Northwood Exit and Expansion Discussion

[Gliac_fan10]

Hearing rumblings...

Jim I can back you up here (assuming the rumblings you heard are what I have just had passed along to me). Things could get interesting.

[Jim McElwain]

People not paying enough attention to that last line, GetOily...

[GetOily]

This is arguably one of the most fun threads in the country right now. It's incredible to see where the GLIAC was 10 years ago vs. now. In 2011, I'd say across the board, it was one of the top, if not THE top, conferences in the country. Now, it seems safe to say the future of the conference is in serious jeopardy, although obviously the top dogs (FSU, GVSU, WSU to some extent) are still very good members. With Ashland and Northwood both gone now (essentially), and rumors of GV going Division I on the "Horizon" ...league(see what I did there :) ), where else does the GLIAC go? Michigan is pretty well tapped unless they can convince some NAIA or D3s to make the jump. But, who wants to come into a league with gigantic state schools when they have their comfort zones in their current conferences. Like a Concordia Ann Arbor, geographically, great. But athletically, phew, not good. And you can't really go west or south. It just really feels like that league has a clock and it's counting down faster than the commissioner can handle (which, crazy to think about the timeline of when the previous commissioner left and the new one began and how that correlates to the league's downturn).

[chapmaja]

Last I checked, GVSU still needs to get themselves a new arena for basketball/volleyball, and at least a new pool as well, as I believe they've been using a local HS pool for meets instead of the on campus pool.

GVSU still swims most of their meets at the GVSU pool. They will swim some meets at Jenison High School. The 2020-2021 season only had them host 1 meet, which was on campus vs Findlay. That meet was actually thrown together because they were supposed to swim Findlay at EMU with the EMU women, but EMU suspended the program due to COVID the week before the meet.

The last time GVSU swam a non-championship home meet at a high school pool would have been when they hosted Michigan State at Jenison. They have however hosted the GLIAC meet (or co-hosted it) at Jension or the Holland Aquatic Center in recent years. This is not uncommon as only SVSU has hosted the GLIAC meet at their facility in the last decade. The majority of the time it has been at a facility like a high school (Jenison or Waterford Kettering when WSU hosted), or CSU or Spire Institute when Ashland was the host. Now that they use co-hosting duties, it is likely to be at non-college facilities more than on campus (2022 will be at SVSU)

[Redwing]

True about Van Andel, but how often are we going to come close to filling a 10,000 seat arena for men's basketball in say January. A match-up with Sparty or Michigan would draw a crowd there, but there's not much in the GLIAC or the Horizon league. Plus then there's always the scheduling issue with the Griffins and the odd concert that goes there.

That was my point. I would think maybe a game or 2 might be held at VA.. the rest at the fieldhouse. So, from a facilities perspective, GV currently looks like they wouldn't have to do much, if anything.

[bigmrg74]

I don't know about the pool, but the current arena isn't any more lacking than some other schools. Not saying that it can't be larger, but believe it or not, it there are D1 schools with similar sized arenas.. Oakland Univ for one. And there is still Van Andel.

True about Van Andel, but how often are we going to come close to filling a 10,000 seat arena for men's basketball in say January. A match-up with Sparty or Michigan would draw a crowd there, but there's not much in the GLIAC or the Horizon league. Plus then there's always the scheduling issue with the Griffins and the odd concert that goes there.

[Redwing]

Last I checked, GVSU still needs to get themselves a new arena for basketball/volleyball, and at least a new pool as well, as I believe they've been using a local HS pool for meets instead of the on campus pool.

I don't know about the pool, but the current arena isn't any more lacking than some other schools. Not saying that it can't be larger, but believe it or not, it there are D1 schools with similar sized arenas.. Oakland Univ for one. And there is still Van Andel.

[bigmrg74]

Last I checked, GVSU still needs to get themselves a new arena for basketball/volleyball, and at least a new pool as well, as I believe they've been using a local HS pool for meets instead of the on campus pool.

[Jim McElwain]

Sure is quiet in here. I say give it two months.

[champgymusa]

Do you pick up GVs mail? You're higher up in the organization than I thought. :-)

Tighten your stuff up man...we use wire transfer..mail is so not cool....

[Redwing]

Honestly, I don't think one can or should rationalize anyone moving up to D1 by the actual costs. One reason is the way the funds are counted. Even then, there's all those intangibles that push one to moving to the D1 level. If it was money, there would only be a handful of D1 schools out there and many schools would move down from D1. We know that ain't happening. And again, when it comes to the athletes.. (and their parents), most will take a less successful D1 school over a moderately successful or even championship D2 school.

