{"id":7768,"date":"2015-06-03T08:17:39","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T12:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7768"},"modified":"2015-06-03T08:17:39","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T12:17:39","slug":"another-june-1st-has-come-and-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7768","title":{"rendered":"Another June 1st Has Come and Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, our annual FBS\/FCS post is upon us, but I need to begin with an apology. In case you didn’t know, that was clearly me (Todd) losing my friggin’ mind on Twitter about this subject on Saturday night and I owe an apology to Rob, always the more levelheaded of the two of us on this matter, for dragging him into this and screwing our generally halfway-decent reputation. But also to anyone who’s ever believed what we hoped to do when we started this project six years ago – to be a more thoughtful, less reactionary, less vitriolic landing place for JMU fans than some of our message boards – I sincerely apologize. It doesn’t mean I’m not angry about the subject. It doesn’t mean my anger isn’t fading into simple disappointment and apathy about JMU sports. But that doesn’t excuse crossing the line and I apologize.<\/p>\n

\"Words<\/a>

Words I need to live better by.<\/p><\/div>\n

Now about that anger and disappointment. Unsurprisingly another June 1st – the date for announcing conference moves – has come and gone and JMU remains #CAA4lyfe. Not to worry, as the Dukes administration will be quick to remind us, there’s always another June 1st. But with UAB’s announcement that they’ll be bringing football back, thus closing the potential opening in CUSA, that means the only spot remaining in FBS land is the SunBelt, a door JMU appears to have already slammed shut.<\/p>\n

This was going to be a long, extended piece, but no one really cares anymore and I just don’t have the energy to rage any longer. The Dukes administration has truly institutionalized me I guess, so I’ll just stick to the high points in editorial fashion (i.e. without deep-dive links and exhaustive research you wouldn’t expect from us anyways) and move along to another exciting year in the CAA.<\/p>\n

Revenue<\/strong><\/p>\n

-Guarantee Games \u2013 West Virginia announced last week that after this year\u2019s game with Youngstown St. they will be discontinuing all FCS games going forward. They join Maryland (and the whole B1G for that matter) as a frequent and recent \u201cguarantee game\u201d sponsor for JMU that will no longer be playing these games. And yet I thought it said somewhere in the shiny new packet of complete and utter bullshit that we previously defended [link]<\/span> I received last week called the JMU Athletics Strategic Plan 2015-2020 [link] that \u201cAchieving Guarantee Game Revenue\u201d was a key facet to JMU gaining \u201csustainable revenue.\u201d Look, college football nerds will love this year\u2019s trip to Dallas to play SMU, but if you think the Mustangs are attracting casual JMU fans the way the locals that now won\u2019t play us do, you\u2019re kidding yourself. Don\u2019t say you weren\u2019t warned when the only guarantee games left are trips to Norfolk (ODU), Boone (App. St), Atlanta (Georgia St., already rumored to be on CUSA\u2019s shopping list after paying dues in the SunBelt), Charlotte, Myrtle (Coastal Carolina), or Lynchburg (Liberty) for us to get our ass kicked by former \u201crivals,\u201d or worse, nobodies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-G5 money \u2013 Here\u2019s the money made by the G5 conferences (non-power) in the first year of the college football playoff per the Charlotte Observer: MWC: 20.7 M, CUSA: 15.2 M, AAC: 14.1 M, MAC: 12 M, Sun Belt: 11.5 M.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the money made by the CAA last year: Oh wait…<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t worry, JMU will stay competitive and I\u2019m sure some combination of JMU officials and CAA commissioner-for-life Tom “Sepp” Yeager have a plan to deal with Cost of Attendance issues and keep up with even some other FCS schools, including in-state new rival Liberty.<\/p>\n

-Subsidization \u2013 According to USA Today<\/a>, JMU is #2 in the NATION for percentage of Athletics subsidized by student fees. Just let that sink in. Tell me one game in the last three years where there were more than 2000 students in the stands in the 4th<\/sup> quarter \u2013 it doesn\u2019t exist. Now think about that ranking again. In other words, students are being forced to pay for a product they don\u2019t give a shit about. Look, we\u2019ve been huge apologists for this stat for years. Yes, the top of this list is littered with Virginia public schools because privates don\u2019t have to report and Virginia has better transparency laws on this than other states (i.e. schools can\u2019t quietly and shadily subsidize Athletics out of tuition money they way they can in most states and therefore the number is inflated), because JMU includes line items like the whole MRD\u2019s and debt service on Bridgeforth Stadium in their \u201cAthletics\u201d number unlike other schools and when those are removed, as they will be in meeting Virginia’s new cap on this percentage, JMU\u2019s percentage drops to a sort-of more defensible 60% or so, and because we hoped they had some plan for increasing revenues to combat this problem (here\u2019s a hint, they don\u2019t). But this is at best completely unacceptable and at worst a FIFA-esque level of graft for a product that isn\u2019t helping the University.<\/p>\n

