(01-22-2018 11:11 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(01-22-2018 10:55 AM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(01-22-2018 08:41 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  Almost everyone who plays in the Sun Belt and CUSA moved up from the FCS and I don’t think a single school except for Idaho obviously would entertain going back.

From a Georgia Southern perspective, we only entered the FBS a few years ago, but our athletic budget has doubled, we’ve added almost 10k seats to our stadium and fill it regularly, and we get more national recognition now than we did even when playing FCS National Championship games.

However, we didn’t move up for that. We moved up to be in the same subdivision as our peer schools. ECU, App State, MTSU, Troy, Texas State, Southern Miss, etc are all listed as our peer institutions and almost all of them are schools we used to play at the D1-AA level before they moved up. That left us as a large public school with 21k (soon to be 28k) students playing in a subdivision dominated by small private colleges with 4-5k students. It was a no brainer to make the decision to move up with our peer schools and I’m glad we did.

For a school like Georgia Southern, football is a really integral part of the school's existence (at least on their main campus - I would imagine that unless they make some real efforts to integrate Armstrong's students effectively into the program, they could run into issues). If they really needed to find the money to keep the program running, they'll find it. My guess is that if the state legislature passed some percentage rule banning subsidies over a certain amount or percentage of revenue....that Georgia Southern would find the money. It would be prudent IMHO for GSU to do a better job at finding the money now, rather than later, but that might be just me.

While its more expensive, its easier for school to raise revenue as a FBS. Doesn't mean the net is a positive, but there's that.

For a school like Georgia Southern, the question isn't whether they will play football, but who will pay for it.

I think that for a school like Georgia Southern, reducing the 18 million dollar per year athletic department budget deficit would be a good start. And not shifting the costs of that to students that aren't on their main campus would also be a good idea. If the students at Armstrong are expected to pay an extra grand a year to subsidize athletics played an hour away as a result of the merger, they could see pushback.

I agree. Currently the plan is to integrate Armstrong students into the campus culture of Georgia Southern. They will pay athletics fees however it’s no where near a grand. I believe the fee will be $160 (the athletic fee of main campus students is $200). Transportation will be provided to Armstrong students for each home game and their fee will cover the cost of provided transportation plus free admission to every home game. Armstrong students pushed back at first but when they saw that their student fees would largely be the same as they were when Armstrong was D2 school, they settled down.

The state also has passed legislation that prohibits Georgia Southern and Georgia State from having athletic budgets that are over 65% subsidized by student fees. That legislation was more for State than for us as we’ve never been over 60% subsidized.

The subsidy for athletics at Georgia Southern is probably a lot more than 200 a year. If the athletic revenue - expenses calculation for Georgia Southern is correct at -18,000,000 per year, and the school is only getting around 5 million from the students, then 13 million is coming from somewhere. Whether that amount is built into other charges or not, that's just accounting. The 18 million that Georgia Southern spends over and above revenue has to come from somewhere. Generally, foundations only spend 5 percent of the principal in any given year, so for Georgia Southern's athletic foundation to cover the 13 million hole not covered by revenue or stated student fees, that foundation would need to have $260,000,000 in it (or 5 times the general academic endowment fund). It probably doesn't. If the school is simply spending athletic department donations to cover operating expenses, that could be a recipe for disaster (you have a few bad years, one large donor dies, tax laws change, there's a recession, there's a scandal, etc.). But it is possible that Georgia Southern, unlike other schools, actually could raise 13 million a year in athletic department giving.

That being said, Georgia Southern is probably able to manage FBS, given its culture (and relatively lower cost structure) better than other schools.

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I'm really concerned for many of our institutions if the new CFP and TV deals cut even more from G5 teams. Or if they get cut for P5 teams, and then our teams can't get as much for payday games because the P5 teams can't afford to pay us as much as previously.

EDIT. I actually found the fee structure. Kudos to Georgia Southern for breaking out the fee. http://finserv.georgiasouthern.edu/bursa...-and-fees/

Stated fees, solely for the benefit of athletics are $509 per student per year. Plus an institutional fee of 580 per student per year (no idea what that goes to - but it appears to be discretionary).

At 500 bucks a year per student (or 2 grand for a degree), Georgia Southern would be relatively inexpensive (but not cheap).