A lack of foresight - Printable Version
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bigstef.allan@gmail.com - Chupacabra - 08-15-2023
This is probably the most on-the-most post I’ve ever read on the board. I would add something to the complaints about the money in football, too.
How much of Stanford’s income comes from research conducted outside the classroom? Whether it’s federal or corporate funding behind various programs, there’s big money in research too. Are there complaints about the “academic value” of the research, when it’s really just big business for the university? Well, so are sports.
NIL is great. It’s also separate from conference realignment. It’s happening concurrently but these just happen to be two issues resulting from the fact that sports are big business.
But to address the realignment issue, Stanford football isn’t as enticing of a franchise as we would like it to be. There’s just not a brobdingnagian market for Stanford football and hasn’t been at least in my lifetime (I started attending games in the 80s). Even last decade, winning conference championships and major bowls only moved the national needle a little bit. If we think we are on the same level as those other programs we are just being delusional. If you doubt me, I’m sure attendance numbers will help tell the story.
The reason conferences wanted USC/UCLA/UW/UO isn’t because the administration didn’t anticipate realignment, it’s because Stanford football isn’t as attractive nationally as those teams. It isn’t a big enough business.
Stanford competes at the highest level in the research business, why is there a problem competing in the football business? Is it the antiquated amateurism concept? No, it’s that there just isn’t the same built-in market for the Stanford football business.
(08-13-2023, 02:05 PM)msqueri Wrote: Let's be real. College sports are stupid and nonsensical. I love them because I love sports and I love my college, but other countries don't operate like this. The logical model and what happens everywhere else is the best athletes ply a trade and monetize it when they can. America's concept of amateurism is a self-satisfying, hypocritical, cynical lie. Just absolutely ridiculous if you think about it with any sort of emotional distance from what we're used to as weird, self-centered, hedonistic Americans.
None of that is to say that I think the noble way forward is to do away with college sports entirely. Those who think the American version of "amateurism" is more connected to the mission of universities are living in a warped reality of their own. Why, pray tell, is that better than something affiliated with a university but not related to an academic mission that nonetheless manages to provide entertainment and revenue and builds community?
RE: A lack of foresight - Goose - 08-15-2023
IMO equating the research done at Stanford to "just a business" is inaccurate in the extreme. While it is undoubtedly true that the major "research universities" do indeed receive lots of funding from sponsored research, the academic benefits of this research are very real. At the simplest level, the funding provided to hordes of graduate students allows said students to pursue research relevant to their chosen profession without needing to go deeply into debt. Many graduate students simply couldn't/wouldn't go into research if they had to pay for it themselves. The research itself often requires facilities and equipment that the universities couldn't buy if they had to do so on their "own nickle".
On top of that, many faculty would not join/remain at a university that could not provide an environment that included the ability to do cutting-edge research. These faculty expect to run a lab and also expect to attract post-docs to manage the day-to-day activities of said lab. These faculty write for grants that are competitive. The reputation of the applicant does matter, no matter what the theory states. The reputation of the university matters a lot too. It is absolutely true that grant applications from Stanford get funded at a greater rate than (fill in the blank directional U). This is where a lot of the money comes from and is a never-ending task. The post-docs also have to write for grants. The PI can often fund them for a while but normally post-docs are expected to at least attempt to get grants that pay their salary.
If a grad student or post-doc intends to remain in academia, they need to learn this "game". Most do not chose academia, because there are way too few "slots" for them and if they do not get a job at a"name" school getting grants is going to be very difficult. It is also often true that they discover an aptitude/interest in something that is better pursued in industry. That is where a lot of the Stanford "success stories" originate. However, one must remember these opportunities would not arise without the research structure created by the funding provided by external research grants/contracts.
Many of the PIs in these research projects also teach classes. Some of them do it willingly and enthusiastically. Most try to avoid it, but if you come in as a tenure-seeking candidate in most departments, you have to do some teaching. Most such faculty do have seminars that they lead to at east give the appearance of doing something that has to do with education. Sometimes these are quite interesting, even if it "guest" lecturers lots of the time. Without the research opportunities, these people simply wouldn't be at Stanford, period.
