[BostonCard]

Goose, Stanford did draw tv eyeballs in the salad years. That’s the point: what draws is being good. This is a budget issue insofar as it relegates us to hiring minor coaches, not having the best recruiting operation money can buy, upgrading facilities at the whim of one now gone generous donor and not as a systematic institutional commitment, etc. If Luke Fickell or Matt Rhule were our coach, the recruiting budget was twice its size, we had the latest in facilities each year, etc. we’d have a better shot at winning and of being seen as rainmakers. Yes, structural and demographic impediments would remain. But we don’t commit beyond being just a solidly mediocre program and that has consequences.

There's an element of The Green Lantern Theory as applied to collegiate sports (paraphrasing from Brendan Nyhan): the belief that Stanford can achieve any athletic objective if only it tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.  The problem is that college football is a zero sum game (for every win, there must be a team that loses), and fans of literally every other team subscribe to the same theory, that if only their administration was willing to shell out enough money or hire the right coach that it should be amongst the dominant powers in the sport.

Stanford dominates in non-revenue sports because athletes know that they are unlikely to be able to make a career in the sport and thus even the best athletes are open to the idea of leveraging their athletic prowess into a degree that will, in the long run, unlock doors that their athletic success doesn't.  In sports where the very best hope to make a professional team, that line of thinking caries a lot less weight for the very best of athletes, so Stanford's point of differentiation is largely moot.  In addition, we found a successful niche by valuing under-appreciated sports, for example, investing early in women's sports, and keeping sports such as men's gymnastics that few other schools field teams for.  The niche strategy brings athletic success broadly, but we see how much other conferences (channeling their TV sponsor) value it.  If Texas' poaching of the UCLA beach coach, LSU building a national champion women's basketball program through a combination of poaching Kim Mulkey from Baylor and then assembling a team of free agents, or Nebraska selling out its football stadium for a women's volleyball match, it will be harder to sustain the success going forward.

Moreover, even under the apex of our success, the "vibes" in revenue sports will never match those at other schools: there was never, for example, a Montgomery-ville at the peak of our basketball success, and while relative to our recent trough, Stanford stadium appeared to rock in the early 2010's, the excitement pales in comparison to even a mid-level SEC team going through a rough patch.  Yeah, our recent implosion didn't help, but at the end of the day, Fox (who was de facto calling the shots for the Big Ten) is competing with ESPN, and Stanford delivered neither a major media market like LA, nor delivered the excitement to convince casual fans that Stanford was anywhere near synonymous with Big Time football (like Oregon) and that for that reason, you should tune in to watch Fox Sports Big Ten broadcasts over ESPN's SEC broadcasts.  No amount of "institutional commitment" beyond being just a solidly mediocre program fixes that. Moreover, the causal arrow works both ways; while institutional commitment might buy is some more success and more fan excitement, there's a limit to that, and at the end of the day, the institutional commitment reflects the fanbase's demands, and this board is a very unrepresentative selection of Stanford fans.

We may get an invite to the ACC, and that might convince us that we are still relevant, but I think that only keeps things going until the next round of conference realignment.  I think the eventual outcome is going to be a 20-40 team super-conference along the lines of what is suggested in this Athletic article: https://theathletic.com/4776402/2023/08/...er-league/ and whether this round or the next or the one after that, at some point the consolidation will leave Stanford without a seat.  I'm at peace with that.  Things change; the Ivy League was the center of the football universe a century ago; Chicago dropped football in the 30's and left the Big Ten in the 40's.  I think it is probably time to think about life after big time athletics for Stanford as well.

BC

[BostonCard]

Goose, Stanford did draw tv eyeballs in the salad years. That’s the point: what draws is being good. This is a budget issue insofar as it relegates us to hiring minor coaches, not having the best recruiting operation money can buy, upgrading facilities at the whim of one now gone generous donor and not as a systematic institutional commitment, etc. If Luke Fickell or Matt Rhule were our coach, the recruiting budget was twice its size, we had the latest in facilities each year, etc. we’d have a better shot at winning and of being seen as rainmakers. Yes, structural and demographic impediments would remain. But we don’t commit beyond being just a solidly mediocre program and that has consequences.

There's an element of The Green Lantern Theory as applied to collegiate sports (paraphrasing from Brendan Nyhan): the belief that Stanford can achieve any athletic objective if only it tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.  The problem is that college football is a zero sum game (for every win, there must be a team that loses), and fans of literally every other team subscribe to the same theory, that if only their administration was willing to shell out enough money or hire the right coach that it should be amongst the dominant powers in the sport.

Stanford dominates in non-revenue sports because athletes know that they are unlikely to be able to make a career in the sport and thus even the best athletes are open to the idea of leveraging their athletic prowess into a degree that will, in the long run, unlock doors that their athletic success doesn't.  In sports where the very best hope to make a professional team, that line of thinking caries a lot less weight for the very best of athletes, so Stanford's point of differentiation is largely moot.  In addition, we found a successful niche by valuing under-appreciated sports, for example, investing early in women's sports, and keeping sports such as men's gymnastics that few other schools field teams for.  The niche strategy brings athletic success broadly, but we see how much other conferences (channeling their TV sponsor) value it.  If Texas' poaching of the UCLA beach coach, LSU building a national champion women's basketball program through a combination of poaching Kim Mulkey from Baylor and then assembling a team of free agents, or Nebraska selling out its football stadium for a women's volleyball match, it will be harder to sustain the success going forward.

Moreover, even under the apex of our success, the "vibes" in revenue sports will never match those at other schools: there was never, for example, a Montgomery-ville at the peak of our basketball success, and while relative to our recent trough, Stanford stadium appeared to rock in the early 2010's, the excitement pales in comparison to even a mid-level SEC team going through a rough patch.  Yeah, our recent implosion didn't help, but at the end of the day, Fox (who was de facto calling the shots for the Big Ten) is competing with ESPN, and Stanford delivered neither a major media market like LA, nor delivered the excitement to convince casual fans that Stanford was anywhere near synonymous with Big Time football (like Oregon) and that for that reason, you should tune in to watch Fox Sports Big Ten broadcasts over ESPN's SEC broadcasts.  No amount of "institutional commitment" beyond being just a solidly mediocre program fixes that. Moreover, the causal arrow works both ways; while institutional commitment might buy is some more success and more fan excitement, there's a limit to that, and at the end of the day, the institutional commitment reflects the fanbase's demands, and this board is a very unrepresentative selection of Stanford fans.

We may get an invite to the ACC, and that might convince us that we are still relevant, but I think that only keeps things going until the next round of conference realignment.  I think the eventual outcome is going to be a 20-40 team super-conference along the lines of what is suggested in this Athletic article: https://theathletic.com/4776402/2023/08/...er-league/ and whether this round or the next or the one after that, at some point the consolidation will leave Stanford without a seat.  I'm at peace with that.  Things change; the Ivy League was the center of the football universe a century ago; Chicago dropped football in the 30's and left the Big Ten in the 40's.  I think it is probably time to think about life after big time athletics for Stanford as well.

BC