Jump to content

Lurking Dog

Members
  • Posts

    53
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Lurking Dog

  1. Club football is great if it satisfies demand among current students.

    On the other hand, nonscholarship NCAA football (e.g. Pioneer Football League) would be the better choice if you want to increase male enrollment and tuition revenue. The NCAA brand is the way to attract 100+ male students who would otherwise take their money elsewhere.

    A few years ago the PFL, Ivy League, and the Northeast Conference (Duquesne et al.) were nonscholarship D-I leagues. With the NEC now allowing scholarships, only the PFL and Ivy remain nonscholarship (Patriot League athletic departments actually buy out student loans for football players).

    How do you develop Ivy League-type tradition? It starts with getting a team.

    So, in the Midwest, the PFL is the only affordable show in town. Typical team budget is under a million bucks. Tuition revenue is typically 2.5 mil, making a subsidy worthwhile.

    A proper facility for at least 5,000 spectators would be a private funding challenge for SLU.

    PFL member Butler has renovated its football stadium; no apparent harm to the basketball program, either. Mercer and Stetson are starting teams that will be on the field in 2013. St. Louis can do this.

    http://pflfan.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general

  2. I wonder if Butler will drop its football program, so their basketball team can compete with the likes of Xavier. :rolleyes:

    And while Butler football doesn't produce what is typically thought of as revenue...I wonder what their bottom line looks like. Athletic scholarships= 0. Tuition revenue from 100 players= ???

  3. http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/d...and-temptation/

    "Another thing that probably is frustrating a little bit for Missouri — and that’s not to disparage any other programs, because there are really fine academic institutions in our entire league, they all are — but academically our student-athletes have done a great job and they’ve really performed at a high level. ... We’re somewhat of an outlier with how our kids are doing academically."

    Maybe that comment has nothing to do with the general student body. But Missouri is certainly not an academic outlier in the Big 12. Whatever you think of the US News rankings, putting Mizzou 102nd among national universities (tied with Oklahoma) seems about right. That puts them behind Texas, Texas A&M, Colorado, KU, Iowa State, and Baylor. In other words, their academics rate somewhere in the bottom half of the conference.

    http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews....rankings/page+5

  4. I would be fine with adding Hofstra if we get to add another Midwestern school as well...

    Posted Image

    I propose the Martin & Lewis conference, named after the late Ohio native Dean Martin and Missouri River explorer Meriweather Lewis. Both basketball fans. Great comedy team, too.

    Xavier

    Dayton

    St. Louis

    Butler

    Drake

    Bradley

    Creighton

    Evansville

  5. He says there is a pretty solid group of alums who have verbally committed some big money for Xavier to put a scholarship program together.

    Football (athletic) scholarships? Or by "scholarship program" do you mean they want to be in Dayton's nonscholarship league?

    A full compliment of scholarships for Xavier football would run over $2 Million per year, just for the tuition segment. The last reported football expenditures for Holy Cross (another Jesuit school for comparison) was $4.2 million. These alums are solid indeed if they can endow a program with that kind of appetite (assuming they aren't planning to raise $4M every year :rolleyes: ). With the A10 no longer sponsoring football, I'm not sure what conference a scholarship Xavier program would join.

    Dayton's stadium rental costs may be the only reason they're over 1M/year in expenses. I imagine their tuition revenue makes football's subsidy worthwhile.

    All other teams in Dayton's league play in their own facilities. They spend considerably less, and I would expect Xavier's costs to be reasonable if they joined. Hopefully, the fundraising is going toward a small stadium (I wonder how they use the land where Corcoran Stadium sat).

  6. I love Municipal Auditorium, where the Roos play.

    Me too. I've seen everything from dog shows to roller derby to Kings basketball at Municipal. The place has a great history, including nine NCAA championship games. And its Art Deco style is unusual for a sports arena.

    UMKC is making plans to build a 5,000 seat arena near campus (on Troost). Student turnout for games downtown is next-to-nothing.

    When UMKC moves out, Municipal will basically be an annex to the convention center. The NAIA and MIAA tournaments may be the only regular events.

    Even underutilized, Municipal (and the adjoining Music Hall) is here to stay. I don't know if the same can be said for Kemper Arena--the city's white elephant--still not paid off, even as taxpayers ponied up for the Sprint Center. The only hope is unloading Kemper on the American Royal.

  7. Similar to Stl fan's idea...I posted this a while back on the Dayton football board:

    Taking the U.S. News ratings/rankings one step further, I've listed members of my ideal athletic conference below. Selection criteria are (1) private school in the 12-state area defined by the Census Bureau as the "Midwest." (2) Division I (3) U.S. News 1st tier school (4) not currently a member of a BCS conference--just keepin it real.

    the lineup:

    St. Louis

    Dayton

    Loyola

    Creighton

    Xavier

    Valparaiso

    Butler

    Drake

    Bradley

    Evansville

    Detroit Mercy

    ...20 conference games per year in basketball...RPI would be .5388 today--slightly better than the A10's.

    Conference HQ and basketball tournament would be in Chicago...grab some associate members from the PFL to fill out the football conference.

  8. He says there's still a strong push from the Xavier alumni to get a scholarship football program off the ground...

    Are you sure the push is for a scholarship program? Given the cost of scholarships at XU--and the fact that Dayton has a nonscholarship program--I would think the immediate goal would be to join the Pioneer Football League. With scholarships, they might have to compete as an independent. 'Rough way to go.

    Pushing for an NCAA varsity team? That's for sure.

    Unofficial PFL Page

  9. Among (RM's) comments was wanting to see St. Louis U. compete in the MVC rather than in the Atlantic 10 conference.

    That thought was amplified the following week when SLU Coach Rick Majerus, during an interview with KFNS' Kevin Slaten, said: "You can't find a fan to name all 14 teams in the A10."

    Asked by Slaten if the MVC was "a realistic consideration," Majerus said he and Father Biondi, SLU President, will have to "sit down and discuss that."

    Previously (Feb. 18), during an interview with Billiken broadcaster Bob Ramsey, Majerus referred to the geographics of the A-10 and said: "Every recruit we've lost has been because of the league we are in."

    Majerus also told Slaten, "It's going to be a tough year again next year."

    http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/artic...olumn00.ii1.txt

  10. I don't know much about his recruiting ability, but Indiana has a great appreciation for guys who can make winners out of kids that aren't the best athletes around ...

    Many of the current Bulldogs and recent signees--those from Michigan in particular--were recruited by assistant coach Chris Davis. Chris is not related to Keno, former head coach Tom Davis, or fellow assistant Rodell Davis.

    I'm confident that if Keno leaves, Drake will hire someone named Davis as his replacement. After all, there are a lot of them to choose from.

×
×
  • Create New...