Power School Budgets

[untjim1995]

Explain to me why there shouldn't be a separation between these 53 schools and the rest of us...again, G5s are the only level of play that doesn't give their players, coaches, and fans a chance to win a league or level championship. 

[tmjerm]

So you want to effectively be FCS with bowl games then?  No thanks.  Keep fighting.

[untjim1995]

33 minutes ago, tmjerm said:

So you want to effectively be FCS with bowl games then?  No thanks.  Keep fighting.

Fighting what? FCS would still be below G5, just as it is today. Just so we can actually compete equally. The SEC and B1G schools especially, then the Big XII, ACC, and PAC-12 schools receive more in TV money than our entire budget. 

Texas, A&M, and Tech have no business being in the same level as us, UTSA, or SMU for football. Alabama and Auburn don't need to be considered equal to South Alabama or UAB. LSU will never be considered "equal" in terms with La Tech, ULL, or ULM.

 

[DentonLurker]

39 minutes ago, tmjerm said:

So you want to effectively be FCS with bowl games then?

What are all the schools outside of those 53 right now? Aside from a bone thrown to Cincinnati, isn't it effectively FCS with bowl games right now?

[Wag Tag]

Hopefully the old men of G5 will wake up or move on when it comes to playoffs and a Champion. Money is in the playoffs and crowning a champion not sitting on the bench hoping we get a break from the P5’s. The distance between these 2 levels is only going to get wider with the NIL added.

 

[Cooke County Kid]

Now that we are a P-6 school things will get better...........😉

GO MEAN GREEN!!!
WIN GAMES!!!

[greenminer]

3 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

Fighting what? FCS would still be below G5, just as it is today. Just so we can actually compete equally. The SEC and B1G schools especially, then the Big XII, ACC, and PAC-12 schools receive more in TV money than our entire budget. 

Texas, A&M, and Tech have no business being in the same level as us, UTSA, or SMU for football. Alabama and Auburn don't need to be considered equal to South Alabama or UAB. LSU will never be considered "equal" in terms with La Tech, ULL, or ULM.

 

I think a lot about how people would react to this.

I think some would get excited about winning a 'ship.
I think some would lose 100% interest the moment we give up on the top tier of competition.

Not sure which would be more or less, though, and how our fanbase would look in that scenario.

[RBP79]

If YOU, not me, want to drop to FCS maybe they could sell Apogee to Denton ISD and just rent one of their smaller stadiums. Cause your blowin smoke if you think UNT could put 10000 people in the stands.

Talk about a fan base that would lose interest.....

 

 

[GrandGreen]

No one that remembers NT's 1aa days would ever think that is a good option.

It was sold to the fans as a great thing, playing for a national championship, more local games, etc.   Reality was that NT didn't dominate like many thought and NT lost most of their fans.  

I wonder what the rationale is that the space between P5 and G5 will get wider.   Drop a division and I guarantee the space between the NT and every D! team will get a lot wider. 

 

[untjim1995]

I doubt we will have any choice in the matter. The Power Schools will break away, with or without the NCAA, and the remainder of the FBS schools will just get left behind anyway. If that keeps you from not attending a game against Rice at Apogee, then sobeit.

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, untjim1995 said:

I doubt we will have any choice in the matter. The Power Schools will break away, with or without the NCAA, and the remainder of the FBS schools will just get left behind anyway. If that keeps you from not attending a game against Rice at Apogee, then sobeit.

I wish it were that simple.  Further questions remain.  Would that model, with lost fan interest, be sustainable? What would the TV money be like? How would donations be impacted?  Money gained: does our new, lower level impliment a playoff postseason format? Is there more money in that?

Previous administrations have said "f this" and dropped to lower levels before.  I wasn't there, but I hear it was awful for our university.  I suspect it would be even worse now, because the money is moreso blatantly and obviously being funneled to the top.

[PlummMeanGreen]

16 hours ago, RBP79 said:

If YOU, not me, want to drop to FCS maybe they could sell Apogee to Denton ISD and just rent one of their smaller stadiums. Cause your blowin smoke if you think UNT could put 10000 people in the stands.

Talk about a fan base that would lose interest.....

 

 

Just More Scatter’shootin & Chasin’ Those 🐇‘Wascally🐇’Wabbitts 🐇      

Yes, RBO79, it would be the ultimate & total ender for many of our fans. 
I can remember back in the 70’s when it was just a few million dollars that separated Texas Tech from UNT with both school’s respective athletic budgets, but that era has passed.  
Texas Tech had Preston Smith’s influence in Austin to help lead their school into the SWC Promise Land back in 1956. Who did UNT have?  
The Friends of the (Willis) Library? 🧐🤓🧐🤓🧐 
🐇(Off subject, but has anyone else noticed how many decades it’s been since Texas Tech won an “outright” conference championship in football)?