There are plenty of industrial (commercial) research establishments in the Bay area. While they are all different from each other, they are all very much different than a "academic" research establishment. The "academic" research establishments provide the people to do the commercial research. Academic research also often provides the "basic" research that creates new fields and new applications. It is a fundamentally different beast. Both are desirable, but equating the two is inaccurate.
RE: bigstef.allan@gmail.com - dabigv13 - 08-15-2023
(08-15-2023, 12:17 PM)branner Wrote: I am not making excuses for the lack of fan interest. Stanford needs to put a product on the field that will excite more than its alumni base.
We did that though! We were in Rose Bowls and Orange Bowls and with Heísman candidates on a yearly basis, and still weren't filling the stadium.
More community outreach or advertising or special ticket deals wouldn't have helped. Maybe a little on the margins but not enough to make up for being a small, elite private school in a part of the country that is not very interested in college football.
When the super league comes, we won't be in it, and neither will any other small private school like us.
I think college football and the media overlords are unfortunately locked in a vicious spiral. The super league may be really interesting for the fans of the biggest and best football schools, but culling all the other schools will cut back on overall viewers. They will have to charge more and more to those super league fans for an add on package, but I don't think the price raises will make up for the volume they are losing.
Hopefully once it all blows up things can be rebuilt in a way where Stanford can have relevance in football but I doubt that.
RE: bigstef.allan@gmail.com - Goose - 08-15-2023
(08-15-2023, 12:51 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: We did that though! We were in Rose Bowls and Orange Bowls and with Heísman candidates on a yearly basis, and still weren't filling the stadium.Agree with your thoughts here. I do believe that Stanford should attempt to create a football program that is compatible with "what is possible" today, if only to preserve what can be saved for future developments. It isn't going to be the Big-10 or it's successors. What it will be is TBD.
More community outreach or advertising or special ticket deals wouldn't have helped. Maybe a little on the margins but not enough to make up for being a small, elite private school in a part of the country that is not very interested in college football.
When the super league comes, we won't be in it, and neither will any other small private school like us.
I think college football and the media overlords are unfortunately locked in a vicious spiral. The super league may be really interesting for the fans of the biggest and best football schools, but culling all the other schools will cut back on overall viewers. They will have to charge more and more to those super league fans for an add on package, but I don't think the price raises will make up for the volume they are losing.
Hopefully once it all blows up things can be rebuilt in a way where Stanford can have relevance in football but I doubt that.
Unlike some have suggested, I don't see Stanford football as anything like "1/3 of the University". It is an asterisk. It is important to me, and I want it to continue at a high level, but I have no illusions about how it fits in the "pecking order". It does contribute to the "character" of the University. However, as things in college football have changed, what football can contribute to said "character" has changed too, and not for the better IMO. It has become increasingly difficult to see any role for it in educating students. Whatever Stanford football ends up becoming, it needs to migrate away from the "NFL minor league" model or else IMO it has no place at Stanford.
RE: bigstef.allan@gmail.com - yvonne - 08-15-2023
(08-15-2023, 12:51 PM)dabigv13 Wrote:(08-15-2023, 12:17 PM)branner Wrote: I am not making excuses for the lack of fan interest. Stanford needs to put a product on the field that will excite more than its alumni base.
We did that though! We were in Rose Bowls and Orange Bowls and with Heísman candidates on a yearly basis, and still weren't filling the stadium.
More community outreach or advertising or special ticket deals wouldn't have helped. Maybe a little on the margins but not enough to make up for being a small, elite private school in a part of the country that is not very interested in college football.
Yep.
That's why Stanford needs to jump the curve and find a model not based on football. Stanford fundamentals will not change.
RE: bigstef.allan@gmail.com - grendalor - 08-16-2023
(08-15-2023, 12:51 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: We did that though! We were in Rose Bowls and Orange Bowls and with Heísman candidates on a yearly basis, and still weren't filling the stadium.
More community outreach or advertising or special ticket deals wouldn't have helped. Maybe a little on the margins but not enough to make up for being a small, elite private school in a part of the country that is not very interested in college football.
