help please!

[jayhawk1531]

Hey all-

A quick favor. I'm preparing to respond to a letter in the "public forum" section in the Lawrence newspaper that argues that women's basketball at Ku should be cut because it makes no money. Do any of you have any statistics that would help my response (ie which wbb programs in the Big 12 DO make money, which mens basketball/football teams dont make money, etc...)

I'd appreciate your help... thanks!

[Jennifer]

I don't have the stats you ask for, but if the reasoning that wbb should be cut because it makes no money is used, then what about all those other sports that make no money? Shoot, does football make money at KU? What about wrestling, baseball?

[jayhawk1531]

I talked to my godfather, big 12 faculty rep. for ku--- football DOES make money, but only because of Big 12 tv $.

[schooner2]

That is a good response Jennifer. AT OU, only football and men's basketball make money. Of course, the football makes so much money that it can finance the rest of the athletic department. By the way, I'm sure the women's bball isn't so far off from making money.

AT KU, if football makes money - it probably is not a lot. I'm sure men's basketball makes more money.

And of course there is Title IX. So there has to be some women's sports and surely women's basketball has more of a fan base there than any other women's sport. Can't imagine softball, gymnastics (if KU has it), or soccer drawing more than 2000 fans per game.

[Texan]

ESPN has an article about attendance at women's games that gives some good information.
http://espn.go.com/ncw/s/jackson/attendance.html

[mred]

Originally posted by schooner:
AT OU, only football and men's basketball make money. <snip> And of course there is Title IX.

Football and MBB are the only money-making sports at most schools. ISU WBB is close to breaking even. A handful of WBB programs do break even, but those teams are few and far between.

Also, Title XI is always a big factor. It states that schools must show effort in providing equal opportunities for male and female athletes. Most schools satisfy this by going toward equal numbers of scholarships (proportional to the M/F ratio of the student body). The biggest factor is the number of football scholarships out there. It takes a lot of women's sports to make up for that.

[DblT81]

Not many women's basketball programs are self supporting. Although attendance and interest and has grown rapidly in the last decade, the ticket prices for women's games are still rather low and reserved seating is not that common.
This graphic is from a story in the Detroit News on Dec. 20, 2000. http://detnews.com/pix/2000/12/28/womensbasketball.jpg

It does not say what year they surveyed. It accompanied a story regarding the costs of college sports. The story did not say what year the paper surveyed. Also, not all universities may have participated in the survey because Univ of Tennessee women's basketball is not on the list and they sell more tickets every year than anyone.

Looks like Texas Tech made a decent profit in that year. I would guess this was based on figures after the 1999-2000 season, the first in the United Spirit Arena. I think Tech went to Orlando Fl during that season, not a big expensive trip.

Usually, only men's football and basketball make money and that is a result of TV money.

Title IX may be a better argument. If they cut wbb, they must make reductions in men's sports as well- unless there are already fewer opportunities for men in sports at KU when compared to the % of male student population vs opportunities for women compared to the % of female student population. (sorry if I've interpreted this rule incorrectly, that is just how I remember it) Due to football, men are usually not behind in their sports opportunities.

Hope this helps, Jayhawk.

[RaiderPower1]

Texas Tech wbb makes money. There was a graphic put out about a year ago that showed the top(and bottom) schools of making money. Tenn and Tech were at the top I know, so there are programs that make money. Maybe not very much but hey!

P.S. I think DblT81 might have the graphic. http://hoopscoop.net/ubb/wink.gif

[RaiderPower1]

well...look there...DblT beat me to it already. We have that telewhatever thing. http://hoopscoop.net/ubb/smile.gif

[mred]

Originally posted by DblT81:
Title IX may be a better argument. If they cut wbb, they must make reductions in men's sports as well- unless there are already fewer opportunities for men in sports at KU when compared to the % of male student population vs opportunities for women compared to the % of female student population. (sorry if I've interpreted this rule incorrectly, that is just how I remember it) Due to football, men are usually not behind in their sports opportunities.

