https://pilotonline.com/sports/columnist/harry-minium/c-usa-rebuffed-lib...
Liberty is using its vast amount of private money to invest heavily into sports. A new indoor field more expensive than the Beamer Barn, softball and baseball facilities that rival a P5 programs. For me a shocking thing about Liberty exposure is this. EVERY Liberty sporting event that's not on TV is on Watch ESPN3. Liberty in house produces the content and gives to ESPN to air. This means Liberty has better potential exposure for Olympic sports than some P5 schools.
How many millions more? One source pegged the offer at $24 million. The offer coincidentally came at about the same time C-USA was learning its TV revenue would soon crater, going from paying $1.1 million per school annually to about $200,000.
Wonder if C-USA is having second thoughts now?
The school has spent an eye-popping $196 million on athletic facilities since 2010,
Liberty recently opened a $29.2 million indoor football facility that is more costly than Virginia Tech's and is a stunningly-beautiful building. It has a 70-yard high ceiling, a 100-yard field and picturesque windows on the north side that offer a breathtaking mountain view.
In 2013, a $20 million baseball stadium that looks like a pro facility opened and two years later, a $10 million softball stadium was completed. Later this year, Liberty expects to open a $32 million academic and performance center. The school recently unveiled a $29 million indoor track complex and completed a $20 million renovation of its basketball arena.
But there's more: Williams Stadium, Liberty's already opulent, 19,000-seat football stadium, has undergone a recent $16 million renovation, and another $40 million to $50 million will be spent to expand seating to about 26,000 and add luxury suites and loge seating in 2018 and 2019.
These kinds of costs have to have an end right? Where does a school get this kind of money for open ended spending?
Liberty's TV profile in all sports is unmatched in C-USA: Every one of its sports events, from football to field hockey, that isn't otherwise televised is broadcast on ESPN3. The Liberty Football Sports Network, which televises most football home games, reaches 35 million households.
How does the ACC not get that kind of Watch ESPN exposure?
Comments
F that school and their rape enabling AD
Going to infuriate me when they end up being good.
This is why I wanted the ACC to go solo and just make its own streaming channel. Keep the money in the conference and produce everything themselves. It's the next move. You don't need ESPN and even if you do, you can sell them your content.
The last part, who the fuck is watching Liberty football? 35 million can, but non of them except for a select few Liberty alumni are watching.
The reality is that people come from all over the US to attend Liberty and they have a large, wealthy, conservative fan base that is probably going to support the school for religious and political reasons, if not sports. I really don't like Liberty after their AD hire, but let's not pretend we don't know who's supporting them. They will have the same type (smaller scale for now) of following that Notre Dame and BYU have just because of their affiliations.
"Come" to Liberty? They only have 15k or so undergraduate students in residence. The vast majority of their student base (over 100k) is online. "Come" might be the wrong verb here for 80% of Liberty enrollees.
I would imagine the online students don't care one way or another about the athletics or the religious or political leanings of the school.
I work with someone who's taking online class from Liberty. She didn't understand when I made reference before our game last year. She also points out (in an eyeroll sort of way) that all of the early classes are religion, and then even the other classes all have callbacks to a religious viewpoint.
They are the largest private non-profit university in the US. And 7th largest combined (on-site and on-line) university in the country. The acceptance rate is around 20%, so I'd imagine if students couldn't get into the school to attend in person, they would take online classes.
As for the political leanings of the school, I'd say 90% that apply/attend do so exactly because of this.
As for the political leanings of the school, I'd say 90% that apply/attend do so exactly because of this.
You'd say that based on what, exactly?
Should have written religious and political. With religious being the first factor...
Some people just want an affordable degree, so I'd guess cost is probably a big factor.
Two different people here at work got BS and MS from Liberty and they just wanted an online adult degree program. I don't think the schools views factored into their decision at all.
And I wasn't talking on-line classes...
Given Liberty's strict 'honor code', I think it's closer to 99% ZINGGGGGGG
Well, Liberty is producing 3.5M alumni a year. It won't take long for their minions to take over the world.
This is disturbing. The fact that they are in VTs backyard and closer to most of our major recruiting areas is going to be a problem. The ACC continues to choke their media right and dedicated network negotiations.
