PASSHE Institutions Merging

[boatcapt]

I'd agree this current exercise is a glorified band-aid.

Yes...a temporary fix designed to buy time. I also see it as sort of a Beta test. Going to be things that work in the consolidation and things that don't work. The future PASSHE consolidations will learn from the mistakes and successes of the current process and the future consolidations will be much smoother. I could see the PASSHE devolving to five entities NW, SW, Central, NE and SE.

[Fightingscot82]

Much will be decided by the NCAA but I see the triads heading down the road of a "distributed" athletic program with no duplication. One of the campuses is chosen to be the home of the football team, another houses the men's basketball, another houses the women's basketball team , etc, etc, etc. I also see each triad athletic department adding non-revenue, student "producing" sports spread out over the three schools in the same manner.

I do see the possibility of triads seeking out "alternatives" to NCAA sponsorship for certain sports that they may want to overlap in. For example, the Bloomsburg campus housing the NCAA DII football team with Mansfield housing their Sprint team and the Locke Haven campus having a football program flying the USCAA flag.

I don't think you're reading what we're saying. Clarion is in financial trouble: years of operating deficits and they're out of reserves (cash savings). If Clarion cuts football they cut $800k in expenses, they also lose 90-100 students who will go elsewhere and take their tuition money with them, so Clarion's $800k cut is actually a $1.1 million net loss. That also doesn't consider the blow to alumni giving and community engagement. These teams aren't built like high school teams. You don't hold sign ups & tryouts for current students. Nearly all were recruited by a coach to attend that school using football as the hook. Take away the hook and the student goes elsewhere.

Cutting sports doesn't fix the problem, it makes it worse.

[boatcapt]

I don't think you're reading what we're saying. Clarion is in financial trouble: years of operating deficits and they're out of reserves (cash savings). If Clarion cuts football they cut $800k in expenses, they also lose 90-100 students who will go elsewhere and take their tuition money with them, so Clarion's $800k cut is actually a $1.1 million net loss. That also doesn't consider the blow to alumni giving and community engagement. These teams aren't built like high school teams. You don't hold sign ups & tryouts for current students. Nearly all were recruited by a coach to attend that school using football as the hook. Take away the hook and the student goes elsewhere.

I have no doubt that Clarion (and other triad schools) WANTS to keep DII football, the question is, will they be permitted to do so? If the drive is to keep the student head count up and their tuition dollars flowing, there are other sanctioning bodies out there that would probably look quite favorably on four teams in PA looking to join them. In the case of the USCAA, take the four "non-NCAA" PA football programs, add them to the two existing USCAA and play as a 6 team "conference" with the top two teams playing in the "USCAA National Championship" game. Schools get to keep the 100 tuition paying football players and have a much better chance of hanging a National Championship banner than their football teams would ever have at the DII level.

And you don't have to build your roster from ONLY players who have already enrolled at your school. You can recruit just as you do under the DII model. Plenty of HS players who considered their football careers over and were planning on attending the local Community College who would be more than happy to receive a Preferred Walk-On offer from a state school.

[complaint_hopeful]

I don't think you're reading what we're saying. Clarion is in financial trouble: years of operating deficits and they're out of reserves (cash savings). If Clarion cuts football they cut $800k in expenses, they also lose 90-100 students who will go elsewhere and take their tuition money with them, so Clarion's $800k cut is actually a $1.1 million net loss. That also doesn't consider the blow to alumni giving and community engagement. These teams aren't built like high school teams. You don't hold sign ups & tryouts for current students. Nearly all were recruited by a coach to attend that school using football as the hook. Take away the hook and the student goes elsewhere.

Cutting sports doesn't fix the problem, it makes it worse.

Precisely. Cutting sports actually loses more money than it saves. And schools in survival mode won't do that. They'll likely add more sports like you said...and I've heard they're looking at things like Women's Lacrosse, etc. And they'll add them, for financial reasons...not for some glorified goal of competing for a championship.