Right. I mean during the recent successful run of years from the late 00s through the mid-teens, Stanford had one of the top 10 teams nationally, quite often also in the top 5, fairly consistently ... and hosted prime time games with lots of visibly empty seats in its small (for that level of attention) stadium. It's just the nature of the institution. We are too elite to attract much of the local unaffiliated population, and we are too small to have a dedicated crew to fill the stadium (even when we are a 1 loss top 5 program) consistently. It's just not that kind of institution.
I remember during the last successful run when my work colleagues, who are alums of places like Michigan, would be shocked that Stanford Stadium would be visibly unfilled for a prime time game against Oregon when both teams were in the top 5 in the second half of the season ... it's just who we are. We can't really change that, and success wouldn't have much of an impact on it, I think. It has to do with the size of the alumni base, the nature of that base (most of which is not at all like the dedicated alumni booster base of other schools), the location of that base, and so on, and the fact that Stanford draws an extremely small number of local supporters who are otherwise unaffiliated with the university, precisely because it's an elite academic institution primarily.
None of that is new, of course, but it is just what Stanford is. Expecting it to change is not wise, in my opinion. We will never attract much outside of our alumni and friends/family base -- it's just a function of what Stanford is as an institution, and no level of "outreach" would move the needle very much on that.
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Quote:That's why Stanford needs to jump the curve and find a model not based on football. Stanford fundamentals will not change.
Yes, but it will take a while for the institution to accept that, given the tenure of the existing funding model, and the history of football at the university. Both of which will need to be decoupled from the conception the alumni base, or at least a part of it, has of the university, and of the relationship between football and the university, I think. I do think it's inevitable at this point, though. Whatever is happening ultimately in big-time college football, it's impossible to imagine that Stanford's core mission and identity, including its long-standing philosophy of the relationship between academics and student-athletes, is compatible with continued participation in that over the long term.
RE: bigstef.allan@gmail.com - Mick - 08-16-2023
(08-16-2023, 08:31 AM)grendalor Wrote: Right. I mean during the recent successful run of years from the late 00s through the mid-teens, Stanford had one of the top 10 teams nationally, quite often also in the top 5, fairly consistently ... and hosted prime time games with lots of visibly empty seats in its small (for that level of attention) stadium. It's just the nature of the institution. We are too elite to attract much of the local unaffiliated population, and we are too small to have a dedicated crew to fill the stadium (even when we are a 1 loss top 5 program) consistently. It's just not that kind of institution.
I remember during the last successful run when my work colleagues, who are alums of places like Michigan, would be shocked that Stanford Stadium would be visibly unfilled for a prime time game against Oregon when both teams were in the top 5 in the second half of the season ... it's just who we are. We can't really change that, and success wouldn't have much of an impact on it, I think. It has to do with the size of the alumni base, the nature of that base (most of which is not at all like the dedicated alumni booster base of other schools), the location of that base, and so on, and the fact that Stanford draws an extremely small number of local supporters who are otherwise unaffiliated with the university, precisely because it's an elite academic institution primarily.
None of that is new, of course, but it is just what Stanford is. Expecting it to change is not wise, in my opinion. We will never attract much outside of our alumni and friends/family base -- it's just a function of what Stanford is as an institution, and no level of "outreach" would move the needle very much on that.
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Quote:That's why Stanford needs to jump the curve and find a model not based on football. Stanford fundamentals will not change.
Yes, but it will take a while for the institution to accept that, given the tenure of the existing funding model, and the history of football at the university. Both of which will need to be decoupled from the conception the alumni base, or at least a part of it, has of the university, and of the relationship between football and the university, I think. I do think it's inevitable at this point, though. Whatever is happening ultimately in big-time college football, it's impossible to imagine that Stanford's core mission and identity, including its long-standing philosophy of the relationship between academics and student-athletes, is compatible with continued participation in that over the long term.
This is why I think Stanford needs to set its sights lower. I remember crowds of 80k for Cal and USC, and even 67,500 for SJSU. Those days are long gone. There is not much interest in Stanford football, either locally or nationally, and interest in Stanford football tends to be tied to success. If we end up in the B1G or ACC, I doubt we'll do much better than .500. In the AAC or MWC, we'd at least stand a chance. And if Stanford reconstitutes the MWC as the Pac-16, with the expanded playoffs, and judiciously schedules OOC opponents, they could return to annual Bowl games and higher ratings.
