The Bobcat Nation

I wanted to make sure you all saw this:

Portland State president Wim Wiewel has directed that the PSU football team become self-sufficient by the 2014-15 academic year.

PSU spokesman Mike Lund said the move is one of a series of cuts the university is making to deal with a $15 million financial shortfall.

Lund said the football program received approximately $800,000 from the university’s general fund in 2013-14. The football budget is $3.85 million.

http://www.oregonlive.com/collegefootba ... progr.html

AlphaOAlum wrote:I wanted to make sure you all saw this:

Portland State president Wim Wiewel has directed that the PSU football team become self-sufficient by the 2014-15 academic year.

PSU spokesman Mike Lund said the move is one of a series of cuts the university is making to deal with a $15 million financial shortfall.

Lund said the football program received approximately $800,000 from the university’s general fund in 2013-14. The football budget is $3.85 million.

http://www.oregonlive.com/collegefootba ... progr.html

In other words they're done with football.

[cat_bracket] wrote:

AlphaOAlum wrote:I wanted to make sure you all saw this:

Portland State president Wim Wiewel has directed that the PSU football team become self-sufficient by the 2014-15 academic year.

PSU spokesman Mike Lund said the move is one of a series of cuts the university is making to deal with a $15 million financial shortfall.

Lund said the football program received approximately $800,000 from the university’s general fund in 2013-14. The football budget is $3.85 million.

http://www.oregonlive.com/collegefootba ... progr.html

In other words they're done with football.

.... which would mean the Big Sky would be back to 12 teams. I'm alright with that.

Is there anyone on that team that is worth a crap that would want to transfer to MSU?

Sheesh, we eat our own over here. I like it.

[cat_bracket] wrote:

AlphaOAlum wrote:I wanted to make sure you all saw this:

Portland State president Wim Wiewel has directed that the PSU football team become self-sufficient by the 2014-15 academic year.

PSU spokesman Mike Lund said the move is one of a series of cuts the university is making to deal with a $15 million financial shortfall.

Lund said the football program received approximately $800,000 from the university’s general fund in 2013-14. The football budget is $3.85 million.

http://www.oregonlive.com/collegefootba ... progr.html

In other words they're done with football.

No, all they have to do is join the Pac 13

I say they make the jump to FBS indep. just like Idaho. That seems to be going well for the Vandals.
Be the "doorstep" pay game for a fist full of Big FBS schools.
Yeah, you get butt-hurt by half of the teams you play, but at least those 4 or so games a year are "pay" games.

Side note: If they fold, I vote for recruiting thier kicker. It seems like the Vikings have always had a good kicker.

merff33 wrote:I say they make the jump to FBS indep. just like Idaho. That seems to be going well for the Vandals.
Be the "doorstep" pay game for a fist full of Big FBS schools.
Yeah, you get butt-hurt by half of the teams you play, but at least those 4 or so games a year are "pay" games.

Side note: If they fold, I vote for recruiting thier kicker. It seems like the Vikings have always had a good kicker.

You must not have seen their game against eastern this year. We definitely do not want their kicker.

Mechanical Cat wrote:

merff33 wrote:I say they make the jump to FBS indep. just like Idaho. That seems to be going well for the Vandals.
Be the "doorstep" pay game for a fist full of Big FBS schools.
Yeah, you get butt-hurt by half of the teams you play, but at least those 4 or so games a year are "pay" games.

Side note: If they fold, I vote for recruiting thier kicker. It seems like the Vikings have always had a good kicker.

You must not have seen their game against eastern this year. We definitely do not want their kicker.

Definitely not! Punter yes, kicker no!

Why does everyone leap to the conclusions that PSU is going to drop football. $800k isn't a small chunk to account for, but it can be done. I don't think they are going to drop football for an amount like that.

For most programs, I would say that a mandate like this is incredibly short sighted, for a couple reasons. First, I suspect that a large part of that deficit is due to the fact that the football program has to pay Portland State for tuition, fees, etc., which means the football program is actually a profit center for the University as a whole (even as the stand-alone books show them being in the hole).

Second, even if the football program legitimately costs the school more than it brings in on a "consolidated" basis, there is generally a really good reason for tolerating that. In essence, that shortfall would be seen as a marketing expense. Without football, you're going to draw a lot fewer paying students to your school, so the football program has a hugely positive indirect impact on the finances of a University as one of their primary marketing arms.

That said, maybe Portland State's football program has such a diminished standing in Oregon and beyond, and their student body so reliant on commuters, that the marketing impact of the football program really doesn't pay for itself.

Nooooo! It's bad enough the Cats don't come to Portland every two years anymore, but never would be even worse.