I think a corollary to this all is that these mergers have nothing to do with creating a powerhouse football (or other) team for the Triad. I'm fairly confident that sports are an afterthought in this all. Financial survival is the major driver. The deficits and financial projections for some of the PASSHE schools are shockingly bad. ie Their reserves are gone or nearly gone and they're projected to lose multiple millions of dollars+ each year in upcoming years. So then the state system would have to somehow absorb that loss.

[jrshooter]

I have no doubt that Clarion (and other triad schools) WANTS to keep DII football, the question is, will they be permitted to do so? If the drive is to keep the student head count up and their tuition dollars flowing, there are other sanctioning bodies out there that would probably look quite favorably on four teams in PA looking to join them. In the case of the USCAA, take the four "non-NCAA" PA football programs, add them to the two existing USCAA and play as a 6 team "conference" with the top two teams playing in the "USCAA National Championship" game. Schools get to keep the 100 tuition paying football players and have a much better chance of hanging a National Championship banner than their football teams would ever have at the DII level.

And you don't have to build your roster from ONLY players who have already enrolled at your school. You can recruit just as you do under the DII model. Plenty of HS players who considered their football careers over and were planning on attending the local Community College who would be more than happy to receive a Preferred Walk-On offer from a state school.

I don't think I've ever been guilty of using the "that's the way we've always done it" argument. But I think I just might here. I have no interest in seeing PSAC schools drop to an NAIA football level. Leave that to Central Penn and Haskell Indian Nations.

[Fightingscot82]

I have no doubt that Clarion (and other triad schools) WANTS to keep DII football, the question is, will they be permitted to do so? If the drive is to keep the student head count up and their tuition dollars flowing, there are other sanctioning bodies out there that would probably look quite favorably on four teams in PA looking to join them. In the case of the USCAA, take the four "non-NCAA" PA football programs, add them to the two existing USCAA and play as a 6 team "conference" with the top two teams playing in the "USCAA National Championship" game. Schools get to keep the 100 tuition paying football players and have a much better chance of hanging a National Championship banner than their football teams would ever have at the DII level.

And you don't have to build your roster from ONLY players who have already enrolled at your school. You can recruit just as you do under the DII model. Plenty of HS players who considered their football careers over and were planning on attending the local Community College who would be more than happy to receive a Preferred Walk-On offer from a state school.

Cost change for moving "down" is almost the same as moving "up". There are not many football-playing schools in this region outside of DII and DIII. So travel cost increases eat up other savings. Its why Geneva and Waynesburg went DIII from NAIA.

Could Clarion and Edinboro be forced to bump back down to DII for wrestling? Maybe. But that would be wildly unpopular with both schools and communities. Similarly, I don't see Cal adding wrestling as it could be seen as detrimental to the well-established programs at the other two campuses.

[WarriorVoice]

Precisely. Cutting sports actually loses more money than it saves. And schools in survival mode won't do that. They'll likely add more sports like you said...and I've heard they're looking at things like Women's Lacrosse, etc. And they'll add them, for financial reasons...not for some glorified goal of competing for a championship.

I think a corollary to this all is that these mergers have nothing to do with creating a powerhouse football (or other) team for the Triad. I'm fairly confident that sports are an afterthought in this all. Financial survival is the major driver. The deficits and financial projections for some of the PASSHE schools are shockingly bad. ie Their reserves are gone or nearly gone and they're projected to lose multiple millions of dollars+ each year in upcoming years. So then the state system would have to somehow absorb that loss.

Do either of you have any numbers to show how cutting sports actually loses more money than it saves? I haven't found anything to back up that claim.

[iupgroundhog]

Much will be decided by the NCAA but I see the triads heading down the road of a "distributed" athletic program with no duplication. One of the campuses is chosen to be the home of the football team, another houses the men's basketball, another houses the women's basketball team , etc, etc, etc. I also see each triad athletic department adding non-revenue, student "producing" sports spread out over the three schools in the same manner.

I do see the possibility of triads seeking out "alternatives" to NCAA sponsorship for certain sports that they may want to overlap in. For example, the Bloomsburg campus housing the NCAA DII football team with Mansfield housing their Sprint team and the Locke Haven campus having a football program flying the USCAA flag.

