What’s Going On Can Focus On Football

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: January 13, 2016

Alvarez chooses not to run, er, compete with the SEC

Wisconsin DC Dave Aranda left for the same position at LSU, and got his salary more than doubled as a result. Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez had this to say:

“The reason they can go up higher (in the SEC) is they’re not supporting as many sports,” Alvarez said. “It’s a difference in philosophy. The Big Ten is known for being more broad-based in its sports offerings. We are committed to supporting a broad-based athletic program. People may dismiss that, but it’s a real thing. They can sink more of their money into football.

“But we still feel we’re very competitive. We’re very cognizant of what everyone else is paying. We make adjustments annually.

I get why he’s saying this – “We choose not to compete with the SEC” sounds a whole lot better than “We can’t compete with the SEC.” But as Brian Cook at MGoBlog points out:

[LSU] sponsor[s] gymnastics, beach volleyball, and baseball; Wisconsin does not. Wisconsin sponsors hockey for both genders, wrestling, men’s soccer, and rowing. Men’s hockey makes money. Wisconsin’s added expense for extra teams is more or less rowing—which mostly exists to be a cheap Title IX makeweight. Alvarez is full of it.

“A cheap Title IX makeweight” might even be putting it lightly. At some schools, no rowing experience is necessary to try out for the rowing team and earn a scholarship within the year. At D-I schools. No, I’m not kidding. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but if Wisconsin men’s hockey does actually turn a profit, I doubt it’s a very big one – football and men’s basketball are the only programs that make big money for colleges. In any case, Alvarez really needs to shut up.

But at least they’re not Purdue

Purdue President Mitch Daniels sent this open letter out. Hammer and Rails tore into it. The gist of it is that Daniels thinks spending on athletics is out of control and wants to see some of the money the Big Ten brings in from the Big Ten Network spent on academics. Good luck with that. As Hammer and Rails points out, Purdue already has an endowment of over $2 billion and is in the middle of a campaign to nearly double that. But yeah, a couple extra million from the media rights deal is what’s going to turn Purdue into the midwest’s Ivy League school.

Purdue prides itself on having an athletic department that actually pays for itself, which, okay, yeah, that’s kind of an accomplishment, because not many do, but when you don’t sponsor many sports, that task becomes a lot easier. Know what would really bring in money for the school, Mitch? Not having Ross-Ade be half-empty for your games. A good football team will bring in more money than a bad one. Shocking, I know. However, the first step for Purdue to have a good football team would be shelling out $6.6 million to get rid of a coach who has no idea what he’s doing, as shown by the fact that he’s won six games in three years, so that’s not gonna happen.

This was the best part, though:

Daniels: It is highly likely that the next few years will bring us markedly increased athletic revenues, regardless of the winning percentage of our men’s football and basketball teams. Our Big Ten Conference, led by the extraordinarily skillful commissioner who created the Big Ten Network, is in the process of renewing the conference’s national television contracts at much higher rights fees.

Hammer and Rails: Great, you’re basically saying that no matter what the football team does, nothing will change because of that sweet, sweet B1G cheddar. Do you not realize that a good football team brings in a lot more money than one in the toilet playing in an empty stadium? In 2014 Purdue somehow made $4.4 million on football, and that was 13^th in the conference ahead of only Rutgers. How much did the big boys make? More than 10 times that! Michigan’s $64 million profit is almost all of Purdue’s $71 million budget for 18 sports!

First of all, it’s worth noting that that $64 million was made at Michigan in a year where the price of tickets fell to two Cokes for a rivalry game. On to the bigger issue here: counting on TV revenue to always be there is a bad idea. Like, a really bad idea. Yes, when the Big Ten negotiates the media rights deal this time, they will make a lot of money. Next time, who knows? As more and more people cut cords, the cable money is going to dry up. And Mitch calling Jim Delany “extraordinarily skilled” is laughable. This is a guy that brought Rutgers into the conference, effectively to get BTN into the New York market and make more money from media rights. Again, he’ll do that in the short term. In the long term, Rutgers is going to be an albatross for the conference. Even more laughable is that it’s Mitch freaking Daniels saying all of this in the first place. The guy is so deeply concerned about education that when he was governor of Indiana, he cut $300 million from the state’s K-12 education fund.

This is where I would make a Star Wars joke if I was a Star Wars fan

Ratings were way down for the College Football Playoff semifinal games on New Year’s Eve and now ESPN owes advertisers $20 million because they told advertisers the ratings would be higher that they were. But don’t worry, Bill Hancock is on the case, and is going to fix it!

Just kidding, he has no idea why ratings were down.

“What we don’t know is how many people were unable [to watch], how many people tuned in and tuned out when the game was non-competitive, and how many people chose to do something else,” he said. “Someone told me the weather was great all around the country, so people were outdoors. We don’t know all the factors.”

Someone called Bill and suggested the new Star Wars movie could have cut into viewership.

Amid the many reasons College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock gave for the ratings dive, in particular noncompetitive games, one person told to him “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” being in theaters may have hurt them.

“This guy said: ‘The force was not with you, Bill,’” Hancock recalled with a laugh during a brief press conference at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn Resort & Spa Friday afternoon.

I hope this isn’t serious, but we see stupid people in high offices all the time, especially in college sports, so…

Now, I don’t totally blame Hancock for not trying New Year’s Eve for the games again next year. There are a lot of factors in play (Star Wars is obviously not one of them) and there’s a chance this could work. What I do blame Hancock for is not putting the games on January 2 this year. It’s a Saturday, you moron. Don’t tell me you don’t think you could have done good ratings on a Saturday. You do know the majority of college football games are played on Saturdays, right? Tell Star Wars guy to call Bill and let him know most college football games are played on Saturdays.

Twitter: @KSchroeder2325

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com