I mean, just look at how Jerry Falwell founded and funded the university... That's how there's that much viewership and that's where the money comes from.
Where do they get the money?
Thomas Road Baptist Church
Westboro Baptist Church
edit: Bad joke... my bad
"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."
--L. Ron Hubbard
Liberty literally has 90,000 online students, that's how they pay for everything.
They have a billion dollar endowment, bigger than VT.
Yea but they have to pay professors and infrastructure money at some point has to not be endless.
90,000 online students means very low infrastructure costs.
They have built a law school and a medical school you can't take that online. So I assume their expansions have a ceiling.
Agreed. The Med and law schools are brick and mortar programs. But there are still 90,000 online students which require much less infrastructure than the 13,000-15,000 that are on campus.
My brother in law works in IT there, there is such a tiny cost associated with those 90,000 online students it's not even funny. He has told me before that they literally (yes LITERALLY) can't spend the money fast enough. Thus the giant push into athletics and facilities.
I have heard from people working at Liberty that they were looking into being a For-Profit University a few years ago because they can't spend the money fast enough. They are giving money away to Lynchburg for municipal projects, they hire an absurd amount of recent graduates to work at call centers and other various, extremely low paying positions at Liberty as well.
Law School was built over a decade ago. Their law program is very small though, and is nowhere near the cash cow the online program is.
Source: wife is a 3L.
I meant in terms of cost. I've heard they want to expand both law and medical programs. I know it's not going to drain the millions they hold but I assume they have a ceiling of some kind if not then they are going to be an interesting program in 25 years.
Yes! They do want to expand physically (they want to move it up with the medical center). My point is their professional programs like that are not what's making them money.
With that being said, I have it on a very good source that applications and enrollment were down this year for this first time in a long long time. They're cutting jobs from their online school too. Things aren't what everyone thinks they are.
Law Schools are cash cows for the university. They're basically like the football programs of academic departments. Schools keep buildng ever newer and nicer law school buildings to try to cover up the fact that millions are transferred back to the parent university, but the actual overhead for a law school, (no science, no labs, gross oversaturation of the lawyer market meaning wages are depressed even for professors) is basically 0. LULaw wouldn't crank out the cash to fund all this athletic stuff, but it probably does bring in enough money to cover itself and the med school*.
*Everything else in this post I stand behind 100%. Whether the law school covers the med school is speculative on my part.
It probably brings enough to cover itself for sure, but it's not cranking out near the revenue the online school does.
I agree. The point I Was trying to get at was that expanding the law school isn't really costing them all that much money. My point of reference was more to traditional law school-university relationships. Having 90,000 online students is whole different scale and I'm sure bringing in significantly more money then any law school could.
So when can VT start their law school then?
I could not be more vehemently opposed to VT opening a Law School. I won't go into the details (though I seem to remember maybe doing that around here sometime in the past) but it would be extremely embarrassing for the University if VT opened a law school.
I say that as a lawyer and as a 3rd generation Tech graduate.
Your not the only lawyer I know who says that.
Why would Tech opening a law school be a bad thing?
law schools are all about prestige. At this point, a new law school has as much prestige as getting your law degree from University of Phoenix. If you can't be at least a second tier law program, don't start one.
That's what I remember from the discussion, at least. I could be completely wrong.
http://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/541826#comment-541826
I stand by everything I said in that thread.
The state of VA is particularly oversaturated with law schools. Blacksburg is too small and too far away from any legal markets of size (lol Roanoke) and graduates of Virginia Tech Law School would struggle mightily to find employment. USNews ranks law schools, (along with other schools) and the USNews rankings are the 'holy grail' when it comes to law school rankings. No one would find jobs and it would simply saddle kids with debt that's unpayable and undischargeable in bankruptcy. In addition to finding that an embarrassing thing for my school to engage in, I would be pissed that they did that to kids.
To start out a Virginia Tech Law School would be about as academically prestigious as woovoo. It would drag our other programs down. The money wouldn't be anywhere near worth it.
Those rankings are a crock of shit.
https://youtu.be/EtQyO93DO-Q
But I do believe you that it wouldn't help Tech.
He's absolutely right. There is a very strong correlation (causation? maybe? but which way?) between the law schools that USNews likes and the law schools that provide the kinds of jobs that allow one to reasonably pay back their student loans.
