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squire17

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Talk about money, but man. They flew a private jet to pick up Oats.  How can you compete with that?  So it's not just the salary, but everything is going to be first class.  Facilities, perks, shoes, meals, hotels, travel, ...  I guess we're all human after all.  

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2 minutes ago, admin said:

Talk about money, but man. They flew a private jet to pick up Oats.  How can you compete with that?  So it's not just the salary, but everything is going to be first class.  Facilities, perks, shoes, meals, hotels, travel, ...  I guess we're all human after all.  

Pretty much. It’s all about the things that don’t matter on the court. All the ancillary things that UB has to improve. We need to become more first class. But what comes first the chicken or the egg. Winning on the court or building off of it? Do they work in conjunction? If so why haven’t we seen capital improvements over the last few years of success from our b-ball programs?

UB has had a taste of success. I know I want more of it. Hopefully administration feels the same and does the necessary things to keep this train on the right tracks. I don’t just want to revert back to just another MAC team.

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8 minutes ago, UB92 said:

Both of the statements in bold, by the way, are false.

Ohio State is either 1 or 2 (overall) in enrollment in the US, have the largest athletic program in the nation and get disproportionate amounts of help from the State (plus they give out very little in scholarships).  They are their own entity.  But the other schools in the State are not "utter crap" and are not "bad schools".  You are just showing your ignorance and if you do work in higher education (like I do), then you are poorly informed.  Those schools are good, regional universities and have some very strong programs in some areas.  I know we say "Can't Read, Can't Write, Kent State", but they have a fantastic program on liquid crystals that is known throughout the world.  Other schools that you mention have different areas of strength as well.  

 

Second, while SUNY may be set on their university centers, I never considered them on equal footing.  Having been to them all, I would say that Buffalo is the first among equals.  You say that the centers are "no better or worse than the other three", but I disagree with that 100%.

 

As far as the topic of this thread goes, we can't have a $3M coach in the MAC when the average salary is like $500,000 (or something close) for bball.  If we were ever to move to the AAC, our coaches would then make more money.  I would assume that our split of TV contracts, etc. would help pay for the additional salary.

Do agree. As long as we are in th MAC versus the AAC or A-10 the coaches salaries are going to be disproportionately lower and thus with a ton of success a coach is going to be offered another job with more pay. Unfortunately that is never going to change. I can not fault Nate for taking the Alabama job but what I am upset about is is talk about wanting to be the next Gonzaga and getting all our hopes up that he really wanted to stay. He should of toned it down because he truly had in his mind that he would be leaving if he was offered a higher paying job. Our family have been big time college supporters for almost our entire lives but truly just like our interest in pro sports has waned because of the obscene money we have had discussions about college sports also becoming a total money grab. Sadly ourenjoyment and support have now been started to come into question. Sadly we will start looking for other avenues to start enjoying life without sports in general. There are many members of our family who could care less about sports and are living a happy life. Look what has happened at Canisius and Niagara over the last few years and you can see their programs are decimated with little fan support. It has been a wonderful 4/5 years and we will have those memories and good luck to all in the future.

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6 minutes ago, John said:

Do agree. As long as we are in th MAC versus the AAC or A-10 the coaches salaries are going to be disproportionately lower and thus with a ton of success a coach is going to be offered another job with more pay. Unfortunately that is never going to change. I can not fault Nate for taking the Alabama job but what I am upset about is is talk about wanting to be the next Gonzaga and getting all our hopes up that he really wanted to stay. He should of toned it down because he truly had in his mind that he would be leaving if he was offered a higher paying job. Our family have been big time college supporters for almost our entire lives but truly just like our interest in pro sports has waned because of the obscene money we have had discussions about college sports also becoming a total money grab. Sadly ourenjoyment and support have now been started to come into question. Sadly we will start looking for other avenues to start enjoying life without sports in general. There are many members of our family who could care less about sports and are living a happy life. Look what has happened at Canisius and Niagara over the last few years and you can see their programs are decimated with little fan support. It has been a wonderful 4/5 years and we will have those memories and good luck to all in the future.

Several years ago I quit following the NFL or the NHL for the most part. Seldom watch any game, unless we’re at a party and the Bills are playing. Never listen to the radio if they’re talking Sabres or Bills. Seldom read about them - and let’s face it. That’s just about 90% of the local sports page 365 days a year. Here’s the thing: I do not miss it. I will never go back.

If UB stumbles and reverts to merely being merely a good MAC team, I plan on still cheering them on. These kids are fun to watch and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to go to a game. Would it be better if they became the next Gonzaga or joined the AAC? Perhaps. But I’m sticking with them either way.