I guess it's possible and anything can happen but IMO a "distributed " athletics program doesn't make sense for schools that are all at least 1 hour drive from each other. First, it sharply reduces the "enrollment" factor these guys are talking about, thereby defeating the purpose of keeping athletics in the first place. Second, the plan, by definition, creates academic specialty schools, with specific schools taking over specific academic areas. How do you match a student-athlete who wants to play volleyball (for ex.) at Lock Haven but whose academic specialty is offered primarily at Bloomsburg? The answer is "You don't." That student-athlete already enrolled at PSU-Berks or Miseracordia or somewhere else. I think a distributed system would be a half-baked idea. Maybe if the programs were different to begin with it could work. But they aren't. A couple of months ago I compared LH and Bloom athletics offerings, overall. They are almost identical. They are maybe one program off from each other. They have virtually the same list of men's and women's sports. Like you say, in football, it could work with LH moving to a non-NCAA program. That makes some sense only because of LH's lack of competitiveness in FB. Wrestling, LHU can remain D1 and Bloom drop to D2 (a possibility aside from all this). But what about Basketball? Who gets it? Big question. Then you have all of the other minor sports. Who gets them? Plus, many of those don't cost that much to operate, anyway.

The bottom line is there should be a preliminary statement from the NCAA. But there is nothing. Doesn't bode well. For Mr. Greenstein and the BOG sports has not been a priority and that is a huge mistake.

[Fightingscot82]

Along with all of this, in hindsight, I think Cheyney cutting athletics was the wrong decision and some folks I've talked to familiar with PASSHE have agreed. Cheyney had to make significant cuts and from a P/L sheet athletics looks like a good target. But at a school with enrollment & retention problems, they also gave 250 students a reason to take their tuition elsewhere. Then Aaron Walton was forced to make even more cuts. I guess their budget is balanced now but not having NCAA athletics makes Cheyney an even less desirable choice.

[iupgroundhog]

Do either of you have any numbers to show how cutting sports actually loses more money than it saves? I haven't found anything to back up that claim.

I believe their cost/revenue calculation only applies in the short-term (In this case, 2-4 years). What is missed by the argument is that, over time, the mission of the schools is going to change. They are going to move away from the traditional 4-year college model that we have grown up with and morph into something different. Let's call that the intermediate-term and it is likely 5-10 years. In the intermediate-term, the cost savings being discussed gets overridden by more global changes to the schools. Yes, losing enrollment by dropping sports might be a relevant consideration now but it won't be very soon.

[iupgroundhog]

Along with all of this, in hindsight, I think Cheyney cutting athletics was the wrong decision and some folks I've talked to familiar with PASSHE have agreed. Cheyney had to make significant cuts and from a P/L sheet athletics looks like a good target. But at a school with enrollment & retention problems, they also gave 250 students a reason to take their tuition elsewhere. Then Aaron Walton was forced to make even more cuts. I guess their budget is balanced now but not having NCAA athletics makes Cheyney an even less desirable choice.

Well, what they did saved the school. Plus, this ties in directly to my changed mission" theory. Cheyney completely changed their mission. No longer were they going to compete as a HBCU alternative to WCU or Millersville. Moving forward, their standards were going to be higher, focusing on developing African-American leaders and also focusing on STEM. The private partnerships they have developed makes for and interesting hybrid of state/private funding. They don't care about being a school with a FB team (not to mention that they couldn't compete which is bad PR). Now if this new direction doesn't work they don't have the traditional model to fall back on. If it doesn't succeed, in 10 years Cheyney will truly be history.