I don't believe Title IX is that specific. Title IX just makes a general requirement that there must be some sort of gender equity. It doesn't specify how an institution should go about creating equity. Most schools do what you described above because that's the easiest way to demonstrate equity.

It took a while, but I found revenue/expense data for ISU. These numbers are 2000-2001.
<pre>
Football $9,638,311 $6,020,651 $3,617,660
Men’s Basketball $5,273,816 $2,961,873 $2,311,943
All Other Men’s Teams $193,069 $1,882,998 -$1,689,929
Women’s Basketball $1,102,307 $1,414,267 -$311,960
All Other Women’s Teams $1,219,807 $3,143,935 -$1,924,128
Grand Totals $24,049,569 $22,418,499 $1,631,070
</pre>
I got these numbers from ISU's Reporting of Institutional Data for the NCAA Gender Equity Survey. It was on the ISU athletics web site.


[This message has been edited by mred (edited 01-31-2002).]

[mred]

Originally posted by mred:
I don't believe Title IX is that specific. Title IX just makes a general requirement that there must be some sort of gender equity. It doesn't specify how an institution should go about creating equity. Most schools do what you described above because that's the easiest way to demonstrate equity.


I am not entirely correct. From NCAA.org:

Q. How does an institution comply with Title IX?

An institution must meet all of the following requirements in order to be in compliance with Title IX:

1. For participation requirements, institutions officials must meet one of the following three tests. An institution may:

a) Provide participation opportunities for women and men that are substantially proportionate to their respective rates of enrollment of full-time undergraduate students;

b) Demonstrate a history and continuing practice of program expansion for the underrepresented sex;

c) Fully and effectively accommodate the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex; and,

2. Female and male student-athletes must receive athletics scholarship dollars proportional to their participation; and,

3. Equal treatment of female and male student-athletes in the eleven provisions as mentioned above

For more info, http://www.ncaa.org/gender_equity/here</a> is the website.


[This message has been edited by mred (edited 01-31-2002).]

[ChipperF1]

The only reason why this airdale even wrote that stupid opinion was that Kansas' women are 0-9 in conference. If they were 9-and-0 he or she would probably be on the bandwagon.
Typical chauvinism. I'd rather see Kansas' real women play sports than the candypants football squads they've had in the past thirty or so years.



[This message has been edited by ChipperF1 (edited 01-31-2002).]

[Zo31]

Chipper, you said it!

IT SHOULD NOT EVER BE ABOUT MONEY! We enjoy the game for what it is, a GREAT GAME. These young women work hard for their sport and the schools should support them 100%, win or lose!

[soonerborn]

I recall when a former Big XIII school dropped their basketball program.....

Now that program is ranked #4 in the nation and has been to back-to-back Sweet Sixteens.

Kansas needs to decide if they want any sports besides men's basketball - they used to have some really incredible indoor track athletes too - how much money does the track team bring to the university?

[DblT81]

Thanks mred for the Title IX info. Always handy to have that stored away for future "discussions". http://hoopscoop.net/ubb/wink.gif

Go get 'em Jayhawk!

Someone posted on RaiderPower a couple weeks back about a letter to the San Antonio paper. The writer was angry at the SA newspaper because they are giving a lot of attention to women's basketball with the Final Four coming there in March. He said the paper shouldn't be giving any space to wcbb because no one cared about it and there wouldn't be any locals going to the Final Four for women.

Some said to just ignore the guy, he is wrong and its a waste of time trying to educate him. Were they right?

[ISUbballfan]

Originally posted by DblT81:
Some said to just ignore the guy, he is wrong and its a waste of time trying to educate him. Were they right?
[/B]

NO! To no say nothing it looks like you agree with them. The best way to respond if to reply with facts and reasons like jayhawk. Jayhawk let us know what the response is.

