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The Tradeoff - Bruce Wang - 05-23-2013

The topic of a hypothetical tradeoff between success in football/basketball vs the other sports has surfaced here several times.  Came across this ESPN blog article  that ponders a rationale.  The author points out that the SEC schools field the minimum number of sports (16).  Note that Stanford fields 36.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/77299/burke-b1g-sec-have-different-models

The opportunity to study or coach at Stanford is so special that I think Stanford can have its cake and eat it too.



Re: The Tradeoff - BobK - 05-23-2013

Interesting that Florida will score in 20.

Re: The Tradeoff - fullmetal - 05-24-2013

If Florida thinks that contending for the Director's Cup will someone bring its academic standing up, it's got another thing coming.  For one, it shouldn't have even thought about eliminating its computer science department...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/04/22/university-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm/

After widespread criticism, the university decided to save the department.  Took 'em three days to realize what a bad idea that was.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/04/25/university-of-florida-announces-plan-to-save-computer-science-department/

Re: The Tradeoff - oman - 05-24-2013

F.Metal -- isn't it "another think coming"?

Although in Tallahassee maybe you soften it a bit with some southern twang.

Those who thought taxes high in the past will have another think coming in the future. [Clinton Mirror (1907)]

Re: The Tradeoff - Leftcoast - 05-24-2013

I don't get the argument that participating in a non-revenue sport, say Women's Water Polo, inherently reduces competitiveness in Men's football or Basketball.  The reasoning in the accompanying article was very muddy but the most cogent argument was that supporting other sports reduced the amount of money Athletic Departments gave to football with one example being Assistant Coaches salaries.

If we are looking for causes for the SECs recent dominance in the BCS standings versus the Pac 10 and the Big 10 you need to look much deeper than pure money.  Most schools in these leagues have plenty of dollars to spend and I don't think Ohio State lost to the SEC three times in BCS games because they were out spent.

I'd look at coaching, culture and talent pools long before I'd make the argument that money should be diverted from non-revenue sports. 

Do the richest schools that could do things right and support multiple programs really think that they need to spend all that obscene amount of moolah on football uber alles?  Maybe Brand was right - Maybe the NCAA NEEDS Stanford to succeed to counter this kind of warped thinking.

I think it's pretty simple - Redrum - 05-24-2013

Most athletic depts. depend on football and/or basketball revenue to pay all it's bills.  Or, if you're Duke,  it's the bball money. 

So the logic is you take care of the money pump(s) first.  That, in turn,  raises the profile of football and at the same time provides only one focus for all the school pride and engagement.  After a while, it's self reinforcing.  Meet the minimum for Title IX compliance and stop.  Trying to add and run additional programs brings no revenue advantage and if other schools in the conference aren't doing it,  why should any one school? 

BTW.  The SEC officially sponsors 12  women's sports.  Only 7 sports (Basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, tennis and indoor/outdoor track and field)  are played by all schools.  Swimming has 12 SEC participating schools, Volleyball 13 and gymnastics 8.  Only two schools-- Auburn and Georgia participate in all. 

But no SEC AD ever lost his job because their women's gymnastic team or tennis team sucked.

Re: I think it's pretty simple - terry - 05-24-2013

(05-24-2013, 01:36 PM)Redrum link Wrote:But no SEC AD ever lost his job because their women's gymnastic team or tennis team sucked.

I'm confident that's true of Pac-12 athletic directors also.

Re: The Tradeoff - Leftcoast - 05-24-2013

Redrum - 

I get it - Schools like Alabama, LSU or Ole Miss that make an obscene amount of football dollars feel they must plow it all back into the program to keep feeding the beast.  So yes, football pays the way for the other sports but only a very small number and they aren't all that successful (with a few exceptions).  Kind of makes the "football pays the way" argument moot for the SEC if they only fund the minimum.

I'm much more attuned to the Big10/Pac12 diverse model and believe that the trade-off is a forced false choice. 

But ... you live in the area and have lot's of ties to Alabama and the SEC.  To what do you attribute their recent success?

Re: The Tradeoff - stupac2 - 05-24-2013

(05-24-2013, 05:25 PM)Leftcoast link Wrote:But ... you live in the area and have lot's of ties to Alabama and the SEC.  To what do you attribute their recent success?

I was under the impression that Alabama was a very classic case of showing how important the coach is. You'd think that anyone could win at Alabama, but apparently you still need to be good there, just like anywhere else.