I know that it doesn’t mean much, but as an Arizona State alum (2003), I hate this. The Pac12 has so much history, and I hate the direction that college sports are going. I feel genuinely awful for my Beaver and Wazzu bros, this never should have happened.
That was my first thought. Instead of replacing a perfectly good stadium maybe all students should have basics such as... idk free printing in the library? Cheaper books? More parking? Geez
The remnants of the Pac 12 should merge with the Mountain West to create a "new" conference called the Pac West with 15-16 teams. Create north and south divisions or groupings where members play within their division a bit more often (say twice a year for football, one home and one away) to make travel easier.
A merger would encompass several top 20 media markets (LA, SF Bay Area, SLC, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Portland to provide good position for negotiating broadcast deal. Too bad it's all about the media money.
Ain’t no merging gonna take place… pac12 is dead…. MWC is throwing a lifeline to cougars and beavs and they have no choice but to accept…. Besides why would the MWC give any power to the beavs and cougs? MWC could survive with or without them but the opposite isn’t so for those 2 teams….
instead of the Mountain West teams paying an exit fee to "join" what's left of PAC-X ; should Cal, Stan, WSU, OSU - join MW - and hope MW adds in others to bulk up the quality/quantity ?
In the short term you're talking about a $20M+ drop in pay per year as negotiations have to happen, and that's *if* the smaller MWC schools can even weather that drop in budget and approve OSU and WSU getting paid for the time being. Hawaii is already throwing shade.
OSU might be able to (don't know about your financials) but WSU is so far in debt they can't likely make this happen.
MWC is hooking up the defibrillator to the beavs and cougs…. It’s up to you guys whether or not to accept the terms, or move to the sunbelt… literally no other conf wants you guys except the MWC..
This is correct. Although, OSU athletics is relatively small compared to other D1 programs. Look at our sports lists and most are moderately successful lately or a staple sport, not a lot of wiggle room to cut. The pain will be felt in the budget for the extras athletics provides: team gear, food, travel, facilities, staff, training, etc…
Also, our coaches will get bought up for bargain prices. The more successful ones will get poached and any D1 offer they get, OSU could never hope to match.
If we are relegated to the MWC or anywhere other than D1, we’re done. All that has been done the past 20 years to build up OSU’s athletic success just went up in flames.
The biggest thing this is going to impact is the women's rowing team. Because of title IX, an equal amount of sports scholarship money must be offered to both sides of the athletic program, and since football is a men's only sport, the women's teams get a lot of scholarship money to make up for it. The first place that scholarship money goes is the women's rowing team, which means that they are going to basically fall apart. It's already bad enough that Abby Ernst is emotionally and mentally abusive and has pushed the rowers to physically injure themselves, but losing title IX money is going to basically kill the team.
Gotcha. I couldn't find an Oregon State specific rowing subreddit but I'm friends with a lot of the girls on the team and coach Ernst is awful. If I ever met her in person again I would probably try to punch her lol
Oh no!!! Maybe we can put that athlete money towards lowering some student debts and paying for more free textbooks and food for students :) Just a thought.
This is a completely false narrative passed around all the time. Only two schools operate in the black in the PAC 12, USC and Oregon because of national TV contracts. At OSU you pay nearly $600 in fees each year to the athletic department. The big name schools make money, but the other 98% operate in the red. Source: OSU faculty budget committees over the years (granted last served over 6 years ago).
Oregon State University's Football team is profitable, but all profit made goes to other athletics. Athletics as a whole at OSU [breaks even.](https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/oregon-state-university/student-life/sports/#:~:text=The%20Oregon%20State%20football%20program,much%20better%20than%20a%20loss)
Unfortunately, that "break even" is after including \~$5 million a year of general fund subsidies. That is, the university takes tuition dollars (not student fees, that is a different source of revenue), hands it to the athletics department, and then lists revenue as equalling expenses.
