Hockey John
Registered User
Robert Morris just announce that they will be dropping men's and women's hockey effective immediately. Very sad news. I have made that trip several times.
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Robert Morris dropping men's and women's hockey.
- Thread starter Hockey John
- Start date
wsummers
Section T since 1978
My question is will UAH be invited to take their place?
Ralph Baer
Let's Go 'Tute!
UAF is playing next season.
The school added that the COVID-19 pandemic was not a major factor in its decision.
“We are saddened for the student-athletes who will be unable to continue in their sport at Robert Morris University and are committed to assisting them during this difficult time,” said RMU President Chris Howard. “However, this is the best course of action to leverage our strategic assets and position us for future growth.”
I'm reading on Twitter that everyone was completely blind-sided by this today. No warning.
“We are saddened for the student-athletes who will be unable to continue in their sport at Robert Morris University and are committed to assisting them during this difficult time,” said RMU President Chris Howard. “However, this is the best course of action to leverage our strategic assets and position us for future growth.”
I'm reading on Twitter that everyone was completely blind-sided by this today. No warning.
JohnsonsJerseys
Michigan Tech Fan
Or is this just the first move on the chess board? Now outraged alumni buck-up so the school doesn't have to pay for hockey anymore?
The Sicatoka
Kicizapi Cetan
My university administrative spinmeister translation device converts that as "we have significant undisclosed budget issues."
Where'd ya go BobbyMo? We hardly knew ya.
Atlantic Hockey is now at 10 schools. You'd think that scheduling is simplified with an even number of teams.
But I still think that UAH has to offer something of value to Atlantic Hockey in order to get an invitation.
Yeah, an increased travel budget for the remaining 10? I don't see that cutting it.
Last edited:
Sean Pickett
2009 NCAA Champions
It is highly unlikely RMU did this to increase contributions. I've been tracking hockey revenue and expenses since 2009-10 and no public school has been able to cover their expenses with contributions, although ASU has done a great job through 2020 with contributions covering about 75% to 80% of the hockey programs annual expenses. I don't expect that to continue once their new arena opens. Other schools have seen spikes in contributions for a year or two, but they then drop back down, usually to previous levels and sometimes lower.
I have no idea what the state of their rink is, but in the FAQ section of the announcement is this answer: "The decision to discontinue the men’s and women’s ice hockey programs was made based on an analysis which included scholarships and operating costs, and the necessary investments to maintain and improve the current facility." Their annual expenses for men's and women's hockey have been among the lowest of the schools that give scholarships, so based on that answer I'm thinking that the rink needs a lot of work, more than the school is willing to invest to keep the men's and women's teams.
Sean
I have to wonder how far in advance Atlantic Hockey knew about this. They’ve previously said they would consider adding 1 or 2 schools in UAH and LIU. Maybe just out of politeness to both applicants. But that was when they had 11 schools. I would be hard pressed to think they would consider going to 13. Now that they’re down to 10 with this news, all the sudden adding 2 schools seems very reasonable. So did they have a clue this was coming or was it politeness?
The rumor is that no one in either program at RMU had a clue, so I find it hard to believe Atlantic Hockey knew as well.
The Sicatoka
Kicizapi Cetan
The coaches had no idea and were talking scheduling games for this season earlier this week per one reporter.
https://twitter.com/MikeMcMahonCHN/status/1397638896721219589
https://twitter.com/MikeMcMahonCHN/status/1397638896721219589
ExileOnDaytonStreet
Drunkard
McMahon is right on.
Chris Howard seems like a monstrous prick.
Chris Howard seems like a monstrous prick.
DavidNardolillo
Member
I think this is close to the mark. One wonders if the rink and property will be sold given those comments and its riverfront location. Also wanted to highlight that there has been previous reporting on RMUs falling enrollment issues, which necessitated a $4 to $5 million dollar cut to staff at the beginning of 2019. Not sure if these enrollment issues played a role in cutting hockey.
If there was a financial issue, wouldn't they say so? From the press release, it sounds more like they made a decision to focus more on other sports (probably basketball) because other universities to which they compare themselves don't play hockey. (Though that motivation doesn't make much sense to me: if anything, you'd think that being the only school among that group of peer institutions to offer hockey would make RMU stand out in a crowd, wouldn't you?)
I wonder what those other universities are. Considering only a handful of D-I institutions play hockey at all, if everyone followed that metric, the sport would disappear.
I could be way off base, but reading between the lines, if the university is interested in increasing diversity, I wonder if hockey's demographic makeup was being perceived as a problem.
Powers &8^]
Sean Pickett
2009 NCAA Champions
With the 2020 EADA reports finally released I decided to take a look to see if I could find the other similarly sized institutions it was comparing itself to. First I looked at the other 11 Horizon League schools (RMU’s main league) and I found that RMU is the outlier in that league. Only two schools, RMU and the University of Detroit Mercy are private (and with enrollment under 3,500), with the other ten ranging from 4,865 to 19,886. Furthermore, RMU is one of only two that have FCS football (Youngstown State – 8,576 enrollment – is the other). So next I filtered the schools to show just those with FCS football, of which there are 127. Of those 31 have an enrollment less than 3,500 and 24 are private. I next looked at the number of sports offered since RMU mentioned that they will still have 15 sports. RMU’s 2020 EADA shows 14 sports, including track for women and hockey for men and women. After subtracting hockey that drops to 12, but the NCAA combines cross-country with indoor and outdoor track, so adding 2 sports back for the combined women’s track RMU sponsors brings it back to 14. The RMU website also only lists 14 sports, so I have no idea what the 15th sport is. That said, of the 24 private schools, the range of sports (not counting the multiple track teams) is 23 (Holy Cross) to 12 (Charleston Southern). RMU at 14 is one of just 5 schools to offer 14 or fewer sports. For total expenses Richmond leads with total expenses of $35,922,045 and Charleston Southern is last with total expenses of $12,222,625. RMU is somewhat better in this category, as they are 13th out of 24 with expenses of $17,952,596 (which will drop by about $3 million per year with the axing of men’s and women’s hockey). By the way, two other schools have both men’s and women’s hockey, Colgate and Holy Cross, and both spend quite a bit more on sports than RMU: Colgate’s were $30,845,586 and Holy Cross’ were $33,800,312.
I also looked up the endowments of the 24 private schools and they range from the University of Richmond’s $2.5 billion to (once again) Charleston Southern’s $19.4 million. RMU reported that their endowment increased by $16 million as part of their current fundraising campaign, so it is now about $52.6 million, but that is still puts them in the bottom five. Looking at just the seven other schools with endowments under $100 million only one, Charleston Southern, offers fewer sports, however, only one, Jacksonville University, spent more on athletics in 2020 ($19,672,963) than RMU. So, it seems that RMU may have compared themselves to other private schools with enrollments under 3,500 and endowments under $100 million to determine that they were spending too much on athletics and needed to cut both hockey programs. However, of those seven other schools only one was in New York (on Staten Island), 1 in Pennsylvania and the others in North or South Carolina or Florida.
Sean
AMC
Registered User
I think the Horizon League piece is a big part of it. RMU left the NEC for the Horizon. They are going to have to spend a heck of a lot more money on basketball to keep up with the new Joneses. They are leaving a league mostly made up of similarly sized private schools for a league of bigger public schools. Some of the new conference mates really care about basketball. I wouldn't be shocked if there was some sort of "we'll admit you, but you need to up your basketball budget" type conversation. Oh, and hey, how about that, there's $3M lying over there in a sport that no one else in the new conference plays.