How Should MSU Fans Look At MSU Athletic Budget?

[ShotgunDawg]

The SEC is the biggest arms race in American sports and I'm having trouble reconciling in my mind how I should look at MSU having the conference's lowest athletic budget, one of the most physically fit departments in the conference, and the fact that we have nowhere near the best facilities or recruiting classes.

Basically, outside of preparing for a pandemic, why are we trying to save so much money? How do we justify that?

On one hand there's being good stewards of your money and on the other hand, we are clearly not doing everything we can to win.

Are we too conservative?

Check out these two links:

https://mobile.twitter.com/scoutstever/status/1283841718887079941

https://www.google.com/amp/s/247sports.com/Article/SEC-football-recruiting-expenses-dwarfs-other-leagues-Alabama-Georgia-LSU-Florida-Auburn-144193496/Amp/

[Jack Lambert]

If Cohen keeps it up we will be able to eat free hotdogs.

[ShotgunDawg]

If Cohen keeps it up we will be able to eat free hotdogs.

Good point. Free hot dogs right around the corner.

I'm actually surprised there isn't more discussion on this. People accept us spending less and saving more than anyone else while we have 2nd rate SEC facilities, a trailer home in our South EZ, and a injury hazard on the East side.

[Dawgology]

The SEC is the biggest arms race in American sports and I'm having trouble reconciling in my mind how I should look at MSU having the conference's lowest athletic budget, one of the most physically fit departments in the conference, and the fact that we have nowhere near the best facilities or recruiting classes.

Basically, outside of preparing for a pandemic, why are we trying to save so much money? How do we justify that?

On one hand there's being good stewards of your money and on the other hand, we are clearly not doing everything we can to win.

Are we too conservative?

Check out these two links:

https://mobile.twitter.com/scoutstever/status/1283841718887079941

https://www.google.com/amp/s/247sports.com/Article/SEC-football-recruiting-expenses-dwarfs-other-leagues-Alabama-Georgia-LSU-Florida-Auburn-144193496/Amp/

It's a good point. On the one hand you want to put something back each year but on the other hand you don't sacrifice recruiting and facility to save $200k in a $45 million operation.

[Captain Falcon]

I mean we have done A TON of capital improvements in recent years. In the last decade we?ve built a new football only facility, did a major renovation and expansion of the football stadium, built a brand new state of the art baseball stadium, did major facility upgrades for pretty much every Olympic sport, we pay our major sport coaches more than many of our peers and recently increased assistant coach salary pools. And we still are turning a profit. This isn?t even considering The Hump renovations that will break ground in the next year or two (I personally would prefer a new arena but if that?s not happening at least we are doing something to help The Hump).

Are we still behind the big boys in many ways? Sure. And there?s a good chance that will always be the case on some fronts. But we have definitely come a long way and taken positive steps to close the gap. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the Templeton administration and administrations prior to that who really let us fall to the back of the pack in a big way. We have spent the last decade plus playing catch-up and still have plenty of room to grow.

[Gutter Cobreh]

Good point. Free hot dogs right around the corner.

I'm actually surprised there isn't more discussion on this. People accept us spending less and saving more than anyone else while we have 2nd rate SEC facilities, a trailer home in our South EZ, and a injury hazard on the East side.

We did upgrade the practice facility with Leach's Beach, so there is that.

3 things that impressed me in the article:

1) We all know that football is where the money is made and we were able to generate that much revenue with Joe as our coach!
2) The staggering amounts of money from TX A&M and TX
3) We generated more revenue than Ole Miss - who subsequently had a net loss of $4.6 million. (Guess those aluminum seats are more expensive than I gave them credit for.***)

[Johnson85]

The SEC is the biggest arms race in American sports and I'm having trouble reconciling in my mind how I should look at MSU having the conference's lowest athletic budget, one of the most physically fit departments in the conference, and the fact that we have nowhere near the best facilities or recruiting classes.

Basically, outside of preparing for a pandemic, why are we trying to save so much money? How do we justify that?

