LA Times good article about Stanford and Cal

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2023-09-01/stanford-cal-acc-studen-athletes-broken-sports?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=promo_module&utm_campaign=rss_feed

Bottom line decreased income by a lot and increase cost by a lot. Recipe for both the schools having their athletic Department implode.

The football stadium is a sunk cost and I do not see how they could get out of that debt.

On the board the salary cost is what they look at as the price of doing business at the FBS level and that falls on the AD shoulders as does the swim coach. The current AD is Jim Knowlton and many on the board direct a lot of anger at him and put the blame on their current problems right on his shoulder.

I have not followed the situation closely so I do not have a strong opinion but will say the personal issues in particular the women's swim coach and the hires fall on his duties..

My family and I were at the Fresno state game. The score was ugly for the Aggies, but the experience for my family was even worse. We wore Aggie gear and my beautiful daughters were screamed at and taunted as we walked into the stadium on the North side. Both had tears in there eyes and my wife was upset but I told them to just keep on walking. It was the worst college football experience, I have ever had. Hopefully the Bulldogs have cleaned up their fans some.

Yes from what I read it's 8 million dollars not 30 million. The Bears and Cardinals are in a world of hurt.

Had some time tonight so I went to the Bear athletic board. WOW, They are truly hurting, with some crazy thoughts of what they can do. These included cutting football and many other sports.. As an outsider I think the most likely is that they will not cut football but a handful of other sports.

Cal has had serious problems in the athletic department with huge deficits and many under performing sports. Stanford will be able to keep its head above water but the Bears are going to be hurting. I thought for a moment that they would stay on the West Coast and then Stanford and Stanford join the MWC. Going to the ACC really hurt those Cal and Stanford teams that will have home and away commitments.

I am sad that the Pac 12 is gone. As a Northern California my father followed great NCAA QB's. We went to most home Stanford games to watch Jim Plunkett and then letter to Cal to watch Steve Bartkowski. They made huge impressions with me and I loved the games with all the Pac 8 schools.I enjoyed both venues and I had a better time at college games than when we went to see the Raiders or the 49ers. My brothers on the other hand went for the NFL teams and have stayed with the 49ers. My youngest brother loves being part of the "faithful". Hard to be faithful when the college game has changed so much.

The move to the FBS is not easy. Here is the link for any that are interested.
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/AMA/Division%20I%20Forms/2010-11%20FBS%20Forms/Football%20Bowl%20Subqa%2012%208%2010.pdf

As I read it you must make changes to Aggie stadium and then prove that you can average 15,000 paid spectators. This will not be easy and expensive. I just do NOT see a plan that Chancellor May would approve of.

I do love the deep game notes. As a fan I love knowing as many stories of the players on my team. If I just wanted football I could watch the NFL network. I know the families and athlete love every bit of print that happens.

Winning on the road in Texas is a challenge. Let's see what the Ags can do tonight. Go AGS!

A dream start for the team. Long Beach who has a storied history in Women's Volleyball upset Texas the #1 ranked team. The Big West might be a very strong conference and lets hope that the Aggiies can contend for a title.

Wow. The loss of the Pac-12 blows my mind away.

My first thought is this. I competed as a NCAA athlete and my children did. I doubt if my grandchild will.

I have read several times that many administrators are using the phrase that changes that help the student-athlete's wallet are what they support. That makes me angry, as the biggest winners of these giant sums of money are going to be the ICA administrators. Sure some athletes are going to do well for a short window. A child of mine at a Pac 12 school benefited last year for 5,000 dollars and will make a little more in their last year. But this is peanuts compared to the starting salary and lifelong earnings with a great degree. Meanwhile the administrators are going to get pay raises because the department earns more money. Not that they have done a good job.

What about the 16 year old that committed to play in the Pac -12 and the conference is gone? Should they be allowed to get out of their commitment just like if the coaching staff was changed. Even if they are allowed to the challenge with that is the burned bridges and lack of scholarship dollars for them.

FBS College football is really minor league football that is doing a tremendous amount of damage to the NCAA landscape. Even NCAA basketball is being hurt by these changes and I never thought anything would hurt the NCAA basketball brand;, but crazy travel and loss of regional games does that.

I am still processing all of this and fear for the majority of the student athletes at every level of college sports..

Hi AggieFinn2,

I hope you are right. Ralph has done so much in his life and gave a tremendous amount to UCD.

If you look at the NCAA reporting site-- Here is the link https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/ the report will show the football revenue at $5,852,399. So this is where the game fee goes.

However in my opinion UCD does some wonky stuff. Their is a line that shows the following,
Total Revenues Men's and Women's Teams $11,773,263 $11,875,655. I asked a person smarter than I how this could be and they said that the department takes the money generated from the student referendums as income revenue. Not my idea of true revenue but I do not know the ends and outs of accounting. Seems strange to me that student taxes are listed as revenue, but I was told where else the fees would be placed.

Thanks for the heads up. Trust you more than a yelp, review.

Some football coaches hit a jackpot, but the bouncing from programs would be hard on me and my family. I wish Coach Gould a good run with the Rams though I hope the Niners beat the snot out of them twice this year!

At the FCS level cutting the number of plays run I believe is good the the FCS teams. No need to run a huge number of plays against FBS teams and the play-offs are very taxing.

Sac native with a world of playing experience. Looks like a great hire by Coach Jenn Gross!

Weather is a big factor for baseball practice and games in Jan-early April. Cold, windy, and rainy is a tough trio to hone your skills in. Lights are great for Summer, Fall and late Spring but night games in Feb sounds pretty tough for me. IF the baseball team started practice on Sept 7th before the start of school when the Davis climate is perfect for baseball, their practices would be better than the 20 hour practices in Nov. Additionally practices before school have no weekly limit of 20 hours. This does cost money for the school to feed the team and. house the freshman, but could be money well spent.

I like the rule changes for UCD. At the FCS level we have a limited number of players. Every time we play a FBS school we face more scholarship players and sometimes we have been worn down. The FCS play-offs are tough and extend the season to sometimes almost NFL length. Having less plays every game lessen the wear and tear at the end of the year and for those teams that go deep into the FCS play-offs.

I have been to 7 games over the years, as part of family and friends.

The cool part is that I saw THE Ohio State, USC and Oregon play at Aggie Stadium. The games are free and the crowds are generally pretty small, again family and friends. You can sit wherever. I found it is better higher up to get a flow of the game. The game has some static points as they try to set up attacking positions around the goal. There is no checking like Mens' lax which I miss..

Bring your own food. Some years I have enjoyed the music during pregame and halftime other times I could not stand it.

The Aggies have been good in MPSF with Fresno State and San Diego and a few times we have been run out of the stadium from an East Coast school.

I like women's lacrosse a fair amount, much better than field hockey but way less than softball, water-polo or women's bb.

When UCD left D II we believed that we would be a top tier program “Crown Jewel of the Big West” . This did not happen though our sports in the Big West were way more competitive 10 years ago than now.
In recent history the PE program was dropped to give more resources to the sports team. A campus service was taken away and the teams with more resources have not improved.
Comparing our records with our competitors is fair. I was not asking to compare our teams to the SEC.

That is a good point in that for most NCAA sports there are more than just wins and loses. In what areas does the current sports department excel at?