🐇What schools in the SEC make in annual revenues would help toward  underwriting what Wren Baker wants with the Athletic Center expansion along with the Apogee Stadium End Zone facility.  (I do wish we could soon all see a rendering of that). 

🐇Like the IPF, though, UNT will have to rely on a private donor(s) financial gifts to get one built now. (What else is new)?  
 I’d liberally guess that figure to be around $50 million. *Again, with the Athletic Center already built, that project has unofficially begun.  🛏 Thanks Mattre$$ Mack! 🛌

🐇 Honestly, you can’t blame SMU for wanting to be among those schools conference-wise they were with forever, but like any school’s fan base it is the fans interest (or lack thereof) in their athletic program that will determine its future.  

Both UNT & SMU have much work to do in the attendance aspects of all this, but for UNT that’s where our constituency numbers will help.  Since I was a UNT student post-Texas Indian depredations era, we’ve only had 4 above .500 football seasons in a row.  Like that Russian uttered with his heavy accent in the movie “2012“———-“Not good.”   

🐇 I do think if a ranked opponent coming to Apogee & the Super Pit that UNT would do more than fine at the turnstiles.  
❓And who doesn’t think we draw at least 8,000 rabid fans if a #8 ranked Houston were to come to Denton, especially now with Coach Grant McCasland’s basketball program?  Mac has something very special happening over on basketball row inside the Mean Green Village. A larger UNT student audience would be good. 

🐇Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah—Grant will have other schools checking him out (probably already does), but I don’t think bigger money at a “do it now or get canned” pressure cooker of a job will cause him to leave.  Seems we all hope legacy-building in Denton will cause him to stay. 

🦅

Edited February 12, 2022 by PlummMeanGreen

[NorthTexasWeLove]

Horrible idea. Interest at this "level" of football would plummet. 

Though I'm still of the mindset our money needs to be put into basketball and starting a baseball program. Those are the sports we can compete in on a national stage year in and year out if the investment is truly put there. I don't care that this is Texas. Athletics is supposed to be the window to the university or front porch, whatever. Get 2 main sports really humming and that front porch starts looking very enticing. GM has the bball program in the right direction. Now we just need to: 

A. Pay the man Seth Littrell money

B. Attend basketball games

C. Start plans on a 5-6k seat arena. Not a state of the art one either. But a very cool, classy arena that let's natural light in. Like a smaller allen or hinkle or palestra. 

D. Start lefirimately looking into baseball

 

What is our end all in football? Is football going to consistently shine a positive light on this university? We all hope. But what is the evidence suggesting? Time to rethink the approach, imo. 

[TheColonyEagle]

I think that anyone that looks at a separation as a negative because we’re “dropping down” is looking at this program and the other G5s only through  green (or insert G5 color) glasses. No one outside of UNT cares about UNT. No one outside of (insert G5 here) cares about (insert G5 here). So we just continue this charade. 
 

I don’t understand equating a separation to us in FCS. We wouldn’t be separating by ourselves. We would be separating with other programs like ours. We would still play the exact same teams we play now. If we get 12k at Apogee to watch us play FAU while at “the top level of football” why would we not get that same 12K at apogee to watch us play FAU in a new division?

*also: UNT playing (insert G5…..yes a current G5. NOT McNeese St) in a playoff to get to a championship game vs a Memphis or SMU or La Tech would be the biggest game UNT has ever played and would be sold out. this is not 1988. it would be on national television, etc 

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by TheColonyEagle

[TheColonyEagle]

I remember the first time I took my father in law to a UNT game 10 years ago or so.  He’s from Waco, follows college football. He asked “now is UNT FCS? What division are they in?” He’s a Baylor guy and follows big 12 and watches a lot of football. Yes it’s one anecdote but I guarantee there are LOADS of casual football fans that have no idea where UNT lives. 
 

point being I don’t think people that currently go to UNT games go because we “compete at the highest level” 

most don’t know. UNT fans go to UNT games because they root for UNT. That’s why we don’t draw….not enough UNT fans. 

