All about the money

[guinpen]

Per Dana Balash

YSU athletics will pocket more than $3 million in football "money games" through 2027
The biggest payday was this season at Michigan State & YSU received $750,000.

Since 2005 the Youngstown State football team has been playing the so called "money games" against Power Five schools and received millions of dollars for the athletic department and the majority of time a loss.

Since their first "money game" at Pittsburgh, September 24, 2005  the Penguins have played 15 payday games and have only one win, 31-17 against the Panthers on September 1, 2012.

"Our community stuck by us and this win was for our community," said then head coach Eric Wolford following that game.

Now, these games are an every year occurrence for the Penguins. (So far no "money game" is scheduled for 2023)

From this years game at Michigan State, in which the Penguins were paid $750,000, through scheduled "money games" through 2027, Youngstown State will bring home $3.6 million dollars.

The breakdown includes:

2021   Michigan State        $750,000

2022  Kentucky                  $550,000

2023  ?

2024 Pittsburgh                $450,000

2025 Michigan State        $725,000

2026 Kentucky                 $575,000

2027 Maryland                 $600,000

(The contracts for each game was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act)

Youngstown was scheduled to play at Akron in 2020 and were guaranteed $300,000. That game was cancelled due to covid-19.

In comparison, Akron, an FBS school earned $3.6 million in two games this season. The Zips brought home $1.8 million each for games at Auburn & Ohio State.

YSU officials say the money earned in these games goes to the athletic department to help all sports.

[guinpen]

Note that the zits got 1.8 million per game for two games this year. Guess that will pay some of their bills.

[penguinpower]

This isn't really a lot of money.

Consider that you have to pay for:
1. Game charter flights
2. Recruiting flights/cars/expenses
3. Fund visits by athletes
4. Buy equipment uniforms etc.
5. Pay coach salaries including strength and conditioning, assistants, training for NCAA complianxe stuff etc.
6. 63 scholarships.

Etc.etc..

Does our fan attendance help with this? Yes but I would think that it is possible game day expenses alone (which I have notisted) would be higher than the turnout at times.

The money is needed for operations.  It's really not a lot.

[YSUGO]

It’s not a lot of money and since we are an FCS school we don’t get  the big bucks for the money games.  Fan attendance basically the loges are the money makers. Fans in the stands the last few years doesn’t generate much revenue.  The students fund the athletic dept and I laugh when some fans make fun of MAC schools we couldn’t fund a division 2 program with what we get from the casual fan.  Same for our Penguin club compared to the heavy hitters in our league very little support lack of people joining her compared to them.  The Youngstown fan is cheap and always has been and with the declining business and fan base if not for the students we would be in a lesser division.

[Penquin68]

No doubt YSU and many other state Universities in Ohio are in money trouble. They are in a similar box. Tuition increases are limited by the state of Ohio and enrollments are down due to changing demographics in much of the former Rust Belt; less young people graduating from high school and attending any college. And most state Universities have union contracts which have contract mandated raises for the work force. So less income and more expenses. Difficult situation for sure and it is happening at YSU, Akron U and others, some hurt more than others. If YSU or others try to cut progams or reduce employees to fix the overall budget, a big fight begins and the constant solution put forth by many is to cut athletic budgets to fix the problem.  Also YSU quit trying to serve the underprepared students, giving them to Eastern Gateway CommunityCollege, who now has an enrollment of 40,000! And remember back in the 1970's there was no state income tax and the state of Ohio covered about 75% of YSU's budget and the student tuition about 25%. Now those numbers are reversed and we have a state income tax. All these investigative critics in the media do not look into what happened here, but students now need to cover most of their college expenses and the state has a huge new revenue source.  Where did the money go? I doubt that the Dokata teams face similar money issues.  My fear is that our athletic budgets which are thin now will get thinner and our athletic programs will suffer. Forget the MAC, we will have trouble staying where we are. And it is not the Athletic Directors fault like many here like to claim; he is in a tough spot and doing very well in the box he is in. My opinion.

[goodnews]

The union contracts kill everyone.  I've noticed the schedules for the olympic sports has change. It seems most teams have scheduled with neighboring states which saves alot of $$$.  Any cuts to the athletic dept will clearly start with baseball.  The travel is expensive but the program is active in raising money so its hard to look past their efforts. 

[Penguin Nation]

Any talk of solutions are only mental gymnastics as long as our current AD somehow remains employed, but here I go anyway….

My suggestion:

For a 3 game OOC schedule: AWAY: 1 P5 $$ game, 1 G5 quasi-$$ game ($300K plus probable short bus commute and reasonable chance of a victory and increased fan interest).  HOME: A red meat game against NEC/PIONEER

For a 4 game OOC schedule: add another P5 >G5……NOT another cupcake.

I get that revenue generation is more complicated than mere scheduling and a book could be written about it. Other possibilities include not alienating fans by recruiting convicted rapists, etc.

[Wick250]

No doubt YSU and many other state Universities in Ohio are in money trouble. They are in a similar box. Tuition increases are limited by the state of Ohio and enrollments are down due to changing demographics in much of the former Rust Belt; less young people graduating from high school and attending any college. And most state Universities have union contracts which have contract mandated raises for the work force. So less income and more expenses. Difficult situation for sure and it is happening at YSU, Akron U and others, some hurt more than others. If YSU or others try to cut progams or reduce employees to fix the overall budget, a big fight begins and the constant solution put forth by many is to cut athletic budgets to fix the problem.  Also YSU quit trying to serve the underprepared students, giving them to Eastern Gateway CommunityCollege, who now has an enrollment of 40,000! And remember back in the 1970's there was no state income tax and the state of Ohio covered about 75% of YSU's budget and the student tuition about 25%. Now those numbers are reversed and we have a state income tax. All these investigative critics in the media do not look into what happened here, but students now need to cover most of their college expenses and the state has a huge new revenue source.  Where did the money go? I doubt that the Dokata teams face similar money issues.  My fear is that our athletic budgets which are thin now will get thinner and our athletic programs will suffer. Forget the MAC, we will have trouble staying where we are. And it is not the Athletic Directors fault like many here like to claim; he is in a tough spot and doing very well in the box he is in. My opinion.

