Monday, January 22, 2007
Remaining Competitive in College Football Isn't Easy for Everyone
The Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team was 1-11 in 2002 with their only victory coming against Army (who was also 1-11 that year). As most know this past year Rutgers finished an amazing 11-2 and were at one point in the BCS Championship game talks.
Two things can occur after a historic season such as the one experienced by Rutgers transpires...Either A, the head coach and even some of his assistants move on to other universities, accepting more prominent job offers from schools that can offer them greater salaries. When this occurs, in seasons to come the team continues to play well, but not at an 11-2 level. Then there is option B, the one that allows a university like Rutgers to continue to play top notch football. This involves offering the current coaches bundles of cash to stay together and turn an 11-2 season into a consistent outcome for many seasons to come. It appears Rutgers University seems set on the more appeasing "option B". But with this choice comes consequences, not all of which are positive...
Apparently Rutgers' state aid was cut $80 million this past year and it was recently announced that this lost money will force the university to dismiss 825 employees and cancel approximatley 459 course sections. Further, AD Robert E. Mulcahy III stated that the school will cut "six high-performing Olympic sports that cost a combined $800,000."
Meanwhile, as the school attempts to cope with this lack of funding they are showing their students, alumni and fans that a winning football program is extremely vital to the university. During this time of financial restraint rather than decreasing funding for the football program, the school is taking that "option B" and increasing spending by nearly $3 million.
"Most of Schiano's six-figure coaching assistants got double-digit raises even as the university reeled under state budget cuts that forced the elimination of 825 jobs...Salaries for nine coaches now range between $115,000 and $185,000, according to the contracts obtained by The Record under the state's Open Public Records Act. Each also gets a $7,200 annual car stipend and an additional one month's pay -- a bonus for getting the Scarlet Knights into the Texas Bowl."
Specifically, below are the new salaries of nine Rutgers' assistants as well as their percentage increase in their new salaries compared to their old:
Jay Butler, Strength and Conditioning Coach
$125,675 (10.1%)
Chris Demarest, Defensive Backs Coach
$143,000 (10%)
John McNulty, Asst. Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks/ Wide Receivers Coach
$160,000 (23.1%)
Kyle Flood, Offensive Line Coach
$122,500 (22.5%)
Joseph Susan, Recruiting Coordinator/Tight Ends Coach
$144,000 (15.2%)
Cary Godette, Defensive Line Coach
$143,000 (10%)
Darren Rizzi, Assistant Head Coach/Linebackers/Special Teams Coach
$145,750 (10%)
Robert Jackson, Running Backs Coach
$115,000 (9.5%)
Craig Ver Steeg, Offensive Coordinator
$185,000 (7.8%)
The raises were not 100% successful as a small turnover still occurred as a raise of 28.6 percent to $90,000 was not enough to keep Phil Galiano, who has taken over as the defensive coordinator at FIU.
In end, I applause Rutgers for their actions. Yes I imagine the university will receive heavy criticism for increasing the football budget in a time in which the school is suffering from $80 million in funding cuts, however the school's actions show just how much of a priority consistently having a great football team is to them. Maybe an academic university's highest priority shouldn't be football but rather academics. It is a delicate situation, one that schools like Rutgers has to experience, and big schools like Texas, Oklahoma, Miami, Florida, etc don't have to. If Rutgers stays consistently great then in 5 years the team will be producing a significant profit from bowl appearances, ticket sales, and alumni donations. It appears that is the school's goal, as AD Mulcahy said, "If you want to be excellent you have to be competitive and that's what we're doing. It's all part of my plan to get to a point where we're consistently in the Top 25." At that point I imagine certainly some of that money could and would be put back into the university.
27 Comments:
"the school's actions show just how much of a priority consistently having a great football team is to them."
Should this really be a university's top priority?
I don't know...but Rutger's recent actions show that that is the case. I think it is a delicate situation. And smaller school's like Rutgers have to experience it, unlike big schools like Texas, Oklahoma, Miami, Florida, etc. If the team stays consistently great then in 5 years the team will be producing a significant profit from bowl appearances and ticket sales. At that point some of that money could be put back into the university.