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7 hours ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Pretty much. It’s all about the things that don’t matter on the court. All the ancillary things that UB has to improve. We need to become more first class. But what comes first the chicken or the egg. Winning on the court or building off of it? Do they work in conjunction? If so why haven’t we seen capital improvements over the last few years of success from our b-ball programs?

UB has had a taste of success. I know I want more of it. Hopefully administration feels the same and does the necessary things to keep this train on the right tracks. I don’t just want to revert back to just another MAC team.

UB only got on this track because both teams started winning big time both in conference and in the tourney. That brought us national exposure and thus piqued the interest of the passionate fan base, the casual fan and even alumni all over the country. Those ancillary things are not possible in most cases without the winning. If we revert back to just another mid major team in a lower conference we will become an after thought again. Sadly it looks like we are going down that road. If Hodgson/Whitesell are not signed to new contracts all the momentum will be lost.

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On 3/28/2019 at 9:22 AM, DooleyBull06 said:

Pretty much. It’s all about the things that don’t matter on the court. All the ancillary things that UB has to improve. We need to become more first class. But what comes first the chicken or the egg. Winning on the court or building off of it? Do they work in conjunction? If so why haven’t we seen capital improvements over the last few years of success from our b-ball programs?

UB has had a taste of success. I know I want more of it. Hopefully administration feels the same and does the necessary things to keep this train on the right tracks. I don’t just want to revert back to just another MAC team.

I think winning on the court needs to come first. People need to see success to start going to games and donating money. We saw a huge uptick in attendance this year. We must’ve profited a good chunk more than previous years. Next comes donors but that takes time. I can promise you all that if I ever become a millionaire I’ll become a huge donor to UB but alas I’m nowhere close right now. I feel like general school support has really taken off. Heck even back when I was in school 5 or so years ago UB athletics was a complete joke. People would actually make fun of you for going to games. With a new culture of kids going to UB to watch sports and those who have seen the success you can only hope they eventually become donors. It just takes a lot of time and we are at a critical point right now. We’ve had some nice success over a couple of years and this year basketball and football overall were pretty great. It’s amazing how quickly we could fall back to insignificance. Football wins 2 games next year and basketball has a losing season and we are back to step one. I’m not saying we need to have the same level of success as this year but we need football to have a winning season and therefore a bowl berth and basketball needs at least a winning season. Thinking about how difficult that’s going to be with all we lose next year terrifies me. We need sustained success. 

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9 hours ago, weareub46 said:

Also the whole SUNY not allowing us to be a flagship pisses me off so much. I’m so sick of them holding us back so all the other schools who don’t even have division 1A football can get a share. Idiotic 

As a UB alum that doesn't care about the rest of SUNY, yes, it's infuriating.  However think of it from a state-wide standpoint.  The goal of SUNY is to provide an EQUITABLE high quality education to NY residents.  The classic Ohio-style model of one amazing school (Ohio State) and 10 shit ones (Akron, OU, Kent, etc.) isn't very fair or equitable to Ohio residents.  If you want a top quality Ohio education you need to go to Columbus.  If you can't afford that or your circumstances don't permit you to, well..here's your diploma from fucking Toledo, I guess.  SUNY doesn't want that situation.  The 4 university centers are spread across the state and SUNY wants a similar level of education at each of them, so no matter where you're from the state, you have access to a high quality public education at a major university.  This is undoubtedly a more equitable, fair model.

So if I put my UB fandom aside, I'm glad SUNY does it this way because it is ultimately better for the people of the state to have this setup.  When I put my UB hat on though, fuck SUNY.  I see it both ways.

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42 minutes ago, UBigbobby said:

As a UB alum that doesn't care about the rest of SUNY, yes, it's infuriating.  However think of it from a state-wide standpoint.  The goal of SUNY is to provide an EQUITABLE high quality education to NY residents.  The classic Ohio-style model of one amazing school (Ohio State) and 10 shit ones (Akron, OU, Kent, etc.) isn't very fair or equitable to Ohio residents.  If you want a top quality Ohio education you need to go to Columbus.  If you can't afford that or your circumstances don't permit you to, well..here's your diploma from fucking Toledo, I guess.  SUNY doesn't want that situation.  The 4 university centers are spread across the state and SUNY wants a similar level of education at each of them, so no matter where you're from the state, you have access to a high quality public education at a major university.  This is undoubtedly a more equitable, fair model.

So if I put my UB fandom aside, I'm glad SUNY does it this way because it is ultimately better for the people of the state to have this setup.  When I put my UB hat on though, fuck SUNY.  I see it both ways.

If you are insinuating that the other SUNY institutions are crap schools, you may want to re-examine your concept of what constitutes a quality post secondary school education.

