WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by info197176 » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:45 am

Are we sure that 2506 is really not grizmayor or visa versa?? :lol:


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by kcatz » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:46 am

Each University spends the same amount on "tuition waivers" for athletics. There is no difference between either U there. Also, money used for athletic scholarships does not "stay" on the academic side. Those students attend for free. There is no money paid to the university for their attendance, and there certainly isn't any money to "stay" on the academic side, whatever that means.
I don't really want to further this little feud between 2506 and GIW but I am confused about this part of your statement.

If the tuition is "waived" and is "free" why does the Bobcat Club have to work so hard to come up with more money because the out of state tuition is so high?

I know this was a concern for the griz as well because we saw comments about them using more Montana kids because it was cheaper.



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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by Hawks86 » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:52 am

Doesn't UM get more money because of larger enrollment from MT students ?


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by LTown Cat » Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:57 am

Hawks86 wrote:Doesn't UM get more money because of larger enrollment from MT students ?
I think that actually hurts. Out of state students pay more so the more you have the more you make???



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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by GrizinWashington » Fri Oct 01, 2010 12:00 pm

kcatz wrote:
Each University spends the same amount on "tuition waivers" for athletics. There is no difference between either U there. Also, money used for athletic scholarships does not "stay" on the academic side. Those students attend for free. There is no money paid to the university for their attendance, and there certainly isn't any money to "stay" on the academic side, whatever that means.
I don't really want to further this little feud between 2506 and GIW but I am confused about this part of your statement.

If the tuition is "waived" and is "free" why does the Bobcat Club have to work so hard to come up with more money because the out of state tuition is so high?

I know this was a concern for the griz as well because we saw comments about them using more Montana kids because it was cheaper.
Well, the athletic departments are "charged" for each scholarship, at least on paper. That is, each scholarship shows up as an expense to the department. So if they have 10 students on scholarship, and each scholoarship costs $10, the athletic department would be credited $100 for scholarships. So, any amount raised by the BC or the GSA helps to off-set or defray that expense, thereby allowing that amount of money raised to be used for other purposes. It's purely accounting, since the money all comes from the same pot.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by GrizinWashington » Fri Oct 01, 2010 12:01 pm

Hawks86 wrote:Doesn't UM get more money because of larger enrollment from MT students ?
Currently no, but they are actively working to get that changed.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by bcats » Fri Oct 01, 2010 12:03 pm

This email is very very informative and I have to believe it has given everybody more information on the subject then any of us previously had or understood. I will let some of you more qualified and intelectual people discuss what is true and what is not but here is what my simple brain got out of it.

UM has essentially tapped out all of the revenue they can make at an FCS level playing teams of (yes here it comes) lower stature and support of the WAC. They have become to big for the Big Sky and really its obvious to everyone outside of Bozeman. O'Day has done his homework in every phase of the game to come up with as answer that can only support a move up. They will present the case and the BOR will pass it with or without MSU.

I also find it interesting that he often brings us into the case as another viable canidate to make the move. It looks to me like he very much would like MSU to pony up and put their name in the ring as well. This of course would make his argument a lot easier to pass off to those making the decisions.

I must admit I'm a little disappointed in MSU's playing of the hand so to speak. We have kind of beat around the bush this idea that UM was moving but for some reason maybe didn't believe it. Now that all signs point to UM going on without us we start to get the ball rolling in some kind of a panic mode. The expansion I can only assume will be announced at Homecoming to fire up alum and this will get us the neccessary seating capacities to pass us off as a WAC team. I think we can all agree that if UM goes and we stay it will be bad for everybody especially MSU. I do worry that if we are now trying to make a last chance push to be included in the WAC its to late. And I have to wonder why we haven't taken a more proactive approach to the move up.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by GrizinWashington » Fri Oct 01, 2010 12:12 pm

I also find it interesting that he often brings us into the case as another viable canidate to make the move. It looks to me like he very much would like MSU to pony up and put their name in the ring as well.
O'Day is a Montanan. He gets it. He desperately wants MSU to move up with UM, should that be the decision UM makes He admits that MSU probably isn't positioned to do so now, but he really, really wants both teams to go together.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by cats2506 » Fri Oct 01, 2010 12:21 pm

kcatz wrote:
Each University spends the same amount on "tuition waivers" for athletics. There is no difference between either U there. Also, money used for athletic scholarships does not "stay" on the academic side. Those students attend for free. There is no money paid to the university for their attendance, and there certainly isn't any money to "stay" on the academic side, whatever that means.
I don't really want to further this little feud between 2506 and GIW but I am confused about this part of your statement.