Excellent points about the state income tax and the loss of tuition from unprepared students now at the community college.  I will add something else.  When Ohio voters approved the state lottery, they were promised that ALL proceeds would go to the various levels of education.  Had the politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, kept that promise, then YSU, all other state universities, and the public elementary and secondary schools would be swimming in funding.  But of course it was all a lie.  The politicians did not add the lottery proceeds as the people expected, they shuffled the money already appropriated to education in the traditional way to other projects. So our students pay and pay and incur way too much debt.

[guinpen]

No doubt YSU and many other state Universities in Ohio are in money trouble. They are in a similar box. Tuition increases are limited by the state of Ohio and enrollments are down due to changing demographics in much of the former Rust Belt; less young people graduating from high school and attending any college. And most state Universities have union contracts which have contract mandated raises for the work force. So less income and more expenses. Difficult situation for sure and it is happening at YSU, Akron U and others, some hurt more than others. If YSU or others try to cut progams or reduce employees to fix the overall budget, a big fight begins and the constant solution put forth by many is to cut athletic budgets to fix the problem.  Also YSU quit trying to serve the underprepared students, giving them to Eastern Gateway CommunityCollege, who now has an enrollment of 40,000! And remember back in the 1970's there was no state income tax and the state of Ohio covered about 75% of YSU's budget and the student tuition about 25%. Now those numbers are reversed and we have a state income tax. All these investigative critics in the media do not look into what happened here, but students now need to cover most of their college expenses and the state has a huge new revenue source.  Where did the money go? I doubt that the Dokata teams face similar money issues.  My fear is that our athletic budgets which are thin now will get thinner and our athletic programs will suffer. Forget the MAC, we will have trouble staying where we are. And it is not the Athletic Directors fault like many here like to claim; he is in a tough spot and doing very well in the box he is in. My opinion.

Excellent points about the state income tax and the loss of tuition from unprepared students now at the community college.  I will add something else.  When Ohio voters approved the state lottery, they were promised that ALL proceeds would go to the various levels of education.  Had the politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, kept that promise, then YSU, all other state universities, and the public elementary and secondary schools would be swimming in funding.  But of course it was all a lie.  The politicians did not add the lottery proceeds as the people expected, they shuffled the money already appropriated to education in the traditional way to other projects. So our students pay and pay and incur way too much debt.

Not uncommon, promise that new money will go somewhere and it will, they never say that other monies will stop going there.

[IAA Fan]

It is far more complicated, but also far less. This is football only.

1. We all want to be a big shot and play P5's? Heck no. It is one thing to let your pride feel you can defeat a power team. It is another be shown you cannot. As long as you play and lose to Big-10 schools, you are nothing in the eyes of 9 out of 10 fans in "big-10 country" (AKA Youngstown). Nobody wants P5 games NOBODY in their right mind that is. Let fans live in their own world where YSU is so good they can defeat P5 programs; then they will be happy. Show them the Guins cannot and you do nothing but create more OSU/Michigan fans.

2. Do we need 6 home games no matter who it is against? Heck Yes. As has been mentioned:

- Loges are big $$$. Loges cost is based on the number of times it can be used in a year. The difference from 5 games to 6 is quite significant. You may see it as scheduling a win, but it is really scheduling a win and increasing loge revenue by as much as 18%.

- Game Programs are the same. People pay serious money to advertise in those. If I can show the perspective advertising buyer an extra game, it increases that revenue by at least 20%

- Stadium Signage is no different. signs in the ice castle can go from $5k to $75 (and much more in some cases like scoreboards). Again cost is based on size, location (TV hits) and the number of chances to be seen (= number of games).

- Television Revenue, also not different...One game makes all the difference in the world. Maybe one game is not a big deal but a chance to carry all the games adds up. With our new media center, most of the transmission costs have become operational (fixed for you accountants). Pay for a couple of people as talent and you are set.

- Tailgating: Tailgating pa$$es are $25 a game. That 'ads' (pun intended) up as well. Tailgaters show up & YSU sells several hundreds of tailgate passes per game.

3. So how important is scheduling the easiest schedule possible to make the post-season?
- Well imagine adding another game, or 2, or 3 to the above and making the play-off (a$$uming a home game)? More revenue.

So, let's take a look at a typical season, where the requirement to make in order to qualify for the play-off is a minimum of 7-wins vs D1 opposition. In our case, it really is 8 wins because only one team gets the auto-bid for the MVFC. This leaves only 3 games to schedule one more MVFC games + a money game + another D1 game (which for now has to be another conference game).
1) 11 games
2) 9 conference games, which will mean  4-5 and 5-4 for home games (remember, the goal has to be to maximize home games)
3) one money game
4) One remaining game which has to be at home at least every other year to compensate for years when we have 5 away game in-conference.

This is it, no other way to do it until we can dump money-games, which is now so engrained in our system, it will probably never happen. Or we can split the conference and drop one conference game in favor of another home game.

[goodnews]

James Madison has taken the first step to join the Sun Belt.  The Sun Belt has recruited Marshall Old Dominion and Southern Miss.  As a result, Conference USA is in talks with a number of FCS schools who are interested in moving up to FBS.