Was Politi's latest artcle about Delaney and donations discussed?
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Was just posted today at 7:00 AM. So you seem to be the first to create a thread. As for substance, he is right. Rutgers wasn't a "sports school", until we finally joined the Big East, about 10 years too late. As such, older alumni, who might have the resources to donate on a large scale, don't have the "passion" for the school and athletics, and therefore, the donations are minimal, if at all. Therein, lies the problem. The Alumni from mid-90's, some do have the passion and do also donate. Most think the cost of tickets, parking and seat payment amounts are enough. Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing anyone nor telling anyone what to do or not to do. Just stating my observation.
That seems accurate. I think this will slowly change as these next generations become earners. Their sports experience is vastly different.
Listen up, Rutgers fans: Jim Delany would like a word
The man responsible for Rutgers joining the Big Ten is worried about New Jersey’s commitment to the Scarlet Knights — and he’s got a point.
I’ll post it because it’s an interesting article and sometimes you need to hear news and opinions you don’t like in order to address the problem….
Not really. You should give more instead of scolding others. We give plenty and I never tell others what to do with their money. It's their choice. We are blessed to be in a position to give.
Here's the link, behind paywall, but free on the nj.com app:
Listen up, Rutgers fans: Jim Delany would like a word
The man responsible for Rutgers joining the Big Ten is worried about New Jersey’s commitment to the Scarlet Knights — and he’s got a point.
Hmm. Aren't donations for RU overall (academic and sports) much less than similar universities? I always got the sense that student/alumni's experiences at RU is the main cause of the disconnect in future support.
There is just a lack of connection with most alumni.
Yes but sports are a big part of it. The kids in school today and recently are having a much different sports experience.
That's gotta help for the future. My sports experience at RU was pretty awful. The highlight was probably the RU/Brown soccer game to make it to the Final Four. What year was that?
Agreed. But unfortunately football is by far the biggest driver of school pride.
And especially since the game day experience now for nearly all students is completely off campus at essentially house and frat parties just dressed in RU gear for the day. The lack of a tailgating scene for students, combined with very very poor play on the field has essentially created another lost generation where we may only be capturing life long fans of 15% of students , rather than 50%+. That’s tens of thousands of lost life long tickets , donations etc each year !
We've always had a poor giving rate, sadly, especially relative to the quality of the University. Here's an excerpt from the article, which makes it clear that the B1G contract money, while great, is not nearly enough to offset this low donation rate. And getting another $100-$200 per year out of 99% of our fans, while nice, is not going to get it done - we simply don't have enough 7-figure donors. This is also why it's so important to have a Governor who supports Rutgers with serious investment.
The university’s overall endowment has tripled in size since it joined the Big Ten, growing from $634.9 million to nearly $2 billion. That still ranks just 12th in the conference, ahead of only Nebraska ($1.7 billion) and Maryland ($997 million) and well behind leaders Michigan ($17.7 billion) and Northwestern ($16.1 billion), but the growth continues.
Athletics fundraising is a similar story. “It is very clear from the perspective of a donor and an alum that being in the Big Ten is a huge point of pride,” said Kimberly Hopely, president of the Rutgers University Foundation. A $100 million campaign called “R Big Ten Build,” launched by athletic director Patrick Hobbs in 2016, helped spur the construction of several much-needed facilities.
Delany, not surprisingly, doesn’t believe that the Big Ten’s new eight-year, $1.2 billion media-rights deal — and the expected annual payouts to all member schools that could top $75 million — will be a panacea in Piscataway. He praised Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to earmark $100 million of state funds to renovate Jersey Mike’s Arena and build Schiano’s practice facility, but the key to consistent success at Rutgers will be a high level of private funding.
The university’s overall endowment has tripled in size since it joined the Big Ten, growing from $634.9 million to nearly $2 billion. That still ranks just 12th in the conference, ahead of only Nebraska ($1.7 billion) and Maryland ($997 million) and well behind leaders Michigan ($17.7 billion) and Northwestern ($16.1 billion), but the growth continues.
Athletics fundraising is a similar story. “It is very clear from the perspective of a donor and an alum that being in the Big Ten is a huge point of pride,” said Kimberly Hopely, president of the Rutgers University Foundation. A $100 million campaign called “R Big Ten Build,” launched by athletic director Patrick Hobbs in 2016, helped spur the construction of several much-needed facilities.
