Old Dominion Showing Why Group of 5 Programs are Likely to Start Dropping to FCS

RTR91

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Old Dominion anticipates a $600,000 to $700,000 yearly decline in revenue from Conference USA's new TV contracts, down from the $1 million per school that league teams currently receive.

A decline in TV revenue for 2016-2017 has been expected since January, but at the time, it was thought fees would decrease by about $500,000 per school.

ODU's estimate indicates that C-USA's yearly TV revenue would be about $6 million – a sharp drop from the $14 million in contracts the league signed with Fox Sports and the CBS Sports Network in 2011.

ODU athletic director Wood Selig called the decline "a huge hit," adding, "We've got to work to get the value of Conference USA back up."

ODU's budget, which was finalized at last week's Board of Visitors meeting, included a decline of $1.4 million in revenue over 2015-2016 and a projected deficit of $1.6 million. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Virginian-Pilot, Selig indicated ODU has budgeted for a $600,000 to $700,000 reduction in TV revenues. "That was our best estimate," based on conversations with league officials, he said.

The school also expects a drop of at least $250,000 in student fee revenue, as well as $400,000 less in ticket sales because the Monarchs play six home games instead of seven. The student fee reduction follows a state mandate that ODU and other schools reduce the percentage of student fees used for pay for athletics. "We've been slowing weaning our way off of student fees," Selig said.
 

KrAzY3

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What I hope to see, and I think we are starting to see is slowly starving off the so called "group of 5" schools. That's another reason I'm all for scheduling FCS programs, no need to keep some of the FBS programs on life support.

But seriously, I didn't even know Old Dominion was an FBS program now. What a joke. Their stadium has a capacity of 20k... It's a glorified high school stadium. The sooner we put a stop to this nonsense the better. The opened the floodgates when they dropped the scholarship limit to 85 in the 90s and proved they don't care one tiny bit about the attendance rule, and now look what we end up with.
 

Matt0424

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At this point I think conferences should expand to encompass those group of five teams who can survive, and send the rest to the FCS.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

Intl.Aperture

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I live down the street from ODU. Literally half a mile and my wife I graduating from there in August. I went to their season opener this past year against Norfolk State because I was given free tickets.

They play high-school football.

I'm pretty sure IMG Academy could take one of their stronger teams and punish ODU.

A large reason for the drop in attendance is the simple fact that they lost their starting QB and RB to the NFL - they were actually quite decent and had handed ODU several positive seasons in a row. It was pretty obvious they were going to have a bum year from the first snap this season and the fans just weren't going shell out to watch a team struggle to rebuild.
 

ALA2262

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Here is the first one:

Idaho to drop from FBS to FCS; 1st school to do so


"The Vandals will return to the Big Sky, where they played from 1963 to '95. The conference already is home to Idaho's other athletic teams.
The Sun Belt Conference announced March 1 that it would drop Idaho and New Mexico State, who are both midway through four-year associate memberships, after the 2017 season. At the time, Staben said Idaho's offer from the Big Sky would have to be accepted by May 4."

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/15415691/idaho-vandals-drop-fbs-fcs
 

BamaInMo1

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I've been saying for a LLLLLLOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG time that there were entirely too many teams at the D1 (now known as FBS to make everyone feel all warm and fuzzy) level and there are too many stupid bowls. No matter what people think or say, a lot of these smaller schools will just never be able to compete on this level. They ought to cut it back to appx 72 teams and have 6 conferences of 12 teams and each conference have a championship game (you could do 84 teams as well if you want to even it up) and the winners of the conferences be in a playoff and have no more than 15 - 20 bowls that actually have some good matchup.
 

Redwood Forrest

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Some of them move up for money. Some of them move up because they think they deserve to be with the Big Boys. When the money dries up the first group will probably return to FCS where they belong.
 

ALA2262

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An institution classified in Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) shall meet all the Division Imembership requirements set forth in NCAA Division I Bylaw 20.9.9 and in addition, shall:

3. Average at least 15,000 in actual or paid attendance for all home football contests over a rolling two-year period. [Bylaw 20.9.9.3]


There are currently (2014/2015 rolling average) 12 schools in violation of this Bylaw. There are another 6 that are at or just above the 15K requirement and probably cooked the books in order to do so.
 
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KrAzY3

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An institution classified in Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) shall meet all the Division Imembership requirements set forth in NCAA Division I Bylaw 20.9.9 and in addition, shall:

3. Average at least 15,000 in actual or paid attendance for all home football contests over a rolling two-year period. [Bylaw 20.9.9.3]


There are currently (2014/2015 rolling average) 12 schools in violation of this Bylaw. There are another 6 that are at or just above the 15K requirement and probably cooked the books in order to do so.
I think we could get into a lengthy discussion about this, but I know one coach once said that they'd been trying to level the playing field for years and ironically he was complaining because he felt some rule might (gasp) actually let the producers in the sport have more leeway.