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I've been hearing on the radio and podcasts (WGR, trainwreck sports) that the Football program hurts the Basketball program. That the money used on the Football team (for things like the field house etc....) is why we can't pay Oats & Hurly. 

Any truth to this? Any way to solve this problem? Or does UB have to pick one or the other?

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Just now, bmb2jn said:

I've been hearing on the radio and podcasts (WGR, trainwreck sports) that the Football program hurts the Basketball program. That the money used on the Football team (for things like the field house etc....) is why we can't pay Oats & Hurly. 

Any truth to this? Any way to solve this problem? Or does UB have to pick one or the other?

UB did pay Oats, or tried to anyway. They had a signed agreement which made him the highest paid coach in the MAC, by a decent margin.

Instead of going into the wind machine bubble for 60 seconds, Nate got to go inside the Brinks truck and have 5 years to grab what he wanted.

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2 hours ago, bmb2jn said:

I've been hearing on the radio and podcasts (WGR, trainwreck sports) that the Football program hurts the Basketball program. That the money used on the Football team (for things like the field house etc....) is why we can't pay Oats & Hurly. 

Any truth to this? Any way to solve this problem? Or does UB have to pick one or the other?

The field house was paid for by designated fund raising for the field house as well a guarantee money from future football games.

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38 minutes ago, BrooklynBull said:

The field house was paid for by designated fund raising for the field house as well a guarantee money from future football games.

Funds raised by alumni and donors that may have given that money to the basketball program if the administration was raising money for basketball and not football. 

 

Yes, there are finite resources and football and basketball are in competition with each other for those limited resources. 

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6 hours ago, bmb2jn said:

I've been hearing on the radio and podcasts (WGR, trainwreck sports) that the Football program hurts the Basketball program. That the money used on the Football team (for things like the field house etc....) is why we can't pay Oats & Hurly. 

Any truth to this? Any way to solve this problem? Or does UB have to pick one or the other?

Best solution is to be good at both. We did that this year.

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Maybe I don’t really know what I’m talking about but I feel like there should be a way that SUNY can equally support all of its schools academicaly but focus its support for athletics on the obvious choice. 

Not sure how the money flows between SUNY and the schools but don’t you think if a school like UB became bigger athletically and started making a good chunk more money some of it would flow back to the SUNY system? 

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27 minutes ago, bull_trojan said:

Best solution is to be good at both. We did that this year.

I'd add that between 2006-07 and 2010-11:

Men's Basketball's record was 81-77 (.513), with 1 MAC Champ appearance (loss).
Total attendance was 232,741.

Football went 22-40 (.355) with 1 MAC Championship.
Total attendance was 356,966.

Between 2014-15 and 2018-19

Men's Basketball's record was 119-53 (.692), with 4 MAC Championships. 
Total attendance was 261,881.
Win% increased by 34.89%, attendance improved by 12.52%

Football went 28-33 (.459) with 1 MAC Champ appearance (loss).
Total attendance was 356,966.
Win% increased by 29.30%, attendance improved by 48.05%

So both programs are improving and selling better, but Football attendance is improving faster despite less success....

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36 minutes ago, weareub46 said:

Maybe I don’t really know what I’m talking about but I feel like there should be a way that SUNY can equally support all of its schools academicaly but focus its support for athletics on the obvious choice. 

Not sure how the money flows between SUNY and the schools but don’t you think if a school like UB became bigger athletically and started making a good chunk more money some of it would flow back to the SUNY system? 

I dove into that world a bit when NY almost paid Cuse for a new dome. But it just seems to be a voters game.

When NY state has 54 million to give to WNY for sports, they get more bang for their buck "saving" the Bills than they would by building a field house, a rec center and renovating Alumni at UB.

In Central NY despite being private, if you want to please the voters via sports, you put money into the Orange. 

On long island, you build Stony a stadium.

In the city you take care of the pro sports... MSG has a tax exemption larger than UB's annual budget. Barclays took 9 figures of state funds.

In Utica they get 22 million for the Nexus Center ice rink...

So I think until we get a following that is politically significant, we'll continue to get little to no help on that front.

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6 hours ago, bull_trojan said:

On long island, you build Stony a stadium.

In the city you take care of the pro sports... MSG has a tax exemption larger than UB's annual budget.

So I think until we get a following that is politically significant, we'll continue to get little to no help on that front.

It is all politics, but there reasons behind what happens.

As for Stony Brook it has to do with who was in charge of the State Senate and this has been going on for decades.  In the 1970s the leader of the Senate was Perry Duryea.  His district included Stony Brook.  Every extra dime for construction for SUNY went home.  When he lost in his run for governor in 1978 to Hugh Carey all of a sudden there was tons of money for construction on the Amherst Campus, which allowed for a total renovation of the Student Union (Squire nee Norton Hall) into new facilities for the dental school.  Eventually teh Senate Higher Education Committee was led by Kenneth LaValle, as in Kenneth LaValle Stadium at Stony Brook, and it was back to the 1970s as LaValle represents Stony Brook.