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I think Adam is right--profit is the key, and it's why Title IX is an incredibly inefficient and misguided policy--not all sports are equal. The football team makes millions of dollars for the University--I doubt that any other sport except possibly basketball turns a profit for the school. So while the school is spending a ton of money on football, the school is still making a profit from the team. While it's a shame that these other sports and course selections have to be canceled, they are all a drain on the school's finances. The football team on the other hand, is something that helps the schools finances. Increasing the budget for the football team in like an investment on the part of the University. If the increased budget allows the team to stay at the top of the Big East for the coming years, it will more than pay for itself over that time.
They should have just axed all the women's sports.
Rutgers isn't a small school...we have 30000 students just like all of those other schools.
At some schools (I'll use Virginia Tech as an example since I know this to be true), the football team receives donations ear-marked specifically for football. The funds cannot be spent anywhere else. VT's football program is self-sustaining in this way. I doubt Rutgers is to that point yet, but it is still an option.
But I applause their effort as well.
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no, this is absurd. the goal of an academic institution is to teach people, not play football for money. educating people should not mean mortgaging various things to create revenue streams. besides, college football is a dirty business in and of itself.
http://justsayin2000.blogspot.com/2006/12/molders-of-men.html
I'm about to retire from the Rutgers faculty after 37 years and it's none too soon. The childish and frenzied quest for "big time" football glory was never a project of the university community, but merely an obsession of the jock-sniffers on the Board of Governors who love to provide big shot friends with sky-box seats and fly to bowl games on corporate jets, but who are, by and large, quite incompetent to manage a university. The faculty, be it noted, never got an opportunity to voice its opinion on football madness. If it had, the idea would have been voted down in a heartbeat.
Over the past few decades, football silliness has contributed noticeably to the decine of student quality and the demoralization of the faculty at Rutgers. By contrast, during the same period New York University has built itself up into a truly first class school, academically, not least by avoiding big-time sports like the plague.
The most distinguished and valuable universities in this country are places like MIT and Caltech, which concentrate on producing research and highly skilled graduates in the most demanding and vital areas. They have the temerity not to give a damn about nurturing semi-pro farm teams for the NBA and NFL, which has a lot to do with their sterling success in more important matters. But there aren't enough such places, and as long as the dimwitted culture of big-time sports dominates so many campuses, its unlikely that many more will spring up.
Hey Anonymous Prof from Rutgers-
Right though you may be in general, do you not agree that there are benefits in raising Rutger's national stature regardless of the method? Rutgers certainly hasn't been a nationally renouned institution in EITHER athletics or in academics in years past... don't you think that greater national recognition from having a top football team would attract more potential students-- in particular from farther afield than the tri-state area? Perhaps there is some academic good in all of this? Just saying-- you seem pretty wrapped up in being dismissive.
Very interesting article...I think that if the football team continues to be successful over the next 4 to 5 years, the money will come in droves and the university's move will pay off....and people need to stop comparing Rutgers to CalTech and MIT. It's Rutgers...it is what it is.
This could be huge for Rutgers. Rutgers has a few good seasons over the past few decades but this past season is going to take you to the next level. With the school making the right decisions and tightening the grip on the coaching staff I see you guys pushing into yearly rankings.
A few folks on here have talked like this is bad for the educational side. Are admission standards changing because the football team is getting better? That is just the old nerd v jock argument. In the long run a good cfb team will pay the bills and then some! This will help everybody. Once you guys push into the class of big programs everything else will fall into place: enrollment will go up, boosters will be coming out of the woodwork throwing money at you. Everybody wins! Simon with his little pocket protector will have all the cash he needs for petri dishes, fungi molds, and electron microscopes!
A good cfb program is the best investment a university can make. Congrats! Schedule the Vols!
Good teaching comes from paying teachers good money. Money at big state schools often comes from their big sports. The sport that generates the most amount of money at a majority of schools is football. Rutgers basketball isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so I do not see why this is such a bad investment.
-Darren of SportsAgentBlog.com
Hey Prof.