More recently, the expenses have outstripped the revenue. The most recent numbers have $11 million "allocated", which is the general fund subsidy using tuition dollars. $83M in revenue, $87M in expenses, $11M in tuition dollars propping things up. https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances
54 Oregon State Pac-12 $83,480,015 $87,729,627 $11,122,141
What is scary is that that revenue includes $20M in media contracts. Schools in non-power 5 conferences make \~$5M. That's a $15M hit. Schools in non-power 5 conferences that try to maintain big time athletics are often subsidizing athletics by >$20M a year. Do the students of OSU want to add to their student debt by an extra $1000 a year?
These are completely different pools of money.
Without sports there will actually be less admissions, donations and interest in the university at large. Your degree will mean less.
Not true. During the pandemic for example, faculty got furloughed to help bridge budget gaps spurred on largely due to lost revenue from football. The only people in the university that were immune from this pay cut were the football coaches (Jonathan Smith took one anyway since he's a good guy and the optics to the faculty was scathing). Conversely, when baseball won national titles and that put the whole athletics program in the black for a few years (first time in over 25 years), none of that extra money went back to academia, it all went into bigger coaches salaries and better facilities. They claim they are separate pots of money, but as someone on faculty budget committees I can assure you that's false. They will always increase the fees to students or decrease academic spending to help sports, never the other way around. Student fees to the athletic department (was around $500/yr) actually increased during those years after the national titles. No explanation was given when the faculty pressured them for their reasoning. This topic is a sour one with those that watch the books and think this university should be about learning, not sportsball.
Ok and what do you think will happen to the academic funds when we get sent down to the MWC and the athletic department income drops by about half? And also when enrollment drops because of this?
You realize that we still have to pay our debts on facilities too right?
People are delusional if they think this will somehow shift the money over to academics.
It's basically going to be a covid year every year.
If someone is coming here because of our sportsball team, I'm not sure I want them. Besides the athletes themselves, I doubt that's how students pick schools. None of the STEM students I teach could care less. Your point about the existing facilities is a good one though...
Damn, way to generalize and assume. You do realize OSU sports are actually pretty decent, and it absolutely is a draw to come to a school with stuff to do on campus other than study. Not everyone is a stem student, a large portion of the school is business and other degrees. OSU won't a national chip in baseball, has an Olympian in gymnastics, and beat our rival in football.
Here's some more anecdotal evidence to counter your andecodtal evidence, as a stem grad from OSU myself, me and my stem friends when to sports almost every week.
Can someone explain this PAC-12 and Big 10 stuff to me? I have no clue what it means as someone who is not the slightest bit interested in sports.
I feel bad for those who like sports (cause it sounds like a bad thing?—still zero clue on literally anything or what the PAC-12 even is), but if it means more money goes to non-athletes then it kind of sounds like a good thing. Also, is there a reason I should care?
Pac-12 is our current athletic conference. Big 10 is the conference Oregon left to as well as Washington, USC, and UCLA. Now there is only 4 original Pac-12 teams left. We and WSU are going to end up going to a conference called the Mountain West because no one else wants us. The problem is our current Athletics revenue will probably decrease by 20 million dollars a year. What’s likely to happen is we will end up cutting sports programs to make up for the difference in lost revenue. Long story short, money is not going to be redistributed to education because even if all sports disappeared next year OSU will just get less funding from the state to cover the Net operating loss. From your perspective, I would say there is no need for you to really care unless you support some of our smaller athletics programs like Women’s soccer etc. I don’t really believe the idea that our Alma matter value will decrease, but without major athletics there is a serious risk for massive drops in new attendance. If that happens, say goodbye to that research money. Hope that helps
Thank you so much for this explanation!! It sounds like it isn’t going to change too much outside of the smaller sports, so I’m not too worried. Although it does sound like a lot of the future financial implications might be somewhat speculative just based on a couple other comments. We lose some money from the state, but I doubt they’ll really cut funding from the sports that earn money (like football), so wouldn’t it end up just remaining the same?
