Minnesota stepping it up - $190M
Everyone wants to see teams other than Michigan and OSU compete for recruits, and laments the pathetic efforts of other big ten teams. Well it looks like Minnesota is gonna try and make a run from mediocrity, to the tune of $190M.
It would be nice if Maryland and Rutgers would follow their lead.
for completion. Is that "stepping up"?
Yes. That's how long such an ambitious project takes.
Every time my wife makes cookies, I take it as permission to continue not bothering to work out.
The less successful D1 college football teams need to realize that they are a long way away from being up there with the elite programs. Just firing the coach every 3 years doesn't build anything, and this is what most of them are stuck doing. I think Indiana is a perfect example. Hopefully this new coach gets enough time to actually get the program in a better place. Now that Rutgers and Maryland will have more $$ in our league, they have already started planning how to spend it to improve as well.
To further that point a little bit, part of the rationale for both Rutgers and Maryland for joining the Big Ten is to pay for some of the things that they have already done.
Rutgers renovated their stadium for around $100 million, and I believe there was a story out there some time ago about how they fell short on donations and ended up issuing bonds to do the work. The athletic department also relies heavily on subsidies from the school itself - a situation they've been looking to correct in order to do even more.
Maryland sunk about $50 million into Byrd Stadium a few years ago, and just last year put in the new field there. For Maryland, however, they are still making payments on Comcast Center ($125 million or so, I think) as well as their expanded baseball facilities. I think the hope there is that Maryland's budget and teams catch up with the investments they made.
I will agree though - this is a great move for Minnesota, and something that they really needed to do.
I guess something like that is a step in the right direction, I just think it is going to be very difficuly for Minnesota to convince peoople that they are on par with teams like us and OSU
This is actually pretty significant news. Minnesota's basketball facilities have been terrible for years. They actually promosied Tubby Smith new facilities when he got hired to give you an idea of how bad they have become. This will undoubtedly lead to better recruiting than they have seen in recent years. Iowa did a similar project a few years back and their recruiting has already taken a major step forward. Not a guarrantee to happen everywhere of course, but this could be big down the line.
What I don't get about this is the money will be privately fundraised. Much better than taking on debt, but it doesn't fit the bill in terms of "using the incredible revenue the Big Ten brings in for raising the competitive standard." If I were a potential donor and was hit up for this project knowing that there are tens of millions of dollars in new revenue that aren't applied to this...well, thankfully no one is going to hit me up as a donor for about a decade.
If their AD doesn't operate in a surplus (which I don't believe they do) then the BTN money is spent and they need to raise this money so that they don't have to take more money from the school.
That makes sense. My question really would then be, "Given that the increase in revenue from BTN and other sources has far outpaced inflation, how is that revenue being spent?" If most of it truly has gone toward coaching salaries, then the fundraising would be legitimate in my eyes, because coaching is a pretty big part of upping the ante. But with Kill making <$2M, I wonder if that revenue is gobbled up bureaucratically.
I wouldn't call it "bureaucractic". I'd say operating in a reasonably responsible manner. Their are 20-ish public schools that operate in a surplus. Everyone else is taking money from their school. Taking that extra money that they earn every year and giving it back to the school is the responsible thing to do. I imagine that it is difficult to justify increasing spending when you are still a drain for money on the school, even if you have increased revenue.
I'm with you there! Ideally the revenue game would make ADs financially independent of the general fund.
Not to sound too douchy, but would it be too much for the OP to post one sentence about what they're spending the $190M on?
Am I the only one that thinks these "Post a link and that's it" threads are a little annoying? Providing some insight or opinion to spark a discussion would be nice.
/ot rank
Not surprised the focus is basketball though. Minnesota really thinks they have a big-time basketball program that's just taking a nap.
I agree. Everytime that someone just posts a link, I think they are in such a big hurry to get it up before everyone else that they skip the commentary. It's one thing to not post C&P the entire article. It's another thing to summarize the important parts of the article.
Despite their recent struggles, the Mason era wasn't that long ago. They can offer recruits a solid academic institution in an attractive, vibrant city. The only other school that combines those aspects in the Big 10 is Northwestern (I suppose Rutgers will soon, but I doubt they compete for the same recruits often).
I have relatives in both South Dakota & Minnesota, and those states are connected to a to greater extent than most midwest states (I believe that kids from the Dakotas get in-state tuition at Minnesota), and as a result those states should be additional quasi in-state recruiting grounds for the Gophers (I realize that neither is Florida or Texas). If Minnesota could keep its best in-state players, and snatch a few a year from the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Iowa etc. they could be solid.
The downside is the lack of a winning tradition, and the cold. That said, if Alvarez and Beilema can do it in Madison, and Mason could do at Minnesota prior to the dumbest firing in recent B10 history, I don't see why the Gophers can't go back to being a regular bowl team and an occasional contender for the Big 10 title when everything aligns.
The general sentiment among Gopher fans when the stadium was built was excitement for being back on campus. They built a very nice ~50,000 seat stadium that wasn't a couple miles from campus like the Metrodome was and it's exactly what they needed. Gopher football in the Metrodome was sad, frankly, and with a real football stadium that's easily accessible for students they're at least selling out almost all their games. Obviously it's not going to win them games but some sort of base excitement level is there. Now they just need a talent upgrade. No reason it can't happen when Iowa and Wisconsin are always at least fringe contenders.