While you refuse to understand that smaller, private institutions have vastly different missions (and revenue sources) then any State U, I will offer you this from Forbes Mag last year. And everyone must agree that Notre DAme is a top-notch institution.
"The Fighting Irish football program is worth $97 million based on what the team contributes to the university’s athletic department for non-football sports ($23.5 million), the University’s academic use ($23.2 million), and the incremental sales to South Bend, Ind., and the surrounding county when the team plays games at Notre Dame Stadium."
http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/22/college-football-ncaa-business_cz_jg_1222collegefootball.html
I just want to point out that out of the roughly 1000 NCAA member schools out there, a whole ten of them actually have a surplus in their athletic budgets. It's nice to talk about how much Notre Dame's football program benefits the school's academics, but the other 990 schools aren't so lucky. Despite spending millions on top coaching staffs and taking on massive longterm debt to put in more luxury suites (debt which is usually conveniently not included in any publicly produced accountings of the team's expenses), these schools still need to take money out of their general funds and student fees to keep their athletic programs afloat. At best, any net profits from football programs, and there aren't that many schools that run a profit in their football programs, only go to helping a handful of other sports stay afloat, not to helping the academic part of the university. So I guess it is nice to see that Rutgers is trying to build a football team that can help support the school's other sports teams. Of course, to raise the money to do this they are cutting half a dozen other sports.
The other problem with the spending money to make money paradigm is that the longterm prospects of successfully making a profit in college football are questionable at best, especially for Rutgers. A 2005 NCAA study indicated that spending more did not guarantee more revenue. Rutgers is competing for the same amount of college football revenue as 100 other schools. The revenue, impressive though it may be, is not growing nearly fast enough to support a lot of teams. A team like Rutgers, which is competing with three other major football teams less than an hour away from it, are at a great disadvantage over the dozens of other teams that can't turn a profit despite being the only show in town. While Jerseyans like myself will watch Rutgers in a bowl game, I don't see too many of us choosing to buy Rutgers tickets and merchandise over those of the Giants, Jets, and Eagles. It seems to me that Universities are going to be spending more and more to get an ever-smaller piece of the revenue pie, cutting the smaller sports that much more accurately reflect the mission of the NCAA.
Will said:
Rutgers certainly hasn't been a nationally renouned institution in EITHER athletics or in academics in years past... don't you think that greater national recognition from having a top football team would attract more potential students-- in particular from farther afield than the tri-state area? Perhaps there is some academic good in all of this?
Rutgers is one of the top institutions in a number of graduate programs, and I don't think it would be a rediculous notion to point out that of the top 25 or so universities in the country, most do not have top 25 football teams. Michigan, Texas, Cal and a few others constitute notable exceptions. But ND, Florida and only a few others really make huge bank. Do you really want to use your football program as the primary attractor of students? There are tons of small liberal arts schools and universities without major athletic accolades that are very good and successful academic programs- it's a rediculous argument.
All in all, football is fun to watch and it's exciting to root for a successful football team, but it is peripheral to the goals of an academic institution. There are plenty of ways to make money to support the university without having to make a deal with the devil on advertising and so on. The deal works out for a select few universities like Notre Dame, but there are how many D-1 schools now, 100? Most of them don't make shit but they have to invest increasing amounts of resources to keep up. It's a stupid idea.
See the collegiate football programs that Forbes says are bring in the doe. Go to http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/22/college-football-ncaa-business_cz_jg_1222collegefootball.html
Concatenate the following three lines to form the URL:
http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/22/
college-football-ncaa-business_cz_jg
_1222collegefootball.html
What I find interesting about this retiring professor's comments is that having done my undergraduate and grad studies at schools which would most certainly meet his approval, big time athletics have absolutely nothing to do with why I and so many of New Jersey's "best and brightest" thought Rutgers to be a joke of an institution when it came time to select a college. Nor did it in any way minimize the appeal of such universities as Virginia, Michigan, Northwestern, UNC-Chapel Hill, Cal-Berkeley, UCLA, Wisconsin and various other public universities which manage to high quality to elite institutions in spite of their athletic ambitions.
