Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

[chum1]

How believable is it that the facilities were largely funded through donations? Like, how many donors do we actually have and what was their average donation?

Is the idea that 100,000 fans donated an average of $1,000 realistic?

[Rage Against the McKee]

Anyone pretending a watered down Big 12 is as cool or fun as being with West Coast elites in the Pak-18 can go suck an egg. This bites and everyone knows it.

It bites for sure, but I don't know how anyone thought they were really going to add us.

I do think a watered down version of the B12 with Cincinnati, CF, Memphis, and Houston would be fun though. 

This part definitely sucks. I think Nipert could be cool. I like CSU as a roadie, but they aren’t getting in. The rest will suck. I have no desire to go to Houston’s stadium or UCF’s aluminum bleachers on steroids stadium. Hopefully we don’t lose Pullman & Tucson off future schedules.

Cinci would be...fine. I guess. CSU is a great roadie and if we're plumbing the depths of small timey schools I honestly hope we go after them. Look, at this point it's basically all about the roadies, and Fort Collins/CSU is a legit destination roadie. UCF is not. Houston is a gross town but their stadium is hilarious and it's kinda close to me so I'd go once but I wouldn't like it. If we're trying to add schools, add a few that are good G5 teams like Houston and Memphis, then just have fun with roadies for the other two. I got so bonered up about traveling west that I just say we add CSU and BYU for the mountains. Who gives an F anymore.

I want to add Boise State, Colorado State, New Mexico, and Cincinnati (I guess).

[sonofdaxjones]

How believable is it that the facilities were largely funded through donations? Like, how many donors do we actually have and what was their average donation?

Is the idea that 100,000 fans donated an average of $1,000 realistic?

It's extremely believable, because K-State Athletics Inc publishes a real annual audited financial statement, and K-State Athletics Inc. historically uses the Kansas Development Finance Authority to underwrite/facilitate it's long term debt offerings.   K-State Athletics Inc has not gone to them since the WSC Center/Ice Construction.   Bonds covered about 2/3's of that project initially, with subsequent revenues and donations placed in a mandatory bond reserve fund.    VFFC/stone wall/Shamrock/baseball stadium/soccer/track renovation were all paid for with private funds.   The final phase of the VFFC required a short term note to finance it's completion, I believe that note has now been paid off.    Newest indoor facility, v-ball arena, and Olympic training facility are all privately funded. 

[chum1]

How believable is it that the facilities were largely funded through donations? Like, how many donors do we actually have and what was their average donation?

Is the idea that 100,000 fans donated an average of $1,000 realistic?

It's extremely believable, because K-State Athletics Inc publishes a real annual audited financial statement, and K-State Athletics Inc. historically uses the Kansas Development Finance Authority to underwrite/facilitate it's long term debt offerings.   K-State Athletics Inc has not gone to them since the WSC Center/Ice Construction.   Bonds covered about 2/3's of that project initially, with subsequent revenues and donations placed in a mandatory bond reserve fund.    VFFC/stone wall/Shamrock/baseball stadium/soccer/track renovation were all paid for with private funds.   The final phase of the VFFC required a short term note to finance it's completion, I believe that note has now been paid off.    Newest indoor facility, v-ball arena, and Olympic training facility are all privately funded. 

Thanks. That's crazy. Do we know where the TV money goes?

[chum1]

Time to start saying good things about BYU.

https://twitter.com/TheAthleticCFB/status/1431245110872666113

[420seriouscat69]

 

[420seriouscat69]

I think expansion could be fun if you all give it a good try!

[sonofdaxjones]

How believable is it that the facilities were largely funded through donations? Like, how many donors do we actually have and what was their average donation?

Is the idea that 100,000 fans donated an average of $1,000 realistic?

