WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

[cats2506]

DHIW is all screwed up again, The bids are placed with the conference, (because 2 teams are represented in each game) the conf awards the bid to the highest bid and the teams then sign off on the contract. Yes KPAX bids extremely high for Cat/griz because they have boosters willing to pay high advertising to assure that they get homer announcers. It does mean more money for all so its not all a loss. Once a broadcaster has the right for a game then they own it with the conference, they can sell co-broadcast rights like they do to another broadcaster sometimes(see SPX broadcasting the kpax feed for the EWU game). This is also why Altittude does not broadcast any um games. There will not be 2 broadcasters for a game unless the winning bidder sells that right to the other broadcaster.

[John K]

The e-mail from O'Day is very interesting and provides a lot of detail that I didn't know. A number of things to think about. It seems to be a pessimistic view - it sounds to me as though it's written to advocate moving up rather than objectively look at both sides of the issue (but maybe that's my bias coming through - I like playing for a national championship much more than trying to get into a lower tier bowl game).

One of the things that I wondered about:

For example, KPAX/MTN bid $100,000 to television the Griz-Cat game, the next highest bidder was Max Media at $20,000. Our other games were bid at $10,000 each by KPAX; Max Media pays $2,500 to do Bobcat telecasts. Thus, Max Media is spending more money in production equipment; while the schools are getting the cash from KPAX. By league policy, 60% of the revenue from these telecasts go to the HOME team (not UM), 35% to the visitor and 5% to the league. So how out-of-line is this: Last year, MSU received $60,000 of KPAX’s bid (to do UM games), while Montana received $35,000 and the conference $5,000.

It seems to me that the home team is the one that sells the rights to televise a game from their facilities. So I don't see this as out of line. I get his point that many of those games wouldn't be broadcast if it wasn't the griz playing there, but ...

The cats have all of their games televised. So do the griz. Why does KPAX televise cat-griz when it's in Bozeman? He acts as if it's because the griz have a contract with KPAX. Well, I guess that we could have MaxMedia televise it for 20k, then the griz would only get 7k instead of 35k. I assume that the game is bid separately (by MSU when the game is here). It's not like the griz can contractually obligate other schools to exclude their home game against the griz from any television contract. At least that's how I think it should work. Is it out of line that the cats only get 35k when Cat-Griz is in Missoula? If it wasn't for the cats being in that game they wouldn't get as much for the television rights.

(By the way - he loses some credibility by calling it the Griz-Cat game. He obviously doesn't know or doesn't care about tradition - but we've had that argument here enough times before).

That's what I found myself thinking too, as I read O'Days e-mail....that his analysis did not seem to be very objective. He referred to there being reasons for staying in the BSC/I-AA, but did not specifically spell out any of those reasons. It certainly seemed to me like he had an agenda that he was promoting, but that may have been because the recipient of the e-mail was against moving up, so that he felt compelled to point out the reasons for moving up.

He also lost some credibility with me when talking about how hard the playoff system is on the athlete's bodies, when in fact the overwhelming majority of I-AA teams play fewer games than their I-A counterparts. Additionally, out of one side of his mouth he's espousing the viewpoint that the extra games resulting from the playoff system cause too much wear and tear on the players, while out of the other side of his mouth he uses the potential elimination of the playoffs as a reason for moving up.

So while he made many very valid points, I believe that this e-mail also revealed that he may be less objective about this situation than some people think.

[RationalGriz]

http://missoulian.com/news/local/articl ... 002e0.html

[Long Time Cat]

http://missoulian.com/news/local/articl ... 002e0.html

This article is a good reminder to never put anything in a email that you wouldn't want on the front page of the newspaper.

[John K]

http://missoulian.com/news/local/articl ... 002e0.html

This article is a good reminder to never put anything in a email that you wouldn't want on the front page of the newspaper.

Yeah....no kidding. I also question his "you are who you associate with" argument. I have a very difficult time believing that the athletic conference a school belongs to, has any tangible influence on decisions regarding grant funding, et al. Once again, he makes some very valid points, but it sure seems like he'e searching much harder for reasons that support moving to the WAC/I-A, versus those that support staying in the BSC/I-AA. And I still maintain that politically this will be a very difficult sell to the BOR, between budgetary concerns and the reluctance to split up MSU and UM.

