Congrats coach. Well deserved.

I believe they claim to be self funded.

We've got at least eight Associate ADs. It doesn't take a crew to market on campus, it takes common sense and maybe some creativity. When the Aggie Pack got going there wasn't a huge support staff, it was actually modest.

The prior Rec Hall setup had tall bleachers that folded inward, making it more intimate and holding noise in. Not sure why the old corner food spots can't be reused.

What happens to students use of Rec Hall, it seems the campus has taken it over.

We had a press release 4-6 months ago detailing $270 million in facilities improvements which are supposedly funded? Maybe Rocko should have saved it for the NDSU announcement.

I'm not interested in following the Hornets bizarre high stakes path.

For all sports or just football?

$44M in revenue must include student fees.

Exactly who will come out? The single parent in Fairfield, the farmer from Dixon, the international student in Davis who's been to two games in their life?

The Davis fan isn't the Cal fan, Fresno fan, or Ohio State fan. People here have unlimited options.

The UC Davis student-athlete model isn't designed to sell t-shirts.

What is your end goal? More TV, more $$, lower academic standards, millions for rotating coaches and players, so casual fans come to a game once a year, so we can build more facilities, cut more sports, hire more Assistant ADs who don't know our school or traditions, to hire more staff, who tell us we're not doing it like USC? The Aggie doesn't even cover every FB and BB game?

How long have you been following Aggie athletics?

- the community helped fund Rec Hall, which had a larger capacity for both hoops (8,000?) and concerts ($10,000?). ($120 million today at 15,000 a seat x 8,000 mixed use field house design)
- donors helped fund and build Dobbins Stadium, which would have been nicer except the campus dithered w gender equity politics while construction prices rose
- donors helped fund Aggie Stadium
- donors just funded a $50 million top-notch high-performance facility
- a single donor (?) funded the new field hockey facility
- Etc.

After just a year, UCLA and others are tired of cross-country travel. Twenty teams travel to the East Coast bc of football and USC?

If the rent-a-player model continues, FBS has bigger problems for non-marque programs. What happens if the Aggies lose not just Pinnick, but Larison, Buchanan, and others? That's another FCS advantage. Continuity, emotional attachment.

Bball attendance off, possibly across our whole conference, too. Portal blowback?

Sac willing to pay $10 million to go FBS.

https://x.com/FCS_Football/status/2020911506804666502?s=20

+1. Missing our DE / edge rusher / veteran team leader was huge. Too much after losing the Connors.

Getting 1,000 alums to kick in $1,000 is one big step. Heck, even 800.

A simple step is student marketing, where we seem lost. How obtuse are we not being able to get the word out when we have a classic college campus?

New premium seating, boxes, event space. Win-win-win. Would love to see the cost of the new addition suspended over the current press box, to a tear down and 100% new structure from ground floor up. Could it be built in nine months?

Most people I've chatted with don't even bring up D1 and DII. They mention big programs, and less well known. Most people know the big schools.

And lose hundreds of millions like UCLA and Cal? Pile up debt, lower academic standards? No thank you. Nobody knows what will happen in 5 years, we're on a good path, not like the Stingers down 'leaders'.

Young coaches are in the wings, Cody Hawkins one example. I'm OK if FBS poaches 1-2 players per year, that's reality.

That wouldn't stop their President.

How is marketing for basketball?

NDSU drops out, we could add Sac?

How are we ready to move to FBS? Please, think rationally.

Cal has a yearly $30 million deficit and $400 million in debt. UCLA is bleeding hundreds of millions, and is tied to the Rose Bowl for decades. Sac State is scrambling. Even powerful no-competition NDSU has empty seats as fans stay away for multiple reasons.

You want to toss all that to play UNLV and some magical hope that 10,000 people will cross the Causeway to watch the Hornets rival? So we get plastered in FBS and told we have to raise hundreds of millions more to compete?

Why the rush? We can have continued success and stability in the FCS while FBS rents players by the year. Things will be tumultuous for probably five years or more. We'll lose a marquee player or two every other year. We can graduate players, compete for championships, add an ocassional new opponent pre-season and build our new expansion.

How about FCS programs sign multi-year deals w players? They're unproven and unwanted by the big schools, FCS takes a risk and develops them, and then they get poached? Makes no sense. FCS programs have the costs of players who don't pan out.