2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

[joecct]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

A cost study of Rutgers intercollegiate sports. Contrast men's basketball to women's basketball.

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2016/04/how_much_does_rutgers_spend_on_each_sport_1.html

It will be the same for hockey at any institution save MN & WI

 

[manurespreader]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

A cost study of Rutgers intercollegiate sports. Contrast men's basketball to women's basketball.

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2016/04/how_much_does_rutgers_spend_on_each_sport_1.html

It will be the same for hockey at any institution save MN & WI

go look at the MSU thread. Also most schools subsidize all athletics via extra tuition. Some more than others but over 1000 per student is not unusual. WMU lost over a million just on hockey.

 

[giwan]

It's more like a homeowners association having no money. Sometimes they have a lot and can improve the sign at the front of the neighborhood and the neighborhood's web site (in this case, wcha.com) sometimes they don't but the houses and the people in them, continue on as they are just fine regardless.

Pretty good example, I agree. All is not as media rumored.

 

[joecct]

go look at the MSU thread. Also most schools subsidize all athletics via extra tuition. Some more than others but over 1000 per student is not unusual. WMU lost over a million just on hockey.

And none of them have women's programs. Imagine the same expenses and income under $100K.

 

[BGDrew]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'm kind of shocked that people are just sweeping the financials of the league under the rug.

The league started the fiscal year with $1,143,018 in the bank. After the next twelve months they were down to $747,776. The league lost $33,000/month, or $395,242 total. If the league sustained those same losses for the next three years then there is no league. Despite popular opinion, you can't operate a conference without money. Are you going to start paying your on-ice officials in leftover hot dogs?

And unless they decided to divest the women's league separately then losses and profits are going to be shared equally.

I'd love to live in your households where a 35% loss in funds over a year isn't a big deal.

 

[bravohankins]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

My folks still have season tickets to BG games and have directly asked Bergeron league and expansion questions one on one at various Falcon club events.

He is obviously vague in his answers, as all BGSU officials have been. However, he did assure "we will not be left standing by the roadside again when the next round of re-alignment happens, I can promise you that".

BG has a plan, what it is.......who knows. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'm kind of shocked that people are just sweeping the financials of the league under the rug.

The league started the fiscal year with $1,143,018 in the bank. After the next twelve months they were down to $747,776. The league lost $33,000/month, or $395,242 total. If the league sustained those same losses for the next three years then there is no league. Despite popular opinion, you can't operate a conference without money. Are you going to start paying your on-ice officials in leftover hot dogs?

And unless they decided to divest the women's league separately then losses and profits are going to be shared equally.

I'd love to live in your households where a 35% loss in funds over a year isn't a big deal.

They'd have all the member teams pay an equal amount for the refs.

One school's yearly budget alone is 1M for hockey. WCHA has 10 teams.

 

[manurespreader]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'm kind of shocked that people are just sweeping the financials of the league under the rug.

The league started the fiscal year with $1,143,018 in the bank. After the next twelve months they were down to $747,776. The league lost $33,000/month, or $395,242 total. If the league sustained those same losses for the next three years then there is no league. Despite popular opinion, you can't operate a conference without money. Are you going to start paying your on-ice officials in leftover hot dogs?

And unless they decided to divest the women's league separately then losses and profits are going to be shared equally.

I'd love to live in your households where a 35% loss in funds over a year isn't a big deal.

yes thus the move to campus sites for the playoffs. The post season tournament alone is responsible for the vast majority of the losses. eliminate that and I'm guessing the league makes a profit.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'm kind of shocked that people are just sweeping the financials of the league under the rug.

The league started the fiscal year with $1,143,018 in the bank. After the next twelve months they were down to $747,776. The league lost $33,000/month, or $395,242 total. If the league sustained those same losses for the next three years then there is no league. Despite popular opinion, you can't operate a conference without money. Are you going to start paying your on-ice officials in leftover hot dogs?

And unless they decided to divest the women's league separately then losses and profits are going to be shared equally.

I'd love to live in your households where a 35% loss in funds over a year isn't a big deal.

if the men's/womens WCHA was made up of the same schools, fine...but it's not, so it's very difficult to know how much of the problem is the current men. I agree with ms that I'm sure the cost of using a big facility like in GR or St Paul caused losses. I'm sure the playoff system played a roll. It also seems likely that a change to campus sites should go a long way to preventing the losses they sa last year but if it doesn't, that leads me to believe a lot of the losses are on the women's side. And if you think that LSSU and BGSU (and the other 6 WCHA men only teams) are going to pay for losses due to the women's side...you're crazy

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'm kind of shocked that people are just sweeping the financials of the league under the rug.