Delany, not surprisingly, doesn’t believe that the Big Ten’s new eight-year, $1.2 billion media-rights deal — and the expected annual payouts to all member schools that could top $75 million — will be a panacea in Piscataway. He praised Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to earmark $100 million of state funds to renovate Jersey Mike’s Arena and build Schiano’s practice facility, but the key to consistent success at Rutgers will be a high level of private funding.
does the word basketball appear in the article? do we get any credit for creating one of the most talked about basketball gameday experiences in the country?
Eye opening that Maryland has such a small endowment. Comparing notes with friends that attended at a similar time period, taking athletics out of the conversation, they had such a smoother experience. The issue Rutgers continues to have with growing the endowment is the proverbial RU screw. Was at a Holiday Event this past weekend. Rutgers alumni from a 20 year span, mid 80's to 2005'ish, were comparing experiences and one thing that was common was the difficulty they had dealing with administration. This was in direct contrast to others in attendance from Maryland, Penn State, LSU, UGA, UVA, and smaller private liberal arts schools. This is in my mind is the biggest hurdle to overcome when it comes to fundraising. AS Cali said students now have a vastly different experience. I hope they are not experiencing the administrative hurdles of years past.
Simple solution to the Southern schools small endowment. They donate to football not book learning. But seriously I think it is more to do with southern state schools are better supported by state government and don't have to rely on endowments as much
The teams blows is the first and last of it all. The tailgating scene at Rutgers is still way better than most schools.
If you the team was winning it would all be a non issue.
Yes to all this. Rutgers history is very different from all those with which we try to compete. Even the idea that Rutgers is the state university has a quite different history. The people choosing Rutgers did not do so for sports.. and, you might think that if sports were so important to them.. they would have gone elsewhere. And the same is probably true today except for slight blips around 1976 for basketball and 2006 for football... though being a Big Ten school since 2014 may change all that over time.
With so many residents thinking of New York or Philadelphia as their cities.. and so many coming here from everywhere else.. in the USA and across the world... we also do not have the state pride and state identity as do most Big Ten or SEC states.
Rutgers is in a very unique place with a very unique history and needs a unique solution to the funding issues regarding sports. Find a way to get state businesses to buy in and lead the way.
With so many residents thinking of New York or Philadelphia as their cities.. and so many coming here from everywhere else.. in the USA and across the world... we also do not have the state pride and state identity as do most Big Ten or SEC states.
Rutgers is in a very unique place with a very unique history and needs a unique solution to the funding issues regarding sports. Find a way to get state businesses to buy in and lead the way.
It’s really not that unique. We just don’t win in football. That’s the problem. Winning solves everything.
That's a nice bump since joining the Big 10, but I don't think most people realize how pathetic $634.9 million is for a university like Rutgers. Michigan (along with UNC) were pioneers among public universities and got serious at the beginning of the Post WWII era. Just to give you an idea, my father was an outside consultant in the late 70's for a Michigan Law School, not the university as a whole, campaign that raised $50 million. That's close to 10% of Rutgers ENTIRE endowment 35 year later. I don't know the numbers for the "Friends" program for various sports, but I do know that other schools raise serious money. And then there are the Ivies, where a Yale lax alum who got into high tech early donated the entire practice facility. During 2021, when the league cancelled the season, he offered to fund a round robin tournament for both men and women at a closed facility so they would at least have some kind of season with a 7 figure donation. The league turned him down.
They're late to the game and getting better, but Rutgers has a way to go.
Agreed. Traded for a similar endowment and they were for all intents and purposes a Hedge Fund/Private Equity /Venture Capital fund with a better tax status.
As the father of a kid who is graduating at the end of this semester, it has not gotten much better. The red tape and nonsense and the lack of admins who seem to want to make the experience pleasant versus painful is a problem.
In addition, while it may have finally been rectified and may have been due to a combination of the pandemic and transition when new people were installed in the Foundation, setting up a new endowed scholarship was an epic struggle. If not for the sysyphean efforts of my RFund contacts, the scholarship may have never gotten off the ground. Thankfully, the response and glad-handing for the Foundation has improved tremendously in the last 6-8 months, but man was it awful for a while and made me realize why some people just don't bother.
It's been night and day with R Fund people. They go out of their way to help, and they go out of their way to make donors feel special, wanted and loved. They should give a seminar to the rest of Rutgers in customer service.
There are outliers, primarily UVA, UNC, Texas & Texas A&M where that's not accurate,
Thank you for saying this. I will never tell a Rutgers fan how to spend his/her money, whether it's on donations or where to buy tickets to a game. I always buy the seat I want from the ticket-selling outlet that will give me the most fair price. The whole "buy through RU" thing literally means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
In 2006 Sen. Chuck Grassley proposed to subject universities to the private foundation rules that require they use 5% of their endowment (valued annually) for their exempt purpose. The Ivies, Stanford and Duke tried to head him off by jacking up financial aid packages but what really stopped it was the great Recession. The 2017 legislation went another direction by assessing a small tax on the top "endowment per student" schools.
