I can never tell based on class years anymore. Who is the Cortland QB you're talking about?

Right, it's one of those "I don't know who should be 10, but I feel pretty confident it *shouldn't* be Cortland"

Outstanding news.

This is, ultimately, what is going to save our smaller, D3 colleges. Long-term, people-centered relationships. This is someone who had a profound love of the institution, and wanted to see it thrive. As we say in the disability community: "Advocacy is planting the seeds for a tree whose shade you will never sit under"

To bring it towards the other big thread in this channel: It's what the short-term FloSports money can't do.

Also, nice roll-out of the gift announcement by the comms team, building out a landing page devoted to the impact of the gift.

Cortland just seems too high to me for a team that took a bigger step back than I think people realize. The 2023 team basically played a flawless regular season except for a disaster of a final 5 minutes vs. Susquehanna.

The 2024 team barely got out of Brockport unscathed, had to fight Susquehanna for 60 minutes, and were less impressive against a worse Ithaca team at home.

The irony, of course, is that the 2024 team went 10-0, and the 2023 team went 9-1. But there was a sense of inevitability about Cortland's offense in 2023 that wasn't there in last year — losing two NFL caliber WRs will do that.

With Boyes gone and the QB position an unknown, and St. John also graduating, I feel like we're looking at another step back.

All that said, as we saw with Ethan Gallo's record-setting season, just because someone doesn't make an impact one year, it doesn't mean they can't be elite the next. But Cortland feels like they're going to be a little like Ithaca 2024 to me. Figuring out the passing game, relying heavily on a great back, and having to kick off the season with a really tough game.

Quote from: lefty2 on July 22, 2025, 08:27:58 PMAlbright dropped swimming a year ago.  They were dominant in the MAC on the women's side in the 2000s and on the men's side in the 2010s.

Thanks for educating me!

But my central question remains: What does going "all in" on athletics mean, then?

I'm not sure trading swimming for wrestling is the athletic equivalent of dropping a low enrollment major and adding one that's in demand, though I'm guessing it's how it will be framed. Obviously, those teams will get more than the 5 athletes that were on the swim teams, but they're not even getting started on reversing a 50% enrollment decline.

The thing I can't quite wrap my head around is, what "going all in" on athletics looks like. Albright's already got a robust athletics program, in terms of what they offer. They're adding men's wrestling (which seems like it makes women's wrestling the obvious next move) and women's stunt. But they've already got 19 teams. They don't have swimming, and from a cursory glance on the web, it doesn't look like they have required existing facilities needed to add it.

So, is the plan to just try and attract more athletes to the sports you're struggling to do so already? (The track teams strike me as very small)

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on July 18, 2025, 04:06:16 PMWe have a test case.  The OAC just signed with Flo.  Their broadcasts have been proudly and publicly underwritten by an alumni group for a long time - it's been labeled and branded all over their stuff.

One would hope they'd be consulted on this kind of move.  If they are like many other schools we've talked to, that may not have happened.

I doubt we'll get all the financial numbers from this, but they will exist.  Marietta will know how this affects the relationship with certain alums pretty much right away.

This seems like the canary in the coal mine for my theory. Well, as I said, I've been wrong before

Quote from: Kuiper on July 17, 2025, 08:28:36 PMIt may be that we are speaking past each other on this point.  I'll say it this way:  Assume I generally give $100 to the school's annual fund for athletics and my team fund.  Since my disposable income hasn't increased, I'm not upping my athletic department or team fund gift to $200 this year because you've started a streaming fund.  I'm just reallocating some or all of my $100 gift to that fund, which means the athletic department or team falls short on funding what they usually get with my $100.  The only way that doesn't happen is if I up my gift or some new people give.  There are some funding campaigns that bring out new donors or bigger donations, but they may think streaming isn't one of them.

I think the analogy I'd use is, if you want food delivered, and your restaurant offers delivery but has a delivery charge, why are you going on the Door Dash App to pay their service fee?

Quote from: Kuiper on July 17, 2025, 04:44:28 PMOn the first point, my point was simply that athletics donors have limited funds and athletics has broader institutional needs.

I feel like I must not be explaining myself when I ask this question. I'm going to try one last time, with apologies to everyone, because maybe there is something *I'm* missing in the answers. I'm not always the sharpest tool in the drawer

If a college is saying "Hey, we need money to defray the rising athletics streaming costs that we provide to our supporters"

And if that college's supporters are saying "We're willing to give money for the ability to watch the college's athletic streams"

It seems the shortest distance between the two points is just: Supporters give their money to the school, earmarked for this specific purpose.