The league started the fiscal year with $1,143,018 in the bank. After the next twelve months they were down to $747,776. The league lost $33,000/month, or $395,242 total. If the league sustained those same losses for the next three years then there is no league. Despite popular opinion, you can't operate a conference without money. Are you going to start paying your on-ice officials in leftover hot dogs?

And unless they decided to divest the women's league separately then losses and profits are going to be shared equally.

I'd love to live in your households where a 35% loss in funds over a year isn't a big deal.

The conference is an agreement to play each other it's not the household it's the homeowners association. If the HOA gets dissolved life still goes on.

The conference could dissolve and all the schools need to do is agree to play each other and life is hardly any different. Can send that piece of paper with the agreement costing 0 to the NCAA and call it the BGDrew conference, and have every school provide their own NCAA compliant refs for their own home games. Guess what? That BGDrew conference if it has at least 6 members would still have 1 championship team get an NCAA tournament autobid as the BGDrew Champion.

 

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'n not entirely sure why the wWCHA and mWCHA are still tied together at this point, other than contracts and momentum (which can be severed with action). The women's and men's tents under the College Hockey America name had very little in common from my recollection, and obviously the women's league has long survived the men's (six seasons and counting). Without the moneymaker of the Final Five, the WCHA should truly consider severing ties between the two if the agreement is that the men's league will subsidize the losses of the women's league. That made sense when six of the seven league members (less tOSU) were a part of both leagues, but now it's just BSU and MSU.

GFM

 

[aparch]

if the men's/womens WCHA was made up of the same schools, fine...but it's not, so it's very difficult to know how much of the problem is the current men. I agree with ms that I'm sure the cost of using a big facility like in GR or St Paul caused losses. I'm sure the playoff system played a roll. It also seems likely that a change to campus sites should go a long way to preventing the losses they sa last year but if it doesn't, that leads me to believe a lot of the losses are on the women's side. And if you think that LSSU and BGSU (and the other 6 WCHA men only teams) are going to pay for losses due to the women's side...you're crazy

Exactly. If I'm the WCHA, I'm approaching Duluth, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, St. Cloud State, and Ohio State with hat in hand stating that if they want to remain WCHA Women's schools, start donating in.

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'n not entirely sure why the wWCHA and mWCHA are still tied together at this point, other than contracts and momentum (which can be severed with action). The women's and men's tents under the College Hockey America name had very little in common from my recollection, and obviously the women's league has long survived the men's (six seasons and counting). Without the moneymaker of the Final Five, the WCHA should truly consider severing ties between the two if the agreement is that the men's league will subsidize the losses of the women's league. That made sense when six of the seven league members (less tOSU) were a part of both leagues, but now it's just BSU and MSU.

GFM

Because, all the WCHA is, is an agreement to play each other, and there are multiple schools that have teams in both the men's and women's leagues. This agreement to play each other can then be presented to the NCAA for a yearly tournament autobid. This is also true of ECAC and Hockey East.

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Exactly. If I'm the WCHA, I'm approaching Duluth, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, St. Cloud State, and Ohio State with hat in hand stating that if they want to remain WCHA Women's schools, start donating in.

All WCHA ever has to do is levy fees for basic yearly operating expenses if they need it. But what exactly would those expenses be? Refs? Can make the schools provide them and simply say they must be certified by WCHA standards. Web site? That's cheap. So all I can think of is the commissioner's and webmaster's salaries and tech equipment and that's cheap if spread out evenly to all members.

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I'n not entirely sure why the wWCHA and mWCHA are still tied together at this point, other than contracts and momentum (which can be severed with action). The women's and men's tents under the College Hockey America name had very little in common from my recollection, and obviously the women's league has long survived the men's (six seasons and counting). Without the moneymaker of the Final Five, the WCHA should truly consider severing ties between the two if the agreement is that the men's league will subsidize the losses of the women's league. That made sense when six of the seven league members (less tOSU) were a part of both leagues, but now it's just BSU and MSU.

GFM

CHA for women's lives on because there was nowhere for the teams to jump ship to. Alabama-Huntsville got left in the cold for awhile because the other teams had somewhere else to go first, until finally Alabama-Huntsville found a home.

On behalf of a WCHA founding school, welcome home!! Great to have you. I followed your Save UAH Hockey site all along, and remember your team as CHA champs in the NCAA tournament (holding their own too, proving CHA was no joke) and was rooting for you the whole time.

