ArkLaTex In-depth: The Finances of Grambling Athletics

[The Founder]

https://www.ktbs.com/news/arklatex-...cle_9a1508e2-2b2c-11e9-b777-0b666db586cd.html

In college athletics one sport rules all.

"Football is the crown jewel. I mean hey I don't care where you go or what you do that's the crown jewel and at Grambling State University, the rich legacy that we have here, football is the crown jewel. We have many other sports that are great sports that are doing great, but we know, like you say, where the revenue comes from and what we have to do in order to ensure that," said Grambling State University Athletic Director David Ponton.

"The amount of support we've gotten from the state has dwindled over the years. We went from $32 million to $13 million, so to take that kind of hit most of the burden for the finances are placed on our students. They self-tax themselves $100 a semester in order to support our minor sports and our non-venue producing sports which helps a tremendous amount," Ponton said.

 

[Journalist]

It's all over the place. I think there's a bill in the Texas Legislature regarding Texas Southern's athletics fee

https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=86R&Bill=HB1516

Maybe @Herbert77060 or someone can enlighten us on this one.

 

[Journalist]

@The Founder Sorry about somewhat hijacking your thread.

But this is some of the undercurrent for me suggesting an 8-game schedule in football, along with other things. The cost of doing business in college athletics is starting to skyrocket. Our schools have to be smart and proactive in countering this tide before we wind up in a state with capped student fees like Virginia or a student body just continuously voting against it. We have to do something bold and strategic to raise funds to keep this thing going.

 

[Herbert77060]

It's all over the place. I think there's a bill in the Texas Legislature regarding Texas Southern's athletics fee

https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=86R&Bill=HB1516

Maybe @Herbert77060 or someone can enlighten us on this one.

Nahhh, not me. I am a fan...pure and simple. I try and stay out of the nuts and bolts. I learned my lesson from getting too close in church. I am a pew member.

 

[Journalist]

Nahhh, not me. I am a fan...pure and simple. I try and stay out of the nuts and bolts. I learned my lesson from getting too close in church. I am a pew member.

LMAO. I understand

 

[LAW DAWG]

It's all over the place. I think there's a bill in the Texas Legislature regarding Texas Southern's athletics fee

https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=86R&Bill=HB1516

Maybe @Herbert77060 or someone can enlighten us on this one.

Recall those post/that thread some months ago about the current students at my TSU wanting to enhance the on campus sports venues? Well, passage of the legislation you've made mention of is a necessary step in furtherance of that effort.

 

[Journalist]

Recall those post/that thread some months ago about the current students at my TSU wanting to enhance the on campus sports venues? Well, passage of the legislation you've made mention of is a necessary step in furtherance of that effort.

Thanks!

 

[In_The_662]

I got into a debate on Twitter with some people who felt we should focus more on track and field since it is a bigger sport worldwide and stop focusing so much on football. I was like "Really?". The gap in track and field overall is as big if not bigger than football because of money while many of us can barely can focus on 1-2 sports to be competitive at our level. We have great individual athletes but as far as a whole team to compete with Arkansas, UCLA, etc. we are years away

Football wise, I think most are doing well with what we have compared to the rest of FCS and putting an overall better product on the field can only enhance that.

 

[JayRob]

This is why some schools have little choice but to schedule teams that will bring fans to their stadiums. Now can people see why Grambling's AD has to schedule school's like JSU and Alcorn, even when they're not on the schedule as a conference game?

 

[Fiyah]

This is why some schools have little choice but to schedule teams that will bring fans to their stadiums. Now can people see why Grambling's AD has to schedule school's like JSU and Alcorn, even when they're not on the schedule as a conference game?

Nope, I don't buy that theory. They have 1 of the most attended games in all of FCS football (Bayou Classic) and you can't make ends meet with that kind of income, something else is wrong. Why can the majority of the rest of the conference do it without doing that except these certain schools. If you know the 1 year out of 5 years that you will not have a certain school in advance, you can schedule some other type of game to replace this alleged loss of income.

 

[The Founder]

Nope, I don't buy that theory. They have 1 of the most attended games in all of FCS football (Bayou Classic) and you can't make ends meet with that kind of income, something else is wrong. Why can the majority of the rest of the conference do it without doing that except these certain schools. If you know the 1 year out of 5 years that you will not have a certain school in advance, you can schedule some other type of game to replace this alleged loss of income.