On one hand there's being good stewards of your money and on the other hand, we are clearly not doing everything we can to win.

Are we too conservative?

Check out these two links:

https://mobile.twitter.com/scoutstever/status/1283841718887079941

https://www.google.com/amp/s/247sports.com/Article/SEC-football-recruiting-expenses-dwarfs-other-leagues-Alabama-Georgia-LSU-Florida-Auburn-144193496/Amp/

A few reasons we need to save a lot of money:

(1) At some point, ticket revenues are going to stagnate if not drop based on current trends.

(2) There are the tangible and intangible assets of the university athletic departments that you may not be considering. I don't mean tangible and intangible in the accounting sense, but the reality is all of the universities in the SEC, if shit hit the fan for them, have some donors they could go to that would dig a little deeper if the university athletic department was really in trouble. This "asset" for Mississippi state is probably smaller than most SEC universities.

(3) THere's a lot of uncertainty on the table regarding paying athletes and NIL rules and how that's going to impact us. It might be that university giving dries up in exchange for funneling money directly to the players in "endorsement" deals. We're still going to have debt payments to make if that happens.

[Todd4State]

I mean we have done A TON of capital improvements in recent years. In the last decade we?ve built a new football only facility, did a major renovation and expansion of the football stadium, built a brand new state of the art baseball stadium, did major facility upgrades for pretty much every Olympic sport, we pay our major sport coaches more than many of our peers and recently increased assistant coach salary pools. And we still are turning a profit. This isn?t even considering The Hump renovations that will break ground in the next year or two (I personally would prefer a new arena but if that?s not happening at least we are doing something to help The Hump).

Are we still behind the big boys in many ways? Sure. And there?s a good chance that will always be the case on some fronts. But we have definitely come a long way and taken positive steps to close the gap. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the Templeton administration and administrations prior to that who really let us fall to the back of the pack in a big way. We have spent the last decade plus playing catch-up and still have plenty of room to grow.

I think this is a really good point. We need to catch up on all of our facilities first as a whole before we go back and then start spending big in other areas. The Hump definitely needs it. And then we do need to enclose Davis Wade in some form or fashion soon after that. Otherwise I think we're mostly caught up on everything else facility wise unless there is something like soccer that needs it that I'm unaware of.

We're turning enough of a profit I do think we could and should spend more on:

1. Football recruiting. We could afford another recruiting analyst or two easily. Did we ever really replace Patrick Austin? We could also increase it on materials and things that we send players. I've always felt like we could do more as far as football recruiting than what we currently do.

2. Hire a football only compliance staff. Make it lawyer based and try to hire someone from that firm in Birmingham that always gets Ole Miss off the hook.

3. Buy back the interlocking MSU and use it at least once or twice a year along with the M-State logo.

[ShotgunDawg]

I mean we have done A TON of capital improvements in recent years. In the last decade we?ve built a new football only facility, did a major renovation and expansion of the football stadium, built a brand new state of the art baseball stadium, did major facility upgrades for pretty much every Olympic sport, we pay our major sport coaches more than many of our peers and recently increased assistant coach salary pools. And we still are turning a profit. This isn?t even considering The Hump renovations that will break ground in the next year or two (I personally would prefer a new arena but if that?s not happening at least we are doing something to help The Hump).

Are we still behind the big boys in many ways? Sure. And there?s a good chance that will always be the case on some fronts. But we have definitely come a long way and taken positive steps to close the gap. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the Templeton administration and administrations prior to that who really let us fall to the back of the pack in a big way. We have spent the last decade plus playing catch-up and still have plenty of room to grow.

We have done a ton, but with the amount of money we are making and saving, it's clear that we should be doing more. Unless Cohen and Keenum know of some reason to be running an overly frugal budget that other SEC ADs are unaware of.

[RocketDawg]

Good point. Free hot dogs right around the corner.

I'm actually surprised there isn't more discussion on this. People accept us spending less and saving more than anyone else while we have 2nd rate SEC facilities, a trailer home in our South EZ, and a injury hazard on the East side.

