Should be. Probably won’t be. What then? I’ve lived on both campuses. Only one is known for “where fun goes to die,” and it ain’t Berkeley. We deserve and can have better than this, but there is a middle and that’s likely our destiny if we’re willing to chase it. I’ve been tortured by Cal Athletics for 4 decades and will gladly continue …
Should be. Probably won’t be. What then? I’ve lived on both campuses. Only one is known for “where fun goes to die,” and it ain’t Berkeley. We deserve and can have better than this, but there is a middle and that’s likely our destiny if we’re willing to chase it. I’ve been tortured by Cal Athletics for 4 decades and will gladly continue to take the pain if that’s the alternative to a U of Chicago route.
I went to UChicago too! For grad school. Dude, so different from Cal in many ways, but the absence of sports really does impact student life. These sporting events give shape to the student experience in ways that are hard to notice until you experience their absence. For instance, at UofC, you pretty rarely see someone wearing a UofC shirt or hat, even on campus.
The U of Chicago is one of the world's best universities, yet it has never been any kid's dream to go to the U of Chicago for undergrad. I was always struck by how most of the undergrads I encountered there were there purely for the sake of learning.
Not intending to interrupt this debate, but I've seen UChicago get mentioned before. I honestly didn't know their story. Looked it up and found this not very recent article. Makes for some interesting light reading and contemplation. For those who may be interested to consider where the experiences of U of C and Cal line up and where they really don't, check out the article.
It's an easy arm chair hypothetical, but the reality is that was already nearly a century ago and this U of Chicago example has been an outlier ever since. If it was that easy to cast aside big time athletics for schools, I'm sure more would have followed suit. But the financial realities of major modern college athletics have made it harder to quit than when U of Chicago made that decision. The financial aspects of their decision I'm sure only needed to play a very small part of that decision. They only had to make an ethical decision, rather than also having to worry much about a financial one.
Santa Clara and UOP are more recent and probably better comparisons than U of Chicago. Both schools disbanded football in the 1990s. All three schools are private, so none had the luxury of state funds to bail them out.
If Cal doesn’t want to invest in its sports, then why should we (either financially or emotionally)? Feels more like a toxic relationship that we convince ourselves to stay in for *reasons*
You’re right. You don’t need to be. I’m not disagreeing that we can’t or shouldn’t be stellar. Just being realistic. But I disagree that the only outcomes are two extreme ones.
But doesn’t the middle path of remaining mediocre lead to the same outcome as shutting down the program (just after burning $Ms)?
Status quo means we will hemorrhage money for the next 7 years while in the ACC without meaningfully growing our revenue base. The ensuing growth in the budget deficit will lead to a Regents’ decision re: keeping Cal Athletics and I would wager ends our D1 participation to save on costs.
Burning money would be abandoning the only plausible way to cut into a half billion $ in stadium debt that doesn’t otherwise fall to students and academic programs. I’d like Cal to have a top shelf athletics program like Oregon too, but I don’t also agree that’s the only alternative to a U of Chicago model.
I haven’t seen the covenants for the stadium financing, so take my following Q with a grain of salt: If cal abandons its football program, why couldn’t Cal just pass the debt refinancing to the state to eat? A sub-D1 team could play at Edward’s while the state took full possession of CMS. Not saying I like the idea but why can’t we get shed the stadium if we don’t need it
I'm not sure how would that work? Cal says it's dropping football and the Regents say, no you have to keep it? Or, the Regents say, fine, cut every sport too? Regardless, the fact is that the Regents (ask taxpayers) are on the hook for the debt if Cal drops FB. (Or, are you suggesting the state takes it out of the academic funding, which is what really goes into the classroom?)
Not saying Cal can't drop football if it wants to, but the state doesn't also have to pick up the tab for whatever portion of the stadium debt athletics would no longer contribute to. In all likelihood they would cover some depending on the circumstances, but I'd suspect much more would need to be cut out of the existing budget or deferred or re-financed so that we would essentially be paying off till the end of time. In any case, the state choose any solution they want, but it for no scenario would involve the state just paying for it.
The Athletic Department signed for the CMS debt, but if football is dropped, the Athletic Department will lose its cash cow. Besides cutting most of teh AD staff, the only sports remaining will be those that the campus wants to fund out of General Revenues. The AD will not be able to pay bond debt without football; if the campus eliminates all varsity sports, teh AD will cease to exist. The Regents will have no choice but assume the bonds, using some CaliMoney from UCLA. Cutting education money to the campus is a non-starter, as that will hurt the low income and first gen the most.
