They're worse than Uncle Sam.
You have to question the economics here. Not just the outlandish facial price tag, but the timing: college football is not at a sustainable place, nor is it on a stable trajectory. What are they going to do with a $100,000,000 building when the whole system goes up in flames in a decade?
Facilities relative to the top football programs.
I am close to wanting to opt out from this madness.
help? I get that non revenue sports are in a different category and so maybe something needs to be retained there but the idea football and basketball are charitable non profit efforts at this point seems laughable.
I know it wont solve the budget deficit but the tax code is supposed to represent our values and I have toruble seeing how the ever escalating arms race in college sports is accomplishing that.
I think we often get distracted by the big business of sports at the Power 5 schools. Even there, its usually only 2 sometimes 3 sports at even those schools. We often forget that the overwhelming majority of student-athletes in the US are actually student-athletes. I would rather if there are taxation laws to target the big business aspect, it actually targets them and not the 95% of other sports at other schools that often lose money but enhance the student experience for the athletes that participate in them.
Most of these sports programs at lower level schools rely on fundraising just to keep the sport sustainable. At some institutions, coaches are required to fundraise to help cover the deficit the sport decides. I used to play in an annual softball tournament that a friend of a friend ran to help fund the D-3 basketball team he coached. Taxing all sports donations would put a substantial dent in their ability to do so.
I was actually surprised to learn that TV revenue is NOT currently considered UBIT (See linked article from the Tax Foundation). In 2021 , if you combined Power 5 schools and the NCAA, there was approx. $4.4B in untaxed revenue. Apparently the reasoning is that is considered "reproduction of an activity critical to the school's mission." That's weak sauce in my opinion.
The problem with schools and donations is not there's too many of them, its that they go to too few schools. I'd say about 90% donation gift money goes to the top 10% of schools that....quite frankly...don't need them. A school like Harvard can sneeze and get multi-million dollar donations to help their cold. The schools that truly need them, don't get them because its just not as impressive to your friends if you gave $100M to Wilkes University than if you gave it to Stanford.
I struggle with only including the TV revenue because that would not impact donations. I always think about the fact the coaching jobs are endowed. That is great for the Univerity but is an edowment for the ND football coach really what we want our tax code to encourage?
Items like apparel and souvenir sales are already considered UBI. You can consider all revenue directly related to sports as UBI for all I care.
And yes, I'm totally fine with endowing coaches salaries. This indirectly benefits students as well. If a coach's salary is not paid through endowed funds, it is paid through operating funds...which for most schools is tuition. I'd rather have as much tuition dollars as possible going towards programming.
Also, we're again focusing on the top 1% without considering the impact on the 99%. While ND having an endowed coaches position a luxury, at another school, it could be the difference between cutting or keeping a sport.
Consider also that if a football coaches salary is fully or partially paid for through endowed funds, that expense would not be allowed to reduce your UBIT base. Therefore, by doing it through UBIT, you are indirectly taxing the donation. However, by taxing the donation directly, you are punishing all the schools that lose money on sports just to get at the 1%.
If your argument is that schools shouldn't have any donor funded extracurricular activities, its a whole other discussion.
by funding many other things, the idea of student athletes is getting further and further away. And the juxtaposition of the financial troubles of so many schools in terms of basic academics to the significant money flowing into sports is jarring. UConn pays Hurley $3.5M (and he's a bargain!) and yet UConn has to cut $70M from its 2024-2025 budget in academics. Something is not working here. (And I say this as someone who views many universities as bloated as heck).
Maybe the schools should own an interest in a pro sports franchise (contributing their brand names and history as intellectual capital) and offer free education to players - assuming they want it or maybe after their done with sports career - and use that money to fund the real mission of the university (appropriately right-sized relative to today's cost structure). Almost like a sub-IPO of a for profit entity by a non-profit. Give alums preferred access to buying in on the IPO with a lock-up! Maybe the school also gets an annual license fee for use of brands, etc.
You give a bunch of 4-5 Star recruits a couple of $ million each that would have been spent on architects and construction, and you’ll have your National Championship ( atleast on paper). Some new coats of paint and some basic upgrades to Gug and ND will be good to go for a couple of more years.
I want first dibs on the balcony.
coaches' offices, team meeting spaces, media space and an enhanced weight room
with makeshift dining facilities and bringing in meals from outside food service sites. And with the expansion of coaching staffs/analysts, office and meeting space has been at a premium.
The argument can certainly be made that what they already have is sufficient, but I think those are some of the drivers of the expansion plan.
It hasn’t been good. Nutrition has been a bit of a bad joke
I like Freeman and would like to return to winning national championships, but this does not have to be the way. It is stomach-turning how badly the university has lost its way.
It’s private donations.
Lets separate them completely from the rest of the student body as much as possible. Hell, why don't we just put dorm rooms there too? House their "tutors" too?
I’m open to arguments either way. What evidence would you point to in support of the position that it is possible to win a national championship without engaging in the facilities arms race? I don’t know enough about what other championship caliber schools are and aren’t doing.