The Rutgers campus appears to have been designed by communist party hacks in the former Soviet Union. As to the architecture, I only wonder if the buildings can be truly described as lifeless when they display such an animated hatred of beauty.
But had I never seen the campus, I could have garnered all the information I needed from simply counting up the half-wits and aimless mediocrities from my own high school who matriculated there.
And no, they weren't drawn there because of the athletic programs, they were drawn there because water seeks its own level.
I laugh when he tries to contrast Rutgers with CalTech, MIT or even, sigh, a flavor of the month like NYU. These are private institutions. And for them, academic prestige is everything. But for Rutgers, an institution which by its own mission is bent on mediocrity, athletic excellence can serve to bond graduates to the university over the long haul and foment a collective sense of pride. There are ample resources at Rutgers for those who want to indulge the life of the mind, but realistically, the world has enough poets and as long as Rutgers admission standards reflect a lust for producing middle managers, the best the institution can reasonably expect is to make them feel proud of where they came from. I know this football program has made me proud. And for the first time I am kindly disposed to Rutgers and almost regret not having gone there. For Rutgers, that's progress.
Pathetic Professor Dowling stoops to posting anonymously on the WBRS Sports Blog. Get a life
Academics are so eliteist. Rutgers, despite the lofty goals of the supporters out there, is a State U and as such it has a certain mission -- to offer state residents a quality affordable education. Athletics attract bright minds that want some sort of fun in their college experience.
NJ is the most closely populated state in the country with the most wealthy city in the country, but New Jersey is a net exporter of college students...
That's not the case in Michigan and Florida, where ALL of the kids want to stay in state.
The RU football program is about Alumni pride, in where they went to school and had a fun time.
If a school can balance both, like Michigan does, a football program is a positive for the entire state.
And finally, Schiano is worth it. He runs a profitable unit within the University and the future looks great for RU. Those who say that RU can't be a Michigan or Florida or Alabama in Big Time College football are all wrong.
NJ has some of the best talent in the entire US (after Florida, Ohio, California and Texas). NJ kids, high school all americans routinely exit NJ for Penn State, BC, Texas, and Louisville (Phil Simms youngest son). A good football team, loaded with local talent would definately lead to a capital inflow from alumni and local benefactors. And BCS Bowl Gams participants get someting like a $15 million bonus to use as they wish.
I don't like how universities justify spending oodles of money on football, when clearly the school is suffering in terms of finances.
I can see how the mantra, "you have to spend money to make money" fits in the case of Rutgers, but it completely undermines the focus of what a university should be - a place of learning, not a multi-million business (which it is inherently...)
Whoadie-
You're missing my point here... as you quite correctly state, "There are tons of small liberal arts schools and universities without major athletic accolades that are very good and successful academic programs." The distinction here is that Rutgers (despite the visions of sugarplums and MIT dancing in Anonymous Prof's head) isn't in any danger of being mentioned in the same breath academnically of the same small liberal arts colleges you refer to. In fact, not even close! After years of being an afterthought (even in the tri-state area) perhaps Rutgers thought it was time to thrust itself further onto the national stage?
Profit is not the key. College athletics was set up to fulfill the educational experience based off the Greek saying; "mind, body, and spirit". The moment athletics in any college setting becomes a profit business, the integrity of college athletics and the education system has been tarnished.
-Former NCAA Division I collegiate athlete.
I know this is more than a few months late, but I just wanted to point out to the poster above that Professor Dowling has not been at Rutgers anywhere near 37 years, so that's clearly not him. There are many other professors who share his views - I've spoken to a few of them about it.
Anyway, we're about to dump another $116 million into this so-called investment, which seems to have the ROI of a raffle ticket.
It is all business no matter how you look at it. Winning Football brings in more money then you realize. TV contracts, all of Rutgers games is on some sort of National TV, Bowl money, alumni donations and yes with the name recognition that winning football brings in you also get more students across the country looking at Rutgers. Do you think students go to Miami or Florida St. becuase they hear they are such great schools. Most go because they know the school because of football. BTW -to the person who doesnt think a Rutgers education holds up to these small lib arts schools. You need to do some research. Rutgers is considered very high in academics.
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