Scheduling is a SWAC Administration problem. The administration could hire 5 interns to do a round robin schedule of when teams are to play one another and what dates. This would leave ADs to schedule on a few games. The SEC does it....

To me it's called work.

I'm not happy with playing conference opponents as non-conference games.

 

[2kool]

Nope, I don't buy that theory. They have 1 of the most attended games in all of FCS football (Bayou Classic) and you can't make ends meet with that kind of income, something else is wrong. Why can the majority of the rest of the conference do it without doing that except these certain schools. If you know the 1 year out of 5 years that you will not have a certain school in advance, you can schedule some other type of game to replace this alleged loss of income.

Whats the Bayou Classic payout to both schools?

 

[Brave]

Whats the Bayou Classic payout to both schools?

according to the SU report about 500k after expenses

 

[jag4life]

Nope, I don't buy that theory. They have 1 of the most attended games in all of FCS football (Bayou Classic) and you can't make ends meet with that kind of income, something else is wrong. Why can the majority of the rest of the conference do it without doing that except these certain schools. If you know the 1 year out of 5 years that you will not have a certain school in advance, you can schedule some other type of game to replace this alleged loss of income.

Jayrob is off base on this as usual. His own school's athletic department had an $800k deficit in 2017-18 themselves.

 

[JayRob]

Jayrob is off base on this as usual. His own school's athletic department had an $800k deficit in 2017-18 themselves.

And where is that incompetent AD now? Thank you.
Now post if you would games that will bring in more revenue than rival schools.
In addition, most FCS schools don't make much of a profit in athletics overall, but in football, JSU shouldn't and more than likely didn't lose revenue.

 

[Journalist]

Nope, I don't buy that theory. They have 1 of the most attended games in all of FCS football (Bayou Classic) and you can't make ends meet with that kind of income, something else is wrong. Why can the majority of the rest of the conference do it without doing that except these certain schools. If you know the 1 year out of 5 years that you will not have a certain school in advance, you can schedule some other type of game to replace this alleged loss of income.

It's not as hard as folks think.

Even coming up with the initial drops could be decided by matching teams from opposing divisions in alphabetical order and going from there. Start the 8-game conference schedule four years from the next academic year, implementing it in 2022. That will give athletic directors ample time to negotiate neutral site games with attractive opponents/play a money game and fill their schedules. Also, I would stack the divisional games at the end of the regular season schedule.

After Year 5, the cycle repeats, flipping home field (ex. Year 1 would be UAPB at AAMU and Year 6 would be AAMU at UAPB).

Year 1
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Alabama A&M
Grambling/Alabama State
Prairie View/Alcorn
Southern/Jackson State
Texas Southern/Mississippi Valley

Year 2
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Alabama State
Grambling/Alcorn
Prairie View/Jackson State
Southern/Mississippi Valley
Texas Southern/Alabama A&M

Year 3
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Alcorn
Grambling/Jackson State
Prairie View/Mississippi Valley
Southern/Alabama A&M
Texas Southern/Alabama State

Year 4
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Jackson State
Grambling/Mississippi Valley
Prairie View/Alabama A&M
Southern/Alabama State
Texas Southern/Alcorn

Year 5
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Mississippi Valley
Grambling/Alabama A&M
Prairie View/Alabama State
Southern/Alcorn
Texas Southern/Jackson State

 

[The Founder]

It's not as hard as folks think.

Even coming up with the initial drops could be decided by matching teams from opposing divisions in alphabetical order and going from there. Start the 8-game conference schedule four years from the next academic year, implementing it in 2022. That will give athletic directors ample time to negotiate neutral site games with attractive opponents/play a money game and fill their schedules. Also, I would stack the divisional games at the end of the regular season schedule.

After Year 5, the cycle repeats, flipping home field (ex. Year 1 would be UAPB at AAMU and Year 6 would be AAMU at UAPB).