Entrance\/Exit Fees<\/strong><\/p>\n

When JMU\u2019s brilliant former President Linwood \u201cnot on my watch\u201d Rose allegedly told CUSA they could kiss his ass four years ago when ODU got the call, the cost to exit the CAA was something around say $0 and the cost to enter CUSA was $1M. Today those numbers are $1M to leave the CAA (which JMU voted for even right when GMU was leaving and they first started to realize they were in deep shit) and $2M to join CUSA, not that JMU will EVER be doing that. I don\u2019t even need to speculate, read between the lines, or feed you bull shit to tell you that\u2019s a failure to know what the hell was going on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And oh yeah, what about former in-state, non-football rivals VCU and GMU you ask? Well, the Atlantic 10, their new conference, is doing just fine after sending three or more teams to the NCAA basketball tournament during EACH of the last three years individually. No how many teams the CAA has sent during that same timeframe? Three total. But don\u2019t worry, both JMU AD Jeff Bourne and CAA Commish-for-life Sepp Yeager told the Daily News Record that the CAA is on the cusp of turning the corner and almost right back where it was before the defections.<\/p>\n

Average Per Game Attendance Numbers at New BFS<\/strong><\/p>\n

2011: 25,002
\n2012: 22,783
\n2013: 21,011
\n2014: 19,816<\/p>\n

Look, you can spin that ANY way you want and throw in a billion caveats, but the truth is the truth. Fans really clamor for that FCS gridiron action. We don’t know the Duke Club or club seat retention numbers just yet, but I don’t think we’ll need a slide rule, much less any supercomputer, to see a trend<\/p>\n

Watered-Down FCS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now that the MEAC and SWAC have made the very reasonable (from a \u00a0survival and revenue standpoint) to abandon the FCS playoffs altogether in favor of a much more lucrative ESPN “Bowl” game type matchup to conclude their seasons, the FCS is down to something like 80 teams TOTAL who are playoff eligible (Ivy doesn’t participate). And that’s before you even begin talking about WHO those teams are (here’s a hint – less than 10 are relevant in any way and that’s generous) and of course a full 24 of them make the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Lost Momentum<\/strong><\/p>\n

-2004 \u2013 now – I really have no words.<\/p>\n

-What the Duke Club reps were saying in private and at Coaches Caravans? Just two years ago, everyone we heard from inside JMU Athletics and the Duke Club was saying essentially that \u201cit\u2019s just a matter of when, not if\u201d about JMU finding a new conference home. The line now is all the way 180 degrees back to the end of the Rose administrations, \u201cJMU is well positioned when the right opportunity presents itself but there\u2019s unlikely to be anything in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Schools Nearly Guaranteed to Pass JMU<\/strong><\/p>\n

Liberty, Coastal \u2018fucking Carolina, Eastern goddamned Kentucky (these two are the Sun Belt’s rumored new targets), NDSU (although they are one of the two or three FCS schools that make money as-is so they may not have to).<\/p>\n

Where that leaves us?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Us? Just Monitoring University? Who cares.<\/p>\n

But seriously, here’s how I feel. The revenue is what matters. And the utter failure to think ahead is JMU’s own fault even if the primary person or persons responsible are no longer in charge. CAA\/FCS is fine, but at the current price tag, it just isn’t. Jump up anywhere that will have you or stay but SLASH costs. If that costs us on the field, so be it. I truly don’t care if JMU\u00a0wants<\/em> to move up or not, but they need to own that shit either way and deal with the consequences. I for one would rather give money to truth (i.e. We don’t want to move up) even if others disagree. It’s the lying\/misleading in the ask that’s destroyed the last of my patience.<\/p>\n

I know Rob and I agree that we believe under Alger JMU really does want to move up, but the opportunity they want isn’t there. It was under Rose, but it ain’t now. And we think they simply believe the money doesn’t work out in the Sun Belt.\u00a0It probably doesn’t, but neither does the status quo. Move anywhere that will have you and hope to change things\/move again, or stay and cut.<\/strong> That’s our position.<\/p>\n

If you made it this far, thank you.<\/p>\n