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Subsidy down to $23.8 Million

Four years ago I said in a thread that once Big Ten money begins to flow in STATE appropriations will get cut. This in turn will force Rutgers to cut their support of the athletic department. You see, while the fanbase was tickled pink to be part of the B10, Trenton was the happiest of all for reasons that too numerous to mention.
I said something similar except different...

watch how we get the Trenton version of "You didn't build that!" when the pols realize how much $$$$ Rutgers receives with a full share and a new TV contract.

And for the new kids,

when the shouting stops in a thread just find out what @Upstream says/thinks and you'll get a pretty good idea on what going on.
 
Deduct the $10m in student fees that, IIRC, no other schools include in their accounting, and down to $13.9M.

Then they will need to play for tickets to games like most every other school does. $200 gets you in the cheap seats for the season @ USC, as a student.
 
That will be to our benefit, when the obvious thing that is going to happen happens. By making such a big deal of the deficit to a mostly clueless readership, they set themselves up to have the same readership think well of RU when the deficit goes to zero in the next five years.

When that happens, the continued clueless readership will still think that their taxes are too high because it is going to the football coach's health insurance or some shit like that.
 
my nephew who is a freshmen at RU this year and who is not into sports at all was complaining about because Rutgers just had to go into the Big 10 that its raising the student fees and rising tuition.....he had this ingrained in his head from his mother my sister in law so I didn't even bother trying to set the facts straight because once people here these sound bites they don't change their mind.
Disown that boy.
 
While its progress this year, according to the nj.com article, the subsidy is going up next year (2016) after this step down. They call out decentralization of administrative costs and I'm guessing that the buyouts of flood and co might have something to do with that as well.
 
I realize they've been cutting appropriations for quite a while but Rutgers past Presidents always appealed and sometimes met with Governors for an increase. Trenton politicians know full well that your invite to the B10 translates into tens of millions in additional funding for your athletic department and what I said several years ago was 100% correct. They will cut a major percentage of B10 funding from their annual appropriations.


You are probably right, but it really doesn't matter. Rutgers has always had the money to have top flight athletics. They just didn't have the political cover to spend accordingly. By having athletics a money maker, they have that cover.

Even as large as the Big Ten money is, it is tiny compared to the University budget, as mentioned above. The simple reality is that no schools are expected to kick money from atheltics to academics, and very very few do. So Rutgers athletics will have more cash inflow, which they will find a way to spend to keep it revenue neutral, and the budget for the rest of the school will be what it is.

The notion that athletics should give money to academics is just not a compelling protest line.
 
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Is the $23M+ a good number? What did they expect the deficit to be in 2015?

The financial plan from Feb 2014 had the subsidy at $23.8MM for the fiscal year ending June 2015. So the reported number is pretty much right on plan.

Actually it looks like being on plan was intentional. According to the articles, Rutgers raised $14.7MM in athletic contributions, but only spent (and therefore only reported) $8.9 MM. Presumably the additional $6.8 MM is being held in reserve for future years, as it was not needed for Rutgers Athletics to hit its 2015 budget target.

Here is a link to the actual financial report: http://records.rutgers.edu/sites/records/files/2015 NCAA FINANCIAL REPORT.pdf . Note that the instruction for Item 8 Contributions indicates that you should not report contributions to be used in other reporting years.
 
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You are probably right, but it really doesn't matter. Rutgers has always had the money to have top flight athletics. They just didn't have the political cover to spend accordingly. By having athletics a money maker, they have that cover.

Even as large as the Big Ten money is, it is tiny compared to the University budget, as mentioned above. The simple reality is that no schools are expected to kick money from atheltics to academics, and very very few do. So Rutgers athletics will have more cash inflow, which they will find a way to spend to keep it revenue neutral, and the budget for the rest of the school will be what it is.

The notion that athletics should give money to academics is just not a compelling protest line.