[KSUron]

Originally posted by DblT81:
Someone posted on RaiderPower a couple weeks back about a letter to the San Antonio paper. The writer was angry at the SA newspaper because they are giving a lot of attention to women's basketball with the Final Four coming there in March. He said the paper shouldn't be giving any space to wcbb because no one cared about it and there wouldn't be any locals going to the Final Four for women.

Some said to just ignore the guy, he is wrong and its a waste of time trying to educate him. Were they right?


Were they right? Yes and no. They were right that the guy who wrote the letter is a lost cause and should be ignored. They were not right that the subject should be ignored. In my view it is always good to keep the goal in mind. If your goal in responding is to educate this one anti-wcbb person you are wasting time. If on the other hand your goal is to inform the public that there are many wcbb fans out there that will be interested in the games and that it will be a good thing for San Antonio then I think a very positive thing to do would be to write a letter to the editor. In that letter you can say whatever positive things you want to say. If you care to correct any false things he said you can include the true facts without even mentioning him or his letter.

In politics they say it is often not good to leave false ideas out there unresponded to, but it is best to stay "on message" as opposed to engaging in a debate with someone with a different veiw. (they say some other things too, like not getting into a certain type of contest with a skunk but I'll leave that alone in this forum)

[KSUron]

jayhawk1531, its good to see you on here. Your opinions are at least as important as mine and right now Coach Washington and the Jayhawks need all the support they can get. I'm not sure the rest of us can manage a "Rock chalk Jayhawk" shout.

[Press]

I can't even believe there would be a debate about this considering the talented girls/women that come out of the state of KS. Look at KSU this year, Jackie Stiles, for goodness sakes! Maybe they need to make changes that will allow them to recruit that talent instead of canning the program.

[Bball Girl]

See see http://espn.go.com/ncw/s/jackson/attendance.html
"While attendance at men's Division I basketball games dipped slightly last season, overall attendance at women's games has slowly increased every year since 1992."

A case in point (I'm from New Mexico) A few years ago after successive losing seasons and not enough funding to support the program, the University of New Mexico suspended the women's basketball program (rumor was that the ladies team was cleaning the Pit after the games to raise travel $$). They were averaging about 350 fans per game.

In 1995, UNM hired Don Flanagon as the Head Coach (137-68). Flanagan was the coach of Albuquerque’s Eldorado High School, where he won 11 state championships in 16 years with a 401-13.
Since then, they've captured a regular-season conference championship, a conference tournament title and made four consecutive postseason appearances, including the school’s first-ever NCAA bid in 1998.

Fan support (just ask Tech) has been tremendous as a result of Flanagan’s defense and intense style of play. Last season and this season the Lady Lobos are fifth in the nation in attendance and had sellouts during the WNIT championships last year.

So send them this ESPN article, tell them about the "loyalty" of wbb fans, and tell them about the quality people that play the game of wbb like our own Natalie Ritchie (and many other wbb players in your schools) who in addition to being a terrific player and a wonderful young woman, is also an ambassador for Texas Tech, for female athletes and for athletes in general.

If KU wants to have this kind of program....they only have to look around them in the Big 12 and frankly in the same state to see what magic can happen in a small town called Manhattan between a young coaching staff, a young team and a community!

[swok34]

between dlbt's link and Kansas State's attendance rise.......

I would think the folks at Kansas wouldn't have to look far to see what can happen with all the right factors in place....

wonder if Marion tried to get this bunch of girls that ended up in Manhattan?

[Bball Girl]

Another thought...

How many $$ does the KU football team bring in?

My understanding is that the rumor that DI football pays for all other sport is false. For successful schools, it may be true. But for schools who see little postgame or tv action...I've read that football actually costs the school some $$ to sustain...just think of the # of players on one DI team. There was talk a few years ago about suspending UNM football for this very reason. Basketball makes money at UNM, football does not.

If KU's football team is not turning a profit...are they ready to suspend them too?

this topic gets me riled up...there are lots of collegiate sports like golf that don't pull in the $$...but the targets for closer always seem to focus on the women's programs. Aaargh.