It's extremely believable, because K-State Athletics Inc publishes a real annual audited financial statement, and K-State Athletics Inc. historically uses the Kansas Development Finance Authority to underwrite/facilitate it's long term debt offerings.   K-State Athletics Inc has not gone to them since the WSC Center/Ice Construction.   Bonds covered about 2/3's of that project initially, with subsequent revenues and donations placed in a mandatory bond reserve fund.    VFFC/stone wall/Shamrock/baseball stadium/soccer/track renovation were all paid for with private funds.   The final phase of the VFFC required a short term note to finance it's completion, I believe that note has now been paid off.    Newest indoor facility, v-ball arena, and Olympic training facility are all privately funded. 

Thanks. That's crazy. Do we know where the TV money goes?

It's allocated across the whole athletic department.   To get really nerdy, K-State has used both private donations and athletic department revenues for facilities projects.   However, the predominance of funding on all projects after the WSC/Ice have been private donations.

As a side note.   I'm fairly confident K-State came through last year reasonably well under the circumstances.   Because they're still doing little extra projects like the new signage on Bramlage and apparently they replaced the courts in the Ice.   Haven't got full confo's on the latter.   They may have been privately funded, but a lot of the time, if things are really tight, those little projects are postponed to a later date.   We'll know the full picture in a few weeks when the financial statements come out.

[MadCat]

Can we just add BYU immediately and tell OU and Texas that we're going to share some of our TV money with them right away?

[Stupid Fitz]

Can we just add BYU immediately and tell OU and Texas that we're going to share some of our TV money with them right away?

yeah, this is going to be interesting. After getting a no thanks from the big brothers, we are/should be looking to expand. It will be interesting to see how they decide the math. Will they expand and say congrats, you get in after the current contract is up and keep TX and OK money? Will they expand sooner and try and get buyout money from TX and OK? Will they just cave and expand and let TX and OK walk because the Big 12 and its commish are pretty terrible at all of this?

[MakeItRain]

I’d rather play in revamped big 12 than go to Pac with OSU fwiw.

Terrible take. Way less money, even worse recruiting, less exciting opponents. Even though that big 12 would likely be as competitive as the PAC on the field...maybe even better, the perception would never be the same. There simply is no NC contenders in that big 12. That is really the difference between a power conference and the other ones nobody really cares about.

Conference the has eff all to do with being a national title contender. Currently the Pac 12 has maybe half of a title contender and the ACC has one.. The standard with the new playoff format, whenever it comes, is to be a contender for that. It's much easier to get into a playoff by being a great team in a mid tier conference than being a good team in a great conference.

Cincinnati has a much better chance to make the playoff than anyone in the Big 12 not named OU. Iowa State has to beat them twice to get there, Cincinnati doesn't have to beat Notre Dame twice.

If you could stop being a dumbass for just a second, you'd notice I didn't say a conference creates NC contenders. I said NC contenders make a power conference. Even Florida State is a contender caliber team even if not this year or for many years past. USC is the same.

Why are you so angry and calling names? I don't even understand the relevance of the question you're asking. The point of all of this is who cares how many national championship contenders your league has if you aren't one of those contenders?

[MakeItRain]

To me, it's pretty obvious that once you hit a certain threshold, there's almost no correlation between how much money a team has and how good they are on the field.

My question is what our AD has been doing with all that money they've been getting. I'd assume that it went toward the various athletic facilities projects. But they emphasize how those are largely donor funded. Is this overstated? I literally can't imagine how they could burn through a bunch of that money simply by being wasteful.

This is why we REALLY need the NCAA2.0 to drop the number of minimum required sports, so we can focus all our resources on just Men's Basketball, Football, and whatever women's sports that result in the exact same number of men's scholarships.

Help me to understand how this makes sense? There are schools with much smaller budgets than us with much larger athletic departments who are very competitive in football. There's absolutely no correlation on football success and how many sports you fund. How aren't you realizing that if all schools were given the ability to not carry a minimum number of sports that this would put us in the same situation?