[WarriorVoice]

I guess it's possible and anything can happen but IMO a "distributed " athletics program doesn't make sense for schools that are all at least 1 hour drive from each other. First, it sharply reduces the "enrollment" factor these guys are talking about, thereby defeating the purpose of keeping athletics in the first place. Second, the plan, by definition, creates academic specialty schools, with specific schools taking over specific academic areas. How do you match a student-athlete who wants to play volleyball (for ex.) at Lock Haven but whose academic specialty is offered primarily at Bloomsburg? The answer is "You don't." That student-athlete already enrolled at PSU-Berks or Miseracordia or somewhere else. I think a distributed system would be a half-baked idea. Maybe if the programs were different to begin with it could work. But they aren't. A couple of months ago I compared LH and Bloom athletics offerings, overall. They are almost identical. They are maybe one program off from each other. They have virtually the same list of men's and women's sports. Like you say, in football, it could work with LH moving to a non-NCAA program. That makes some sense only because of LH's lack of competitiveness in FB. Wrestling, LHU can remain D1 and Bloom drop to D2 (a possibility aside from all this). But what about Basketball? Who gets it? Big question. Then you have all of the other minor sports. Who gets them? Plus, many of those don't cost that much to operate, anyway.

The bottom line is there should be a preliminary statement from the NCAA. But there is nothing. Doesn't bode well. For Mr. Greenstein and the BOG sports has not been a priority and that is a huge mistake.

The NCCA plays wait and see. They will rule on the plan once the plan is finalized and implemented. If they don't approve, they'll give the schools a year to fix it to their liking.

[Fightingscot82]

Do either of you have any numbers to show how cutting sports actually loses more money than it saves? I haven't found anything to back up that claim.

The model assumes that most of the athletes are only attending the school because of the sport. The basic ROI model is net tuition for players on the roster minus operating expenses (including coaches salaries). For PASSHE schools, athletic scholarships are externally funded so they don't affect revenue or expenses.

So for football, if you have 90 players at an average cost of $22k that's about $1.9MM. At Clarion, football expenses are a little north of $800k. So if Clarion cuts football to cut $800k in expenses, it can be assumed they will unintentionally also lose $1.9MM in revenue.

[complaint_hopeful]

Do either of you have any numbers to show how cutting sports actually loses more money than it saves? I haven't found anything to back up that claim.

I'm pretty sure that the Chancellor touched on this in some of his presentations, but I don't recall how deep the numbers were.

Essentially though, you have say a team with 12 players on it. Those kids are all paying tuition in one form or another. Even if they are on scholarship from fundraised money, the University gets that money. So say costs are $20k a year. $20k x 12 is $240k. You probably have a HC getting paid. Then you have an assistant. And travel and uniforms. I doubt that stuff adds up to $240k so you're making money. Say $50-100k profit. Now multiply that by a bunch of sports. And that's a sport with 12 players on the team.

Some sports have much larger rosters.

[complaint_hopeful]

I guess it's possible and anything can happen but IMO a "distributed " athletics program doesn't make sense for schools that are all at least 1 hour drive from each other. First, it sharply reduces the "enrollment" factor these guys are talking about, thereby defeating the purpose of keeping athletics in the first place. Second, the plan, by definition, creates academic specialty schools, with specific schools taking over specific academic areas. How do you match a student-athlete who wants to play volleyball (for ex.) at Lock Haven but whose academic specialty is offered primarily at Bloomsburg? The answer is "You don't." That student-athlete already enrolled at PSU-Berks or Miseracordia or somewhere else. I think a distributed system would be a half-baked idea. Maybe if the programs were different to begin with it could work. But they aren't. A couple of months ago I compared LH and Bloom athletics offerings, overall. They are almost identical. They are maybe one program off from each other. They have virtually the same list of men's and women's sports. Like you say, in football, it could work with LH moving to a non-NCAA program. That makes some sense only because of LH's lack of competitiveness in FB. Wrestling, LHU can remain D1 and Bloom drop to D2 (a possibility aside from all this). But what about Basketball? Who gets it? Big question. Then you have all of the other minor sports. Who gets them? Plus, many of those don't cost that much to operate, anyway.

The bottom line is there should be a preliminary statement from the NCAA. But there is nothing. Doesn't bode well. For Mr. Greenstein and the BOG sports has not been a priority and that is a huge mistake.

The NCAA doesn't make preliminary statements. You submit the paperwork and they render a decision at one of their meetings. Now that decision may include things that you need to change to be compliant.

Now the big question is if the paperwork has been submitted.