[GrizinWashington]

I doubt O'Day has any reservations whatsoever about sending this e-mail. He's stated the vast majority of this in public settings in the past.

As for his points about "you are who you associate with", you have to understand O'Day is not saying that. That was made very clear by the independent firm who conducted the study based on their discussions with leaders of other universities to the question "Who do you believe are the academic peer institutions of Montana and Montana State?".

[SonomaCat]

I doubt O'Day has any reservations whatsoever about sending this e-mail. He's stated the vast majority of this in public settings in the past.

As for his points about "you are who you associate with", you have to understand O'Day is not saying that. That was made very clear by the independent firm who conducted the study based on their discussions with leaders of other universities to the question "Who do you believe are the academic peer institutions of Montana and Montana State?".

To tie together a few different points, this is exactly the reason I bristle every time somebody talks about adding Southern Utah to the BSC. We ARE viewed nationwide as being academic peers of our conference mates, which is one reason why I would love to see us eventually spend more conference time with places like the Dakota schools, UC-Davis, Cal Poly, etc, and less time with Portland State, Sac State, SUU, EWU, etc. It really does have a real impact nationwide. It shouldn't, but it does.

Unfortunately, 99% of the people in the country aren't experts on the academic standards and quality of Montana State University, so they rely on gross shortcuts, conference perception being one of them. If MSU was in the Big Ten, people would automatically assume that we had a much, much better school than they currently do, and we'd likely be ranked higher, get more grants, and attract more high-quality students from around the country.

To a lesser, but still signficant way, the same is true about the WAC.

It does matter.

[mtbobcat]

Read the Billings Gazette today and the article from Fullerton of the Big Sky certainly paints a different picture than O'Day. Interesting information from both but O'Day has put himself on the hot seat with the other Big Sky Schools and many in the FCS. I tend to think there is some merrit in some of the things he says but I liked what Fullerton had to say. O'Day's email just seemed to come accross so much as a sales pitch to the state of his desire to move up period. There are always more than one informed point of view, and I admit I am far from knowledgeble, but I believe some of the points Fullerton made on the positives for the FCS than all the negatives pointed out by O'Day. There is going to be some interesting reading and arguments coming up in the near future I am sure.

[John K]

Read the Billings Gazette today and the article from Fullerton of the Big Sky certainly paints a different picture than O'Day. Interesting information from both but O'Day has put himself on the hot seat with the other Big Sky Schools and many in the FCS. I tend to think there is some merrit in some of the things he says but I liked what Fullerton had to say. O'Day's email just seemed to come accross so much as a sales pitch to the state of his desire to move up period. There are always more than one informed point of view, and I admit I am far from knowledgeble, but I believe some of the points Fullerton made on the positives for the FCS than all the negatives pointed out by O'Day. There is going to be some interesting reading and arguments coming up in the near future I am sure.

That is exactly what I found myself thinking as well, when I read O'Days e-mail. But it's hard to judge his intentions without knowing a bit more of the context. Perhaps the recipient of O'Day's e-mail had expressed a strong desire for UM to stay in the BSC/I-AA, so that he felt compelled to emphasize the other side of the equation. Obviously that's just complete speculation on my part, but the tone of his comments sure didn't seem very objective to me either, and that seemed like a possible reason for that.

[mtbobcat]

O'Day is stating his case and posing his arguments to move up because I believe he has made up his mind. I just caution that there are others in the university and FCS settings that I am sure pose opposite points of view and good arguments to stay put. I am a native Montanan and Yes, a strong Bobcat supporter for sure, but also a supoorter of our two major universities. I believe they are beacons for Montana and I do not want to lose that stature that has been created over the years. I myself believe the sports affiliations and successful programs are very important to the exposure of the university across the nation. But I also believe the acedemic profiles and recognition are not tied to sports but stand on their own merit when many and most students seek a school for their career paths. Don't tell me most graduates laugh at Montana's Law School... that is a crock. There may be isolated people say things for their own agenda's. Much the same as the Engineering and Research at MSU is well know and respected nationally for their school. The vast majority of colleges in the nation fill the need of the region they are located in with out of region students making up the smaller populations... only the Harvards, MITS, and the Notre Dame type schools draw significantly on a national basis. MSU and UM fit the need of our region, and because of their specialty areas of acedemics they draw some from outside our region. So, what I am saying is the sports is not the most important factor nor is the so called affiliation with so called higher level universities (are you kidding by calling the schools in the WAC higher profile schools ... no way) going to determine the success of these two universities. Look at the sports on its own merits... and I don't believe at all Montana has the financial base to support any move up.