RE: A lack of foresight - LuckyBystander - 08-16-2023
Rice fan here--been reading your board over the past few days in light of changes in the PAC-12 and rumors that include the possibility of a PAC-AAC merger to one extent or another.
What's interesting to me is how much of the consternation here looks like the consternation that's been a fundamental part of the Rice fanbase for decades and decades (especially among the older alums who remember Rice being part of the Southwest Conference, which included Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, and others--and the really old fans who remember Rice going to Cotton Bowls). The cries of lack of leadership and foresight are definitely part of the furniture of being a Rice fan.
What's fascinating to me is that Stanford is even in this situation, given your decades' dominance of the Sears Trophy (or whatever it's called now). Yours it the model of what virtually every athletic department aspired to, or at least that was my long-time assumption. The outsized influence of football--and how it informs TV contracts--is clear in every round of realignment, but it's especially acute, and destructive, in this one.
What would Stanford fans think of a model that basically rejects the P5 framework and being part of a league that is centered exclusively on AAU schools? There are certain Rice fans that dream of a "Magnolia League" that would include Stanford, Cal, Duke, Northwestern, Vandy, and Tulane. But obviously Duke, NW, and Vandy wouldn't be interested until they themselves have their PAC-4 moment. Travel is obviously the big deal-killer to this model, especially for the non-revenue sports.
But would a PAC-AAC merger be a close-enough, light version of that model--and one that would be of some solace to some Stanford fans?
RE: A lack of foresight - msqueri - 08-16-2023
(08-16-2023, 09:11 AM)LuckyBystander Wrote: Rice fan here--been reading your board over the past few days in light of changes in the PAC-12 and rumors that include the possibility of a PAC-AAC merger to one extent or another.
What's interesting to me is how much of the consternation here looks like the consternation that's been a fundamental part of the Rice fanbase for decades and decades (especially among the older alums who remember Rice being part of the Southwest Conference, which included Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, and others--and the really old fans who remember Rice going to Cotton Bowls). The cries of lack of leadership and foresight are definitely part of the furniture of being a Rice fan.
What's fascinating to me is that Stanford is even in this situation, given your decades' dominance of the Sears Trophy (or whatever it's called now). Yours it the model of what virtually every athletic department aspired to, or at least that was my long-time assumption. The outsized influence of football--and how it informs TV contracts--is clear in every round of realignment, but it's especially acute, and destructive, in this one.
What would Stanford fans think of a model that basically rejects the P5 framework and being part of a league that is centered exclusively on AAU schools? There are certain Rice fans that dream of a "Magnolia League" that would include Stanford, Cal, Duke, Northwestern, Vandy, and Tulane. But obviously Duke, NW, and Vandy wouldn't be interested until they themselves have their PAC-4 moment. Travel is obviously the big deal-killer to this model, especially for the non-revenue sports.
But would a PAC-AAC merger be a close-enough, light version of that model--and one that would be of some solace to some Stanford fans?
IMHO your Magnolia League would turn into a new version of the Ivy League. At one point Princeton and Harvard were the top programs in the sport for decades. After about a half century what we now refer to as the Ivy League stopped dominating college football and by the time college football was an octogenarian the Ivy League formally formed and a new era began. Nothing is permanent and competing in major college football requires being major. I could see something like the Magnolia League forming at some point, but it won't generate revenue in competition with the super conferences. Maybe if we're lucky it can get some sort of streaming television. The forces that sustain the lifeblood of college football - most importantly recruiting) will be driven by hierarchy and prestige, as always, and the caliber of football in the Magnolia League would get comparatively worse until it settles at an equilibrium befitting the level of interest in academic-oriented institution football, which is to say not very high caliber. This could be attractive in some respects to some people and, in any case, may be inevitable, but it won't be anything like Stanford playing in a Rose Bowl or Tulane playing in a Cotton Bowl.