There are only 14 law schools that have ever been ranked in the top 10. The schools at the top of these 14 provide the kinds of jobs that would justify going 150k+ in debt, so these schools charge tuition commensurate with that. The schools towards the middle of that 14 still get a lot of their students these kinds of jobs so they charge the same kinds of tuition, because keeping up with the joneses. The schools towards the bottom of this 14 used to be able to lie about the employment numbers enough to make it look like a lot of their students get these kinds of jobs (lolUVA got whacked for this some years back when USNews was like, "serial guys, you can't just make shit up.")
The rest of the schools are just stealing federal student loan money on what amounts to a lottery ticket chance that they might make their students rich.
The rest of the schools are just stealing federal student loan money on what amounts to a lottery ticket chance that they might make their students rich.
Aren't all the schools doing that? I mean, the top 15 law schools probably have large enough endowments that they could finance their students' loans.
Let me parse what you're saying here...
"Running a prestigious law school is really hard and will take a long time to develop a program that will crack the upper levels of law school rankings. In the meantime people will laugh at us. Therefore we shouldn't even try because a) it's really hard and b) people will make fun of us"
seems like legit reasoning to me.
The world needs fewer lawyers. About half of the people that graduate from law school will never have a 'real lawyer' job, even if they pass the bar.About the only thing that correlates with becoming a prestigious law school is already being a prestigious law school.You know, you're totally right, there's no way I know what I'm talking about. I can't believe I didn't see it. Thank you!
This makes a ton of sense. They have more students and less operational costs since everything is online.
FUCK THAT "SCHOOL"!!!!
I played at Liberty's old baseball stadium a lottt back in the day. When I saw the new one my jaw hit the fucking floor. They went from driving a Dart to a Viper. And to think that was just a drop in the bucket is scary. This is all just happening at such a breakneck pace, just...remain woke, folks. I smell an epic scandal brewing.
Hate to say it, but combine $$$ with a confirmed loose sense of morality and you have the perfect combination for a 21st century SMU.
Hey.... what's wrong with a dart
I guess a Cavalier vs a Z06 would've been the more proper analogy
I don't know but the most recent one only lasted 4 model years in the US market...
I know and that makes me so sad. Mine has been great. It's the roomiest compact car I've ever been in. Sporty quick. Loaded with features. I was kinda pissed when the FCA President said it was such a bad investment. Oh well.
Yeah, it seems like Sergio Marchionne is gutting the Mopar brands for the benefit of his Italian babies.
I got a legit question. What does this scandal smell like?
Dookie.
But legit-ly...idk. Even with their online explosion, I cannot see how this type of money comes into institution at such a rapid rate. Who knows, maybe it is all honest. But the thinking part of my brain says otherwise.
Simple math, $390 per credit hour x 12 hours x 90,000 = over $420 million per semester! Not all those students take 12 hours but you should get my point.
Now I never said the thinking part of my brain was any good at thinking.
My wife's design firm is working on Liberty's stadium expansion. They want to build up a hill on one side of the stadium just so they can have their own knockoff version of Clemson's entrance and Scott Stadium all in one.
Not trying to sound stupid with this question....But because they are a Private "Christian" University, do they have a loop hole when it comes to taxes? I mean, are they taxed the way other schools are?
This thought crossed my mind... my guess is that all universities (public or private) are 'non-profit' so they probably don't pay taxes anyways. But that's pure speculation, and could be factually incorrect.
Correct. The only for-profit school in D1 is Grand Canyon in basketball.
Really, really skirting the line of what's appropriate here. Politics + religion. It's nothing offensive or super divisive, so I'm not hitting this, but I know where this discussion will go and I know that some people are going to bristle at your use of "Christian" in quotes as if it's questioning their legitimacy, which is a deeply personal issue for some.
Let's not do this.
I have no problem with "PCU"
Personally, I took the quotes as emphasis, not delegitimization.
First of all, you say that Liberty produces all of their stuff in-house. So whatever ESPN has to pay for that content, if anything, is probably less than they would spend on their own production.
Second, the ACC schools are still working to build the ACC Network infrastructure.
And finally, I would say the ACC does have decent exposure on WatchESPN, now that all ACC content is branded (and grouped together) as such.