[cats2506]

A pretty well researched (and long) article debunking a lot of what O'Day says.
http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.co ... a-and.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[John K]

A pretty well researched (and long) article debunking a lot of what O'Day says.
http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.co ... a-and.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks for posting the link to that piece, which was extremly interesting and informative. Exhibit A for those who were calling for a detailed, point by point analysis (i.e. torpedoing) of O'Day's e-mail. It confirms the gut reaction that myself and many others had regarding his motives....that he looked only for "facts" that backed up his pre-determined conclusion. I sure hope some of the statewide media picks picks this up, which is obviously a major hit to O'Day's credibility. He really stirred up a hornet's nest when he chose to expand the context of this discussion beyond UM and the BSC/WAC.

[GrizinWashington]

Sorry, I couldn't even make it all the way through that. And if that piece is "well-researched", I'm the best-looking guy in the world.

Here are major errors in the piece:

-- The blogger (apparently he doesn't even care enough about his own work to put his name to it, so I'll just refer to him as "TB") states that Montana can simply "hike up" student fees to cover any shortfalls. If he'd done even 2 minutes of research, he would have found 3 critical facts to belie that argument.
1. Montana cannot legally raise student fees without a vote of the students.
2. They have the lowest student fees in the BSC
3. A recent vote to increase student fees failed.

-- TB then states that Montana can simply raise ticket prices by $2. Sure they could. That would be an option. But they already have by far the highest price tickets of any FCS team in the nation. And will fans continue to pay more and more and more and more to watch lesser and lesser competition. As O'Day mentions (and as TB confirms) no one wants to come to Missoula to play, for a number of reasons.

-- TB does nothing but confuse the Title IV discussion. He readily admits that Montana currently falls far short of the Title IV requirements, but then states that O'Days' numbers are incorrect, saying UM needs only to get to 49% and not 54%. But UM is only at 40% currently. So, even assuming for a moment that TB's 49% number is accurate, sports still need to be added. Yet TB does nothing to describe where the income will come from to pay for those sports. Whether UM needs to increase by 9% or 13%, the wallet will have to be opened, and opened wide. It's either coming from the athletic department or it's coming from state taxpayers. I'm willing to bet most tax payers would prefer the former.

-- TB states that Montana can go to Boise for a "payday to balance the books". Again, 36 seconds of research (in this supposedly well-researched blog) would tell him that Montana would lose its shorts going to Boise for a game, even assuming they could get Boise to agree to such a game. Montana makes far more money playing DII Worthless State College than Boise could dream of paying them. There in lies one of the huge problems Montana faces, and why they are different from EVERY other FCS program. UM has maxed out EVERY source of revenue at the FCS level. Apparently TB doesn't understand that.

-- TB talks about the TV revenue and only talks about the Brawl. What about the other conference games in which Montana has to shell out cash to hosting teams who would not have otherwise received it if not for UM? Why should UM continue to subsidize every other team in the conference? Apparently to TB that's greed. I guess reasonable minds see that differently. Most would say, "What one earns, one keeps".

-- TB says that O'Day contradicts himself by saying that UM breaks even on athletics, but that "the barbarians are knocking at the door". Ignoring the ridiculously unnecessary hyperbole for a moment, O'Day is not contradictory whatsoever. He openly admits that currently Montana athletics does just fine, and that income meets expenses. But he goes on to say -- which TB ignores -- that expenses increase by half a million every year, but revenues are stagnant. In other words, O'Day is considering the future. God forbid an FCS program do that!!

-- TB then rants about the health of the FCS playoffs, a section I didn't read in depth because it contained no substantive points or support. Suffice it to say that minds clearly differ on that issue. And no matter which side you are on it, it would be foolish, I think, to paint O'Day as having no clue on the issue. The man has served on the FCS playoff committee for several years, and is now the Chair. It seems probable to me that he has some insight regarding them that many of us -- particularly TB -- does not.

-- Finally, Ralph is the person to lend support to the blog posting. That should be "nuff said" for EVERYONE on this board.


Edit: Okay, I finally found TB's name: It's Chuck Burton. I should have known....