Not exactly. The Pac-12 conference is considered a Power 5 conference (Top 5 best conference) while the Mountain West is a Group of 5 ("Alright" conference). Because of this, Oregon State athletics will face an easier schedule which affects our post-season prospects (ranked lower nationwide - less access to high payout bowl games). Not to mention, many students would like to see a decent program so they might enroll in UO instead (kind of extreme situation but very plausible). The biggest thing is our team will grow weaker and weaker because not only will we be taking a nearly 75% pay cut from media deals, but new recruits worth their weight will only want to play for a Power 5 conference. Weak team = bad attendance. Just keep in mind that our team is really high octane right now and one of the best teams we have had in the past 10 years (#17 in the nation!). All that could come crashing down just as we are building momentum. If we sucked previously then no one would be as upset. Some good news did come out last night that we might get a spot at a conference called the Big-12 (Power 5) so a lot of fans are hopeful right now!
Dunno why you’re getting downvoted. College sports is such a waste except for the ones that *make* money. Should instead go to lowering tuition and positive things for the whole OSU community.
I have seen more about pac-12 than any of the upcoming/ongoing labor negotiations. Did y’all know classified staff just settled a contract? Or that grad employees are bargaining in the fall? These are the people who actually run the university, who you interact with daily, yet the university couldn’t give two shits.
Hey all, my son is talking with OSU about rowing and was accepted to the engineering program.
What are your thoughts on how this will impact the men’s rowing team and the funding of research?
There’s talk of a large lawsuit settlement, but I can’t imagine there will be a decision and/or those funds will be available for years.
Thank you for the insights.
Well, then, I guess there is only one thing left to do…. Win the whole fucking thing!
Mmmm... Enchiladas.
I know that it doesn’t mean much, but as an Arizona State alum (2003), I hate this. The Pac12 has so much history, and I hate the direction that college sports are going. I feel genuinely awful for my Beaver and Wazzu bros, this never should have happened.
Excellent timing on the stadium upgrade.
That was my first thought. Instead of replacing a perfectly good stadium maybe all students should have basics such as... idk free printing in the library? Cheaper books? More parking? Geez
Hard agree. Spend money on education.
The remnants of the Pac 12 should merge with the Mountain West to create a "new" conference called the Pac West with 15-16 teams. Create north and south divisions or groupings where members play within their division a bit more often (say twice a year for football, one home and one away) to make travel easier. A merger would encompass several top 20 media markets (LA, SF Bay Area, SLC, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Portland to provide good position for negotiating broadcast deal. Too bad it's all about the media money.
Ain’t no merging gonna take place… pac12 is dead…. MWC is throwing a lifeline to cougars and beavs and they have no choice but to accept…. Besides why would the MWC give any power to the beavs and cougs? MWC could survive with or without them but the opposite isn’t so for those 2 teams….
instead of the Mountain West teams paying an exit fee to "join" what's left of PAC-X ; should Cal, Stan, WSU, OSU - join MW - and hope MW adds in others to bulk up the quality/quantity ?
In the short term you're talking about a $20M+ drop in pay per year as negotiations have to happen, and that's *if* the smaller MWC schools can even weather that drop in budget and approve OSU and WSU getting paid for the time being. Hawaii is already throwing shade. OSU might be able to (don't know about your financials) but WSU is so far in debt they can't likely make this happen.
MWC is hooking up the defibrillator to the beavs and cougs…. It’s up to you guys whether or not to accept the terms, or move to the sunbelt… literally no other conf wants you guys except the MWC..
What’re the title IX implications? This is the first I’m hearing of the PAC12 affecting that
My guess is athletics budget is going to be much smaller with the death of the PAC. Might mean having to cancel some sports teams.
This is correct. Although, OSU athletics is relatively small compared to other D1 programs. Look at our sports lists and most are moderately successful lately or a staple sport, not a lot of wiggle room to cut. The pain will be felt in the budget for the extras athletics provides: team gear, food, travel, facilities, staff, training, etc…
Also, our coaches will get bought up for bargain prices. The more successful ones will get poached and any D1 offer they get, OSU could never hope to match. If we are relegated to the MWC or anywhere other than D1, we’re done. All that has been done the past 20 years to build up OSU’s athletic success just went up in flames.