Why does anyone care what Liberty U does? Let's just take care of our own business.
Hear. Hear.
I don't care what anyone says about online students, private money, whatever. The speed at which they've grown smells fishy to me. They're up to something somewhere. It's not like they have morals. Look who they hired as their AD
If God drops a meteor on that school and its founders, I will laugh my ass off all the way until the shock/heat wave vaporizes my heathen body.Edit: I understand this crossed the line, but I'm not erasing it so people can see how I gathered Bender-esque levels of downvotes.
This is starting to veer more into religion than football. Hey VTGuitarMan, can you step in here and keep a lid on this?
Indeed. This is done, now. I've got one post above that is politics + religion, now this.
Every time I see a thread about Liberty, I know this is going to happen. Everyone should know better.
Thanks. One of the reasons I like this site is that I don't dread reading the comments section, and that the readers/commenters are generally pretty insightful and positive. I appreciate your efforts to keep it that way.
One of the reasons I posted about Liberty beating Baylor in the thread about Timecop beating UNLV instead of starting a new thread.
Replace Liberty with UVA or Notre Dame and you'd have the same score... just positive.
C'mon folks.
Edit to add Notre Dame
I upvoted this because, just like bigdaddy said, if someone said the same about, say WVU, it would have went to green fast as hell. He didn't mention religion in the post.
Maybe 2HokiesIn1 is just an environmentalist and hates Liberty for the fact that they raped an entire mountainside to put their logo on a mountain. All with just a landscaping permit. Or the fact that they're raping the fuck out of another mountainside for their shooting range.
My freshman year roommate got banned from Facebook in 2009 for laying into Liberty over that mountain logo. I don't think he uses it to this day out of protest over that.
Don't forget about the year-round skiing facility on another mountainside...
Oh, I didn't forget. I mentioned the logo because it's the one everyone knows and the most ridiculous. I mentioned the shooting range because of the sheer volume of timber and earth they are moving for it.
What is the ceiling for them? If they have an unlimited amount of money coming in, what stops them? If they have the money, they can hire the coaches, who will get the players, who will equal wins. I have read that their stadium could be expanded to 60,000 plus. I dont think they could fill that except when we come there, at least not for a while. But they arent in this to be a South Alabama or Georgia State.
We're not that far from there being a clear segregation between P5 schools and non-P5 schools - scheduling only or mostly themselves and with virtually all of the TV money and media interest. Either you'll be a member of the club or you won't - there won't be an in-between.
Liberty might have big financial resources but they'll need a number partners with big resources too or else they'll just be pissing in the wind unless they get a P5 invite in the next 10 years (and I don't see that happening for assorted reasons including political and religious).
It'll end up being a massive investment for the college football equivalent of a minor league baseball franchise - like it's going to be for many delusional schools like, say, ODU, hoping to milk the cash & media cow (but on a much grander scale).
Virginia Tech has no business helping this program grow. Get them off the schedule.
If I could give you 20 legs for this comment, I would. A home/home with Liberty does absolutely nothing for our program but gives them a marquee game in Lynchburg. There are only two solutions to this:
1) Tech fans buy out the entire stadium and establish it as Lane Stadium East; OR
2) Remove them from the schedule and never again acknowledge their 'school' exists.
I'll cast the first vote for #2.
Their indoor practice facility has a ceiling 70 YARDS high?!?!?!? Surely that's a typo.
Yea the design announcement says 70 feet, in comparison Beamer Barn is 86 feet high.
I drive by this thing like once a week it feels nowhere near as big as BeamerBarn. I think it's because BeamerBarn has a flat top and LU's is arched. And it's 16 feet shorter.
not terribly practical, but at least they get bragging rights? /s
all of this seems so corrupt
or maybe they are just better at business.
Or maybe they just get a fuck ton of donations from the Baptist Church.
I don't think they get anything from donations from the church. probably the opposite. They lease most of the property surrounding the university to chain brick and mortar businesses. Also all of the online students pay an athletic fee as well i have heard which is odd but gives an enormous amount of cash to the university. The have so much cash from online they are having to find things to invest in to not lose the money.
Do you have a problem with that?
I'm pretty sure that if we took a peek under the hood at most of the traditional institutions of society, I imagine ALL of them have some dirt. I'm not a huge Liberty fan, and God definitely knows that I 'm not a Bible thumper.
