UNI's Budget Tightening Continues

[PantherSigEp]

I think it would behoove a large portion of us to reference this:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=422


We have no one to blame but ourselves for responding to his attempts to bait us and his blatant trolling.

[Kyle]

Good point Sigep.

DJA is the new WSUBaller. It's best to just put him on ignore.

[DoubleJayAlum]

I would highly doubt that faculty wanting to see funding move from athletics to academics is a UNI-only problem. I would wager every school that funds athletics has some sort of similar issue. The vocal minority of faculty, is just that, a minority. To put much stock into the faculty wanting athletics to cut its budget is just silly.

Sure, every campus has a few classical civilization or bearded philosophy instructors that don't like sports. Big difference between favoring one thing and "looking for blood" though, as your AD said. By the way, Dannen also never said that the comments came from "a vocal minority of the faculty." You made that part up. In fact, Dannen's quote seems to imply that it is much more than a minority of the faculty. If it was just a couple of nutjobs, odds are Dannen wouldn't reference them at all.

Further, at most schools, large numbers of faculty members tend to be season ticket holders for athletics. When the faculty is looking for blood, it doesn't bode well when additional cuts are made.

When UNI knocked off Kansas a few years ago, all we heard was how valuable it was to the university and how everyone around the campus supported the athletic programs. Either that was a bit of hyperbole, or the financial situation has caused the faculty to shift their view on the value of athletic success.

What in the heck are you talking about? How am I making anything up? If you had any sort of contact with UNI Faculty you would see that very few of them have an issue with the recent budget cuts. Those "few classical civilization or bearded philosophy instructors that don't like sports" are exactly who we are talking about and they comprise a small portion of UNI's 2000+ faculty. Dannen references that minority because they had received such notoriety for their vote of "no-confidence" in Pres. Allen and ridiculous protests against the Board of Regents. Seriously DoubleJay, you make this very simple to counter

Denial - its not just a river in Egypt anymore.

It is amazing how when the issue of finances come up, otherwise normally reasonable UNI posters completely lose their minds. It happens EVERY SINGLE TIME. They dispute every newspaper story dealing with UNI's financial problems (except the positive ones of course) acting as if there is some sort of media vendetta. There is little ability to grasp large financial figures (e.g., $500K) and they discount any discussion with "we've been fine in the past, so that means we'll be fine in the future." I can only assume it is because a majority of them are teachers and don't have experience budgeting or working with finances and financial projections.

(No disrespect intended to any teachers out there. My wife is a teacher and works harder than most people I know. That work rarely involves budgeting or number crunching however.)

We don't see these sorts of reactions from other schools when financial issues were raised. We had a pretty lengthy discussion about MSU's financial situation when the whole cattle herd sale story broke, but MSU posters were pretty reasonable and nowhere near as defensive. Likewise, when we have discussed the finances of other schools, nobody has claimed that school is being picked on or that people are "trolling" for wanting to discuss an issue which is newsworthy enough to be picked up by newspapers. I can't figure it out - maybe it is because Iowa and Iowa State are driving the cuts (or not being cut as deep) that makes this such a ridiculously sensitive issue to UNI fans, but it seems like we should be able able to discuss the financial situation of schools in the conference without complete meltdowns. In the current environment of outrageously huge Tv contracts and conference realignment, it would seem as though the financial stability of teams in the conference is perhaps the most relevant issue out there.

[Ali]

DJA- I'm not disagreeing but i think much of the response you're referring to is directed specifically at you. Its always you and only you who seem to harp on UNIs money issues. Hence the comparison to baller who could make an occasional good point but didn't know when to stop.

[PantherSigEp]

I would be a bit more receptive to your responses if you actually backed it up with something other than empty paragraphs. I have yet to see you counter any of our arguments with anything other than personal opinions and a couple fabrications that other posters were quick to point out.

Thank goodness none of the Creighton fans I've met in real life have ever been this thick-headed and cretinous

[Kyle]

The reason UNI fans are not worried about the financial cuts is because the good news FAR outweighs the bad.

You keep talking about the $500K cut, but what about the MILLIONS of dollars raised from other sources? UNI fans are looking at the whole picture, and like a broken record you keep talking about the same thing.

Let's break down the financial good and bad over the past few years:

The Good:
-The football team is playing two BCS teams this year which will net the athletic department about $1MM
-We raised $6.5MM in 24 hours to pay for a 10 year contract with a built in $25K/year raise for coach Jacobson
-Signed marketing deal with Learfield which DOUBLED our marketing revenue
-Raised $22MM in the 3rd year of a 5 year fundraising effort to endow scholarships (original goal was $15MM--new goal is $30MM)
-Installed suites in the McLeod Center which generates $150,000/year
-Assets in the athletic department have grown from $3MM to $9MM
-Football game day revenue has doubled
-Athletic department received a $2MM unrestricted private donation--the largest single unrestricted gift in school history

The Bad:
-$500,000/year cut from the general fund (3% of the total athletic budget)
-Dropped Baseball (which saved the department $400,000/year)

[Ricardo del Rio]

The reason UNI fans are not worried about the financial cuts is because the good news FAR outweighs the bad.

You keep talking about the $500K cut, but what about the MILLIONS of dollars raised from other sources? UNI fans are looking at the whole picture, and like a broken record you keep talking about the same thing.

Let's break down the financial good and bad over the past few years:

The Good:
-The football team is playing two BCS teams this year which will net the athletic department about $1MM
-We raised $6.5MM in 24 hours to pay for a 10 year contract with a built in $25K/year raise for coach Jacobson
-Signed marketing deal with Learfield which DOUBLED our marketing revenue
-Raised $22MM in the 3rd year of a 5 year fundraising effort to endow scholarships (original goal was $15MM--new goal is $30MM)
-Installed suites in the McLeod Center which generates $150,000/year
-Assets in the athletic department have grown from $3MM to $9MM
-Football game day revenue has doubled
-Athletic department received a $2MM unrestricted private donation--the largest single unrestricted gift in school history

The Bad:
-$500,000/year cut from the general fund (3% of the total athletic budget)
-Dropped Baseball (which saved the department $400,000/year)

I love folks, who speak with facts.

[C0|db|00ded]

This is so embarrassing... I visit this forum for the first time in forever and the top thread is about UNI being broke(r).

Message to NIU: You tried the D1 experiment and it failed. It's time to go back to D2 and get your house in order. Of course you could just close down basketball and focus on what you do best - wrastlin'.


T


...

[Ricardo del Rio]

This is so embarrassing... I visit this forum for the first time in forever and the top thread is about UNI being broke(r).

Message to NIU: You tried the D1 experiment and it failed. It's time to go back to D2 and get your house in order. Of course you could just close down basketball and focus on what you do best - wrastlin'.


T


...

T.,

This thread was just about ready to die and lo, here you come and stir the pot.

RDR

[jwa123]

Just so there is no confusion. NIU = Northern Illinois University which has a successful football program and hails from the MAC Conference. I don't think they have any intentions of going D2.