ESPN Outside the Lines - UNO Athletics

[gobiggergoredder]

ESPN Link

[redblooded]

ESPN Link

 

The football interviewee's are delusional and the wrestling coach doesn't have any argument beyond "this isn't how you treat people."

 

As a former UNO student honestly it bothers me that my student fees were going towards athletic programs in any way. I certainly wasn't paying my tuition bills so any part of that money could be used for athletics. Frankly the fact that it wasn't all going towards creating a better education for myself and my non-sport playing classmates is upsetting.

 

And yet even with those subsidies the football program was losing money. Both teams wouldn't have had a conference in Div 1-AA and would have had to have found one that would accept them for one or two sports or go independent and have very few fans to actually help subsidize those teams with attendance.

 

I loved the UNO football clips of players running down sidelines with empty bleachers as Deeb was talking about how UNL fears the potential powerhouse that is UNO football. It was an amusing backdrop for the spin job they are trying to do against the UNO administration.

[gobiggergoredder]

ESPN Link

 

The football interviewee's are delusional and the wrestling coach doesn't have any argument beyond "this isn't how you treat people."

 

As a former UNO student honestly it bothers me that my student fees were going towards athletic programs in any way. I certainly wasn't paying my tuition bills so any part of that money could be used for athletics. Frankly the fact that it wasn't all going towards creating a better education for myself and my non-sport playing classmates is upsetting.

 

And yet even with those subsidies the football program was losing money. Both teams wouldn't have had a conference in Div 1-AA and would have had to have found one that would accept them for one or two sports or go independent and have very few fans to actually help subsidize those teams with attendance.

 

I loved the UNO football clips of players running down sidelines with empty bleachers as Deeb was talking about how UNL fears the potential powerhouse that is UNO football. It was an amusing backdrop for the spin job they are trying to do against the UNO administration.

 

 

I agree that there are definitely some holes in the "you have to treat people better" and "UNL fears a team at UNO".

 

The simple fact remains that very few schools actually have profitable athletic programs. The information cited below is from a study of FBS schools, not DII. I can only imagine it is even more difficult to make money at the DII level.

 

In the 2006 fiscal year, the latest of three examined in the study, only 19 of the 119 Football Bowl Subdivision institutions had positive net revenue, while for the rest, expenses exceeded generated revenues. (For the entire three-year period, only 16 athletics department turned a net profit.)

 

Article Link

[schlumper]

Definitely a hit piece. Probably because no one from the university was willing to talk to them.

 

Trev Alberts may have handled the situation poorly, but there was no way to make football viable. Wrestling may have been able to be saved, but no one really cares except current and former UNO wrestlers.

[okaive]

As a former UNO student honestly it bothers me that my student fees were going towards athletic programs in any way. I certainly wasn't paying my tuition bills so any part of that money could be used for athletics. Frankly the fact that it wasn't all going towards creating a better education for myself and my non-sport playing classmates is upsetting.

 

 

Just to play Devil's advocate:

 

What is the difference in you paying for athletic programs with your tuition then paying state taxes/ or any other taxes that pay for athletic programs in your local schools? Especially if you don't even have a kid. Someone has to pay for them.

[redblooded]

As a former UNO student honestly it bothers me that my student fees were going towards athletic programs in any way. I certainly wasn't paying my tuition bills so any part of that money could be used for athletics. Frankly the fact that it wasn't all going towards creating a better education for myself and my non-sport playing classmates is upsetting.

 

 

Just to play Devil's advocate:

 

What is the difference in you paying for athletic programs with your tuition then paying state taxes/ or any other taxes that pay for athletic programs in your local schools? Especially if you don't even have a kid. Someone has to pay for them.

 

Bothers me as well if you mean UNO athletics getting that money. If the athletic department cant do it on its own between boosters and revenue sports then its time to make cuts (it was well beyond time).

 

Now if you mean stuff like high school athletics that is not funding a team that travels regionally regularly, tuition/room&board/books for many players on it (although I realize it was something like 35-40 at div 2), they are also younger kids, plus with youth sports parents pay a lot extra to allow their kids to participate so I imagine the cost per player is quite a bit lower and it impacts a lot more people.

 

I also have no problem with athletics in University, but if they cant raise money through boosters and/or attendance for the Athletic Department overall to at least break even without general tuition or tax payers then they don't need the programs. Which is what I think UNO realized. Football is a huge drain of resources and wrestling wouldn't have a conference to participate in, would have increased costs to compete at a higher division and to get to title IX compliance (which UNO isn't) would require adding extra resource draining women's sports increasing the cost overall.

 

I have no problem with funding education with taxes since that's an investment, but at the college level education no longer includes athletics. At the university level athletics become a business and they shouldn't be subsidized by taxes or money intended to be spent for a better education. So I guess that's the difference.