I'm just saying most people who criticize Liberty and other evangelical institutions criticize them for being so self righteous and critical of others. Hmmmmm....
Fuck Liberty. They've got their thing, and I'm good with it, cause I got a thing of my own.
Go Hokies.
Given the quoted online enrollment of 90k, Liberty is 4x bigger than Tech wrt enrollments! That'll pad the bottom line very nicely.
Correct me if I am
fromwrong, since they are private, even tuition can be used for the athletics department/scholarships. VA state law does not allow this for VT, UVA or the other public schools. This helps in their favor as well.Edit: thank you for correcting me since I was wrong.
Sorry, you are not "from", you are "hokiebuzz". Consider yourself corrected.
I believe this is why the sunbelt rejected them. other schools can't compete with the cash flow. unlimited cash for coaches, facilities etc. Right now their student athletes are at the max stipend per month. Better than most power 5 schools.
A couple of quick observations...
Liberty has unapologetically declared that they want to be Evangelicals version of Notre Dame, and they have the money to do it. Where does that money come from?
As someone who has investigated some of Liberty's online degrees and knows dozens and dozens of people who have earn and are earning degrees online through Liberty (undergrad and grad work both), they are not highly valued in the secular, or even in some cases the religious, vocational world (very generalized statement there, I know) and they are not terribly robust in nature. All of that means that they can churn out degrees at a minimal cost.
I'm not saying it is a degree mill, but I am saying that the value might not be all that great for certain people and the vocation they are working towards.
I also happen to know a number of the online professors and can say that the overhead is nothing compared to the amount of money that comes in through the online degree program.
So I wonder if they used the accreditation of their brick-and-mortar school to sandbag (so to speak) that of their online programs...
Exactly why this whole thing sounds corrupt...not good business. They're using religion as a marketing tool to get major tuition and student fee dollars, specifically from their online degrees. And as you said and as I would suspect, those online degrees are BS and will minimally help the student in their career, while also handcuffing them to a lot debt. Liberty is swimming in money so they start pumping it into their sports programs... seems corrupt, especially since other schools, mainly public schools are constrained by state laws. BYU and Notre Dame are at least giving out very good degrees... just seems fishy to me...
I think the ceiling for liberty is BYU (maybe not even, BYU has a built in advantage that they get to play alot of older people because of their missions). The schools honor code is going to be a tough sell for recruits.
Do you really think they would enforce it on a star athelet helping them build their program... I'm pretty sure they will sweep a lot of that under the rug as they try and build their program
Their current AD has plenty of experience with sweeping much dirtier shit than "not following the honor code" under the rug.
I got into quite the facebook spat over this on Monday. The guy claimed that "a law firm investigated the issue and found there was no legal justification to bring charges to McCaw" or something like that. Then when I actually showed him Pepper Hamilton's report that said the Athletic Program fostered an above the law mentality he changed his tune. His argument then revolved around the fact that McCaw resigned and wasn't fired so he wasn't guilty of anything despite my repeated attempts to show him that there was overwhelming evidence showing McCaw fostered a culture that said football players were above the rules. I provided numerous sources (including the report he initially referred to). Then he said "You are grasping at straws to blame someone for something that you can't prove his level of involvement in only that he was AD and it was happening in his program." It was the most pathetic denial of facts and display of ignorance I think I've ever witnessed.
You're using logic and facts to argue with someone who decides their opinion based on emotion and ignorance.
You lost in their mind before you even started. But it's the other people who haven't made up their mind that you're trying to convince. Remember that and keep fighting the good fight.
Also: fuck liberty, I'd rather play ecu than those zealous
They haven't yet. Those football players get free passes for everything. They have huge parties with alcohol. One player got in trouble for teh-mary-j and got to come back to play when any other student would've been dismissed on the spot.
The rules have become more lax over the years for all students, not just athletes and in the last couple years they have apparently had a rather radical shift in the code of conduct since I was a student there. The VP of Student Affairs wrote of the change:
Even when I was a student there, when the rules were more in the line of "doing x results in y punishment," the practice was usually along these lines. In general, when I was on campus from Fall '05-Fall '07, someone would have to go out of their way to break rules to really get into trouble at the school.