What is the injury hazard?

[Todd4State]

We have done a ton, but with the amount of money we are making and saving, it's clear that we should be doing more. Unless Cohen and Keenum know of some reason to be running an overly frugal budget that other SEC ADs are unaware of.

I'd like to know what the surplus we have made is. Because the 13 million is only for this year right? I know we spent a ton on the baseball field.

[ShotgunDawg]

I'd like to know what the surplus we have made is. Because the 13 million is only for this year right? I know we spent a ton on the baseball field.

When I looked at the reported financials for one of my roof posts, on paper we had well over $60 mil saved. Maybe we’re just better at accounting than everyone else, but my guess is that we’re just being overly conservative.

Yes.... we’ve won a lot but outside of DNF, we’re chasing the rest of the conference in virtually every other facility.

Why? Why are we choosing to chase instead of taking the lead?

And to the person that I know will respond with “write a check”. We’re the 5th most profitable department in the SEC.

If we’re making a profit, why can’t they spend money we already have?

1283895845147082753

https://twitter.com/bulldawgs247/status/1283895845147082753

[msbulldog]

The SEC is the biggest arms race in American sports and I'm having trouble reconciling in my mind how I should look at MSU having the conference's lowest athletic budget, one of the most physically fit departments in the conference, and the fact that we have nowhere near the best facilities or recruiting classes.

Basically, outside of preparing for a pandemic, why are we trying to save so much money? How do we justify that?

On one hand there's being good stewards of your money and on the other hand, we are clearly not doing everything we can to win.

Are we too conservative?

Check out these two links:

https://mobile.twitter.com/scoutstever/status/1283841718887079941

https://www.google.com/amp/s/247sports.com/Article/SEC-football-recruiting-expenses-dwarfs-other-leagues-Alabama-Georgia-LSU-Florida-Auburn-144193496/Amp/

Gun I'm going to respond to this before I read the rest of the responses, because I am sure someone else will bring these points up. Because of the fiscal responsibility of our athletic department, we are better set to withstand the economic problems that this virus is putting on us. We are better off than most of the SEC schools that have smaller budgets like us. Hell, Ole Miss is handing out salary cuts to coaches and staff in their athletic dept. If you're worried about what we spend on recruiting, let me ask what in recruiting costs money? You can't pay recruits or their coaches, you can't give them gifts. You have travel and maybe airfare, but damn MSU owns a boat load of planes. The money most schools spend on recruiting is in recruiting staff (see Alabama). How many people do you need to track basically 1500 or so high school players? I might add our current staff does a helluva job. Gun, I think you're just starting a thread to get posts. Does ED pay you?

[ShotgunDawg]

Gun I'm going to respond to this before I read the rest of the responses, because I am sure someone else will bring these points up. Because of the fiscal responsibility of our athletic department, we are better set to withstand the economic problems that this virus is putting on us. We are better off than most of the SEC schools that have smaller budgets like us. Hell, Ole Miss is handing out salary cuts to coaches and staff in their athletic dept. If you're worried about what we spend on recruiting, let me ask what in recruiting costs money? You can't pay recruits or their coaches, you can't give them gifts. You have travel and maybe airfare, but damn MSU owns a boat load of planes. The money most schools spend on recruiting is in recruiting staff (see Alabama). How many people do you need to track basically 1500 or so high school players? I might add our current staff does a helluva job. Gun, I think you're just starting a thread to get posts. Does ED pay you?

So our athletic department knew about COVID before it happened?

Yes, they look good right now, but were we really saving money for a pandemic? I'm happy we're on the position we are in, but it does bring up questions about why we apparently aren't doing everything we can to win.

Again, outside of baseball, we are in the bottom tier of SEC facilities.

Do you think better facilities than our competition helps you win? I do.

Mainly, I don't want MSU to settle for "good enough". People say we've been to 10 bowl games in a row, etc but we haven't won anything. We haven't won the West and haven't won a Natty in any sport.

