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Remember when all week one games sucked. Man am I glad that era ended.
Then we should go buy some Zima's and sit down with UVA and their lawyers and get laws changed. Im sure they want more money, maybe not for football, but for some sport.
I can say with the utmost confidence, on behalf of our fellow TKP'ers, thank you for allowing us this "degree of access". Very much appreciated.
Upon reading, IMO, the one item that stuck out tue most which will drive the most action, change, influence, etc., is the NRV economic impact.
This brings the "powers that be" together - Politics, Commerce, Economic Development, etc., all that will impact the greater good within the NRV.
There was an idea floated to combine all auxiliaries together so that they could satisfy the "self-funding" aspect in aggregate. But that also may require a change in VA law.
I really like the away teams
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Why doesn't athletics own parking services and let the university pay for the use. Is no onwnthinking about how to funnel money to sports!
Football generates profit, all other programs (aside from a few other one-off years from men's and women's basketball) use up that profit, and operate at a loss every year. If we use any new money to fund those sports, football doesn't get the investment they need to stay competitive. The easiest thing to do under the current law that caps the university's subsidy is to chop off programs that are continually losing money and reinvest it in football. The question is, who do you cut? And it also has to be done consistent with Title IX - cut one women's sport (and a certain number of scholarships) and you have to do the same to a men's sport...
Can you explain this? What's the point of collecting athletics fees if it doesn't go to athletics?
Honestly, no idea. This was just something Whit said. But the expenses paid by the fees must have something to do with expenses that campus takes on (utilities, upkeep, etc?) that Athletics has to pay back to them.
Can you explain this one as well? Is parking services 'owned' by the university or is it some sort of third party contract? Why is there a negotiation/why can't VT just say 'these are the rules'?
Parking Services is its own entity, an "auxiliary service" (like housing, dining, athletics) that under VA law, has to be budgetarily separate from the university and must fund its own operations. Parking Services owns and maintains the lots, Athletics (a separate entity) has to rent the spaces from them on game days. If it sounds absurd to you, it certainly did to me.
Are you able to get more specific about what renegotiations and who's discussing realignment? I assume the 2027 B10/SEC rengotiations for the 2029/2030 season? And who's discussing realignment? How much of a discussion is there vs just waiting to be called up?
It's a generic observation from Whit that whenever there's new money being discussed, people get antsy and want to make a change.
One thing I didn't mention in the main post - VT is positioning itself for AAU membership. That aligns us with the Big Ten, which was founded from only AAU member schools. Academically, they are a better fit for us. Basically, if shit hits the fan, we want to be attractive to the Big Ten. If somehow our football team is really good at that point, it positions us for the SEC. But our intermediate goal is to be a Big Ten target.
OOOF, that hurts. Any informed takes on why this is? Are our donors not rich enough? Do we not have a culture of giving? Is our fundraising strategy weak?
No clue, but per-donor giving is painfully low. See below for some commentary that's relevant.
Do you see this state law changing/being lobbied or not likely?
Can't predict that necessarily but all I can tell you is our administration is going to directly try to get the law changed.
In what scenario could this happen?
If the law capping the university's subsidy is changed and VT can push more of its general budget into athletics, there will be pressure from some influential people to cut academic programs that are funded from Foundation dollars to be cut so the money can be re-routed to athletics. Note that 95% of our endowment is restricted, meaning it can only be used for the purpose defined by the donor. But there's 5% that's flexible, plus the interest we get from our investments that we can allocate as we see fit. Some of that interest is currently supporting academic programs. If the cap lifts, the pressure is on. Do we trade programs that define us as a comprehensive university for possible athletic outcomes? Will donors support that? Charlie Phlegar, outgoing VP of Advancement, was responsible for getting us hundreds of millions in donations each year to VT. The man is a legend and we all owe him a debt of gratitude. He pointedly said to the BOV (in open session) that "I love football and our athletics programs, but clearly our alumni are donating to the academic causes in record numbers instead of athletics. That tells you where their priorities are."
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Yeah, I could see if he had been in the guys face or on the Hawaii sideline taunting the bench maybe, but it was just a super lame call.
As Bar said - awesome insight, thanks for the update! Also a question:
supportive of providing more funding to athletics ... but it will mean cutting Olympic sports.
Why are these things mutually exclusive? It would seem like more funding would be better for Olympic sports, not worse...
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Thanks for this. I really enjoy a nice "behind the curtain" piece.
Fantastic insight! Thank you for sharing! I have some questions:
Increases in student fees help cover this cost, but fees are basically a zero-sum game for athletics, just about everything that comes in gets paid back to main campus.
Can you explain this? What's the point of collecting athletics fees if it doesn't go to athletics?
Athletics generates 100% of the revenue from game day parking but only receives 75% of the proceeds. They have worked with Parking Services to negotiate down the price paid to rent spots from Parking Services from $300k for 6 games last year to $200k for 7 games this year.
Can you explain this one as well? Is parking services 'owned' by the university or is it some sort of third party contract? Why is there a negotiation/why can't VT just say 'these are the rules'?
Upcoming renegotiations of media rights will trigger realignment discussions.
Are you able to get more specific about what renegotiations and who's discussing realignment? I assume the 2027 B10/SEC rengotiations for the 2029/2030 season? And who's discussing realignment? How much of a discussion is there vs just waiting to be called up?
Hokie Club is 2nd largest in the ACC in terms of number of donors but middle of the pack in terms of dollars collected.
OOOF, that hurts. Any informed takes on why this is? Are our donors not rich enough? Do we not have a culture of giving? Is our fundraising strategy weak?
Some of our challenge stems from legal constraints (VA law says that public institutions in our "tier" - VT and UVA - can only subsidize 20% of the athletics budget with campus funds).
Do you see this state law changing/being lobbied or not likely?
If cutting academic programs is on the table, I can tell you that the faculty will revolt and you will see my name in the news at some point for having to confront any such proposition.
In what scenario could this happen?
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Join The Key Player's Club to read comments posted in exclusive content and its members only forum.
The unsportsmanlike penalty on the Stanford DT celebrating the sack at the end of the first half completely changed the game and frankly was a horseshit call. He wasn't taunting anyone and was doing a dumb dance. After penalty, Hawaii scored a TD two plays later rather than being forced to punt.
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Don Strock had the all-time Hokie backup career. Held the clipboard like a champ and always looked like he just stepped off of the golf course.
Josh Fuga was waived/injured three weeks ago by Chargers and does not appear to have been claimed and no news if he reached injury settlement
Wilfried Pene was released by New England
Pene may be an easy pickup for other teams as he is part of the International Pathways program so doesn't count as a roster spot. Each team is allowed at least one of these spots.
yes, definitely a smart play by Whit to highlight the negative impact to the NRV should athletics be left to fester and die.
To me, though, the biggest hurdle seems to be archaic VA laws that need to be changed. I'm not sure what it'll take to get them changed in our favor but I imagine it will be neither quick nor easy to do. Whit, for all the great presenting he's done here, needs to figure out how to hire winning coaches. Fuente flopped hopelessly. Pry hasn't been any better, to be honest. I don't know if he will (or should) get another opportunity but the best thing VT can do in the short term is win on the football field to maximize our ACC revenues - this league isn't that hard to win in - a decent coach should be able to get us there.