I've even seen your team on TV at a bar here in Texas and the patrons discussing it, anyone know anything about this team? Giving me the chance to talk all about you. Isn't that cool?

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Exactly. If I'm the WCHA, I'm approaching Duluth, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, St. Cloud State, and Ohio State with hat in hand stating that if they want to remain WCHA Women's schools, start donating in.

Donating in to do what. Fix up the website? WCHA dosen't even need a commissioner per se, no league does it's a luxury. Can have a board with one rep of every school and have the chair of that board rotate on a regular basis. The chair would serve as acting commissioner during their time as chair. Ref standards and rules already have to be NCAA compliant. Independant teams when they exist still provide their own NCAA compliant refs. All it is, is an agreement between the schools to play each other for their own benefit.

The one thing WCHA makes money off of is WCHA.tv which pays for the website etc.

 

[bravohankins]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Go__Tech is correct. In the case of the WCHA it really is nothing more than an agreement to play each other for the sake of getting a bid to the NCAA tourney. The NCAA says you need six teams to get a bid, the WCHA satisfies this need and little else.

1) There is no TV deal, so members gain no benefits for being in the conference from that. In most collegiate conferences this is basically THE MAIN reason for wanting in or joining, the lucrative TV $$$ the conference has negotiated. As Go__Tech said, I would bet the WCHA.tv internet proceeds, if they even make money, barely are enough to support league offices and officials.

2) The Conference Tourney is a bust and money loser. In the old WCHA it was a money maker and another reason you would have wanted to be in the league. The new on campus playoffs, while most likely will be better attended, will probably be lucky to break even when all is said and done. However, that is better than a big loss like the first few have been.

3)The travel is a huge burden to most schools. Especially the ones on the conferences' edges. If the Alaska schools didn't help defer costs, nobody would have agreed to have them in the league. UAH is an outlier also. It will be a shame for college hockey if one or both Alaska programs are shut down, nobody who loves the sport wants to see programs shuttered, including myself.........however, do you think the BG and UAH AD's are really going to be all that broken up to no longer have that Alaska trip cost, pretty sure they'll feel bad for about 5 minutes.

So in essence the WCHA is still in existence only because it provides a means for 10 schools to have an auto bid shot into the National Tourney, no other reason. It provides nothing else to some of these member institutions that could not be gained by being associated with 5 other hockey schools in another league.....one that might be geographically closer and way less expensive travel wise to be involved in.

So GO__Tech is correct. The dwindling money really is not what could be a death knell for the nWCHA. The dwindling money is really just a symptom of the nWCHA, the real Achilles heal of the league is that it offers no compelling reason for the member schools to want to stay in it. Thus you have MSU-Mankato trying to get out and BGSU still trying to find a way to reboot a Central league.

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Go__Tech is correct. In the case of the WCHA it really is nothing more than an agreement to play each other for the sake of getting a bid to the NCAA tourney. The NCAA says you need six teams to get a bid, the WCHA satisfies this need and little else.

1) There is no TV deal, so members gain no benefits for being in the conference from that. In most collegiate conferences this is basically THE MAIN reason for wanting in or joining, the lucrative TV $$$ the conference has negotiated. As Go__Tech said, I would bet the WCHA.tv internet proceeds, if they even make money, barely are enough to support league offices and officials.

2) The Conference Tourney is a bust and money loser. In the old WCHA it was a money maker and another reason you would have wanted to be in the league. The new on campus playoffs, while most likely will be better attended, will probably be lucky to break even when all is said and done. However, that is better than a big loss like the first few have been.

3)The travel is a huge burden to most schools. Especially the ones on the conferences' edges. If the Alaska schools didn't help defer costs, nobody would have agreed to have them in the league. UAH is an outlier also. It will be a shame for college hockey if one or both Alaska programs are shut down, nobody who loves the sport wants to see programs shuttered, including myself.........however, do you think the BG and UAH AD's are really going to be all that broken up to no longer have that Alaska trip cost, pretty sure they'll feel bad for about 5 minutes.

So in essence the WCHA is still in existence only because it provides a means for 10 schools to have an auto bid shot into the National Tourney, no other reason. It provides nothing else to some of these member institutions that could not be gained by being associated with 5 other hockey schools in another league.....one that might be geographically closer and way less expensive travel wise to be involved in.

So GO__Tech is correct. The dwindling money really is not what could be a death knell for the nWCHA. The dwindling money is really just a symptom of the nWCHA, the real Achilles heal of the league is that it offers no compelling reason for the member schools to want to stay in it. Thus you have MSU-Mankato trying to get out and BGSU still trying to find a way to reboot a Central league.