It's not good enough. If we're making a profit than we should be investing that into the programs and facilities. No saving for a once in a lifetime pandemic.

[ShotgunDawg]

Gun I'm going to respond to this before I read the rest of the responses, because I am sure someone else will bring these points up. Because of the fiscal responsibility of our athletic department, we are better set to withstand the economic problems that this virus is putting on us. We are better off than most of the SEC schools that have smaller budgets like us. Hell, Ole Miss is handing out salary cuts to coaches and staff in their athletic dept. If you're worried about what we spend on recruiting, let me ask what in recruiting costs money? You can't pay recruits or their coaches, you can't give them gifts. You have travel and maybe airfare, but damn MSU owns a boat load of planes. The money most schools spend on recruiting is in recruiting staff (see Alabama). How many people do you need to track basically 1500 or so high school players? I might add our current staff does a helluva job. Gun, I think you're just starting a thread to get posts. Does ED pay you?

I agree our staff does a hell of a job, but that doesn’t mean they’re above questions.

A good fan base SHOULD ask questions. That’s the impact we can have to assure ourselves of a continued successful athletic department.

Do you wish people would’ve asked LT questions?

[Ezsoil]

The SEC is the biggest arms race in American sports and I'm having trouble reconciling in my mind how I should look at MSU having the conference's lowest athletic budget, one of the most physically fit departments in the conference, and the fact that we have nowhere near the best facilities or recruiting classes.

Basically, outside of preparing for a pandemic, why are we trying to save so much money? How do we justify that?

On one hand there's being good stewards of your money and on the other hand, we are clearly not doing everything we can to win.

Are we too conservative?

Check out these two links:

https://mobile.twitter.com/scoutstever/status/1283841718887079941

https://www.google.com/amp/s/247sports.com/Article/SEC-football-recruiting-expenses-dwarfs-other-leagues-Alabama-Georgia-LSU-Florida-Auburn-144193496/Amp/


The next six months are critical for the survival of sports as we know it...whether or not we are willing to admit it...life as we have known it will be forever changed...governors and mayors now have the authority to dictate what activities we can Or can't attend (including church) all in the name of "public safety". The lost revenue from this panic will be devastating for many of the schools outside the the power 5. Professional sports are on a suicidal spiral with this BLM and China love..I doubt the WNBA will survive.

So I'd say it's smart to be fiscally responsible as it may determine whether or not we will be one of the viable athletic programs going forward.

[Todd4State]

The next six months are critical for the survival of sports as we know it...whether or not we are willing to admit it...life as we have known it will be forever changed...governors and mayors now have the authority to dictate what activities we can Or can't attend (including church) all in the name of "public safety". The lost revenue from this panic will be devastating for many of the schools outside the the power 5. Professional sports are on a suicidal spiral with this BLM and China love..I doubt the WNBA will survive.

So I'd say it's smart to be fiscally responsible as it may determine whether or not we will be one of the viable athletic programs going forward.

I agree that we should re-assess where our athletic department is financially after this COVID crisis is over. That's just common sense. The good news is after that is over we'll probably have enough money to do some really good things.

It does seem like our athletic department is always so proud of what they saved- it's very LT-ish. I wish there was more thinking about what we CAN do and not as much what we can't do. But that does need to happen after this pandemic is over and things settle down.

[Ezsoil]

I agree that we should re-assess where our athletic department is financially after this COVID crisis is over. That's just common sense. The good news is after that is over we'll probably have enough money to do some really good things.

It does seem like our athletic department is always so proud of what they saved- it's very LT-ish. I wish there was more thinking about what we CAN do and not as much what we can't do. But that does need to happen after this pandemic is over and things settle down.

I just hate to see what the permanent repercussions are going to be....how much of the classroom time will forever be transferred to the online world? what will happen to attendance overall? I believe the path forward will be different than what we have come to know we have to be right . as has been stated by Cohen and others that a lost football season could jeopardize the Hump renovations which is the biggest need now....

[Dawgpile]

When I looked at the reported financials for one of my roof posts, on paper we had well over $60 mil saved. Maybe we’re just better at accounting than everyone else, but my guess is that we’re just being overly conservative.

