FAMU Satisfied Joining The Swac?


G

Gramfam92

Active Member
First of all congratulations to FAMU on it's CB Victory & first SWAC win since Grambling in 2016. But I'd like to know from a fan & administration standpoint is FAMU happy with the move to the SWAC? Are there any numbers someone can share 2017-19 vs 2021-23 FAMU Athletics to justify the move?

1) I've heard there were studies estimating travel expenses would be decreased by roughly $400k or so by joining the SWAC. Has that been accurate & how much has FAMU travel expenses been reduced as a percentage of revenue/ budget ve MEAC?

2) I heard numbers around $9 million dollars debt for the Athletic program pre SWAC. Is debt more manageable? Has the move been beneficial financially?


3)Would FAMU prefer the FCS playoffs still? They were playing in front of 4,100 fans in Hammond, La. in their last playoff game , but 41, 000 in Atl on network TV with the Vice President among others in attendance & a $1.2 million payout for the Conference. Plus the SWAC Championship game.



SWAC fans like me are thrilled to have FAMU, but what's the general mood in Tallahassee about being in the SWAC 3 years in ? Numbers from revenue to attendance would be appreciated.
 
Last edited:

Click here to visit HBCUSportsShop
Here are the answers based on what I know:

1) I've heard there were studies estimating travel expenses would be decreased by roughly $400k or so by joining the SWAC. Has that been accurate & how much has FAMU travel expenses been reduced as a percentage of revenue/ budget ve MEAC?

From the looks of based on the information for EADA and Knight-Newhouse, when you take into account inflation the move from the SWAC has been a good move when it comes to decreasing travel expenses. No more traveling pass Carolinas like to places like Delaware State, Howard, Morgan State, Coppin, UMES.

I heard numbers around $9 million dollars debt for the Athletic program pre SWAC. Is debt more manageable? Has the move been beneficial financially?

FAMU is climbing out of debt, but I believe they are breaking even this year with the income from the celebration bowl.

Would FAMU prefer the FCS playoffs still? They were playing in front of 4,100 fans in Hammond, La. in their last playoff game , but 41, 000 in Atl on network TV with the Vice President among others in attendance & a $1.2 million payout for the Conference. Plus the SWAC Championship game.

FAMU stance has always been Celebration Bowl first and playoffs second if they are not in the celebration bowl. From my understanding with the new AD at FAMU they are going to do better at scheduling out of conference games. Hopefully we will never see FAMU play a non NCAA school again and maybe only playing 1 D2 school per season.

The thing with the FCS Playoffs is that you have to bid to host home games and attendance is going to depend on who you are playing in most cases. Typically HBCU don't do well with attedance when playing non-hbcus and some FCS schools that are in the playoffs have bad attedance anyway.

Can money be made by being the FCS Playoffs, the answer is yes but it takes a few things working out for a school. Attedance has to be high regardless who they are playing, so you are banking on the home fans coming out. Schools can 't bid more than what they would make on a regular home game plus subtracting whatever cut the NCAA is taking. Where a lot of schools mess up is they over bid for the home games, known there bid is more than what they could make from each home game. The minimum bid is 40,000 and I have heard schools biding as high as 150,000. the other problem is that while the NCAA does pay for travel for the visting school, it using a reembersement system so if the schools does not have the funds ahead of time they are typically going into debt to cover the cost of travel before they get the money back from the NCAA.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top