SDHornet wrote:Why do you care some much about UND football and what they decide to spend their athletic dough on?
The crisis at UND is very real and existential in nature. The move to division 1 has decimated their athletic programs because they simply do not have the money. One of the biggest mistakes was accepting the REA hockey rink gift. They can’t afford it.
In order to run the building among other things the REA foundation takes 50% of ticket revenues from all sports for 30 years. They are now 15 years into the deal and it has drained them. A public brawl broke out again between REA and UND admin this year. Acrimony and on-going hard feelings were all exposed. There was no change. There can’t be. The money is needed to pay the buildings way.
when the deal ends in 15 years UND gets the building. It will break them trying to operate and maintain the old building. It’s breaking them now even in the buildings prime of life.
A huge sign that UND is broke along with USD is student fees. Both schools were better suited in D2 and would benefit from D1 non scholarship football.
From the UND board siouxsports.com:
Here's a little wider group of regional schools(ND/SD/MT/IA/NE). The first set are sorted by student fee dollar amount, the second set by percentage of athletic dept revenue, the third set is student fees per year per full-time undergrad student(also per year per FTE for ND schools). All data sets are from the 2017-18 academic year.
$3.6M UND
$3.0M USD
$2.3M SDSU
$2.2M UNO
$2.0M MSU
$2.0M UNI
$1.5M NDSU
$1.2M UM
15.3% USD
12.6% UND
10.5% UNO
10.4% SDSU
9.8% UNI
9.0% MSU
5.4% UM
5.3% NDSU
$606 USD
$425 UND ($312 by FTE)
$273 SDSU
$224 UNO
$219 UNI
$163 MSU
$161 UM
$139 NDSU ($122 by FTE)
Sources: USA Today NCAA Finances Report, US Dept of Ed: Equity in Athletics, NDSU Enrollment Report
Both UND & USD have maxed out student funding. Their programs are running red hot. having apparently maxed out community funding sources they have turned to the students, burdening them with the uncontrolled costs.
They recognize the problem. Their discussion is touching on many of the points I have been making. They are dancing around the D2 and non scholarship solutions while spending some time debating the location of the student sections.
The key to their discussion is scale: what is the proper level of athletic competition for a school with their budget and D1 hockey.
If they insist on staying D1 USD & UND would be better suited to joining other programs appropriately scaled in a Summit non scholarship league.
Dear Lord, We come before you and humbly ask you to grant our prayer for a veil of protection to be placed over Donald Trump. May your will be done. In Jesus name we pray. Amen