Not really. Rutgers has for a long time spent relatively little per student relative to its peers and thats in a high cost area. Every dollar from the general fund that goes to athletics is a dollar not spent on other things that are more important to actually educating students. Considering our athletics budget had a giant hole - the idea that Rutgers had money to spend on athletics is more or less BS. Fact is that Rutgers athletics has run up a tab that is over a quarter of a billion dollars from the general fund in the past decade - a decade in which tuition has gone up immensely and state contributions gone down, and unlike other schools, athletics isnt required to pay it back.
 
partially because of where we are geographically we lose some revenue sources that other schools get. Many of the rural area schools are able to gain revenues in their athletic facilities from concerts and other special events. In NJ, it really is not an option since there are concert arenas in Holmdel, Camden, and Jones beach along with hockey / basketball arenas in Trenton, Philly, Newark, Brooklyn, and NYC. On top of that pro sports get more support in our area then college. In Arkansas or Nebraska there are no pro teams competing with the college teams while here we have the Yanks, Mets, Phils, Giants, Jets, Eagles, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Flyers, Nets, Knicks, 76ers, and other teams taking the fan interest.
 
So as the real B10 money kicks in, the state will give Rutgers less and less? How is this a good thing? We will never climb up the ranks as far as facilities go with the way this state government treats the flagship, world renown University.
 
Not really. Rutgers has for a long time spent relatively little per student relative to its peers and thats in a high cost area. Every dollar from the general fund that goes to athletics is a dollar not spent on other things that are more important to actually educating students. Considering our athletics budget had a giant hole - the idea that Rutgers had money to spend on athletics is more or less BS. Fact is that Rutgers athletics has run up a tab that is over a quarter of a billion dollars from the general fund in the past decade - a decade in which tuition has gone up immensely and state contributions gone down, and unlike other schools, athletics isnt required to pay it back.

Are you saying that Rutgers is the only school that doesn't have to pay the athletics subsidy back to the general fund? How is that possible? Its a subsidy everywhere, not a loan. Moreover, if we take as a given that there are only a very small number of schools that ever turn a profit on athletics, how are all the athletic departments that lose money every year ever paying that money back to the respective universities? I would be interested to see if we are doing things that much differently (worse) than other schools.

As to the broader point, you are saying something different than what I was saying. I was saying that had the money to spend if they wanted to. That's really beyond argument. Its a 3% budget item. You can move that item a full percentage point ($20-30mm) up with a miniscule cut across the board. You are saying they wouldn't do that because we already spend "relatively little per student." That's just a comment on administrative priority. They could spend a fraction less than relatively little per student, or they could cut athletics altogether and spend a fraction more than relatively little per student. But regardless of what they do, it makes only a very small difference.

My point was that if they wanted to spend more the biggest obstacle was the fact that carrying the largest subsidy in college sports was a lightning rod for criticism of spending. That's why I said they didn't have political cover. With Big Ten money, that lightning rod is gone. So my argument is that if athletics starts pulling in $30mm per year, and Trenton cuts the state appropriations by $30mm on that basis, I don't think Rutgers saying we are going to run a budget neutral athletics department and spend all of athletics money on athletics and not backfill the cut to state appropriations would have the same negative impact as saying we are going to double what is already the largest subsidy in the nation. That of course assumes the administration wants to spend in the first place. If the administration doesn't want to spend then there is really no point to talking about it. If their top priority is increasing spending per student on education, they can just continue hiring the cheapest coaches they can find, build no facilities and take all the Big Ten money and kick it over to the general general budget.
 
Are you saying that Rutgers is the only school that doesn't have to pay the athletics subsidy back to the general fund? How is that possible? Its a subsidy everywhere, not a loan. Moreover, if we take as a given that there are only a very small number of schools that ever turn a profit on athletics, how are all the athletic departments that lose money every year ever paying that money back to the respective universities? I would be interested to see if we are doing things that much differently (worse) than other schools.

As to the broader point, you are saying something different than what I was saying. I was saying that had the money to spend if they wanted to. That's really beyond argument. Its a 3% budget item. You can move that item a full percentage point ($20-30mm) up with a miniscule cut across the board. You are saying they wouldn't do that because we already spend "relatively little per student." That's just a comment on administrative priority. They could spend a fraction less than relatively little per student, or they could cut athletics altogether and spend a fraction more than relatively little per student. But regardless of what they do, it makes only a very small difference.