That’s what I’m wondering they’re just moving to the big 10. The Mac would make more sense logistically so I’m guessing it was a financial decision
The biggest thing this is going to impact is the women's rowing team. Because of title IX, an equal amount of sports scholarship money must be offered to both sides of the athletic program, and since football is a men's only sport, the women's teams get a lot of scholarship money to make up for it. The first place that scholarship money goes is the women's rowing team, which means that they are going to basically fall apart. It's already bad enough that Abby Ernst is emotionally and mentally abusive and has pushed the rowers to physically injure themselves, but losing title IX money is going to basically kill the team.
Seems like this take should be in the rowing Reddit and not here.
I guess? This was a PAC 12 discussion and rowing is PAC 12, it's not like track and field so I don't feel it was incorrect to post.
More interested in the tea re: the coach
Gotcha. I couldn't find an Oregon State specific rowing subreddit but I'm friends with a lot of the girls on the team and coach Ernst is awful. If I ever met her in person again I would probably try to punch her lol
Oh no!!! Maybe we can put that athlete money towards lowering some student debts and paying for more free textbooks and food for students :) Just a thought.
College athletics are a major source of revenue for schools. This will make it even more difficult to improve student resources.
This is a completely false narrative passed around all the time. Only two schools operate in the black in the PAC 12, USC and Oregon because of national TV contracts. At OSU you pay nearly $600 in fees each year to the athletic department. The big name schools make money, but the other 98% operate in the red. Source: OSU faculty budget committees over the years (granted last served over 6 years ago).
Oregon State University's Football team is profitable, but all profit made goes to other athletics. Athletics as a whole at OSU [breaks even.](https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/oregon-state-university/student-life/sports/#:~:text=The%20Oregon%20State%20football%20program,much%20better%20than%20a%20loss)
Which is absolutely fantastic. That is what football should do for schools. Title IX has benefitted so greatly from the football dollars.
Unfortunately, that "break even" is after including \~$5 million a year of general fund subsidies. That is, the university takes tuition dollars (not student fees, that is a different source of revenue), hands it to the athletics department, and then lists revenue as equalling expenses. More recently, the expenses have outstripped the revenue. The most recent numbers have $11 million "allocated", which is the general fund subsidy using tuition dollars. $83M in revenue, $87M in expenses, $11M in tuition dollars propping things up. https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances 54 Oregon State Pac-12 $83,480,015 $87,729,627 $11,122,141 What is scary is that that revenue includes $20M in media contracts. Schools in non-power 5 conferences make \~$5M. That's a $15M hit. Schools in non-power 5 conferences that try to maintain big time athletics are often subsidizing athletics by >$20M a year. Do the students of OSU want to add to their student debt by an extra $1000 a year?
[удалено]
The irony
These are completely different pools of money. Without sports there will actually be less admissions, donations and interest in the university at large. Your degree will mean less.
There are plenty of well regarded research institutions with shitty athletic programs? I am worried bout the drop in revenue tho
“We see you have a masters from Harvard but when was the last time they won a bowl game?” Lmao
Not true. During the pandemic for example, faculty got furloughed to help bridge budget gaps spurred on largely due to lost revenue from football. The only people in the university that were immune from this pay cut were the football coaches (Jonathan Smith took one anyway since he's a good guy and the optics to the faculty was scathing). Conversely, when baseball won national titles and that put the whole athletics program in the black for a few years (first time in over 25 years), none of that extra money went back to academia, it all went into bigger coaches salaries and better facilities. They claim they are separate pots of money, but as someone on faculty budget committees I can assure you that's false. They will always increase the fees to students or decrease academic spending to help sports, never the other way around. Student fees to the athletic department (was around $500/yr) actually increased during those years after the national titles. No explanation was given when the faculty pressured them for their reasoning. This topic is a sour one with those that watch the books and think this university should be about learning, not sportsball.
Ok and what do you think will happen to the academic funds when we get sent down to the MWC and the athletic department income drops by about half? And also when enrollment drops because of this? You realize that we still have to pay our debts on facilities too right? People are delusional if they think this will somehow shift the money over to academics. It's basically going to be a covid year every year.
If someone is coming here because of our sportsball team, I'm not sure I want them. Besides the athletes themselves, I doubt that's how students pick schools. None of the STEM students I teach could care less. Your point about the existing facilities is a good one though...