Why are we inviting a third party in at all?

Excellent post by Kuiper, one part I want to clarify is the fundraising aspect of it, since I've mentioned it a lot.

You're not necessarily asking people all scattershot to kick in some cash.

You're identifying the rising costs of providing these broadcasts as an institutional need, setting up something that can be contributed to, and identifying people that may contribute to it, based on various factors.

To give an example, Ithaca's Park School of Communications often has students earn opportunities to travel somewhere for professional development or have their work featured somewhere. Those trips cost money. So the school created a dedicated fund, called the "Special Opportunities for Students Fund". And every year, their annual Giving Day pitch includes a call out to that.

That's the same model you could use, to get the $30,000 for your sports broadcast costs, or sports information costs, or whatever this FloSports money is.

You say, "Hey, costs of providing these broadcasts have increased, we'd love to be able to provide them for free so we can showcase our student-athletes — and broadcasters — to as many people as possible and share in our [Team Nickname] pride. Just like we've done for so many former great athletes and broadcasters over the years. Would you be willing to contribute to this fund to make that a possibility?"

Maybe it wouldn't work! Not all my ideas do! But I think FloSports is being presented as the only possible solution to the legitimate problem of budget issues.

After all, isn't the whole point that these die-hard fans/parents/alumni are in fact, willing to pay? Why do we need FloSports to be the one getting the money? Rather than allow their constituents to give money to an outside entity, why don't schools encourage that money to go into an endowed fund that can grow that contribution over years, decades?

That's how you establish relationships.

And we may think that it's not some big deal if some casual fan doesn't watch your games. But you never know what connection causes people to feel connected to your institution. The biggest individual gift in the history of Ithaca College came from an individual who had zero ties to IC and in fact, never once set foot on campus in his life. He simply ran into an IC professor in Greece, starting talking about student films, and he decided to give money to help fund them. And endowment was established, it led to the biggest individual gift in school history, and it still gives the school significant money every year.

Also, to make this clearer:

I think Ryan wrote a VERY good article. My criticism is not of his work. It's just frustrating to see a very clear divide between what's being reported and what it seems like I'm reading seemingly everywhere

Quote from: blue_jays on July 17, 2025, 12:04:12 PMFrankly, journalism has nothing to do with it. The employees putting out these press releases (SIDs/Athletic Communications) are being told to announce the deal, put in a nice quote that makes the endeavor sound positive, and that's that.

If you want a journalistic callout of Flo, look to the local city newspaper or the university student newspaper. But don't put any of this on the hardworking SIDs, who bust their humps with 60-80 hour work weeks 9-10 months a year, doing everything they can to serve the student-athletes.

I'm not talking about SIDs at all. I literally never have. I have absolutely no idea where this talking point is even coming from.

I'm talking about the literal D3 sports website we're using, reporting both sides of this issue, rather than just regurgitating the Flo Sports talking points in their "reporting" of 2024. There are people commenting on here, on X, everywhere this is announced, that they don't like it. And all we got was Ryan's piece — which was well-written and very well sourced (from one side).

Yeah, honestly, football seems the least likely to get subscribers, given that Saturday games make travel easy as long as you're relatively close by. 1 p.m. game times might not even require an overnight.

It's the sports with *midweek* games you're going to get people subscribing. For example, IC men's lacrosse played 8 of 19 games on Monday-Thursday. Those are the ones you might get — in addition to families who live too far away to travel at all

Quote from: Pat Coleman on July 16, 2025, 03:22:58 PM

Quote from: IC798891 on July 16, 2025, 02:41:02 PMhttps://x.com/JoeGinley/status/1945228379801735530

This is exactly the kind of thing I'd be doing if I were a college not getting on the Flo train.

You offer up the free viewing as a benefit of sending your kids to the school. I talk to a lot of athletes, and, while I doubt it alone is enough to sway anyone, they all mention parents being able to watch them as being something that matters to them.

I would be too, but the SIDs also generally have no visibility as to what the conference will do. That could backfire in the wrong conference.

Well, yes, I wouldn't necessarily advise the SIDs to do it, but it's a point of differentiation that can be used, if you have people who *do* know what the conference will do

https://x.com/JoeGinley/status/1945228379801735530

This is exactly the kind of thing I'd be doing if I were a college not getting on the Flo train.

You offer up the free viewing as a benefit of sending your kids to the school. I talk to a lot of athletes, and, while I doubt it alone is enough to sway anyone, they all mention parents being able to watch them as being something that matters to them.