Should be. Probably won’t be. What then? I’ve lived on both campuses. Only one is known for “where fun goes to die,” and it ain’t Berkeley. We deserve and can have better than this, but there is a middle and that’s likely our destiny if we’re willing to chase it. I’ve been tortured by Cal Athletics for 4 decades and will gladly continue to take the pain if that’s the alternative to a U of Chicago route.
I went to UChicago too! For grad school. Dude, so different from Cal in many ways, but the absence of sports really does impact student life. These sporting events give shape to the student experience in ways that are hard to notice until you experience their absence. For instance, at UofC, you pretty rarely see someone wearing a UofC shirt or hat, even on campus.
The U of Chicago is one of the world's best universities, yet it has never been any kid's dream to go to the U of Chicago for undergrad. I was always struck by how most of the undergrads I encountered there were there purely for the sake of learning.
Not intending to interrupt this debate, but I've seen UChicago get mentioned before. I honestly didn't know their story. Looked it up and found this not very recent article. Makes for some interesting light reading and contemplation. For those who may be interested to consider where the experiences of U of C and Cal line up and where they really don't, check out the article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/sports/ncaafootball/at-the-university-of-chicago-football-and-higher-education-mix.html
Ok, back to the big time college football stuff...
It's an easy arm chair hypothetical, but the reality is that was already nearly a century ago and this U of Chicago example has been an outlier ever since. If it was that easy to cast aside big time athletics for schools, I'm sure more would have followed suit. But the financial realities of major modern college athletics have made it harder to quit than when U of Chicago made that decision. The financial aspects of their decision I'm sure only needed to play a very small part of that decision. They only had to make an ethical decision, rather than also having to worry much about a financial one.
Santa Clara and UOP are more recent and probably better comparisons than U of Chicago. Both schools disbanded football in the 1990s. All three schools are private, so none had the luxury of state funds to bail them out.
Did St Mary's have a football program at some point?
As a younger blue, I don’t understand why.
If Cal doesn’t want to invest in its sports, then why should we (either financially or emotionally)? Feels more like a toxic relationship that we convince ourselves to stay in for *reasons*
You’re right. You don’t need to be. I’m not disagreeing that we can’t or shouldn’t be stellar. Just being realistic. But I disagree that the only outcomes are two extreme ones.
But doesn’t the middle path of remaining mediocre lead to the same outcome as shutting down the program (just after burning $Ms)?
Status quo means we will hemorrhage money for the next 7 years while in the ACC without meaningfully growing our revenue base. The ensuing growth in the budget deficit will lead to a Regents’ decision re: keeping Cal Athletics and I would wager ends our D1 participation to save on costs.
Burning money would be abandoning the only plausible way to cut into a half billion $ in stadium debt that doesn’t otherwise fall to students and academic programs. I’d like Cal to have a top shelf athletics program like Oregon too, but I don’t also agree that’s the only alternative to a U of Chicago model.
I haven’t seen the covenants for the stadium financing, so take my following Q with a grain of salt: If cal abandons its football program, why couldn’t Cal just pass the debt refinancing to the state to eat? A sub-D1 team could play at Edward’s while the state took full possession of CMS. Not saying I like the idea but why can’t we get shed the stadium if we don’t need it
Because the state can just say no.
I'm not sure how would that work? Cal says it's dropping football and the Regents say, no you have to keep it? Or, the Regents say, fine, cut every sport too? Regardless, the fact is that the Regents (ask taxpayers) are on the hook for the debt if Cal drops FB. (Or, are you suggesting the state takes it out of the academic funding, which is what really goes into the classroom?)
Not saying Cal can't drop football if it wants to, but the state doesn't also have to pick up the tab for whatever portion of the stadium debt athletics would no longer contribute to. In all likelihood they would cover some depending on the circumstances, but I'd suspect much more would need to be cut out of the existing budget or deferred or re-financed so that we would essentially be paying off till the end of time. In any case, the state choose any solution they want, but it for no scenario would involve the state just paying for it.
right, and that is my point. Let's play this out.
The Athletic Department signed for the CMS debt, but if football is dropped, the Athletic Department will lose its cash cow. Besides cutting most of teh AD staff, the only sports remaining will be those that the campus wants to fund out of General Revenues. The AD will not be able to pay bond debt without football; if the campus eliminates all varsity sports, teh AD will cease to exist. The Regents will have no choice but assume the bonds, using some CaliMoney from UCLA. Cutting education money to the campus is a non-starter, as that will hurt the low income and first gen the most.