It does also ensure a minimum number of home games for each team. UAH had only 10 their last year before they joined the WCHA.

 

[JohnsonsJerseys]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

So in essence the WCHA is still in existence only because it provides a means for 10 schools to have an auto bid shot into the National Tourney, no other reason.

I think that greatly oversimplifies how intercollegiate sports operates. If you don't have a conference running things, who handles:

• Setting up the season schedule (who's going to force teams to go to Houghton and Huntsville and Anchorage and Fairbanks without a fixed conference schedule)
• Scheduling refs
• Booking team travel for the playoffs
• Collecting money from the other teams to play for playoff travel
• Handles marketing to promote the teams
• Negotiates deals with media outlets
• Reviews on-ice penalties
• Evaluates officials' performance on-ice
• Ensures all team rinks and their facilities are in compliance with required standards
• Manages historical records / statistics
• Seeks out / negotiates with new teams to join the conference
• And the list goes on and on...

I tend to think of the conference operations staff as a consulting firm. They are hired to do the work the individual teams can't (or don't want to) do on their own to ensure smooth operations of their programs, hockey specifically in this case. If hockey conference operations were a 10/hr week side job, I'm sure any number of member schools' officials would gladly take it over. I'm guessing the time spent running a single sport conference is easily in the hundreds of man-hours per week range.

I'm the "admin" for my local men's beer league team. I love hockey and at times it is more than I want to deal with for free. Who in their right mind would take on managing 10 D-I college hockey teams if they were not getting paid to do so? I'm not opposed to the CCHA reforming, assuming they can get at least two additional teams from outside the current WCHA membership to join. But nWCHA or CCHA the money problems, or the need for a conference admin staff, don't go away just because you change the name of the conference or the names of the teams that comprise it.

Ryan J

 

[Go___Tech_Gold]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

I think that greatly oversimplifies how intercollegiate sports operates. If you don't have a conference running things, who handles:

• Setting up the season schedule (who's going to force teams to go to Houghton and Huntsville and Anchorage and Fairbanks without a fixed conference schedule)
• Scheduling refs
• Booking team travel for the playoffs
• Collecting money from the other teams to play for playoff travel
• Handles marketing to promote the teams
• Negotiates deals with media outlets
• Reviews on-ice penalties
• Evaluates officials' performance on-ice
• Ensures all team rinks and their facilities are in compliance with required standards
• Manages historical records / statistics
• Seeks out / negotiates with new teams to join the conference
• And the list goes on and on...

I tend to think of the conference operations staff as a consulting firm. They are hired to do the work the individual teams can't (or don't want to) do on their own to ensure smooth operations of their programs, hockey specifically in this case. If hockey conference operations were a 10/hr week side job, I'm sure any number of member schools' officials would gladly take it over. I'm guessing the time spent running a single sport conference is easily in the hundreds of man-hours per week range.

I'm the "admin" for my local men's beer league team. I love hockey and at times it is more than I want to deal with for free. Who in their right mind would take on managing 10 D-I college hockey teams if they were not getting paid to do so? I'm not opposed to the CCHA reforming, assuming they can get at least two additional teams from outside the current WCHA membership to join. But nWCHA or CCHA the money problems, or the need for a conference admin staff, don't go away just because you change the name of the conference or the names of the teams that comprise it.

Ryan J

The 10 teams can manage themselves. Each team appoints one rep to a board, and the chair of that board rotates on a regular basis to a different school. The chair is acting commissioner.

All very basic stuff, all of it a luxury, the non luxury aspects (providing NCAA compliant refs, scheduling the games, having the games) can be done by the school instead as is done when schools are independent. What is the point of promoting a college hockey conference name? Far more important than a conference name are the actual schools themselves playing each other. In MN most people care that Minnesota State is playing against Bemidji State, they don't care if the conference is called the WCHA conference or the JohnsonsJerseys Conference.

My point is, that not all administration is actually necessary, and if it goes bankrupt life can actually go on better. Rumor has it WCHA office let it get to their heads, got snippy, and that was one reason why NCHC got formed, a new conference that spontaneously invented itself.

So if WCHA goes broke, who cares? They go back to normal NCAA overtime rules? Is that bad? Could have a bare bones conference to replace it and call it US College Hockey Conference that's a great name. The schools still have money, and they will play each other. Why do they go to the obscure cities? Because they're in the same boat, it's already the leftover conference. But at long as there are at least 6 leftovers, and there are, one of the leftovers will still go the NCAA Tournament each year with an autobid.