If the tuition is "waived" and is "free" why does the Bobcat Club have to work so hard to come up with more money because the out of state tuition is so high?

I know this was a concern for the griz as well because we saw comments about them using more Montana kids because it was cheaper.
I am not sure on that, part of this information and understanding of how this works I got from a discussion at a Bobcat social last spring with people that should know, I am assuming here but I think that either the tuition is only waived for Montana student athletes, (since it is state money) or only part of the tuition is waived for all. I didn't specifically ask that question. What I was told is that MSU is able to get more institutional support in the form of tuition waivers and the that money goes back to the university in the form of tuitions and basically it is less that the athletic department needs to raise for tuitions, this enables more athletic money to remain in the athletic department.

simple form the way it was explained to me was that the state gives us X number of dollars, the university decides that Y of those X dollars will be allowed for athletic tuition waivers. Y shows up as both a revenue (in institutional support) in the athletic department and and expense (in scholarship tuitions) in the athletic department, Y also shows up as a revenue in the university side (as tuition)
the total amount of tuitions in the athletic department is greater than Y and the athletic departments need to find other sources for that difference and boarding, books ect, since it is my understanding that institutional (state) money can not be used for those items.

Now maybe I misunderstood since beer was involved, but I felt that I had a pretty clear understanding of how it worked, the discussion was in direct response to the question "Why/How is MSU institutional support higher than UM's"


PlayerRep wrote:The point is not the record of the teams UM beat, it's the quality and record of the teams UM almost beat.

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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by SonomaCat » Fri Oct 01, 2010 12:36 pm

cats2506 wrote:You still dont get it, the money stays on the academic side of the university but goes through the athletic department in the form of tuition waivers. The BOR doesnt seem to have a problem with it since they approve the dispensation of the institutional support, I dont get why this type of structure is a bad idea in your mind, and DHiW's pea brain.
I'm not really interested in arguing with you about this, so rather than spending time explaining my post to you (including the reason "bad" was in quotes), let's just say that I do understand, quite well, that "some" is bigger than "none," and that none is "bad" as compared to some when one is talking about funding for a program.

A fee waiver is a perfectly fine approach, in my opinion. I've been advocating this since the ESPN board days. But the reality is that is one moves from a scenario where the AD is paying the school for scholarships to one where the school merely waives the tuition entirely, the school goes from a "some" to a "none" situation. If that cash isn't replaced from elsewhere, it's a net negative to wherever that cash was going (in this case, academics).

Granted, if it's just a big circle of fund accounting book entries, then it could all net out to zero. At the end of the day, though, what's really important is how much revenue is being brought in by the activity and how much is that activity spending. Do we look at it just from an athletic department view, or from the view of the entire university? Does it make sense to have research dollars kinda sorta subsidizing athletic programs (by freeing up general fund cash)?

All of this fund accounting (moving cash from one pocket to another and then having people argue apples and oranges ad naseum) really complicates things way too much ... and really isn't that much fun to talk about as a result.

Just looking at the amount of cash UM brings in DIRECTLY from athletic donations and revenues, it seems pretty obvious that they are in a lot better position than we are currently in term of athletics. Fortunately, Montana State University is better able to subsidize athletics due to our better relative success in non-athletic areas.



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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by kcatz » Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:06 pm

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
So we pay 1/4 less for 17 times the quality broadcast and actually reach more TV's in Montana (I don't think the CW is available in all markets)?



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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by grizzh8r » Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:11 pm

kcatz wrote:
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
So we pay 1/4 less for 17 times the quality broadcast and actually reach more TV's in Montana (I don't think the CW is available in all markets)?
UM's games are broadcast on CBS affiliates (KXLF, KTVQ, etc.) outside of the Missoula Markets.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by cats2506 » Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:21 pm

kcatz wrote:
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
So we pay 1/4 less for 17 times the quality broadcast and actually reach more TV's in Montana (I don't think the CW is available in all markets)?
thats not what we pay, that is what the broadcast company pays for the rights to broadcast the game.


PlayerRep wrote:The point is not the record of the teams UM beat, it's the quality and record of the teams UM almost beat.

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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by GrizinWashington » Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:45 pm

kcatz wrote:
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
So we pay 1/4 less for 17 times the quality broadcast and actually reach more TV's in Montana (I don't think the CW is available in all markets)?
No, you GET 75% less.