RE: A lack of foresight - LuckyBystander - 08-16-2023
(08-16-2023, 09:27 AM)msqueri Wrote: IMHO your Magnolia League would turn into a new version of the Ivy League. At one point Princeton and Harvard were the top programs in the sport for decades. After about a half century what we now refer to as the Ivy League stopped dominating college football and by the time college football was an octogenarian the Ivy League formally formed and a new era began. Nothing is permanent and competing in major college football requires being major. I could see something like the Magnolia League forming at some point, but it won't generate revenue in competition with the super conferences. Maybe if we're lucky it can get some sort of streaming television. The forces that sustain the lifeblood of college football - most importantly recruiting) will be driven by hierarchy and prestige, as always, and the caliber of football in the Magnolia League would get comparatively worse until it settles at an equilibrium befitting the level of interest in academic-oriented institution football, which is to say not very high caliber. This could be attractive in some respects to some people and, in any case, may be inevitable, but it won't be anything like Stanford playing in a Rose Bowl or Tulane playing in a Cotton Bowl.
Agreed that a Magnolia League would look closer to an Ivy League model vs. the previous PAC-12 and indeed would likely fall into less football relevance than even what most G5 conferences have. My question, I suppose, is whether that's something Stanford folks could live with, as part of a broader rejection of essentially professional college football. You're right that Harvard and Princeton basically made this decision some 50 years ago. The question is whether Stanford would ever make the same decision. On paper, Rice hasn't made that decision to deemphasize football--but in the way its taken care of football (which is to say, not well at all), I would say Rice has effectively gotten to the same result, albeit while playing teams like Florida International (when Rice was in C-USA) instead of, say, Brown.
Weird fact: Rice for decades (and up to the present) has had a standing invitation to join the University Athletic Association, a D3 league that includes Emory, NYU, U. Chicago, and Wash U. That has not been deemed an enticing option, but I suspect that's largely because of the D3 level, the lack of travel partners, and the lack of any TV deal. In the early 2000s, Rice commissioned McKinsey to study what Rice's best athletic options were, and I think the takeaway was basically "stop half-assing it." What did Rice do? We, um, continued to half-ass it. Our nonrevenue sports have occasional bright spots--we won the CWS in 2003 against Stanford, as it so happens--but football has generally been unimpressive, notwithstanding a few bowl games and some winning seasons here and there.
RE: A lack of foresight - JohnR34231 - 08-16-2023
(08-16-2023, 09:27 AM)msqueri Wrote:(08-16-2023, 09:11 AM)LuckyBystander Wrote: Rice fan here--been reading your board over the past few days in light of changes in the PAC-12 and rumors that include the possibility of a PAC-AAC merger to one extent or another.
What's interesting to me is how much of the consternation here looks like the consternation that's been a fundamental part of the Rice fanbase for decades and decades (especially among the older alums who remember Rice being part of the Southwest Conference, which included Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, and others--and the really old fans who remember Rice going to Cotton Bowls). The cries of lack of leadership and foresight are definitely part of the furniture of being a Rice fan.
What's fascinating to me is that Stanford is even in this situation, given your decades' dominance of the Sears Trophy (or whatever it's called now). Yours it the model of what virtually every athletic department aspired to, or at least that was my long-time assumption. The outsized influence of football--and how it informs TV contracts--is clear in every round of realignment, but it's especially acute, and destructive, in this one.
What would Stanford fans think of a model that basically rejects the P5 framework and being part of a league that is centered exclusively on AAU schools? There are certain Rice fans that dream of a "Magnolia League" that would include Stanford, Cal, Duke, Northwestern, Vandy, and Tulane. But obviously Duke, NW, and Vandy wouldn't be interested until they themselves have their PAC-4 moment. Travel is obviously the big deal-killer to this model, especially for the non-revenue sports.
But would a PAC-AAC merger be a close-enough, light version of that model--and one that would be of some solace to some Stanford fans?
IMHO your Magnolia League would turn into a new version of the Ivy League. At one point Princeton and Harvard were the top programs in the sport for decades. After about a half century what we now refer to as the Ivy League stopped dominating college football and by the time college football was an octogenarian the Ivy League formally formed and a new era began. Nothing is permanent and competing in major college football requires being major. I could see something like the Magnolia League forming at some point, but it won't generate revenue in competition with the super conferences. Maybe if we're lucky it can get some sort of streaming television. The forces that sustain the lifeblood of college football - most importantly recruiting) will be driven by hierarchy and prestige, as always, and the caliber of football in the Magnolia League would get comparatively worse until it settles at an equilibrium befitting the level of interest in academic-oriented institution football, which is to say not very high caliber. This could be attractive in some respects to some people and, in any case, may be inevitable, but it won't be anything like Stanford playing in a Rose Bowl or Tulane playing in a Cotton Bowl.
