So which is it?

[NathanDarby]

I'd like to know exactly how much more per year it will cost us to stay in the WAC versus the Sunbelt. I have seen posts from several people saying North Texas saved about $300,000 a year on travel by being in the Sunbelt, and that our savings would be similar. But I have seen posts from Dwayne and others, saying that staying in the WAC is going to require someone to pony up around 2 million over the next couple of years. So which is it?

If the $300,000 figure is correct, I don't understand all the people saying we will go bankrupt by the middle of next week in the WAC. Also, all these wonderful facility improvements like ULL and NT aren't going to happen with just $300,000 a year. Thats going to require the infamous "PLAN" to get that kind of money together, whichever conference we choose. Now, if the multi-million figure is correct, I hope someone is feeling really generous!

Bottom line, what's the real deal on the finance situation?

[weunice]

Also consider the impact that playing local teams has on fans and INTEREST.

You have some fans that say they will not go to another Tech game if we join the SBC.
You have others that say they will welcome the ability to travel to away games in a regional SBC.

Also consider their fans travelling. This is where the SBC helps us out, lack of fan support on their part or not. UNT is bringing more fans to Ruston than any WAC team is. Period.

None of us are going to stop going to Tech games. We bleed red and blue too much. That really means we have to anticipate whether our casual fans want to see us play Sun Belt teams or WAC teams. I personally feel that we be able to build a better fan base if we play local teams but it isn't up to me and I am sure most of you are thankful for that. If the big $$$ alums are serious about keeping us in the WAC, then they had better fess up for DRASTIC facility improvements and marketing dollars while they are at it, otherwise we will continue to fall behind SBC schools in this regard.

Perception means a hill of nothing if 10 years down the road ULL is sporting 25k fans on a regular basis, with a winning team and indoor practice facility while we are still putting 18k in the stands with a stadium that still needs a paint job. Our priorities have to be on the facilities, fan base and mens basketball side of things. If we don't add anything to a conference, what is the point of taking us? Wins in football obviously mean nothing. MENS basketball tourney appearances mean something. They bring revenue. I read somewhere where most teams in the lower bowls lose money or break even. Some prize. Football only means something in the fan support category at this level. If we went 0-10 and put 30k in the stands, the Big 12 might be interested. Otherwise CUSA doesn't choose Tulsa, SMU, Rice AND UTEP over us. If we had better facilities than those schools and significantly better fan support, then it wouldn't have boiled down to TV sets.

Besides, we need a local bowl to prove to the world that we travel VERY well. It is one of our positives and nobody knows about it.

[Dwayne From Minden]

We are losing somwhere around $300,000 annually before "in-kind" monies are added into the equation to "balance" out the picture with the WAC in its present make-up...

Take away the bus rides to SMU, Tulsa and Rice for the minor sports and sometimes in football and you can do the math yourself -

We ARE NOT making money in the WAC right now, we are only keeping our heads above water -

Take the $300,000 loss -

Add in $250,000 for women's bowling -

Add in $250,000 for women's soccer -

And you are stairing at a loss of ($800,000) right now before SMU, Rice, and Tulsa leave for CUSA -

Do the math, its not that hard - and all this is under the ASSUMPTION that our revenues remain where they are at and DON'T drop - and we know that conference revenue sharing is DROPPING the next 3 years and that we have NO TV contract as of right now -

Like I said - someone better be WILLING to ponyup about $2 million over the next two years just to stay at the same point we are at right now -

Finances will DICTATE what happens -

And the more I hear our administrators say "at this point in time" or "for right now" - the more I'm convienced that they are also coming around to the fact that even if everything was "perfect" staying in the WAC is going to intitled tightening a taught belt, a couple of more notches -

If this football season is as bad as I think it will be both on the field and at the box office - it will only hasten those decisions -

I just don't see throwing another $300,000 to $400,000 down the drain once again -

[Bigdog13]

Dwayne, did anything ever come out of the quazi-fake-did'nt happen discussions we had through the UNT pres. ?I sure hope so or we are looking at some tough times ahead. Pride is gonna do us in.

[Champ967]

Pride is gonna do us in.

Some would say that it is lack of pride that will do us in. I'm not sure which camp I fall in.

I just hope our pride (or lack of) has not already done us in.