Year 1
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Alabama A&M
Grambling/Alabama State
Prairie View/Alcorn
Southern/Jackson State
Texas Southern/Mississippi Valley

Year 2
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Alabama State
Grambling/Alcorn
Prairie View/Jackson State
Southern/Mississippi Valley
Texas Southern/Alabama A&M

Year 3
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Alcorn
Grambling/Jackson State
Prairie View/Mississippi Valley
Southern/Alabama A&M
Texas Southern/Alabama State

Year 4
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Jackson State
Grambling/Mississippi Valley
Prairie View/Alabama A&M
Southern/Alabama State
Texas Southern/Alcorn

Year 5
Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Mississippi Valley
Grambling/Alabama A&M
Prairie View/Alabama State
Southern/Alcorn
Texas Southern/Jackson State

Bruh I have BEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN saying this...the shit is not that hard.

 

[Journalist]

Bruh I have BEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN saying this...the shit is not that hard.

... and that's why it hasn't happened yet, because it's a simple fix and easy to implement.

I would LOVE to see an 8-game schedule where the divisional games are the four last games of the regular season. The rolling off the schedule once every five years is a simple fix to keep the 8-game schedule going.

Give the schools four years to get their ducks in a row, and iron out potential conflicts/preferred dates to play. It can be done.

 

[JROCK]

Nope, I don't buy that theory. They have 1 of the most attended games in all of FCS football (Bayou Classic) and you can't make ends meet with that kind of income, something else is wrong. Why can the majority of the rest of the conference do it without doing that except these certain schools. If you know the 1 year out of 5 years that you will not have a certain school in advance, you can schedule some other type of game to replace this alleged loss of income.

You've lost your mind. There are no FCS school's athletic department that are self sufficient....LMAO!

 

[SUjagTILLiDIE]

You've lost your mind. There are no FCS school's athletic department that are self sufficient....LMAO!

Especially not PV lol. Last time I remember they were atleast 80 plus % school funds.

 

[JayRob]

I keep asking them to post out of conference games that will bring in more revenue than rival games and I've yet to get a decent response.

 

[lilrj1919]

LMAO

 

[Journalist]

I keep asking them to post out of conference games that will bring in more revenue than rival games and I've yet to get a decent response.

I'll bite ...

Jackson actually has two OOC dates to fill since Tennessee State is locked in, correct ...

In a year they don't play Southern or Grambling ... Jackson could use those two other OOC dates to either play an FBS or get a neutral site/home game against FAMU, NCAT, Howard. Or schedule a home game against an attractive FCS school and bring in Tuskegee. Or play two FBS teams. There are options.

The model doesn't mean Jackson would be without Southern or Grambling every year. They would miss one road game, and one home game against Southern and Grambling within the same 10-year span.

 

[Fiyah]

It's not as hard as folks think.

After Year 5, the cycle repeats, flipping home field (ex. Year 1 would be UAPB at AAMU and Year 6 would be AAMU at UAPB).

We seem to be the only ones that understand this simple scheduling fix.
Now, I wouldn't want to flip it every 5 years, just keep it rotating.

... and that's why it hasn't happened yet, because it's a simple fix and easy to implement.

I would LOVE to see an 8-game schedule where the divisional games are the four last games of the regular season. The rolling off the schedule once every five years is a simple fix to keep the 8-game schedule going.

Give the schools four years to get their ducks in a row, and iron out potential conflicts/preferred dates to play. It can be done.

I couldn't go with the division games being the last 4 conference games since PV plays 2 of it's division games in Aug/Sept (Labor Day Classic and the State Fair Classic).

You've lost your mind. There are no FCS school's athletic department that are self sufficient....LMAO!

And?

Especially not PV lol. Last time I remember they were atleast 80 plus % school funds.

PV is not running a deficit program either...

 

[JayRob]

I'll bite ...

Jackson actually has two OOC dates to fill since Tennessee State is locked in, correct ...

In a year they don't play Southern or Grambling ... Jackson could use those two other OOC dates to either play an FBS or get a neutral site/home game against FAMU, NCAT, Howard. Or schedule a home game against an attractive FCS school and bring in Tuskegee. Or play two FBS teams. There are options.

The model doesn't mean Jackson would be without Southern or Grambling every year. They would miss one road game, and one home game against Southern and Grambling within the same 10-year span.

I wasn't referring to JSU per say, I was referring to Grambling and other schools that do that.
I doubt if JSU's losing revenue during the football season any how, so really there's no need for JSU to schedule non conference SWAC schools, but still though, I wouldn't have a problem with Grambling and southern remaining on the schedule regardless.