Hey don't forget Yale. Yale dominated Georgia, winning five out of the first six times they played. Of course, that was early in Georgia's football history and eventually Georgia got the upper hand and the series was cancelled.
RE: A lack of foresight - Sunnysideup - 08-16-2023
(08-16-2023, 09:57 AM)LuckyBystander Wrote: [quote="msqueri" pid='395723' dateline='1692203262']
Weird fact: Rice for decades (and up to the present) has had a standing invitation to join the University Athletic Association, a D3 league that includes Emory, NYU, U. Chicago, and Wash U.
The UAA is an interesting phenomena to me: Emory, NYU, UChicago, WashU, Case Western, University of Rochester, and Carnegie Mellon. JHU used to be a member, too, I think.
All are top-ranked, research-intensive universities, with relatively similar enrollments (undergraduate) to Stanford - excluding NYU (I think NYU is bigger? maybe I'm wrong) and high-output medical centers/schools
These aren't the small liberal arts colleges that usually typify D3.
RE: A lack of foresight - jacket3ree - 08-17-2023
(08-16-2023, 09:11 AM)LuckyBystander Wrote: Rice fan here--been reading your board over the past few days in light of changes in the PAC-12 and rumors that include the possibility of a PAC-AAC merger to one extent or another.
What's interesting to me is how much of the consternation here looks like the consternation that's been a fundamental part of the Rice fanbase for decades and decades (especially among the older alums who remember Rice being part of the Southwest Conference, which included Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, and others--and the really old fans who remember Rice going to Cotton Bowls). The cries of lack of leadership and foresight are definitely part of the furniture of being a Rice fan.
What's fascinating to me is that Stanford is even in this situation, given your decades' dominance of the Sears Trophy (or whatever it's called now). Yours it the model of what virtually every athletic department aspired to, or at least that was my long-time assumption. The outsized influence of football--and how it informs TV contracts--is clear in every round of realignment, but it's especially acute, and destructive, in this one.
What would Stanford fans think of a model that basically rejects the P5 framework and being part of a league that is centered exclusively on AAU schools? There are certain Rice fans that dream of a "Magnolia League" that would include Stanford, Cal, Duke, Northwestern, Vandy, and Tulane. But obviously Duke, NW, and Vandy wouldn't be interested until they themselves have their PAC-4 moment. Travel is obviously the big deal-killer to this model, especially for the non-revenue sports.
But would a PAC-AAC merger be a close-enough, light version of that model--and one that would be of some solace to some Stanford fans?
Sometimes you just have to go where you are wanted. That all-AAU conference you mention is basically the B1G. A couple of us were going through research university rankings and that's what it is.
I posted my own version of a Magnolia League and called it the Southern Crescent Pacific League as a nod to the Southern Crescent from Atlanta to New Orleans and our founder's very own Southern Pacific. It's an 'if you can't join them, beat them' effort. It mixes the unwanted seven ACC schools, good AAC schools and the western schools not invited to the party. Stone cold fertile recruiting footprint. The long game.
Cool to see an Owl on the board. I have vivid memories of my first Stanford game, 1985 versus Texas. However we found each other, I'm hanging with a group of graduate engineering students mostly from ACC schools, SEC schools, Houston, and Rice. The two women from Rice were particularly and vocally, uh, vehement in their dislike for the Horns. Awesome hang. For the next several years while single I pretended to be a student and just renewed my student tickets. No one said anything and I still looked all of 19 maybe. So I still hung with the Owls and some of that pack for a while. I think it was the next year when we were watching Stanford play somebody - feels like future World domination partner San Diego State or the like (definitely another California team not named USC or UCLA) - and they announced the Rice-Texas score. We all heard/thought Rice had beaten Texas. The women sure did. (Remember this is the open container Stanford Stadium era.) Coupled with Stanford winning (generally good season having already beaten Texas and eventually went to its first bowl in a while) and a gorgeous day full of flesh and sunscreen, we went out and partied after the Stanford game ended. Great night until they found out Texas actually had barely won. Then the night got better. Feisty.