Rutgers Hockey
- Thread starter wcicci
- Start date
Makes 0 sense until some of the other sports like men's track or baseball are fully funded.
Unless you get a Penn State like situation of a $100 million donation for a hockey rink the math just doesn't work. And this is a hockey fan speaking.
Womans hockey is the sport you would add so men would need to make enough to pay for both.
There are people working on raising the funds to make this happen and there is a lot of fan support for this. They are well aware that the athletic department can't afford it right now and they know they have to raise the money on their own, and they know that this is a long-term goal. Some people on here are opposed to it because they think it will take away donations that would otherwise go to the athletic department, but the reality is that the vast majority of people supporting this project do not currently donate to Rutgers athletics anyway. A lot of the support comes from people in the hockey community, most of which do not have ties to Rutgers and do not care about its current sports. If they aren't Rutgers alumni and don't care about other sports, you are never going to get them to donate to Rutgers athletics so the notion that people making the decision on their own to donate towards starting up a hockey team would somehow hurt the current teams is incorrect.
Not this crap again. Fully fund our current sports that we have been mostly neglecting for over a century. We can consider adding hockey in 25 years...maybe. Sheesh. Adding hockey would take away from spending on existing sports & decrease our chances of winning or even trying to compete with the likes of tOSU.
Those people can keep trying but they won't raise $100M+, which is what is needed.
But unless it is fully funded from these hockey donors, including future operating expenses, it becomes an issue that impacts the athletic department and the other sports.
I would far rather see them fund men's crew and men's swimming (we already have the facilities) before we start throwing money at a completely new sport with no facilities.
Rutgers not having hockey always bothered me because we are in such a talent rich state
I forget the article but it said the B1G and college hockey in general were going grow. That in the next 20 years there would be 25 new D1 programs and at least 6 of those would be B1G teams. So I think it's safe to say you are no more than 20 years from having a D1 hockey team. I'll see if I can find that article and link it.
http://www.blackshoediaries.com/201...fling-feathers-guy-gadowsky-pegula-penn-state
http://www.blackshoediaries.com/201...fling-feathers-guy-gadowsky-pegula-penn-state
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I understand that some of the other sports are not fully funded but some differences-
1. Hockey is one of the most popular sports in NJ (unlike some of other less funded sports)
2. Hockey stands a better chance to generate revenue than some of the other sports as a result of 1, and what you see at some other B1G schools.
Also I do believe there is a facility in Somerset by Easton and 287 that we could use.
I'm not saying this should be Priority #1 but I don't see the issue in moving it up given it has more potential than some of the other sports.
1. Hockey is one of the most popular sports in NJ (unlike some of other less funded sports)
2. Hockey stands a better chance to generate revenue than some of the other sports as a result of 1, and what you see at some other B1G schools.
Also I do believe there is a facility in Somerset by Easton and 287 that we could use.
I'm not saying this should be Priority #1 but I don't see the issue in moving it up given it has more potential than some of the other sports.
How do you know they won't, and since the money is being raised privately by people who don't fund other sports anyway, why does this bother you so much? If they don't get the money, there won't be a team. If they do get it, then maybe, but either way it won't be diverting funds from the other sports.
Unlike most other sports, hockey would generate revenue. I think it would be beneficial to the department in the longrun.
Ironically, unless we see that "hockey stick" graph in major gifts -- to our academic departments as well as athletics -- this is a non-starter.
I work at that rink and as much as I would love for us to host a Rutgers NCAA team, this just isn't a large enough facility for that. We are more of a local ice rink than an arena. We have a 15-team youth travel hockey organization, a huge adult league, a large figure skating program, two high schools, and we were the home of the Rutgers club teams in the past, but we don't have the seating or parking for an NCAA team unfortunately. This is more of a participant-oriented place than a spectator-oriented venue. Our seating consists of upstairs bleachers and a cafe overlooking the ice. This place was packed and had an awesome atmosphere for the Rutgers D1 club team's games, an NCAA team would definitely need a larger home.
My impression of that rink, and if someone can correct me please do, is that there's not a whole lot of seating. So I don't think the revenue aspect would fly, particularly since it would not be convenient for RU students.
Edit to add: The post just above mine seems to confirm this.
If Bentley can come up with the cash to put an area on their campus (happening this year), and RU can't put a Div 1 program together would be sad. Glad to hear people behind the scenes are doing this.
Bentley played in a town rink for 50rys because they wanted to be part of New England hockey. Finally they are finding a way to build an on campus rink.
Even if RU has to rent space at a smaller area to start the process, it should be done. Then plan on renting out the PRU or building in down town NB.
Start small and smart, and swallow your pride Rutgers.
Bentley played in a town rink for 50rys because they wanted to be part of New England hockey. Finally they are finding a way to build an on campus rink.
Even if RU has to rent space at a smaller area to start the process, it should be done. Then plan on renting out the PRU or building in down town NB.
Start small and smart, and swallow your pride Rutgers.
Maybe true, just that there are more consideration than the potential donations for hockey would not have an adverse affect other athletic fund raising. I just don't see it being feasible for at least 10 years.
It bothers me more that we haven't kept enough of the elite talent in the sports we already have. It's NJ, we are rich in talent for many sports, like wrestling, FB, basketball, LAX, soccer, field hockey. Start keeping that talent home & winning championships in those sports, then we can revisit this.
1. What statistics support that hockey is 1 of the most popular sports in NJ? And how are you judging popularity, by youth & high school participation or people watching NHL? In terms of youth & high school participants, hockey is likely below all of those sports I mentioned above & others. In fact, according to the NFHS 2015 participant survey, ice hockey (3,935) has roughly the same # of participants as golf (3,841) & is below tennis, XC, swimming & baseball.