Havent lost hope yet. But I'm gonna counting on Ronny to cheer me up when he visits our Little Rock CHAMPS meeting this week.

(Shameless plug there!)

[NathanDarby]

We are losing somwhere around $300,000 annually before "in-kind" monies are added into the equation to "balance" out the picture with the WAC in its present make-up...

Take away the bus rides to SMU, Tulsa and Rice for the minor sports and sometimes in football and you can do the math yourself -

We ARE NOT making money in the WAC right now, we are only keeping our heads above water -

Take the $300,000 loss -

Add in $250,000 for women's bowling -

Add in $250,000 for women's soccer -

And you are stairing at a loss of ($800,000) right now before SMU, Rice, and Tulsa leave for CUSA -

Do the math, its not that hard - and all this is under the ASSUMPTION that our revenues remain where they are at and DON'T drop - and we know that conference revenue sharing is DROPPING the next 3 years and that we have NO TV contract as of right now -

Like I said - someone better be WILLING to ponyup about $2 million over the next two years just to stay at the same point we are at right now -

Finances will DICTATE what happens -

And the more I hear our administrators say "at this point in time" or "for right now" - the more I'm convienced that they are also coming around to the fact that even if everything was "perfect" staying in the WAC is going to intitled tightening a taught belt, a couple of more notches -

If this football season is as bad as I think it will be both on the field and at the box office - it will only hasten those decisions -

I just don't see throwing another $300,000 to $400,000 down the drain once again -

Thanks for the numbers, Dwayne. Ok, lets take this discussion another step:

It is established above that we stand to lose about $800,000 this year in the WAC. If we stay in the WAC past 2004, we will loose even more than that in future seasons due to declines in basketball monies and from trading bus trips to SMU, Rice, and Tulsa for plane trips to the west coast.

Now, lets assume we keep everything else the same, and just switch conferences to the Sunbelt. So instead of starting with a $300,000 loss, we start by breaking even becasue we will save aproximately that amount from reduced travel costs. (If someone has a more accurate figure for travel savings, please let us know.) We STILL have to add bowling and soccer, so that puts us $500,000 in the hole. Our share of conference revenue is likely to be a bit smaller in the Sunbelt as well, so that is at least a wash, and would likely put us farther in the hole.

From this, we can draw a few conclusions. All the people thinking that if we join the Sunbelt we will suddenly have huge piles of free cash to put into facility upgrades are misleading themselves. It is not happening! Regardless of our conference affiliation, we are going to have to raise a LOT of new money before anything can be done with the facilities. From all the information I have seen, the Sunbelt simply WILL NOT save us enough to enable any meaningful investments in facilities. I wish that it would, but for now all you people touting this as the reason we should join the Belt are going to have to find a new argument. As far as I can tell, and I honestly hope someone can tell me where my line of thinking is wrong, if we don't increase the budget by finding some new or bigger income sources, we are going to loose money regardless of which conference we are in.

[Edward_Longshanks]

I can see your argument Nathan regarding the income sources. What I can't see is how a major push for revenue creation will mitigate the income drain the newly-constituted WAC will represent for Louisiana Tech.

If we add bowling and soccer and remain in the WAC, then that will only add to the debt Tech is staring at. In the Sun Belt, you at least chop off this huge nightmare in terms of travel costs. You may still be in debt, but at least a push for revenue creation can have a greater impact in resolving the difference.

I'm staring at the gas prices going home from my place of work. It is 20 plus cents higher than what it was during football season. If this doesn't change, then it will impact Tech's transportation budget in ways we haven't thought about. The farther you have to travel, the more you are going to take a hit to your profit margin both in terms of distance covered and in the inflated price of fuel.

I do think pride is playing too much of a role in this when we clearly are in a position where we need to survive. Pride dictated that Washington stay in Philadelphia early in the Revolution. Reality dictated that Washington retreat to Valley Forge, build up his limited resources, and live to fight another day.

In a football sense, we are at one of those moments in time where tactical retreat appears to be the best answer. We can win, but we've got to survive a bitter winter or several bitter winters first.

We don't have a good choice in this situation. To me, the financial reality must take a step above pride at this moment so that we can move forward in the future.

[CARTEK]

It is time for the powers that be to come up with a written plan, annouce it, and implement a major fund raising effort to move the plan forward.