> Our kids don't get the right nutrition (many of them currently elect fast food)
> They spend too much time going from place to place on a busy day that often is dawn to past dusk
> They've run out of meeting space with the hiring of analysts and creating more roles
> The weight room isn't state of the art (no idea where it falls short)
Nutrition, time management, physical preparartion, meeting space etc are the issues they're trying to solve for.
Now, shoot the messenger.
offices for the increased headcount?
What new meeting space is required, square footage-wise? For what types of meetings?
And people can cook and serve nutritious meals at both places.
What a fucking canard
.
and the adults get new digs.
All is good.
Player that lives in say, Dillon or Keough walks to Football HQ for breakfast, then to classes, then back to Football HQ for lunch, then back to classes, then back to Football HQ for practice/lift/meetings/dinner?
Players that live off-campus drives to parking lot, follows same routine?
instead of fixing and upgrading what we already have in place.
we need to put a stop to that shit!
would see Sam Hartman at the Duncan Chick-Fil-A at least a couple times a week :-) Not sure QB nutrition is quite as important as other positions, but I do think you are right about where the players eat. Not sure if this will help, but if people are willing to donate, it's their money to give, and I'll take all the advantages we can get.
Much of the criticism seems to come from the older alumni who want things to be like they were in the 80s when they were students and college athletics were simpler. Now I won’t engage in the back and forth about that because everyone is entitled to their opinions about the state of college athletics and nobody is really going to change their minds on the subject.
Now, there is an undercurrent of “this isn’t what Notre Dame should be about” to the argument as well. That’s also a legitimate concern. But here’s my take on that argument. To this point, Notre Dame’s athletic alumni have been overwhelmingly positive ambassadors for the university. There haven’t been any Ja Morant, Antonio Brown, or Ray Lewis types that represent the school in a negative manner. Our athletes continue to absorb the greater lessons being taught to them and take those lessons into their post college lives and live those lessons. As long as that continues to be the case, than you won’t hear me gripe about a billion dollar football facility or a fat NIL deal.
Now the day that our athletes start behaving in a manner that embarrasses the University, than I’ll be the first one in line to bitch and complain.
Just my thoughts.
I can put it.
primarily as I am trying to be polite. If you or others do not see what might be objectionable, then so be it. To each his or her own.
Edit to add - and, I have picked up another ignore. There are some real thin skins on this site. I know that I am nowhere near everyone's cup of tea, but stand up and argue your point. Take your lumps when and if you are wrong. Blocking things that make you feel icky is no way to go through life. I get it in certain cases. Maybe I'm just Mr. Icky. But good grief, if my posts in this thread are ignore-worthy, people are going to have a hell of a hard time dealing with life.
unnecessarily condescending, and comes off as if you're some kind of gatekeeper; you're not.
I know exactly what portion of the OP's response you took offense to, and I, nor my family took any offense to it. (Nearly my entire family graduated from Notre Dame)
condescending to "older" alums (I'm old-ish, maybe I qualify as an older alum, but I still feel like I'm not, even if I am). Condescending? Perhaps. Blunt? Absolutely, and intentionally so. USAF and I sorted things out, so all is well. I'll reply the same way every time that I believe someone shows up being a jerk, building and knocking down straw men, and so on. Does that make me a jerk as well? Probably. I'm comfortable with that. If you feel that it is an attempt at gatekeeping, I'm sorry. That's not my intent, and I have no desire to play board cop. But I will call a spade a spade, and will make no apologies for doing so.
It also presumed, incorrectly, to know what I might hope for Notre Dame. Much as you are doing here. So yes, I do think that there were many things wrong with usaf's post, and in yours to which I am replying. Unless I am misunderstanding you, and I don't think that I am, given your comment about your family's alum status, you believe that I had a problem with usaf's non-alum status. If you believe that is "exactly what portion of OP's response you took offense to", you would be wrong. I will say the same to you as I did to him. Kindly refrain from presuming to know what I think. If you want to know, just ask.
That's why I bluntly but politely asked him to can it. I am happy to debate back and forth, but do it based on what I say, not what you think that I believe.
If I am misinterpreting your post, my apologies, and my request that you clarify.
Please read my other responses in various threads, particularly to usaf and jt. I don't think that lack of alumni status means that someone's opinion is not valid or should not be heard. I _do_ think that alumni have a different understanding of ND that non-alumni. Just as I with my friends and siblings who attended different institutions - they understand them better than I do and have a different attachment to and influence with their alma maters than I.
Finally, have a good day and a nice weekend.
All of the following is my opinion. I am not stating that it is the one and true way, that anyone else is wrong, I am simply laying out my vision or part of it. I can't say that I spend significant minutes thinking about these things, so much of this is basically off the cuff. Take from it what you will.
We can't know if it is possible to win a national championship without engaging in the arms race unless we try. We already have engaged in it to an extent, but my opinion is that we need not and should not be doing things like erecting a 100 million dollar facility for football, particularly 20ish years after the prior Taj Mahal opened.
