3) consequently seriously benefiting the University — is far, far greater than they usually recognize: Success at filling the seats would require converting non-football fans among the EMU community into football fans who attend games. Has anything like that ever happened anywhere in recent decades?
I’ll add that attempting to fill the seats by defining “EMU pride” as revolving around sports rather than around academic programs risks sending a message that can easily be taken as insulting to the values and experiences of most EMU students, alumni, and staff. (Nearly all EMU faculty, staff and students I know have great pride in EMU — but few ever attend EMU sporting events. Equating attending a game with EMU pride is counterproductive to EMU’s institutional mission and values).
Further, my friend’s Theory of EMU Football, points out the sad but true fact that only half the teams are winning teams in a given year. EMU’s potential to regularly pose a winning team is limited by the ever increasing costs of intercollegiate sports and by EMU’s rather limited finances. So, despite the huge emotional desire that we “get it right” and field a good team with the right coach, the odds are against it happening on anything like a regular basis, and the attempt to do so is expensive.
Mark, you said:
>>>>>….despite the huge emotional desire that we “get it right” and field a good team with the right coach, the odds are against it happening on anything like a regular basis, and the attempt to do so is expensive.
This is exactly the point I have been trying to make here!!!!
Mark: I believe that Student Affairs is responsible for the bad food at the games. At least I know for sure that they get the profits. I can also attest that food at the EMU ALumni Tailgates is awful. I usually get a couple of McDonalds Cheeseburgers before a game. In addition, I was at a large athletic event inside the convo in October- same thing, hot dogs! Barf! The chicken was just as bad. I recently ordered food from food services for a meeting of about 40 people. Just coffee and juice and a few pastries. It was over $300.00. For another College of Arts and Sciences event we cut the expenses in half by having it off campus. Our outlay in 2007 was $4,000. Our off campus event for 2008 was around $1,900, complete with food, decorations and facility rental. Angel Food Catering had great food.
EagleG: Here are the requirements for participation in the conference:
Each full conference member shall participate in a minimum of six conference-sponsored sports, of which three must be football, basketball and baseball for men and three must be volleyball, basketball and softball for women. The conference shall sponsor 11 sports for men and 12 sports for women. A majority of member institutions must compete in a sport for it to be considered a MAC-sponsored sport and approved as a conference sport by a majority vote of the Council of Presidents. Note: Field Hockey, Men’s Swimming & Diving
and Men’s Tennis are exceptions to this last requirement.
In addition, to remain Division 1-A Eastern must sponsor 16 varsity sports, not the 21 we currently have. You also need to do alot of homework on the cost of sports. The most cost effective thing Eastern can do is have “0″ sports. Moving to another division will not solve the money issue. It will still cost millions. The MAC is the perfect conference due to the geographic location of all the schools.
Eric: In 1983 Eastern had a full blown marketing plan to get people to the games and it worked. Student participation was pretty good at that time.
If anyone is willing to look at a lot of numbers, the Indy Star published all the budget data (revenue and expenses) on all college and university athletic programs based on 2004-05 information. This is the first time this has been done and not repeated since. By my calculation out of almost $20,000,000 in revenues (including all forms of support: university direct aid and student fees) the U would end up with about $5,000,000 extra at the end of the day. This is based on the loss of all other forms of revenue ($7,000,000 in student fees and all the guarantee money from games, NCAA/MAC distribution $$, donations and such). The big question is the return of student fees. Would they return or eliminate them? This is all in addition to the fact that the $5 million might be only a one year windfall. There is also debt retirement on all facilities. You just can’t tear them down. A calculation must also be done for other forms of lost revenue. For instance the athletic department pays rent to the convo. center. Also, how many credit hours do athletes generate. Not all of them are on scholarship. What happens to all the scholarship money that U funds? What happens to the millions in endowments that have been created for specific teams by private donors. Return the $$? A detailed cost benefit analyis needs to be done. Would it be a wash at the end of the study?
I appreciate your comments, Alum and EagleG. Yes, this is a complex issue. But i think it’s clear EMU spends more on football than it takes in in football related revenue. But i gotta let this topic go for now…..
I highly recommend the following book — perhaps one of the best on higher education in recent years – by an IU prof. of English, now emeritus:
“Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education” by Murray Sperber (2000).
Fortunately many of the problems Sperber focuses on are less endemic at regional state schools like EMU than at the powerhouse athletic powers like MSU or IU or UofM. And Sperber is a very serious fan of the sports. Read it and wipe — or at least post your critique here!
Sitedad — I can’t resist taking the bait you offered up earlier, in a friendly way i am sure, when you wrote “After all, I don’t think the history/philosophy department is a “money maker,” “.
The facts on this are clear: The EMU history & phil. department most certainly does produce more revenue than expenses. Thus it is a money maker, and it is actually a big money maker. As one of the dual hat-wearing top officials in the Academic Affairs said recently, departments’ like mine have the designated role of “making a big profit” in order to subsidize more expensive programs. The administrator was quite open on this in the last meeting of the University Budget Council, and I don’t object in principle. But he was also insisting that these kinds of lower instructional costs departments must be required to maintain relatively densely enrolled sections, so as to ensure “higher profits” per section — he even went so far as to say that this was the “purpose” of departments like mine (a reductionist claim I would dispute). Disciplines ike history and philosophy are cheaper to teach than, say, music or nursing or anything with a lab or heavy equipment requirements, but the tuition and fees charged are not correspondingly less. Students taking a history course produce more “profit” for the university than, say, students in a nursing class. This hardly means we should not have a nursing program — we should in fact put a lot more resources into the nursing program.
History and Philosophy courses are dirt cheap to offer at EMU — and worth every penny. My department is a “money maker,” Steve, and we’ve never had a losing season, either! Same is true I am sure of English and Literature and countless other academic programs at EMU.
Education First! Go Green!
Mark: Your right, it’s time to let this go, however, how many U departments or divisions can pay for themselves with the signing of one contract for one afternoon of work?
First off, note that quote from the “Transformation 101″ article I posted. To quote again:
The idea that EMU or almost any other sports program pays for itself at all– let alone with one afternoon of work– is ludicrous.
As to the profitability of History/Philosophy: I wasn’t trying to bait Mark, but I think he’s probably right. The same is very true of English, particularly courses like first year composition (very low staffing costs and lots of students– my guess is that EMU “earns” about $10 for every dollar it spends in those sections) and lecture hall sections of literature, not to mention most of the other courses we teach in the department.
And another reason why our departments are so “cost effective” is that the faculty in history/philosophy and English studies make a lot less than a lot of other departments– probably including some very high demand programs like nursing.
In any event, sports at EMU in general and football in particular might be a good thing overall and it might be a bad thing overall. But one thing for sure is it is not profitable. Not even a little bit.