It seemed to me, that the NCAA got it into their head that they could turn football into a cash cow in the same way they turned basketball into a cash cow. What's the real big difference though? The tournament and the fact that in basketball there are a lot of teams in the top division. This created a situation in which the NCAA themselves could control the post season and cash in on it. It's their main source of revenue. I can't help but believe that there was some complicity between the NCAA and those that wanted to level the playing field, to make an environment that allowed for more and more teams.
 

4Q Basket Case

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It also doesn't cost near as much to field a first-rate basketball program vs. a football program. That's in terms of both capital outlay for facilities and annual operating expenses. Only thing comparable is the salary of the HC.
 

RobK

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It sort of proves how the TV networks subsidized the last wave of conference realignment, when they chose to honor past TV agreements made with pre-realignment leagues. The 2011 Conference USA had a significantly better inventory of games (football and hoops) than the current version does. When the contracts expire, market values get back in sync. To me, there are really three tiers of Division 1 football shoehorned into two divisions. In the top tier you have the Power 5 leagues, along with perhaps the top team or two from AAC and Mountain West who can be potentially competitive with the P5. In the second tier have the balance of the AAC and MWC, along the CUSA, MAC, Sun Belt, and the top 10 or 15 programs in the FCS. Then in the third tier you have everybody else in the FCS.
 

B1GTide

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KrAzY3

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https://www.insidehighered.com/view...niversity-abandoning-football-arms-race-essay

Here is an essay written by the president of the University of Idaho explaining why he decided to make the move down to FCS. It was a very good read and I'm glad one school president understands the financial realities of college football.
Sadly, even with his taking the most logical and reasonable step he's still getting blowback.

Despite the hard time I give Boise State, I've never actually advocated for their moving out of the FBS. I don't actually think that the group of 5 conferences need to all go, or that those schools need to be folded in the power 5 either. All I really want to see is the reckless expansion of the FBS put to and end, and for the teams that truly lack support to go down to the FCS or dissolve.

All I really want to see is numbers similar to what we saw when the scholarship limit was reduced, something under 100. When I started ranting about this issue, I believe the number was under 120, I think it's 128 now. Coastal Carolina is on the way...

Going back to the 90s, I believe the number was under 100. Think about that, we're talking about a couple of large conferences full of teams added since then. What did this do to the college football landscape? It gave us the Boise States, the meaningless undefeated teams. For decades, being undefeated in college football meant something, it all but guaranteed a national championship. However, there became such a flood of barely there FBS programs that this no longer was the case. You could create an entire schedule that even a mid-tier major conference team could run the table on. That's not the only issue but it is one.

The other is that as programs like Alabama grew stronger and expanded their stadiums, some of these newcomers decided they should be entitled to more as well. Despite lack of history, fan support, or any merits at all really, they just thought they deserved stuff. Build us new stadiums, give us money, we want to football to! They felt they just deserved it because they existed. And this lead to millions of dollars being flushed to indulge themselves.

I really hope we're seeing an end to this behavior.
 

DzynKingRTR

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Sadly, even with his taking the most logical and reasonable step he's still getting blowback.

Despite the hard time I give Boise State, I've never actually advocated for their moving out of the FBS. I don't actually think that the group of 5 conferences need to all go, or that those schools need to be folded in the power 5 either. All I really want to see is the reckless expansion of the FBS put to and end, and for the teams that truly lack support to go down to the FCS or dissolve.

All I really want to see is numbers similar to what we saw when the scholarship limit was reduced, something under 100. When I started ranting about this issue, I believe the number was under 120, I think it's 128 now. Coastal Carolina is on the way...

Going back to the 90s, I believe the number was under 100. Think about that, we're talking about a couple of large conferences full of teams added since then. What did this do to the college football landscape? It gave us the Boise States, the meaningless undefeated teams. For decades, being undefeated in college football meant something, it all but guaranteed a national championship. However, there became such a flood of barely there FBS programs that this no longer was the case. You could create an entire schedule that even a mid-tier major conference team could run the table on. That's not the only issue but it is one.

The other is that as programs like Alabama grew stronger and expanded their stadiums, some of these newcomers decided they should be entitled to more as well. Despite lack of history, fan support, or any merits at all really, they just thought they deserved stuff. Build us new stadiums, give us money, we want to football to! They felt they just deserved it because they existed. And this lead to millions of dollars being flushed to indulge themselves.

I really hope we're seeing an end to this behavior.
I think there is a rule now that in order to move up, you must be invited to a conference. The only problem with that is the Sun Belt, C-USA, and the MAC exist.
 

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