This is honestly the crux of the whole argument I think. We can argue about what sports we value, but at the end of the day, the ones she prioritizes have to perform on the field/court/whatever, not just have the nicest facilities around, and they absolutely have not been performing under any reasonable definition of the word.
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Yeah, thatās kind of where Iām at. If you have an hour long podcast on this and discuss House not at all by name and for about 15 seconds obliquely, then it wasnāt a serious attempt to grapple with the issues.
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I agree and I hadnāt fully thought of it. But it brings about some concerning issues around misaligned incentives if true.
Our North Star for the athletic department really should be to position UVA to be as attractive as possible to the SEC or BIG in the next round of expansion, with those decisions likely happening around 2028. We can debate what defines a good positioning by 2028, but Iād argue that our on field/court performances in Football and Basketball need to be nationally relevant and capable of driving ratings equal to or above that of the average SEC or BIG school, so as not to dilute their next media deals. That means football is not merely .500 but rather playing games with implications for the 16 team playoff. Call it top 4 in the ACC and top 25 nationally in both Football and Basketball. That should be the goal of any strategy for the department.
So we need to get to that level in the next 4 years. I hope that Carla has that sort of horizon in mind rather than trying to hang on to Elliott for another 12-24 months to save her job. Because youād have to expect a new football coach would need multiple years to reach the outcomes described above.
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On the VAF zoom call I listened to, they said every additional scholarship was 100K. I donāt know if that was rounding up or if that includes other expenses.
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Also, congrats on the numbering scheme! No more wall of text! 
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Thereās probably some built in price increase assumptions, other costs and rounding up to get to 100k, but this is from the VAFās own materials.
100kās just an easy number to remember, but
- not every student is from out of state,
- some students get Pell grants or other need based aid that athletics doesnāt have to pay for,
- to comply with House, youāre converting walk-ons to scholarships, so you donāt add travel, meals, equipment, etc to those like you would if it was a completely new roster spot
- converting walk-ons to scholarships not only increases scholarship costs, it decreases tuition revenue
So maybe all in all a conversion does cost 100k on average
2024-25 Scholarship Costs*
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In-State: $39,422
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Out-of-State: $78,842
Good points. And with inevitable tuition increases, maybe also builds that in. But regardless of the exact cost, an extremely expensive endeavor.
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It honestly seems very hard to manage this, even in a power 2 conference, without cutting a decent number of sports (or letting them wither).
There is just truly no solution to any of this until Congress does something. (Doesnāt mean there arenāt lots of more wrong ones though)
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I agree with operating towards the goal of being the most attractive program we can be to the P2 or whatever next version of the P2 evolves. If we are not doing that, we should be realigning and planning for relegation to a mid-major status. Does UVa have a plan to be able to fund the exit fees and are we positioning ourselves to be able to jump as soon as an offer is available? If not, Carla is not doing her job.
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In every conversation I have had with my VAF rep, he indicates the department is planning for the House settlement and that once that happens, things will normalize. I have also heard that was the theme in presentations to groups of larger donors. Great. But what happens when the P2 decide not to agree to the House settlement. What is UVaās plan? What is the ACCās plan? What methods has UVa developed to remain competive should schools comply with House but exceed the payments to player? What is the plan once the inevitable lawsuit threatens the House settlement? If Carla canāt answer these questions, she is not doing her job.
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What are we doing to change the requirement that our paid, out-of-state athletes must pay the OOS tuition? If there are ways to do this without legislative action, why arenāt we doing it? If we need legislative action, are we working towards that end? It might be pretty hard for a legislator to vote against that change if all of the state schools push and get there alumni on board to contact their legislators. Is Carla working on that? If not, she is not doing her job.
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Do we have a dollar amount we need for each sport we sponsor to be nationally competive? How much does it take to keep a coach from being poached, pay for all required scholarships, pay all required NIL, pay for travel and maintenance/expansion of facilities? Not just what we currently pay, but what it will take to have a program nationally competive. Have we communicated to the key donors for each sport how short we are in funding to be competitive? We clearly did not have that number for baseball and what we were communicating was short of what we needed. Have we determined that any sports we offer cannot be competitive based on the ability of donors to meet the targets? Carla should know the answers to these questions or she is not doing her job.
Maybe we have all of this figured out, but there has not been any communication to indicate it. In fact, the communication I have received indicates we are preparing for yesterdayās status quo and hoping that it will hold. Hope is not a plan.
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Laugh and point while they spend their money on antitrust attorneys and face larger $$ exposure?