But as O'Day points out, Montana royally gets the shaft in this deal. They are the only reason the broadcasts are worth that amount of money, but then they have to turn around and give 60% of the broadcast income to the home team. So for our UNC game, a team that would NEVER be on TV otherwise, UM will have to fork over 60% of the broadcast revenue to UNC, then give another 5% to the conference, and they keep 35%.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by kcatz » Fri Oct 01, 2010 3:19 pm

UM's games are broadcast on CBS affiliates (KXLF, KTVQ, etc.) outside of the Missoula Markets
UM's games are broadcast on the CW in the Butte/Bozeman market. The CW station is not considered a "local" station to the satellites for example Deer Lodge can't get the Griz broadcasts without Bresnan.



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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by oedipuss » Fri Oct 01, 2010 3:27 pm

It almost seems like a no-brainer for UM to move up - especially if Title IX compliance means they have to add 2 new sports anyways. The funding might not be any better at the WAC but it's certainly not going to be any worse than it is in the Big Sky. The Big Sky has some issues. What if Sac State decides to go football only and to the Big West with all other sports? Now that UC-Davis and Cal Poly have broken that little plate glass rule it would seem do-able for anyone else as well. What happens if the WAC actually does want another BSC team? The BSC replacements keep getting sketchier financially, athletically and even worse academically. Like O'day's email pointed out - you are who you're associated with. This might work out for MSU though. We are probably going to be considered by the WAC basically because the Board of Regents approval is going to be a little tougher sell if only one university is moving up. Short of moving to the WAC - I know Fields has been in contact with at least one other FCS conference about moving either football only or becoming a full member - without UM there isn't many reasons to be loyal to the BSC - especially considering the conference money will be even worse as will the replacements. It's definitely going to be interesting to watch..... hopefully nobody takes a header over it



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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by grizzh8r » Fri Oct 01, 2010 4:39 pm

kcatz wrote:
UM's games are broadcast on CBS affiliates (KXLF, KTVQ, etc.) outside of the Missoula Markets
UM's games are broadcast on the CW in the Butte/Bozeman market. The CW station is not considered a "local" station to the satellites for example Deer Lodge can't get the Griz broadcasts without Bresnan.

Thanks for that correction - Still on KTVQ though.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by catbooster » Fri Oct 01, 2010 9:15 pm

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:
Jim O'Day wrote: 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). :wink:



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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by GrizinWashington » Fri Oct 01, 2010 9:52 pm

It seems to me that the home team is the one that sells the rights to televise a game from their facilities.
No. Teams sell rights to televise their own games.

And O'Day discusses why KPAX always carries the Griz/Cat game: Because they bid far more than anyone else to do so. The Cats would be more than welcome to have someone televise the game as well, but the Griz would still contract KPAX to do the game and keep the full $100k for themselves, while the Cats would get $20k for the rights to televise their game. I guess I don't understand what you're driving at. Everyone wins if KPAX televises, because worst case scenario, MSU makes $15k more than if their regular station carries their game.


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Re: WAC membership committee to hear from Montana

Post by catbooster » Fri Oct 01, 2010 10:06 pm

GrizinWashington wrote:
It seems to me that the home team is the one that sells the rights to televise a game from their facilities.
No. Teams sell rights to televise their own games.

And O'Day discusses why KPAX always carries the Griz/Cat game: Because they bid far more than anyone else to do so. The Cats would be more than welcome to have someone televise the game as well, but the Griz would still contract KPAX to do the game and keep the full $100k for themselves, while the Cats would get $20k for the rights to televise their game. I guess I don't understand what you're driving at. Everyone wins if KPAX televises, because worst case scenario, MSU makes $15k more than if their regular station carries their game.
No doubt. Obviously, I'm not saying that we should televise the game for 20k instead of 100k.

Not trying to argue the point - I just don't know how it works an am curious to find out. Are you saying that if Cat/Griz is in Bozeman, hosted by the Bobcats on their field, and let's say had Altitude contracted to televise the game for 100k, the griz could have KPAX come in and televise it for them? That MSU would have to accomodate two tv crews, etc?

Or to make it even more convoluted - if Maxmedia bid 50k to MSU for the Cat/Griz game and it was being held in Missoula, that MSU could require UM to accomodate Maxmedia so that they could televise the game? Then UM could keep 95k, giving 5k to the conference and MSU could keep 47.5k, giving 2.5k to the conference?

It just seems wierd to me that the away team can contractually obligate the home team to a third party - the tv station.



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