[RealityCheck]

If bowling costs $250K per year with only 5 scholarships, then another sport should have been chosen. But the low cost is exactly why it was chosen. $150K-$200K should easily cover this sport every year.

Soccer may cost more than $250K next year with WAC travel, but costs will be less this year even if all 12 scholarships are awarded due to the limited regional schedule.

WAC revenues should go up for Tech next year if it stays with only a 6-way split instead of 10. Each school's basketball money share will go from under $400K this year to over $500K with a 6-way split next year despite a significant drop in the WAC total.

And no one has even mentioned the subject of getting a share of the WAC entrance and exit fees resulting from the moves being made. That's at least $6 million that should be split primarily among the six (if Tech stays) remaining schools.

[TECH88]

Fellas, let's all calm down for a minute. We need to stay right where we are, at least for the next two years. I honestly believe that we're gonna go through this CUSA thing again within the next 12-18 months. Let's lick our wounds and move on. We should concentrate on winning the WAC in footall and beating the $--t out of UTEP, SMU, Rice, and Tulsa(No pregame speeches needed for these)

[EJ]

It is time for the powers that be to come up with a written plan, annouce it, and implement a major fund raising effort to move the plan forward.

Another year passes and...

[arkstfan]

NCAA News had an article about bowling some time back and it looked like the cost of bowling should be less than $75,000 PLUS the cost of scholarships (which vary widely by school).

[NathanDarby]

NCAA News had an article about bowling some time back and it looked like the cost of bowling should be less than $75,000 PLUS the cost of scholarships (which vary widely by school).

I thought $250,000 for bowling sounded a little high as well. Especially considering Tech already has its own bowling lanes. So all you'd need to pay for is some bowling balls, uniforms, coaches salary, and travel. (+scholarships, of course) Unless, we are buying some REALLY fancy uniforms or platinum covered P-Diddy Signature Edition bowling balls, I can't see any possible way to spend $250,000 on bowling.

These figures for WAC revenue increasing because of a 6-way split, exit and entrance fees, etc, are exactly the information I was interested in. I have to believe that the AD is well aware of the financial situation we will face in the next year or two after taking into consideration all the changes due to teams coming and going, new TV contracts, etc. I doubt they would knowingly leave us in a situation that would bankrupt the program in 2 or 3 years just out of pride, as some fear. Apparently, they know we can afford the WAC, for the next year or so anyway. I think this is a calculated move they think we can afford to hold out for another round or re-alignment.

That being said, WE NEED A DAMN PLAN TO IMPROVE FACILITIES!! We need it REGARDLESS of what we do conference-wise. Any meaningful facility work is going ot cost MILLIONS, so arguing over whether or not to save a few hundred thousand here and there by joining or not joining the Sunbelt is almost irrevelant to facility improvements. It is going to require a big infusion of cash, whether it come from 5 big donors, a wide-ranging "grass-roots" fund raising effort, increaded revenues from guarantees and home game profits, or corporate sponsorships. Now, any sensible person would be trying their dead-level best to get as much money as possible from ALL of these sources, so we can have the best facilities we can possibly afford. That will only make us that much more attractive in any future conference shakeups. The big question is, do we have sensible people running the show who are actually going to do it?

Go look at Troy State's stadium, go look at ULL's plan, go look at Southern Miss' expansion plan, look at what MTSU did with their stadium a few years back, look at North Texas' work going on. We are already way behind these guys as far as improvement plans go, and the gap is only growing larger with every day that passes. The clock is ticking, and something needs happen soon.

[arkstfan]

With only five scholarships bowling should be pretty dang cheap.

Everyone is in construction mode right now. This is the facility we built year before last. If you've ever been to Indian Stadium, it is in front of the old end zone complex.
http://www.tribalgrounds.com/article.php?sid=278

[Dwayne From Minden]

NCAA News had an article about bowling some time back and it looked like the cost of bowling should be less than $75,000 PLUS the cost of scholarships (which vary widely by school).

I'm just quoting what it will take per sport to get us up to the minimum # of scholarships required for D-1A -

Whether or not the whole $500,000 is split evenly between bowling and soccer is a whole different subject -

Basically - it is going to cost us $500,000 to add the two sports and to be complient with D-1A scholarship levels -