(02-25-2018 01:55 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 11:49 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The key for the G5 has been school subsidies. As long as the school perceives that the marketing value of being FBS is worth the subsidy cost, the subsidy will continue.

I think at most G5 schools, there is an understanding that being FBS isn't worth it for marketing value. It doesn't pay for itself in terms of more/better enrollment or anything like that. It might bring in some of that, but the costs exceed the value.

School admins defend FBS because it strokes their own egos. It allows them to hob-nob at various meetings with admins from "power" schools, which is good personally for their careers, it allows them to take free vacations at school expense to the bowl games, stuff like that.

It also strokes the ego of big donors, to the extent that G5 have big donors. E.g., a big donor might want the school to be FBS for the same ego reasons - so he can feel quasi-equal to the alums at his country club who attended P5 institutions when they are talking football, and so he can also get to travel to the bowl games with perks for being a donor and the like. So he donates more to the school than he otherwise would.

But again, it doesn't add up to actually paying for FBS, which is why student subsidies are needed. Students pay for the ego-gratification of the big donors and administrators.

No Quo, G5 football actually is more money.

In 2016 the MAC received $32 million from ESPN. 10 million from its conference TV deal and 22 million from its participation in the CFP. Without G5 status the MAC would have received next to zero money from ESPN.

Then I guess you could say well the MAC is earning more from ESPN so they must be spending more. Kent State just hired a new coach for 460k per year. If they were in FCS as a larger school in that subdivision they might be spending 250k on an HC.

For spending just a few hundred thousand more in coaching, Kent State is pulling in close to 3 million more in TV money. That doesn't even count more marketing money, advertising all of which is much larger as a G5 program.

G5 really is better than FCS and not just an ego thing.