I could make the argument that this would make a school like K-State appreciably worse. I said in another post that there isn't a tie between the athletic department and the university. There is one very strong tie at K-State that important. The athletes in these Olympic sports rarely have full scholarships so they are active enrollments at a school who has been leaking enrollments for a decade. These athletes are also paying tuition. You tell me who excluding Olympic sports athletes would hurt more, K-State with our 20,000 student enrollment or Houston with an enrollment twice that?

[KITNfury]

I’d rather play in revamped big 12 than go to Pac with OSU fwiw.

Terrible take. Way less money, even worse recruiting, less exciting opponents. Even though that big 12 would likely be as competitive as the PAC on the field...maybe even better, the perception would never be the same. There simply is no NC contenders in that big 12. That is really the difference between a power conference and the other ones nobody really cares about.

Conference the has eff all to do with being a national title contender. Currently the Pac 12 has maybe half of a title contender and the ACC has one.. The standard with the new playoff format, whenever it comes, is to be a contender for that. It's much easier to get into a playoff by being a great team in a mid tier conference than being a good team in a great conference.

Cincinnati has a much better chance to make the playoff than anyone in the Big 12 not named OU. Iowa State has to beat them twice to get there, Cincinnati doesn't have to beat Notre Dame twice.

If you could stop being a dumbass for just a second, you'd notice I didn't say a conference creates NC contenders. I said NC contenders make a power conference. Even Florida State is a contender caliber team even if not this year or for many years past. USC is the same.

Why are you so angry and calling names? I don't even understand the relevance of the question you're asking. The point of all of this is who cares how many national championship contenders your league has if you aren't one of those contenders?

Nobody is angry. To the point, yes money matters. Recruiting matters. Being in a conference that has teams that have potential to win national affects both of those. If kids aren't good enough to get recruited by blue bloods, they at least want to play against them. It's really not a new concept.

[Pete]

I support adding BYU right away, even if we have to share some pre-UT/OU-exit money.

[Pete]

I also support adding currently-good-Cincy, because I'd love for the pre-UT/OU exit Big 12 top team to not be UT/OU. 

[michigancat]

I think MiR's point is that we could play in a weaker conference and make less money and take a hit in recruiting in a nu-B12 compared to a P12 scenario but still have more fun as fans in the process.

[420seriouscat69]

BYU, Houston, Cincy, and UCF. Wrap it up!

Also, nobody mentions UCONN, but I would!

[chum1]

I think the expansion options for the Big 12 will remain the same for the next few years but that other things could change. It could be advantageous to wait a bit.

[MakeItRain]

How believable is it that the facilities were largely funded through donations? Like, how many donors do we actually have and what was their average donation?

Is the idea that 100,000 fans donated an average of $1,000 realistic?

I'm not even a big donor but the message to me is yes, the donors have funded these projects. I had an Ahearn Fund staff member meet me in Des Moines and took me out to lunch with the intent of me increasing my donation and how that would be beneficial to me and the department.

[MakeItRain]

Time to start saying good things about BYU.

https://twitter.com/TheAthleticCFB/status/1431245110872666113

This conference is going to stretch from Morgantown to Orlando to Houston to SLC, sheesh.

[yoga-like_abana]

BYU & Houston and we should not add anymore

[chum1]

I had an Ahearn Fund staff member meet me in Des Moines and took me out to lunch with the intent of me increasing my donation and how that would be beneficial to me and the department.

Personally, that would make me want to donate less.

[MakeItRain]

Can we just add BYU immediately and tell OU and Texas that we're going to share some of our TV money with them right away?

We could yes, if all the other 8 schools voted yes. I think the conference absolutely should add schools before OU and UT leaves, the issue with this would be the exit fees the schools we add would have to pay, this includes BYU as they are members of the West Coast Conference.

[chum1]

BYU & Houston and we should not add anymore

I like this because it has less of a New AAC feel than other expansion options.

[MakeItRain]

BYU, Houston, Cincy, and UCF. Wrap it up!

Also, nobody mentions UCONN, but I would!

Their football program is worse than KU with little to no potential of getting better.