July 19, 2005
Big XII: The haves & have nots
Recently, there have been fan rumblings of an imbalance in the Big 12 - the Big 12 South is dominating the Big 12 North. While that's not exactly true, the Big XII football powers that be are starting note a haves vs have-nots battle brewing in the conference.
First, let's dispel some of the "the Big 12 North sucks" rumors. Since it's inception, the South has a .518 winning percentage against the North. While both divisions have produced 30 bowl teams, the North has a slight edge with 14 ten-win teams to the South's 10 ten-win teams. So, while the South has eaten it's own, so to speak, at times, the head-to-head matchups are only just slightly tilted to the South overall. In the past two years, the South has been more successful against the North, but over the conference history, a two year span is probably too small of a sample. Long story short? It's the South by a nose at .518.
So if the divisions are playing nearly straight-up, what's the problem? In a word, money.
According to the U.S. Department of Education's Equity in Athletics reports, the South is home to five of the top six Big XII athletic budgets, with Nebraska being the North's lone representative in the top half of the conference.
| 2003-2004 Spending | Football Budget | Athletics Budget |
| Texas | $12.9M | $70.6M |
| Nebraska | $12.9M | $55.8M |
| Oklahoma | $13.7M | $47.8M |
| Oklahoma State | $8.7M | $45.3M |
| Texas A&M | $9.8M | $43.8M |
| Texas Tech | $15.3M | $41.2M |
| Missouri | $6.8M | $38.7M |
| Colorado | $9.6M | $36.7M |
| Kansas State | $11.4M | $35.7M |
| Kansas | $7.7M | $34.7M |
| Baylor | $7.7M | $28.1M |
| Iowa State | $7.2M | $27.7M |
Where does all this money come from? Well, the Big XII distributes just over $100 million every year equally to the member schools, but the bulk of the discrepancy comes from stadium revenues.
South Division stadiums average 65,765 in capacity, while North stadiums average 56,983.
When you look at 80,000+ seats at Texas and 46,000 at Iowa State, it's not hard to understand how schools like Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M can earn an extra $3-5 million per game at the ticket gate.
The schools with smaller budgets like to explain that the 85-player scholarship limits brings balance to the conference. That's a pipe dream. The reality is that schools with championship caliber facilities (and big budgets) have a huge advantage in recruiting 85 players that are better than the poorer schools' 85 players.
And schools are taking notice. Texas Tech spent $15.3 million in football for 2003-2004, more than any other Big 12 school. Over the past seven years, Tech has spent $191 million on building and renovating facilities. And it's a similar story at Oklahoma State - $102 million on facilities.
"At some point, you have to upgrade, and we did that in football," said OSU president David Schmidly. "We're just trying to keep our facilities up to the level that will make us a competitive player in major college athletics."I'm not trying to build the same set of facilities that Oklahoma, Texas or Texas A&M has. I'm just trying to create a competitive set of facilities. We felt like, to remain viable, we had to focus on improving our facilities."
So, if money is starting to tilt the on-the-field performance towards the "haves", how do you balance the equation? At some point, don't the "haves" need more productive schools in the conference to keep boosting that revenue stream? What's the Big XII to do? Nothing yet, says the commissioner.
"One test is this: Is there a growing and prospering middle group of schools?" Weiberg said when asked how he might analyze division disparity. "You'll always have your top schools and some schools that struggle. If you got in a situation where there was just a few top teams and everybody else was struggling, that would be a problem."
So, to hear Weiberg tell it, as long as your OSU, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Missouri teams (aka the middle class) are competitive against the Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma teams (aka the haves), and your Colorado, Kansas, K-State, Baylor, and Iowa State teams (aka the have-nots) are threatening the middle class - all is well in the Big XII.
I'm not sure I buy that. Unless someone from the have-nots jumps up and bites Texas, OU, et al and knocks them out of a title game (aka Kansas State in 2003) on a regular basis, you've got the makings of a conference membership shakeup on the horizon.
Comments:
posted on July 19, 2005 4:59 PM — link — abuse?Kevin Donahue said:
Those are budgeted expenditures, not revenues. Texas Tech *spent* more than Texas.
James Mullen said:
posted on July 21, 2005 1:34 PM — 206.159.169.253 — link — abuse?
Neil Woelk of the Daily Camera (Boulder, CO) wrote that there is talk of the south leaving the conference and adding Arkansas and either TCU or SMU to form a new SWC. This could happen for the '08 season after the TV contracts expire. How serious are these rumors? Have any reps from those schools or the south division made any such statements publicly? What about the proposal to abolish the two division system?
posted on July 21, 2005 4:00 PM — link — abuse?
There's no question that the makings of a schism are there, but I wouldn't expect an outright split. I can see the South teams itching to show Iowa State out the door, but they are a really competitive school across the board. They just don't spend a lot on athletics. And none of the Texas schools are going to boot Baylor because the lawmakers in Austin are too tied to the school.