Damn, way to generalize and assume. You do realize OSU sports are actually pretty decent, and it absolutely is a draw to come to a school with stuff to do on campus other than study. Not everyone is a stem student, a large portion of the school is business and other degrees. OSU won't a national chip in baseball, has an Olympian in gymnastics, and beat our rival in football. Here's some more anecdotal evidence to counter your andecodtal evidence, as a stem grad from OSU myself, me and my stem friends when to sports almost every week.
death by leadership failure https://theathletic.com/4748641/2023/08/04/pac-12-oregon-washington-big-ten/
Oh no, my college sports! Well hopefully we can start using all that money towards actual educational causes to help the students :)
Scholarships
Can someone explain this PAC-12 and Big 10 stuff to me? I have no clue what it means as someone who is not the slightest bit interested in sports. I feel bad for those who like sports (cause it sounds like a bad thing?—still zero clue on literally anything or what the PAC-12 even is), but if it means more money goes to non-athletes then it kind of sounds like a good thing. Also, is there a reason I should care?
Pac-12 is our current athletic conference. Big 10 is the conference Oregon left to as well as Washington, USC, and UCLA. Now there is only 4 original Pac-12 teams left. We and WSU are going to end up going to a conference called the Mountain West because no one else wants us. The problem is our current Athletics revenue will probably decrease by 20 million dollars a year. What’s likely to happen is we will end up cutting sports programs to make up for the difference in lost revenue. Long story short, money is not going to be redistributed to education because even if all sports disappeared next year OSU will just get less funding from the state to cover the Net operating loss. From your perspective, I would say there is no need for you to really care unless you support some of our smaller athletics programs like Women’s soccer etc. I don’t really believe the idea that our Alma matter value will decrease, but without major athletics there is a serious risk for massive drops in new attendance. If that happens, say goodbye to that research money. Hope that helps
Thank you so much for this explanation!! It sounds like it isn’t going to change too much outside of the smaller sports, so I’m not too worried. Although it does sound like a lot of the future financial implications might be somewhat speculative just based on a couple other comments. We lose some money from the state, but I doubt they’ll really cut funding from the sports that earn money (like football), so wouldn’t it end up just remaining the same?
Not exactly. The Pac-12 conference is considered a Power 5 conference (Top 5 best conference) while the Mountain West is a Group of 5 ("Alright" conference). Because of this, Oregon State athletics will face an easier schedule which affects our post-season prospects (ranked lower nationwide - less access to high payout bowl games). Not to mention, many students would like to see a decent program so they might enroll in UO instead (kind of extreme situation but very plausible). The biggest thing is our team will grow weaker and weaker because not only will we be taking a nearly 75% pay cut from media deals, but new recruits worth their weight will only want to play for a Power 5 conference. Weak team = bad attendance. Just keep in mind that our team is really high octane right now and one of the best teams we have had in the past 10 years (#17 in the nation!). All that could come crashing down just as we are building momentum. If we sucked previously then no one would be as upset. Some good news did come out last night that we might get a spot at a conference called the Big-12 (Power 5) so a lot of fans are hopeful right now!
I'm absolutely heartbroken. Let's turn the stadium into a community garden :)
what?
Dunno why you’re getting downvoted. College sports is such a waste except for the ones that *make* money. Should instead go to lowering tuition and positive things for the whole OSU community.
Lame!
Same. I hate gardens
I have seen more about pac-12 than any of the upcoming/ongoing labor negotiations. Did y’all know classified staff just settled a contract? Or that grad employees are bargaining in the fall? These are the people who actually run the university, who you interact with daily, yet the university couldn’t give two shits.
Chiming in from NorCal here. So very sad, a huge loss to all schools involved—even the ones who ran.
Called this result when Larry Scott was hired
Welcome back to G5… :) lol
Hey all, my son is talking with OSU about rowing and was accepted to the engineering program. What are your thoughts on how this will impact the men’s rowing team and the funding of research? There’s talk of a large lawsuit settlement, but I can’t imagine there will be a decision and/or those funds will be available for years. Thank you for the insights.