PASSHE Institutions Merging

[boatcapt]

I get what you're saying. Sure. I'd like to see some championships. For the most part, Joe Public doesn't respect a DII championship any more than a DIII championship.

But I don't see how dropping to DIII saves money given the current setup. A lot of personnel costs are still dictated across the board by a union CBA regardless of classification. As I've pointed out countless times, PSAC West travel is pretty cheap & easy - changing to a new conference might actually increase travel costs. Much like the rest of this integration, the actual cost savings of moving down a classification may not be enough to justify the move.

Not knowing what the exact athletic budgets are at these six schools makes any savings difficult to assess. But in general terms, at least according to the NCAA, it costs half as much to field a D3 with football program as it does to field a DII with football program. But because there are so many unknowns, I purposely left the $ issue out of the question. Trying to determine if being able to say you are a DII partisipant trumps actual on field/court success at the D3 level. Is it more important to to fans and alumni to be a little fish in a preceived bigger pond or is it better to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond?

[iupgroundhog]

It was a question to see if people are more concerned with the level of their athletic teams or with their success.

Yes, I understood the purpose of your question. I just don't think it is a solution to anything because 2 will still be in the same division and you will still have the same questions about the competition between the schools.

[Fightingscot82]

It was a question to see if people are more concerned with the level of their athletic teams or with their success.

I get what you're saying. Sure. I'd like to see some championships. For the most part, Joe Public doesn't respect a DII championship any more than a DIII championship.

But I don't see how dropping to DIII saves money given the current setup. A lot of personnel costs are still dictated across the board by a union CBA regardless of classification. As I've pointed out countless times, PSAC West travel is pretty cheap & easy - changing to a new conference might actually increase travel costs. Much like the rest of this integration, the actual cost savings of moving down a classification may not be enough to justify the move.

[boatcapt]

I don't see how the D3 question is relevant. If you split a triad by division you will still have 2 of them in the same division. I am not sure what that would solve.

It was a question to see if people are more concerned with the level of their athletic teams or with their success.

[iupgroundhog]

Here's a question...If you were an alumni of one of the six schools and you were given a choice to be a middle of the pack team in your DII conference and non-entity for NC's OR be a consistent conference winner and national contender every year as a D3, which would you choose?

I don't see how the D3 question is relevant. If you split a triad by division you will still have 2 of them in the same division. I am not sure what that would solve.

[boatcapt]

Here's a question...If you were an alumni of one of the six schools and you were given a choice to be a middle of the pack team in your DII conference and non-entity for NC's OR be a consistent conference winner and national contender every year as a D3, which would you choose?

[Fightingscot82]

My guess would be that the stadium and arena and maintenance factor into costs a decent bit.

Maybe? There are still a lot of D2 stadiums that are multi-use just like D3 and not much larger. Still pretty rare for D2 to have anything more than a fieldhouse setup for basketball.

[complaint_hopeful]

Well...a new org chart of leadership got released today. In general, most of the Cabinet members at each school retained their positions at least through the Integration. Some people appear to have retired though so you'll see a person in a dual-role.

[complaint_hopeful]

That's an interesting number - I wonder what differences there are.

My guess would be that the stadium and arena and maintenance factor into costs a decent bit.

[Fightingscot82]

According to the NCAA average expenses of a DII athletic program with football is $6.6M (excluding schollys)...Again, according to the NCAA average average expenses of a D3 athletic program with football is $3.3M.

That's an interesting number - I wonder what differences there are.

[boatcapt]

I don't see what savings you think would come with DIII membership.

The athletic scholarships for DII status are all privately funded so it does nothing to cut campus expenses. Modest savings on coaching salaries and travel is already pretty cheap. The PSAC West is largely along the I-79 corridor so travel costs are good. Most other schools are pretty accessible between I-80 and I-76. Coach travel over the interstate is easier and cheaper than coach travel over state routes. They'd have to find a DIII conference that isn't pretentious - I doubt a conference with all private faith-based schools would welcome a handful of state schools that have little in common with their profiles, because that's what Western PA is full of. North Coast Athletic Conference is mostly rural Ohio (don't see any travel savings) and the Presidents Athletic Conference is mostly western PA faith-based privates with much higher academic profiles, so there might be some travel savings but imagine Clarion recruiting against Case Western and Carnegie Mellon.