Bryan said:
posted on September 5, 2005 6:45 PM — 152.163.100.139 — link — abuse?
In reference to Kevin Donahue's comment...Iowa state hasn't shown much competiveness, and could see themselves to the door. However, Baylor University was ranked 24th over all in athletics for 2005, and 3rd in the Big 12 behind Texas(2nd) and Nebraska (23rd). Baylor has shown national competitiveness in every sport, except football. In summary, the Baylor Bears aren't going anywhere.
tom said:
posted on September 17, 2005 1:02 PM — 69.219.158.240 — link — abuse?
baylor, more competitive than iowa state??? huh?? baylor been to a bowl game recently? iowa state 4 out of last 5 years. baylor basketball nationally competitive? has baylor even made it to the NCAA in the last 20 years?
kyle said:
posted on September 20, 2005 3:25 AM — 209.234.80.179 — link — abuse?
i agree with tom about iowa state, but he left off a few...one of the best wrestling programs in the country, one of the highest women's bb attendences (i.e. they host the early round women's ncaa tourney almost every year) as well as winning bowl games/tourney games. iowa state should be commended on what they've done/are doing with a fraction of the money...and who wants to replace them for...arkansas?!? there's about 5 or 6 schools in the conference iowa state beats across the board.
--all 12 teams are staying, if anything they'll get rid of the divisions.mdavis said:
posted on September 23, 2005 5:00 PM — 199.43.32.26 — link — abuse?
Well, iowa state may have a great women's basketball team, but who won the title last year? Baylor did. Baylor also won the men's tennis title the year before. Any baseball fan knows that they field very good teams year in year out. Football is one sport. Athletics encompasses many. Yea their football program is sub-par, but Baylor overall is in better shape than most think. This comes from a Texas Tech Red Raider.
GCook said:
posted on October 12, 2005 6:28 PM — 70.114.214.12 — link — abuse?
Look at how the Big XII stacks up against other BCS Conferences:
Cumulative Avg Athletic Revenues:
1. Big Ten - $54,271,038
2. SEC - $48,938,752
2. Big XII - $47,334,489
4. Pac 10 - $38,374,372
5. ACC - $37,892,382Cumulative Avg. Athletic Expenditures:
1. Big Ten - $48,811,561
2. SEC - $45,710,994
3. Big XII - $42,224,265
4. Pac 10 - $38,181,704
5. ACC - $36,349,790The Big XII compares quite well to the SEC having nearly the same cumulative revenues and slighly larger profits.
michael said:
posted on October 22, 2005 11:41 AM — 129.118.51.24 — link — abuse?
I called these numbers into question becuase they lacked face validity. It looked wrong. Kevin Donahue wrote that these numbers came from the U.S. Department of Education's data collection efforts.
Sure about that, Kevin?
Read this article from the Oct. 18,2005, issue of USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2005-10-18-equity-reports-cover_x.htm
How about thaty $34 million data entry error at the University of Texas? Hmm... The numbers were fishy after all.
How come no blog posting? This is huge because it calls into question how the data is collected, interpreted and used. In other words, it is ALL hokum. I stand by my original posting.
posted on October 22, 2005 1:00 PM — link — abuse?
The numbers, as I said and as you yourself imply, come directly from the Equity in Athletics reports, which I linked above and will link here for clarity.
http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/index.asp
The USA Today report you reference said that there is a $34M error where one of the items is listed on the wrong line. If that's the case, it wouldn't throw the overall number off, just one line item. Is it the football line, as you suggest? I can't say for certain. Neither can you, because neither UT nor the report clarify that point. Given the median averages above, I have a fair degree of confidence that the number IS NOT from the football budget, if for no other reason than it would be extremely out of proportion to the median. But again, I can't say for certain.
From the article you reference:
"There's a huge amount of frustration among those who have to produce the reports. The guidelines that are out there are very challenging," says Ed Goble, associate athletics director at the University of Texas, where internal documents for 2003 differ from the Department of Education's database by $34 million.
"It's the wrong number on the wrong line item," Goble says after looking into the error.
So, unless there is something that clearly demostrates that these numbers are without merit, then we can still use them to demostrate the point: there is a huge disparity between the haves & have nots. Even if you throw out Texas altoghether, there is nothing to suggest that any of the conclusions above are less valid.Sooo.........
As far as no blog posting, I don't know - seems like we've posted a lot since July.
Now, my best friends had a baby die this week, so I've been focusing on other things, but you gotta have priorities in life, man.
Please note that all comments are subject to the Fanblogs Comment Policy.
michael said:
posted on July 19, 2005 4:36 PM — 129.118.52.51 — link — abuse?Those football revenues look very fishy. Texas Tech generates $15 million football related revenue. More than Texas?