(My earnest point is: donāt forget the major $$ point of the settlement is to have an amount certain for prior violations)
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I know I posted somewhere around here, but I calculated that if we were to fully fund every roster spot under House in every sport we compete in, thatās something like 372 additional scholarships (weāre at 328 currently), so more than double our aid bill (which is 24 mil right now). Call it 29 mil and call rev share 21 mil and thatās 50 mil more.
We receive only 39 mil in donations (which is a huge jump from the 27 mil we raised in each of 19, 20 and 21).
Media rights is 33 mil (was around 20 mil in 19, 20 and 21). For comparison, Minnesotaās (and the other B1Gās schools I spot checked) was 51 mil. Mississippiās (ditto SEC) was 43 mil. Thatās for 2024, so pre-playoff and pre-new media rights deals.
So more media money covers the 20+ mil rev share and some more, but the additional scholarships cost and lost tuition money from walk-ons? No idea.
I mean, we sold 17 mil in tickets and had 39 mil in donations. LSU sold 52 mil in tickets and received 79 mil in donations. Poor little Minnesota sold 23 mil in tickets and received 24 mil in donations. Ole Miss sold 22 mil in tix and 38 mil in contributions.
Conference bowl revenue and NCAA MBB tournament distributions were about the same for all 3 conferences.
Ole Miss might be a good comparison. About the same size student population as us, similar donor level. Sponsors 16 sports to our 25. Spends 12 mil on scholarships to our 24 mil. Partly because thereās 9 fewer teams worth of athletes (328 ships vs 240) and their scholarships cost 50k and ours 75k.
I tried to dig into MSU baseball specifically, but they include their athletic financials into the consolidated university ones only. All I can get out of that is MSU had 2.6 mil in baseball revenue, spent 2.5 mil on coaches and 400k on travel and with other stuff, expenses were 4.7 mil (and I donāt know if that includes scholarships or not). Our baseball rev was 2.7 mil, coaches were 2.3 mil, 800k travel and total expenses of 6.1 mil (including 800k of scholarships).
So I dunno how much more MSU is promising Oak, but I wonder if he wants charters for midweek games that he knows MSU spent half as much as we did for travel. Or that their non-coaches salary/scholarships budget last season was about 50% of ours.
Edit: might be my largest block of text yet! Why am I writing these? I personally would skip over them or just skim them if I didnāt write them.
Agree on being nerds. This is what happens when we run out of sports-related stuff to discuss.
Back on topic, yes and no. I mean, I agree the modern version of the PhD is fairly recent. But the concept of someone having a doctorate (or at least being a ādoctor of Xā) is nearly 1000 years old. And the concept of being a doctor of something other than medicine or healing is, at worst, roughly simultaneous.
I just realized that, as you say, Doctor of Law was an OG doctorate. Keep that under your hat. Lawyers are already adequately insufferable without anyone telling them this.
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Is this the most boring thread in the history of the world?
- Yes
- For sure
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If you find it boring, ignore it.
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This is actually probably my second biggest problem with our athletic department of recent vintage. NIL flatfootedness is a clear #1, but the adversarial relationship they seem to have with releasing any info is really insane to me. Not announcing Carla and the football assistantsā extensions and not releasing a deal sheet for Odom and stuff are just weird moves for a public school where it is all going to get FOIAed eventually anyways. Why wouldnāt you want to be forthcoming and get ahead of it??
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Yep. And as discussed, if you arenāt actively communicating or projecting a direction from leadership, the vacuum of information only invites more questions of leadership when bad things happen like Oak leaving.
The amount of speculation and rumors from reporters on podcasts this week is nuts and only makes the AD look so much worse.
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Yeah they need new PR people in the department I think. Seems very haphazard.
Come and FOIA it is not a workable strategy for a public University.
https://x.com/On3sports/status/1931158940970053792
Revenue sharing is official.
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Now that Chris Pollard and his staff are going to be in Charlottesville, would you say that Carla Williams and the athletic department:
- Handled this situation well
- Handled this situation poorly
- Screwed the pooch, but then pulled a rabbit out of their hats
- I dunnoā¦ maybe all of the aboveā¦?
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When I saw the package he got at MSU plus NIL/Rev Share stuff, what is clear to me is we were highly unlikely to even get in the ballpark (even a Murray St sized ballpark).
Now, it remains an open question (to me) whether he wouldāve given a really nice hometown discount if he had a better relationship with Carla or whatever.
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