UNC is very well funded. The NC state constitution requires tuition to be as low as possible.
TX schools take the top 10% of each HS class as auto admitted.
RU isn't entwined in such a way. NJ was the last state to designate a flagship school. We're decades if not centuries behind in many cases.
So the article basically says our fans are doing a bad job giving and must give more if we are to be successful, yet you say I'm scolding our fans?? Yeah I call out those that give with their mouths and little else--and I'm right about that. Give nothing if you want but you have no right to complain about our progress when you don't.And no one can tell me they can't give something other than complains.Not really. You should give more instead of scolding others. We give plenty and I never tell others what to do with their money. It's their choice. We are blessed to be in a position to give.
Here's the link, behind paywall, but free on the nj.com app:
Listen up, Rutgers fans: Jim Delany would like a word
The man responsible for Rutgers joining the Big Ten is worried about New Jersey’s commitment to the Scarlet Knights — and he’s got a point.www.nj.com
Pretty sure we've surpassed Maryland which is in achievement in and of itself (and they certainly have more of an overall sports legacy than we do).
But the fact that RU and UMD are lower are the endowment side of things is IMO more of a cultural reflection. In the Northeast private schools rule the roost. When people think of colleges in NJ and MD they would think of Princeton and JHU.
How many average people could name a private college in OH and MI? I honestly can't even think of one in the state of MI at all.
Always thought the lack of support from the State was a far bigger issue.
The irony of The Ledger criticizing RU fans is just appalling and amusing. Politi and Ledger might want to take a good look in the mirror. Has there ever been a more non supportive local paper in the country of its own State University athletic program? I haven’t seen one.
I had always heard the issue is equally the lack of mega donors. We have some. Not enough.
The irony of The Ledger criticizing RU fans is just appalling and amusing. Politi and Ledger might want to take a good look in the mirror. Has there ever been a more non supportive local paper in the country of its own State University athletic program? I haven’t seen one.
I had always heard the issue is equally the lack of mega donors. We have some. Not enough.
Some of my kids and grand children went elsewhere and two are now at RU. The ones at other state schools have had the same issues as those at RU. As a matter of fact the one that graduated PSU had even more issues with housing and the rest. The screw is not just a RU thing. Go to a $70000 /yr private school , they do better.
What did you say in your OP: "boy what an indictment on RU fans' poor record on giving"
Sounds like a scolding. Politi used no such words. He offered explanations, which made the situation understandable, not an indictment of RU fans like you put it. Sorry if we disagree, but you have a habit of berating fans who don't give.
And one other thing, if RU does not do a 180 in a couple of areas (not going to derail this thread) which have been raised before, we are done giving. We cannot support an institution that takes positions that are diametrically opposed to some of our core values.
that article is an indictment of RU giving--if you feel otherwise you've got a problem thinking its saying we can succeed in a power 5 league with bad support. Blame politi , delaney ,even me for calling it out but it's true.
It may be that you're getting an education through this article on the difference between college football and college basketball.
What's not accurate? The states you mentioned support and have pride in their state universities.
No surprise here. Our fans an incredibly cheap. I mean we have fans actively discouraging NIL in here. Pathetic. We get what we deserve.
Again, you seem to be missing my point. I have no problem in my thinking. We give plenty.
I do blame Delaney some for giving us a shit sandwich of a deal on the way in. Pat was working on rectifying that, but not sure where that is at today.
I also blame Politi and his piece of crap paper for always highlighting the negative about Rutgers and looking for angles to tear Rutgers down instead of prop it up. That does not exactly inspire donor confidence or willingness to support the program when a lot of news about RU is portrayed as bad. It's not. But keep slurping Politi's kool aid.
I also do blame you. Nobody likes getting yelled out. Especially by people wealthier than them, and to be told how to spend their money. That takes a lot of hubris.
Notably, however, in the story you reference is how fans and alum supported the B1G build initiative.
Politi also highlighted the lack of seven figure donors to fire off checks--Newsflash, those people are not wasting their time on this board. Find them and yell at them, and let us know how that goes.
Jon Newman nails the problems that occurred at the time RU entered the B1G. Rutgers was Rutgersing, f'ing things up six ways until Tuesday. But blame the fans and the lack of donors because Rutgers always seems to Rutgers.
The article also notes how donors are pulled in too many different directions. Rutgers is Rutgersing again.
So, keeping yelling at the wrong cloud.
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