 

Now if the 2000 people that actually attended UNO games wanted to pay the extra 90+ dollars a ticket per game it'd take to make up the deficit UNO football was running plus whatever they'd have to add on to pay for women's sports to get in compliance with title IX. That I'd be fine with. For me UNO football (and wrestling) added nothing to the experience of attending Omaha's commuter school and finding out my student fees and taxes were helping to subsidize it just bothers me, since if I wanted to do that I'd have bought a freaking ticket... but I, like 670,000 other Omahans, would rather go watch the huskers.

[gobiggergoredder]

 

 

 

I have no problem with funding education with taxes since that's an investment, but at the college level education no longer includes athletics. At the university level athletics become a business and they shouldn't be subsidized by taxes or money intended to be spent for a better education. So I guess that's the difference.

 

 

 

Investment for who?...the taxpayer? You should run for office.

[redblooded]

 

 

 

I have no problem with funding education with taxes since that's an investment, but at the college level education no longer includes athletics. At the university level athletics become a business and they shouldn't be subsidized by taxes or money intended to be spent for a better education. So I guess that's the difference.

 

 

 

Investment for who?...the taxpayer? You should run for office.

 

It's an investment for the taxpayer sure, the community, the nation and its businesses... but I'll stop right there, I really don't want to get off topic and into general political issues.

[gobiggergoredder]

 

 

 

I have no problem with funding education with taxes since that's an investment, but at the college level education no longer includes athletics. At the university level athletics become a business and they shouldn't be subsidized by taxes or money intended to be spent for a better education. So I guess that's the difference.

 

 

 

Investment for who?...the taxpayer? You should run for office.

 

 

 

It's an investment for the taxpayer sure, the community, the nation and its businesses... but I'll stop right there, I really don't want to get off topic and into general political issues.

 

 

Government Spending is an investment.

[VectorVictor]

 

 

 

I have no problem with funding education with taxes since that's an investment, but at the college level education no longer includes athletics. At the university level athletics become a business and they shouldn't be subsidized by taxes or money intended to be spent for a better education. So I guess that's the difference.

 

 

 

Investment for who?...the taxpayer? You should run for office.

 

 

 

It's an investment for the taxpayer sure, the community, the nation and its businesses... but I'll stop right there, I really don't want to get off topic and into general political issues.

 

 

Government Spending is an investment.

 

RedBlooded did not say "Government Spending is an investment". He said "I have no problem with funding education with taxes since that's an investment". Try addressing what was actually said instead of creating your own straw men to knock down and make yourself feel better.

 

As for RB's statement, I agree. Our country's prosperity has proven this belief true multiple times over since public education was introduced, and this belief is one of the key points of separation between successful and unsuccessful economies in the world.

[VectorVictor]

Regarding the topic at hand, one thing I noticed is that ESPN did seem to take several personal digs at Trev Alberts and his credibility throughout the piece. While I fully expected Alberts to get the shaft due to his contentious exit from ESPN, the piece seemed to be quite a bit more 'barbed' than a 'normal' smear piece from ESPN.

 

I suppose bad blood still exists, or perhaps I'm reading too much into that relationship?

[knapplc]

Bad blood definitely exists, and the ESPN piece was a hatchet job tour de force against Alberts. Trev may be in the wrong here, but that doesn't excuse ESPN from doing proper journalism on this piece. Instead of presenting the situation as is, they willfully omitted a ton of information that would have cast the situation in a much different light.

 

Shatel wrote an excellent piece on ESPN's horrible job of "reporting" this issue. LINK

[VectorVictor]

Thanks for the link, knapplc.

 

I agree with the article that UNO's collective silence did them no favors, but I suppose if we put ourselves in Trev's shoes, we're looking at one of the biggest media providers in sports that you had a legal imbroglio with a scant few years ago putting their crosshairs on your program and setting their phasers to "smear".

 

If anything, it may not look pretty, and it (understandably) doesn't sit well with folks, but perhaps silence was the best option Trev had at the time.

 

Especially if ESPN had sent Mark May to do the interview.

[knapplc]

+1 simply for using the word imbroglio. That's a solid vocabulary word.

[gobiggergoredder]

 

 

 

RedBlooded did not say "Government Spending is an investment". He said "I have no problem with funding education with taxes since that's an investment". Try addressing what was actually said instead of creating your own straw men to knock down and make yourself feel better.

 

As for RB's statement, I agree. Our country's prosperity has proven this belief true multiple times over since public education was introduced, and this belief is one of the key points of separation between successful and unsuccessful economies in the world.

Government Spending on Education is an Investment for the taxpayer.