2. See below revenue discussion. We'd likely still lose $.
3. Any rec facility won't generate much $.
Hey, if they can raise unprecedented funds of $100M+ & not use any $ from the athletics dept or school, then that's awesome, but I'm more than skeptical. We need an endowment & a ton of fans, which we don't have, to generate significant revenue to make hockey profitable or even self-sustaining. Generating revenue & being profitable or breaking even are totally different. We can't afford to lose $ & take $ from other sports. Here are the top hockey revenue producers from 2013-14, the latest data I could find:
Minnesota $7,683,129
North Dakota $4,629,033
Wisconsin $4,497,281
Penn St $4,392,781 (something like $1.6M of that is endowment income from the large donation)
BU $4,376,571
Colorado College $3,297,753
Michigan $3,175,116
Vermont $2,879,917
Alaska-Anchorage $2,874,888
BC $2,824,109
A ten year timeline seems reasonable to me. Crew is not a big deal in the Big Ten. I agree with bringing back Men's Swimming at some point but that would require us to also add Female scholarships in another sport, or add another women's team for Title IX purposes.
Yeah, the seating we have is more than sufficient for what we have going on here now, but hosting an NCAA D1 team here would be like an NCAA D1 football team playing at a high school field.
That is a wildly inaccurate way of measuring hockey's popularity. Hockey isn't like football or basketball where playing for your high school is the road to playing in college, travel hockey is bigger. Some players don't even bother playing for their high school team because they're focusing on travel instead, and usually after you age out of midgets (high school age level), you play a few years of junior hockey which is where the college recruiters find you. Hockey has more participants than wrestling, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, cross-country, and swimming and I bet it isn't even close in most cases. There is no youth travel wrestling, field hockey, tennis, or cross-country that I'm aware of, and if there it is, it certainly has fewer participants than travel hockey so the NFHS's numbers on those sports are probably pretty close to representing the total number of participants, but not for hockey.
USA Hockey's Atlantic District has around 40,000 players, and that's just in New Jersey, Delaware, and eastern Pennsylvania.
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Robca - There are 206 HS lacrosse teams in New Jersey. Are there that many HS hockey AND travel teams combined? And then you have to consider all the HS freshman and JV teams, youth leagues, college clubs, college NCAA teams and adult clubs. I'm not sure there are that many hockey players in the state.
I can't believe there will be enough talent for 25 more Div I programs. I guess the numbers are there (you can throw anyone out there), but the level of play would significantly diminish.
You are misinformed or uninformed. First, soccer similarly has players that don't play in HS but there are still HS teams to assess participation #s. Club & rec youth teams are another source. Second, there is no way that hockey has more participants than wrestling & LAX (probably others I mentioned too) in NJ. There are tons of youth & club travel wrestling & LAX programs in NJ. Most towns have a travel program for both sports & then there are clubs that feed from multiple towns. I have no idea about field hockey, tennis or XC.
Would it be a big investment? Sure. But not 100M.
The scholarship thing would be like it is for most sports not named FB or MBB. Not a bank breaker.
And there are facilities sitting vacant now that could be used in the meantime. UConn does that now and plays a lot of their games 40 minutes away in Hartford.
UConn should be the model here and NOT State Penn unless we get the big donation.
I would rather see Men's Swimming return first since it is a B1G-ish sport and we already have a pretty good facility.
The scholarship thing would be like it is for most sports not named FB or MBB. Not a bank breaker.
And there are facilities sitting vacant now that could be used in the meantime. UConn does that now and plays a lot of their games 40 minutes away in Hartford.
UConn should be the model here and NOT State Penn unless we get the big donation.
I would rather see Men's Swimming return first since it is a B1G-ish sport and we already have a pretty good facility.
New Jersey has over 160 varsity hockey teams, about 50 youth hockey organizations (many of which include 10-15 teams), and at least 14 junior teams. This also does not include JV, freshmen, in-house leagues, college clubs, or adult leagues.
It's possible there may not be that big a drop in skill level. I think with more opportunity to play NCAA D1, more players would do that instead of playing in minor leagues like the ECHL, SPHL, etc. Maybe there would be more players going the NCAA route instead of Canadian major juniors.
I didn't say anything about soccer, I'm not sure what you mean by that. I guess we will have to agree to disagree then, but I am very confident that there are more hockey players than wrestlers in NJ, lacrosse I'm sure is closer.
There's over 125 nj high school hockey teams despite hockey being one of the expensive sports in which to engage. Every rink in NJ has at least one travel team system and within that system there is often multiple levels of teams b,a,aa,aaa for every age group. The high school hockey finals at prudential center consistently draws thousands of spectators. Some years 6000+. More than the capacity of the Rutgers soccer/lacrosse facility. In some areas of the state (Morris county) hockey competes as the most popular high school sport bar none (Randolph - Ice Hockey >> Football). Hockey is one of the few sports that could attract non alumni attention to Rutgers athletics.
That being said none of this matters because the money required is far beyond the capabilities of Rutgers current donors. It's not going to happen any time soon if ever.
That being said none of this matters because the money required is far beyond the capabilities of Rutgers current donors. It's not going to happen any time soon if ever.
And the funding source isn't limited to just "Rutgers' current donors." In fact, I think if this does end up happening, a vast majority of the donors will be new donors.
Rutgers does not need two more sports that are not going to be funded adequately.