According to the NCAA average expenses of a DII athletic program with football is $6.6M (excluding schollys)...Again, according to the NCAA average average expenses of a D3 athletic program with football is $3.3M.

[WarriorVoice]

The NCAA will decide what happens with athletics, and we won't know anything until after the consolidation takes place. If they don't approve the plan, then the conference will have a year to fix it according to the NCAA's recommendations.

In other news, looks like the SEC wants to be the largest conference in the country...

[Fightingscot82]

It will be interesting to see how the staffing plays out for managers. They've said that most will happen through attrition. But, what do you do when you have 3 VP's of something and go down to 1? I can't see them just continuing to pay a couple large salaries.

So far it seems a lot of people are retiring or declaring their intent to retire.

You also have to consider the economy of scale: the VP of a 5,000 student university vs the VP of a 15,000 student university. You don't save 100% of the salary on those two VP positions you eliminated. Same goes for presidents. There's an Edinboro local who always posts that "you don't need a $250k president at every school" but the problem is that there's precedent in the system and the industry that you pay a lot more for larger schools. So instead of $750k in presidential salary you're paying $375k plus a lot more travel.

There's also the necessary branding changes. A new set of logos costs big money. That's not something the graphic design majors do for beer and pizza money. Then you have to order everyone new letterhead, business cards, envelopes, etc.

[Fightingscot82]

I would point out that 100 D3 football players would pay the same net tuition to a school that 100 DII football players would. I would also imagine that PSAC coaches and athletes would all be in favor of "not cutting sports in any way"...Just as I would imagine that if you spent the weekend talking with PASSHE faculty members, they would uniformly agree that "academics should not be cut in any way."

I don't see what savings you think would come with DIII membership.

The athletic scholarships for DII status are all privately funded so it does nothing to cut campus expenses. Modest savings on coaching salaries and travel is already pretty cheap. The PSAC West is largely along the I-79 corridor so travel costs are good. Most other schools are pretty accessible between I-80 and I-76. Coach travel over the interstate is easier and cheaper than coach travel over state routes. They'd have to find a DIII conference that isn't pretentious - I doubt a conference with all private faith-based schools would welcome a handful of state schools that have little in common with their profiles, because that's what Western PA is full of. North Coast Athletic Conference is mostly rural Ohio (don't see any travel savings) and the Presidents Athletic Conference is mostly western PA faith-based privates with much higher academic profiles, so there might be some travel savings but imagine Clarion recruiting against Case Western and Carnegie Mellon.

[complaint_hopeful]

Spent some time with some PSAC coaches and athletic staff over the weekend. They confirmed that sports shouldn't be affected because of the net tuition revenue. Operational costs are being trimmed and there will be ratios of roster spots per FT assistant. Financial aid shouldn't be affected too much since endowed funds are all housed in separate foundations. I do wonder if they'll create a fourth foundation for neutral triad endowments. They will be combining policies and I imagine funding strategies. Cal is the outlier on athletic funds but they also don't have a D1 "play up" sport like Clarion & Edinboro. I assume somebody will have influence on fundraising & funding, especially use of unrestricted athletics revenue.

We may also see some triad-wide sponsorships. Maybe Ms. Shapira can ask her husband's family to step up and have Giant Eagle & GetGo be major sponsors of the Western Triad. I do know that the Clarion staffer overseeing athletic fundraising is going to coordinate for all three schools. Just this morning, the western triad president shared that she will appoint a person to be "campus administrator" in her place when she's not physically on campus. I think for a lot of functions there will still be on paper one department but staffing will be in different locations. So the VP of Student Affairs might be located at Clarion but he/she oversees Student Affairs offices & programs at all three schools. One Director of Student Conduct housed at one campus and two assistant directors each at the other campuses. I guess that saves a bit but also not great.

As I understand it too, some positions may travel some. ie Drive to the other campuses to be onsite there occasionally. How occasionally...remains to be seen.

With the excess Residence Hall space...there may be room to house them.