Notre Dame should assemble the best coaching staff that it possibly can. It has taken some steps along that front, and I very much like Freeman, but he and his staff are not the best that could have been assembled. Hopefully they grow into that. Whether they do remains to be seen.
I believe that athletes for whom the new facility vs the Gug is a deciding factor likely will be challenges to recruit. Notre Dame should strive to have facilities that are sufficient to achieve the goal but it should not be necessary to go as far as is planned. Maybe something could be added to the Gug, or a dining facility built next to it. I'm not against some improvements where truly necessary, but I am against the continued sequestering and unnecessarily opulent facilities (that goes for the general student body as well).
There has been an arms race forever. It's gotten larger over time, but this is nothing new. Notre Dame used to forge its own path and stand for how things should be done. This isn't about yelling at the sun, wearing an onion on my belt, or talking about how things were back in nineteen dickety-two. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I would like to see Notre Dame stand for something (other than wasteful excess). I would like to see Notre Dame stop settling for mediocrity, in all things. I would like to see accountability at Notre Dame. I believe that the first step towards returning to a regular spot among the best teams in college football is to assemble a top notch staff. I am not convinced that we have done so. The jury is out on Denbrock, hopefully he surprises. Golden has been pretty good. Some of the other spots have been hit or miss. Freeman needs to insist that he be able to hire the best, then he needs to identify them and get them to join him. If he accomplishes that, the team will overachieve based on its talent, which will attract more talent. If the facilities are reasonably good then they will be a smaller factor in a given recruit's decision. If they are the make or break decision then Notre Dame may not be the place for them, and that's ok. But if a player knows that he is going to get the best coaching possible on his presumably desired path to the NFL, while also earning a degree from Notre Dame that he can make use of after his playing days are over, to me that's a very strong sales pitch.
If you made it through all of my rambling, congratulations, and have a good evening.
It is a net negative for the players and the football team. It takes them away from campus and their classmates for another hour or two per day. As grace said below, it might be best for non alums to sit this discussion out.
It is clearer why Swarbrick is hanging around like the smell of bad cologne at an Zahm SYR. Watch for him Don Kinging it at the announcement with his Montgomery Burns visage at the annoucement. It is not out of the question for part of it to be named after that useless douche.
after pointing out that ND seems to be indicating that it isn't very important to them (the administration, the program, whomever you want to define as "them") that the players spend time around their classmates at all.
I might add that a great many of "them" appear to be alumni.
Is going to make sure he is in the team photo.
Most players have had apartments or off campus capability freshman year for two decades. I wonder if the next step will include private housing.
one of the distinguishing factors of the program. There was an obvious difference that jumped out at me shortly after I arrived at UF many moons ago. There, players were essentially hired guns who provided entertainment for the student body. I've long assumed that such a relationship was the norm at most upper level CFB programs.
In my experience, players living in dorms w/ other ND students, eating in the same dining halls, being regularly seen on the quads walking to and from classes, and (obviously) being in classes was why that bond existed. I have no clue as to whether the bond still exists, but it would seem to be more difficult to maintain it if the players are largely isolated from the rest of the student body.
I suspect players are in off campus apartments at minimum SO year onward. Rules changed for what they can be paid for both rent and food years ago, so I doubt many stay on campus anymore.
I lived with 1 for 2 years, another 3 years and another 2 years. All three were on campus all 4 years. I lived in campus view my senior year.
to this day, he has a disdain for his alma mater because, in his mind, he was treated like a piece of meat.
You can argue whether it's for better or worse, but there's been a distinct change as the standards have become higher and higher.
I think in many instances there's a larger and larger gulf between a "normal" student and someone on the football team. I'd also say the "normal" student experience has become much more intensified--as has being a part of the team--in the last decade plus.
When I talk to current students (or recent graduates) about what their days/weeks look like and all the things they're involved with it provides a very stark contrast to what my experience was like. On the football side there's been such an explosion of knowledge in terms of sports science, how to maximize your diet, your workouts, your sleeping habits all in the name of increasing performance.
And that's not to say there's no bond between the team and the student body. I'm just saying that my guess is there are less instances of guys on the team blending in to the sections of the dorms than there were 15-25-35 years ago. You still see them in class and work with them on projects, but they aren't slugging beers and playing video games on a random Tuesday night after parietals.
He said he was never there. I've heard vague rumors as to how that worked, but I cannot verify them.
what's a measly $100 million or so
I mean, for nine-figures, it'll have be be built like a brick shithouse, right?
Ah, if only Brian Kelly had stuck it out.
amazing. Is this coming from a donor? I was led to believe that all the money generated from football and men's basketball was used to help the other athletes in the non-revenue generating sports.
with one lead donor.
lol
Notre Dame officials, in preparing for this project, have visited several other athletics facilities in college football, met with stakeholders at length to secure funding and also shared the vision for the new football facility with members of the Guglielmino family, several sources share.
I was worried that we were going to have to cut into the gymnastics budget or something.
In all seriousness, it's awesome that ND has that kind of fundraising power and networking ability.