[untjim1995]

On 2/12/2022 at 8:15 AM, TheColonyEagle said:

I think that anyone that looks at a separation as a negative because we’re “dropping down” is looking at this program and the other G5s only through  green (or insert G5 color) glasses. No one outside of UNT cares about UNT. No one outside of (insert G5 here) cares about (insert G5 here). So we just continue this charade. 
 

I don’t understand equating a separation to us in FCS. We wouldn’t be separating by ourselves. We would be separating with other programs like ours. We would still play the exact same teams we play now. If we get 12k at Apogee to watch us play FAU while at “the top level of football” why would we not get that same 12K at apogee to watch us play FAU in a new division?

*also: UNT playing (insert G5…..yes a current G5. NOT McNeese St) in a playoff to get to a championship game vs a Memphis or SMU or La Tech would be the biggest game UNT has ever played and would be sold out. this is not 1988. it would be on national television, etc 

 

You get it. Playing in a G5 level that rewarded teams with a chance to be a national champion against current teams that aren't walking around with annual budgets of the power conferences isn't lowering ourselves at all. Its recognizing the landscape that we will NEVER (none of us) be allowed into a playoff scenario. UTSA was undefeated until they got their ass beat by us. Not once were they ever gonna be mentioned for a playoff berth or even a bigger BCS bowl game.

I know this--if we ever got good again and the G5s had a playoff system, and say we were playing in Apogee in a quarterfinal against Appalachian State, I'd be there...way faster and way more excited than I am when we play them in a spare bowl game, made by ESPN, played with about 5000 people in some Southeastern city. And I'd be willing to bet Apogee would be packed. If SMU was playing Northern Illinois in a semifinal game at Ford, I'd be willing to bet that it would have more people than any other game they play all season--even the one where UNT packs its side of their stadium with our fans that hate them yet always see us get our asses handed to us down there every other year.

It's not us playing SE Louisiana, for the right to travel to Montana, then play NDSU in Frisco. That's what it's not. And like Sam Houston and James Madison moving up right now, if we get NDSU, Montana, and SFA to decide to move up to the G5s because this situation is more like what they can compete in, budget-wise, more power to them. But we aren't going down to play them again. As the poster mentioned, it's not 1988 again. Hell, we already see SMU, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, USF, Marshall, ECU, and others as equals because our budgets are similar enough to be equals. And the next culling of teams not considered primetime anymore (looking at Big XII teams, some ACC schools, and some low end PAC schools, too) guess where they will be playing?

But here's the rub--we will never be equal with Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Arkansas, LSU, etc...never. And we shouldn't be. They have spent decades building their brands--yes, often stepping on others to do it--and have hundreds of thousands of fans. They have budgets that are a hundred million or more. We don't even have enough to fill Apogee to the brim, a stadium that sits less than 31k. That's the equivalent of the Frisco Rough Riders believing they should get the opportunity to be playing the New York Yankees because they both play pro baseball. Are they both pro? Of course...but that's where the comparison ends. And that's how you should look at how stupid it is to tell people that we play at the same level as UT. Its beyond dumb.

[greenminer]

On 2/12/2022 at 8:15 AM, TheColonyEagle said:

I think that anyone that looks at a separation as a negative because we’re “dropping down” is looking at this program and the other G5s only through  green (or insert G5 color) glasses. No one outside of UNT cares about UNT. No one outside of (insert G5 here) cares about (insert G5 here). So we just continue this charade. 
 

I don’t understand equating a separation to us in FCS. We wouldn’t be separating by ourselves. We would be separating with other programs like ours. We would still play the exact same teams we play now. If we get 12k at Apogee to watch us play FAU while at “the top level of football” why would we not get that same 12K at apogee to watch us play FAU in a new division?

*also: UNT playing (insert G5…..yes a current G5. NOT McNeese St) in a playoff to get to a championship game vs a Memphis or SMU or La Tech would be the biggest game UNT has ever played and would be sold out. this is not 1988. it would be on national television, etc 

 

Our leadership would be, in a sense, "throwing in the towel" in this race to compete with the best.  That has nothing to do with who we play (which, the FCS drop didn't either).

Part of the appeal of sports is having this belief - crazy as it is - that you can compete with anybody.  When we dropped to FCS, it wasn't about who we played or going solo, it was our administration saying one of two things 1) our football program ain't that important, and/or 2) we don't think this race to compete at the top is important.

Both of those reasons are potential fan killers.

On the flip side, I do try to find reason to believe winning a playoff championship at a lower level (or, lower division...whatever it ends up being called) is a good platform to rebuild something special.  It's just really really hard for me to shake what the "I give up" message would do to our fans, given that we have seen what it did in the past.