Yes.... we’ve won a lot but outside of DNF, we’re chasing the rest of the conference in virtually every other facility.

Why? Why are we choosing to chase instead of taking the lead?

And to the person that I know will respond with “write a check”. We’re the 5th most profitable department in the SEC.

If we’re making a profit, why can’t they spend money we already have?

1283895845147082753

https://twitter.com/bulldawgs247/status/1283895845147082753

2013-2018 we've banked $48 million. (quickie math from THIS (http://cafidatabase.knightcommission.org/fbs/sec/mississippi-state-university#!quicktabs-tab-institution_data-1) website)

[Maroonthirteen]

The joke goes....

Msu fans have one maroon shirt with a $20 in the front pocket. ....and they don't change either.

"Keeping it in the black"

[BrunswickDawg]

2013-2018 we've banked $48 million. (quickie math from THIS (http://cafidatabase.knightcommission.org/fbs/sec/mississippi-state-university#!quicktabs-tab-institution_data-1) website)

Man, that's a helluva website find.

OK - $48 million in the bank. To me that gives us security for a number of things - an unexpected coaching staff buyout; a need for a major salary adjustment, economic fall out from a shit season, a matching fund for a donation to ramp up some sort of opportunity (say some said I'll give you $10 million for the Hump Reno, but I want it matched dollar for dollar within a year or you lose it).
Other schools/athletic programs have large endowments to help with stuff like this, and we don't. It has been a factor in holding us back. I think it has been smart to take this approach.

[ShotgunDawg]

Man, that's a helluva website find.

OK - $48 million in the bank. To me that gives us security for a number of things - an unexpected coaching staff buyout; a need for a major salary adjustment, economic fall out from a shit season, a matching fund for a donation to ramp up some sort of opportunity (say some said I'll give you $10 million for the Hump Reno, but I want it matched dollar for dollar within a year or you lose it).
Other schools/athletic programs have large endowments to help with stuff like this, and we don't. It has been a factor in holding us back. I think it has been smart to take this approach.

Good point on some other schools having large endowments that provide the emergency fund. We certainly need to build that up so that we can actually spend the money the have

[Captain Falcon]

We have done a ton, but with the amount of money we are making and saving, it's clear that we should be doing more. Unless Cohen and Keenum know of some reason to be running an overly frugal budget that other SEC ADs are unaware of.

I am curious to know what this "more" is that you expect us to be doing. As I laid out, we've addressed pretty much every sport in recent years and don't have plans of stopping anytime soon. The Hump will be renovated pretty soon, then the expectation is that we'll have a football-only practice facility and additional DWS renovations in the next 5-10 years, and I'm sure there will be other areas we address from there. The one area I do think we could probably spend more is in recruiting, but facilities-wise I feel like we have handled things pretty well based on what one could realistically expect us to do.

I just think it's easy to say "we should be doing more" but I feel like it's important to acknowledge all that we have done and also clarify what you think we should be doing.

Another important thing: There are only about 15,000 members of the Bulldog Club. People want to give opinions on how the athletic department should spend its money but can't give a $100 a year to help support those goals.

[ShotgunDawg]

I am curious to know what this "more" is that you expect us to be doing. As I laid out, we've addressed pretty much every sport in recent years and don't have plans of stopping anytime soon. The Hump will be renovated pretty soon, then the expectation is that we'll have a football-only practice facility and additional DWS renovations in the next 5-10 years, and I'm sure there will be other areas we address from there. The one area I do think we could probably spend more is in recruiting, but facilities-wise I feel like we have handled things pretty well based on what one could realistically expect us to do.

I just think it's easy to say "we should be doing more" but I feel like it's important to acknowledge all that we have done and also clarify what you think we should be doing.

Another important thing: There are only about 15,000 members of the Bulldog Club. People want to give opinions on how the athletic department should spend its money but can't give a $100 a year to help support those goals.

Money isn't the issue. We're the 5th most profitable department in the SEC.