My point was that if they wanted to spend more the biggest obstacle was the fact that carrying the largest subsidy in college sports was a lightning rod for criticism of spending. That's why I said they didn't have political cover. With Big Ten money, that lightning rod is gone. So my argument is that if athletics starts pulling in $30mm per year, and Trenton cuts the state appropriations by $30mm on that basis, I don't think Rutgers saying we are going to run a budget neutral athletics department and spend all of athletics money on athletics and not backfill the cut to state appropriations would have the same negative impact as saying we are going to double what is already the largest subsidy in the nation. That of course assumes the administration wants to spend in the first place. If the administration doesn't want to spend then there is really no point to talking about it. If their top priority is increasing spending per student on education, they can just continue hiring the cheapest coaches they can find, build no facilities and take all the Big Ten money and kick it over to the general general budget.
I agree with your general thought here. Rutgers could have spent more if they weren't already spending so much that athletics was costing each student $700 a year in student fees and general fund disbursement.

I dont know that Trenton will cut because of athletics - they will cut because they have other priorities, just as they have for the past decade. They might use athletics new found riches to justify it - and people will buy it - but they likely arent doign anything they werent going to do regardless.

I think the administration has made it clear that they will spend whatever revenue athletics brings in, but not more (once we get to budget neutral.).

Obviously getting into the Big Ten and being able to be budget neutral with a higher budget is a much better deal than being in the AAC and running a huge deficit.
 
partially because of where we are geographically we lose some revenue sources that other schools get. Many of the rural area schools are able to gain revenues in their athletic facilities from concerts and other special events. In NJ, it really is not an option since there are concert arenas in Holmdel, Camden, and Jones beach along with hockey / basketball arenas in Trenton, Philly, Newark, Brooklyn, and NYC. On top of that pro sports get more support in our area then college. In Arkansas or Nebraska there are no pro teams competing with the college teams while here we have the Yanks, Mets, Phils, Giants, Jets, Eagles, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Flyers, Nets, Knicks, 76ers, and other teams taking the fan interest.
I think you're overestimating how much revenue comes from maybe a handful of concerts per year.

And man I have a hard time buying the "too many teams" argument. Within a 60 mile radius of High Point Solutions Stadium (approximate distance to the Linc) there are around 23 million people. Within 60 miles of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, there are about 1.2 million people and 60 miles from Razorback stadium gets you about 890,000.

Every team you mentioned could sell out every home game of the season only from people within that radius, and the leftovers would still be as much or more than the entire state populations of Arkansas and Nebraska.
 
I think you're overestimating how much revenue comes from maybe a handful of concerts per year.

And man I have a hard time buying the "too many teams" argument. Within a 60 mile radius of High Point Solutions Stadium (approximate distance to the Linc) there are around 23 million people. Within 60 miles of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, there are about 1.2 million people and 60 miles from Razorback stadium gets you about 890,000.

Every team you mentioned could sell out every home game of the season only from people within that radius, and the leftovers would still be as much or more than the entire state populations of Arkansas and Nebraska.
The flip side is that the Rutgers is basically going to be the 10th sports story in the NY Metro if they are doing good, while the Hogs or Huskers will be #1 even if they suck. There is only one front page of the sport section or website, and still only so many drive time hours in the day.
 
So as the real B10 money kicks in, the state will give Rutgers less and less? How is this a good thing? We will never climb up the ranks as far as facilities go with the way this state government treats the flagship, world renown University.

LOL, the state barely gives anything now.

In addition to receiving $10.8 million in student fees, the Rutgers athletics department received $12.9 million from the university's general fund and $13,184 in direct government support.