As for MSG the tax exemption, it is property tax exemption only.  That impacts revenues for New York City only.  It has no impact on revenues for New York State.

If upstate legislators want power to bargain they need to be wiling to vote for items that impact New York City only and hold back that support until they get something they want.  The Long Island and Westchester legislators held back support for congestion pricing in Manhattan until some of that revenue was going to be used for the Long Island Railroad and Metro North systems.  Manhattan needs congestion pricing to fix mass transit?  Well UB needs a student recreation center.  The margin for passage is small so there is power in holding back support for items to get something in return.

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On 3/29/2019 at 8:37 PM, ATL92 said:

Does everyone understand that TV Conference money is a big factor here.  If we can get to the AAC our athletic budget gets bigger!!

What is not understood is you have to be invited to the party and 1 good year in the entire basketball history of the school doesn't get an invitation. Will UB fans be willing to park 3 miles away and bus to games in the middle of winter like at Syracuse? Even Fordham. Other than to tournament games do UB fans travel and occupy arena space? Does UB have the budget to fly teams to away games? The MAC is a bus & truck and fits UB's athletic budget. Buffalo is not a medium or large media market. It is a small market. 

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On 3/27/2019 at 7:14 PM, 961819 said:

Genuine question. What does UB need to do to be able to eventually be one of those big money schools? Like how do they actually become able to pay coaches 3+ million a year?

Go back in time an build athletics when in our reality UB was cutting them.  We showed up at the train station and our ticket was for a coal powered steam engine.

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2 hours ago, ButlerAlumDad said:

Other than to tournament games do UB fans travel and occupy arena space? Does UB have the budget to fly teams to away games?

1. Yes, have you been to a UB game at Canisius or Niagara?  This year Syracuse sounded like a home game.

2. Yes, they do currently.  Though it will obviously be more expensive to fly more teams out to farther locations.

 

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31 minutes ago, rma said:

1. Yes, have you been to a UB game at Canisius or Niagara?  This year Syracuse sounded like a home game.

2. Yes, they do currently.  Though it will obviously be more expensive to fly more teams out to farther locations.

 

You obviously have no idea of travel costs. Airplanes, charter busses, hotel costs, travel with tutors, etc. Fans traveling down the street or even down the I-90 is different than fans traveling to Illinois or Iowa or Cinci. 

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11 hours ago, bull_trojan said:

I'd add that between 2006-07 and 2010-11:

Men's Basketball's record was 81-77 (.513), with 1 MAC Champ appearance (loss).
Total attendance was 232,741.

Football went 22-40 (.355) with 1 MAC Championship.
Total attendance was 356,966.

Between 2014-15 and 2018-19

Men's Basketball's record was 119-53 (.692), with 4 MAC Championships. 
Total attendance was 261,881.
Win% increased by 34.89%, attendance improved by 12.52%

Football went 28-33 (.459) with 1 MAC Champ appearance (loss).
Total attendance was 356,966.
Win% increased by 29.30%, attendance improved by 48.05%

So both programs are improving and selling better, but Football attendance is improving faster despite less success....

 

11 hours ago, bull_trojan said:

Best solution is to be good at both. We did that this year.

Winning does solve all problems.

I admit I’m one of those people jumping on the bandwagon. But I want 2 things. One I want a TV deal so I can watch all the games on TV. And 2 I want a shot at the National Championship.

In Basketball we’ve seen mid major teams compete for and win the National Championship. The last one to win it all was UNLV 30 years ago. But we’ve seen other mid majors go deep (George Washington, Memphis, Butler, Gonzaga, VCU, Loyola Chicago etc....) this year UCF and Houston had good runs.

In College Football no mid major team gets a shot at the official National Championship. Mid Majors go undefeated but don’t get voted into the CFB (Boise State, Tulane, Marshall, Utah, TCU, UCF etc.....) However UCF was declared National Champions when they went undefeated and won the Fiesta Bowl and they had a parade at Disney World. Is that the ultimate goal for UB? Would we have a parade in downtown Buffalo when/if that happens?

That’s why this whole Football vs. Basketball dynamic is interesting. Obviously I want them to find a way to build up both. But if Football does hurt Basketball what’s more important to build up? What’s more important to Buffalo? An unofficial National Championship that’s more likely to get or the official National Championship that’s less likely to get?

Memphis, Houston and UCF are in the AAC so I can see why fans want to make the jump to it.

 

 

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