We have a trailer home in our south EZ, a box tree stand as our press box, the East side concourse is a mess, and our indoor facility is worse than most Texas HS.

Hey, we're in the black though. Like lots in the black.

[BrunswickDawg]

Money isn't the issue. We're the 5th most profitable department in the SEC.

We have a trailer home in our south EZ, a box tree stand as our press box, the East side concourse is a mess, and our indoor facility is worse than most Texas HS.

Hey, we're in the black though. Like lots in the black.

All of which are multi-million dollar projects. So, if we are saving money, that could be part of the plan to address those issues.

One of the things that you do on major gift funding campaigns is do a feasibility study to determine your fundraising capacities and the willingness of your donor base to give. I could totally see our donor base - after having done the football facility, the Mize basketball center, the NEZ, the softball and tennis facility, the track, the golf facility, the Dude, and an indoor tennis facility within a 10 year period - being stretched thin. It looks like we potentially anticipated some of that by our budgeting. That is not a bad thing.

[Captain Falcon]

Money isn't the issue. We're the 5th most profitable department in the SEC.

We have a trailer home in our south EZ, a box tree stand as our press box, the East side concourse is a mess, and our indoor facility is worse than most Texas HS.

Hey, we're in the black though. Like lots in the black.

1. I don't love the end zone seating either but there are pretty clearly plans to replace those with a more permanent premium seating option at some point in the coming years.

2. The press box is the one part of the stadium that doesn't make the school a dime. I've been in that press box more times than I can count, and yes it does suck. But there is a reason renovating it is not incredibly high on the list of priorities. We don't gain much from renovating that, other than the media gets to have a slightly more comfortable experience while they do their job? OK? We are justified in prioritizing other things. It's an area that's mostly inaccessible to and unseen by fans.

3. East side concourse will be renovated in the coming years.

4. We are building a new football practice facility at some point in the next few years.

I don't even disagree with you that most of those items need to be addressed... But I feel it's pretty common knowledge that those things are on the agenda to get addressed in the near future. So maybe acknowledge that before complaining about them.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Any Ole Miss coach that is making more than 100K is taking a pay cut due to Covid....

[Dawgpile]

Man, that's a helluva website find.

OK - $48 million in the bank. To me that gives us security for a number of things - an unexpected coaching staff buyout; a need for a major salary adjustment, economic fall out from a shit season, a matching fund for a donation to ramp up some sort of opportunity (say some said I'll give you $10 million for the Hump Reno, but I want it matched dollar for dollar within a year or you lose it).
Other schools/athletic programs have large endowments to help with stuff like this, and we don't. It has been a factor in holding us back. I think it has been smart to take this approach.

I'm a really frugal person IRL, and while I'm not a Larry Templeton, I like the fact we have bank reserves to draw on for unforseen events just like the pandemic.

You made mention of endowments, and they are usually earmarked by the benefactor to go towards a specific area. So, even if State had a huge endowment like Vanderbilt most of it would not be available to athletics.

There were rumors several years ago about the Wade family creating a 9-figure endowment for athletics. I never saw any evidence other than message board chatter that was a fact.

[Dawgology]

I'm a really frugal person IRL, and while I'm not a Larry Templeton, I like the fact we have bank reserves to draw on for unforseen events just like the pandemic.

You made mention of endowments, and they are usually earmarked by the benefactor to go towards a specific area. So, even if State had a huge endowment like Vanderbilt most of it would not be available to athletics.

There were rumors several years ago about the Wade family creating a 9-figure endowment for athletics. I never saw any evidence other than message board chatter that was a fact.

The endowment is real but it is earmarked from what I understand and was split 50/50 (or something like that) between academics and sports (all sports)

I, too, can be a bit frugal so I like seeing money set back for unforeseen circumstances or large projects to just pay cash and replace with donations. It’s also my understanding that there are some pretty big restrictions on where the money comes from for buyouts. If the money is generated by the school I don’t know if more than $250k of it can be touched for salaries or buyouts per year.