[UFOILERFAN]

This game has been discussed out here already. Kle summed it up well: We were in a bind w/ Ashland bailing, and we didn't need three straight roadies including a UP trip. While I'm not a fan of it and I have no idea how hard we did or didn't work to try and fill this with a D2 game, I find it hilarious that this is somehow another reason to go D1.

Since you seem to think it's so simple, I'll go out and stand by the mailbox and wait for the check you're going to send to cover all of the expenses tied to this. You can send us the big one to get things started on facility upgrades, and another one each year to cover the additional schollies, staff salaries, and additional travel we would incur. You can also cover the shortfalls we would see in reduced attendance because we play teams no one cares about and because we don't win as much, and you can also backfill the marketing budget that would need help because we aren't competing for national titles anymore.

Brilliant...

Do you pick up GVs mail? You're higher up in the organization than I thought. :-)

[KleShreen]

Yeah, because every ho-hum regional state university has only ever participated in Division I/Division I-FCS because one man funded the whole thing. That's exactly how it works. It wasn't the collective donations from an alumni base of 130,000, or the media revenue, or the payouts to play FBS opponents, or the merch, or the increased attendance, or donations from local leaders to get their names on a bigger product, etc. Just because the money isn't there now doesn't mean that it won't be in the long-run. In order to budget for an increase in spending, you have to do a statistical analysis that factors in all of that plus more to ensure that it works. I do it all the time in what I do. I would hope that they don't just trudge around saying, "help me, I'm poor" and thus never evolve.

There's not a single non-P5 athletic department that makes money in D1. 25 of the 65 P5 schools made a profit from their athletic program in 2019.

It's worse for Division I non-autonomy schools, or those outside the Power Five conferences. All 64 of these institutions lost money in 2019, with a median deficit of $23 million per school.

Also included in the NCAA's Division I classification are Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) schools, the former I-AA programs that compete in a year-end tournament to determine the national champion. The Power Five and other top conferences are classified as Football Bowl Subdivision schools, which compete at the season's end through a series of bowl games culminating in a four-team playoff to determine the champion.

Of the 125 FCS schools, all reported a negative net generated revenue in 2019, with a median loss of $14.3 million per institution.

Finally, Division I includes 97 schools without football programs. All of them had a negative net revenue in 2019, with a median loss of $14.4 million. And not one college in the NCAA's Division II or III saw their revenues exceed expenses that year.

In total, then, only 25 of the approximately 1,100 schools across 102 conferences in the NCAA made money on college sports last year. That's because the cost of running an entire athletics program, which can feature as many as 40 sports, almost always exceeds the revenue generated by the marquee attractions of football and basketball.

There's only 25 universities who are *not* trudging around saying "help me, I'm poor." All but 25 athletic programs are poor, GV included. GV just happens to be less poor because they're in D-II and the numbers aren't as big.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/do...ts-make-money/

[BeachinLaker]

This game has been discussed out here already. Kle summed it up well: We were in a bind w/ Ashland bailing, and we didn't need three straight roadies including a UP trip. While I'm not a fan of it and I have no idea how hard we did or didn't work to try and fill this with a D2 game, I find it hilarious that this is somehow another reason to go D1.

Since you seem to think it's so simple, I'll go out and stand by the mailbox and wait for the check you're going to send to cover all of the expenses tied to this. You can send us the big one to get things started on facility upgrades, and another one each year to cover the additional schollies, staff salaries, and additional travel we would incur. You can also cover the shortfalls we would see in reduced attendance because we play teams no one cares about and because we don't win as much, and you can also backfill the marketing budget that would need help because we aren't competing for national titles anymore.

Brilliant...

Yeah, because every ho-hum regional state university has only ever participated in Division I/Division I-FCS because one man funded the whole thing. That's exactly how it works. It wasn't the collective donations from an alumni base of 130,000, or the media revenue, or the payouts to play FBS opponents, or the merch, or the increased attendance, or donations from local leaders to get their names on a bigger product, etc. Just because the money isn't there now doesn't mean that it won't be in the long-run. In order to budget for an increase in spending, you have to do a statistical analysis that factors in all of that plus more to ensure that it works. I do it all the time in what I do. I would hope that they don't just trudge around saying, "help me, I'm poor" and thus never evolve.

[BlueBlood]

GV wasn't gonna go travel somewhere else the week before having to go to the UP, and have three straight away games. They already have to go to the UP twice this season, would be silly to add another away game to the schedule.

Was the Ashland game they were replacing a home or away game? Seems like they now have three straight home games - so it was going to be three straight of something either way.

Actually would have loved to have seen GVSU/Youngstown. That seems like a game folks would have gotten excited about.