I've been to a couple of PSU games, and their fan support is pretty awful. The stadium is awesome, though, thanks to the Timbers. Tickets are cheap, and being able to have a couple beers while you watch the game is an added bonus. I'd go to more games if it didn't always mean having to miss the watching the MSU games.

There are so many FCS teams that seem to struggle with attendance, I wonder what they key is to turning a profit. 2 play up games a year?

glorified j wrote:Nooooo! It's bad enough the Cats don't come to Portland every two years anymore, but never would be even worse.

I've been to a couple of PSU games, and their fan support is pretty awful. The stadium is awesome, though, thanks to the Timbers. Tickets are cheap, and being able to have a couple beers while you watch the game is an added bonus. I'd go to more games if it didn't always mean having to miss the watching the MSU games.

There are so many FCS teams that seem to struggle with attendance, I wonder what they key is to turning a profit. 2 play up games a year?

Most of the teams that struggle with attendance probably do so because of geography. In Bozeman, Missoula and Fargo for instance
its pretty much the big show, In Portland and Cali not so much. I doubt Portland State's attendance will suffer if they lose their
football team.

Mechanical Cat wrote:

merff33 wrote:I say they make the jump to FBS indep. just like Idaho. That seems to be going well for the Vandals.
Be the "doorstep" pay game for a fist full of Big FBS schools.
Yeah, you get butt-hurt by half of the teams you play, but at least those 4 or so games a year are "pay" games.

Side note: If they fold, I vote for recruiting thier kicker. It seems like the Vikings have always had a good kicker.

You must not have seen their game against eastern this year. We definitely do not want their kicker.

I only watch CAT games. Read box scores on the rest. So I didn't watch the EWU/PSU game. Their kicker obviously wasn't that Brown kid? I remember him being a good kicker.
My bad.

glorified j wrote:Nooooo! It's bad enough the Cats don't come to Portland every two years anymore, but never would be even worse.

I've been to a couple of PSU games, and their fan support is pretty awful. The stadium is awesome, though, thanks to the Timbers. Tickets are cheap, and being able to have a couple beers while you watch the game is an added bonus. I'd go to more games if it didn't always mean having to miss the watching the MSU games.

There are so many FCS teams that seem to struggle with attendance, I wonder what they key is to turning a profit. 2 play up games a year?

They used to draw great crowds back in the days when they were a D-II power, but of course they haven't been very successful since moving up to I-AA/FCS. That might be a good lesson for MSU and UM, if/when a move to FBS is ever seriously debated again. They drew better crowds while fielding dominant teams at a lower level, than they have while fielding mostly mediocre teams at a higher level.

Back in the day when PSU's D-2 teams were drawing big crowds I'm pretty sure both OSU and UO were terrible.

It would be very bad for PSU and the Big Sky if they were to lose football. PSU is in my opinion the coolest road trip in the Big Sky. They're an up and coming team. Anybody who watched their game against EWU could see that. I hope they can hold on-maybe with body bag games?

John K wrote:That might be a good lesson for MSU and UM, if/when a move to FBS is ever seriously debated again. They drew better crowds while fielding dominant teams at a lower level, than they have while fielding mostly mediocre teams at a higher level.

Probably not a good test case, as the populace of Oregon probably doesn't really even know that 1-AA was a move up from D-II. To the casual sports fan, D-II and 1-AA are pretty much the same thing (and the 1-AA schools visiting PSU don't tend to bring much more interest than the D-II schools, outside of all of the MT natives that show up for UM and MSU). On the other hand, a move to 1-A is universally seen as the "big time" as it's the highest level of competition.

I agree that I'd hate to see PSU go. I love that trip as well, along with that city. It's also pulls a lot of good Oregon players in the BSC that may not otherwise consider BSC teams if there wasn't a local presence.

Bay Area Cat wrote:For most programs, I would say that a mandate like this is incredibly short sighted, for a couple reasons. First, I suspect that a large part of that deficit is due to the fact that the football program has to pay Portland State for tuition, fees, etc., which means the football program is actually a profit center for the University as a whole (even as the stand-alone books show them being in the hole).

Second, even if the football program legitimately costs the school more than it brings in on a "consolidated" basis, there is generally a really good reason for tolerating that. In essence, that shortfall would be seen as a marketing expense. Without football, you're going to draw a lot fewer paying students to your school, so the football program has a hugely positive indirect impact on the finances of a University as one of their primary marketing arms.

That said, maybe Portland State's football program has such a diminished standing in Oregon and beyond, and their student body so reliant on commuters, that the marketing impact of the football program really doesn't pay for itself.

This is why this is all b s. Programs that have killed football have reinstated it because you get donations to the university because of the football team. Some guy reads articles about the team in the paper and syas "i"m not going to give to sports programs, but I'll donate to the school." But he did that because he keeps seeing the university talked about somewhere. This is covered in advertising classes, repetition, repetition, repetition.