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/i...reases_in_2015_the_fi.html#incart_river_index
 
The flip side is that the Rutgers is basically going to be the 10th sports story in the NY Metro if they are doing good, while the Hogs or Huskers will be #1 even if they suck. There is only one front page of the sport section or website, and still only so many drive time hours in the day.
Being in the top conference in the top media and sports market puts us in an uncommonly good position to greatly improve our financial position. If anyone had an opportunity to build a business that was and has been as dysfunctional, disorganized, and fledgling as ours, with media opposition (some of it well deserved), sometimes beyond-belief bad product offered to the public, with one step forward followed by one, two or three backwards and frequent leadership turnover, but would still be in the black in this growth-learning-bumbling phase, with a guaranteed HUGE increase in revenue for doing very little extra, anyone with energy would sign on the dotted lines to own that ship. Only shortsighted people with no business acumen would decline the invitation.

That's what it means to be in the B1G in the NJ/NY, and now that good financial news is coming out it will only change the narrative in the media and among the residents. Imagine what will happen when we start winning more than we lose, and what will happen when we finally get to a nine- or ten-win season with an upset along the way. Imagine what will happen when we remain competitive in all of our games. That is why we're forging ahead, and it was a no-brainer from the get go. The conference and market made it easy to accept the invitation. We can be #10 in the NY market and still be ridiculously profitable.
 
Being in the top conference in the top media and sports market puts us in an uncommonly good position to greatly improve our financial position. If anyone had an opportunity to build a business that was and has been as dysfunctional, disorganized, and fledgling as ours, with media opposition (some of it well deserved), sometimes beyond-belief bad product offered to the public, with one step forward followed by one, two or three backwards and frequent leadership turnover, but would still be in the black in this growth-learning-bumbling phase, with a guaranteed HUGE increase in revenue for doing very little extra, anyone with energy would sign on the dotted lines to own that ship. Only shortsighted people with no business acumen would decline the invitation.

That's what it means to be in the B1G in the NJ/NY, and now that good financial news is coming out it will only change the narrative in the media and among the residents. Imagine what will happen when we start winning more than we lose, and what will happen when we finally get to a nine- or ten-win season with an upset along the way. Imagine what will happen when we remain competitive in all of our games. That is why we're forging ahead, and it was a no-brainer from the get go. The conference and market made it easy to accept the invitation. We can be #10 in the NY market and still be ridiculously profitable.
Yes - its a doubled edged blade - when we are bad we can very easily get ignored or even mocked in a way that Nebraska would never be - because they are the only game in town. If you don't report on them people won't read your paper. If you mock them, you will I'm sure, get pressure from fans to have you removed. If we are good, we will be pumped up by the local and national media (who loves NYC eyeballs) to an extent that people outside of the area wouldn't believe.
 
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LOL, the state barely gives anything now.

In addition to receiving $10.8 million in student fees, the Rutgers athletics department received $12.9 million from the university's general fund and $13,184 in direct government support.

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/i...reases_in_2015_the_fi.html#incart_river_index
The original poster on this topic, I think was referring to overall state support - basically saying that the extra $30 million in our athletic budget from the Big Ten would come at the expense of $30 million from the state to our general budget. IN essence - RU would break even on the proposition (or worse) when looking at its entire budget.

Of course, like I said - chances are - it would just be an excuse to make cuts they were going to make any way.
 
The flip side is that the Rutgers is basically going to be the 10th sports story in the NY Metro if they are doing good, while the Hogs or Huskers will be #1 even if they suck. There is only one front page of the sport section or website, and still only so many drive time hours in the day.
They will, but only because they have a history of success and an established, loyal fan base. My parents moved to Wyoming several years ago and I can tell you the Cowboys are not getting an overwhelming amount of coverage despite being the only game in town.

I think Al Davis was a crazy old coot in my football lifetime, but he wasn't wrong about one thing: Just win, baby.
 
The $24M figure is probably what some GCS schools spend on athletics. UNH for example.

I am still not sure why the flagship state U has to go to zero in support for an athletic budget while none of New Jersey's other State Us have to go to zero. Nor do I understand why New Jersey does not deserve even one State U who competes in athletics at the highest level while some fly-over states have multiple State U's at that top level.
 
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