WSU never mattered Nationally. Neither does UW or Oregon State. You can extend that to the Seattle professional sports teams as well. Nobody East of Boise gives a damn or knows anything about the Mariners, Seahawks, or Kracken.
Lawsuit(s) mediation tomorrow May 19
- Thread starter Loyal Coug1
- Start date
I think the Seahawks are more relevant than the others. I'd argue that most folks outside of Washington who aren't diehard NHL fans wouldn't even know who you were talking about if you said that you were a diehard Kraken fan.
Loyal, I do fully agree with you on the following:
"And the BS about how a merged Pac/MW conference would be aced out of the CFP because of the "bottom feeders"? What a joke. The P4 conferences all have bottom feeders. Who cares? What matters is the top teams. Vandy or Rutgers or whoever don't drag down Alabama or Michigan or whoever."
IMHO it is not about bottom feeders from a CFP perspective. From a CFP perspective, only the top teams really matter. Instead, the bottom feeder angle matters in at least two senses: media money; and national visibility/recruiting value. That visibility factor does play a role in terms of the CFP, since more visibility for a successful team often helps their ratings a bit.
Finally, as has been noted, we need an 8th football team in the short term. That is our most pressing deadline, and I'm sure we have at least one lower level team lined up if our other possible teams fall through. As Herb Cohen used to note:
- No important decision is made until near the deadline; and
- No real concession behavior begins until the deadline approaches.
"And the BS about how a merged Pac/MW conference would be aced out of the CFP because of the "bottom feeders"? What a joke. The P4 conferences all have bottom feeders. Who cares? What matters is the top teams. Vandy or Rutgers or whoever don't drag down Alabama or Michigan or whoever."
IMHO it is not about bottom feeders from a CFP perspective. From a CFP perspective, only the top teams really matter. Instead, the bottom feeder angle matters in at least two senses: media money; and national visibility/recruiting value. That visibility factor does play a role in terms of the CFP, since more visibility for a successful team often helps their ratings a bit.
Finally, as has been noted, we need an 8th football team in the short term. That is our most pressing deadline, and I'm sure we have at least one lower level team lined up if our other possible teams fall through. As Herb Cohen used to note:
- No important decision is made until near the deadline; and
- No real concession behavior begins until the deadline approaches.
WSU was in a conversation nationally when it was in in the old P10/P12 conference. Now, there will be zero conversation (and yes, the same goes for OSU too).
Seahawks will matter nationally because the NFL promotes their product well across the board and all teams. Mariners, lol (they do it to themselves). NHL / Kraken I don't know enough about the league and hockey is already the most niche following of the big four professional leagues.
I’d also say that in those conference, nearly all of the bottom feeders bring something. They’re good at a sport, they have academics or money. By the time you get to the MWC left-behinds, it’s pretty hard to find anything they bring to the table.
And, to be fair…you could say the same of WSU. We don’t have a sport we’re particularly good in. We don’t have money, we’ve never been an academic school. We have a pretty loyal following, but we’ve seen in the last couple years how much that’s worth…especially when not accompanied by money.
95, while I am not vigorously disagreeing, I have to note that your money comment depends upon how it is measured. We are a top 100 endowment school (barely). That means more than you might initially think. There are many of what I presume to be top 100 endowment schools that do not play FCS football (all of the Iveys; the historic "female Iveys"...Amherst, et al; the MIT/Cal Tech/etc. crowd; the Harvey Mudds & Pomona Colleges of the world; etc.). Without doing any real research and just counting the sorts of schools I just listed, I'd be surprised if there are more than maybe 60 FCS schools in the top 100. So our position is hardly "without money". What impacts us specifically in athletics is two things:
- our past history of having a league that funded itself, without substantial state funding that was designated to athletics (contrast that with the MWC, where virtually all of their athletic programs get significant state money).
- our having two major FCS universities in the state, unlike, say, Ohio. And in our case, WSU is in the least populated half of the state, which has various implications, both real and perceived.
Your "never been an academic school" comment also requires context. We have some world class areas. Veterinary; V&E; and Ag research are all close to my heart, so I know about them. There are probably others. If you intended to say that our focus & core mission is not on producing a bunch of grad students, but instead kids who can think and be productive in the work force with a BS/BA, then I'd have to agree with you.
Much of this is along the lines of whether you tend to view the WSU glass as being half empty, or half full. Overall I find it to be much more than half full, but certainly not full to the brim. And I'd argue that is true of most schools today, particularly those who engage in FCS football.
Well, then...
Sure, we have a decent endowment, but that's a major area of misunderstanding and misconception. Most of the value in any school's endowment is not particularly accessible, and it's certainly not liquid. In a lot of cases, it's tied up in property. We're in the same boat, and in a cash flow and cash reserve sense, we run far closer to the bone than most financial types would like us to. Our endowment is somewhere near $700M, but that doesn't mean that we have $700M.
As for the academics, sure, we have some programs that garner some respect, but in general we're not a place that is generally recognized for academics. We're not Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, etc.
For most of the population who didn't attend WSU, WSU doesn't stand out from the crowd - not financially, not academically, and not in athletic performance. I'd blame an awful lot of that on administrations that have put little effort into capitalizing on, well...anything.
Just to correct you here, FCS is Div1-AA. FBS is Div1-A.
95 - does your $700M include the land grant/land trust (whatever it's called) endowment? I think so. Which if correct further validates your point.....
I’m not sure, I took the value from the headline of the last endowment report. I would guess that number is all-inclusive….although WSU has a lot of property, so ???
No the land grant/land trust is totally separate from the Foundation itself. I believe that the state oversees it, and I believe it has a lot to do with timber sales on public(?) land tied to the land grant. Sorry, it's been a long time and I'm too lazy to go research it. But not too lazy to grab another Coors Light!
Thanks for catching my typo. Absolutely right. Too many interruptions in my day job while trying to type this.
Depending upon which AI platform you favor, and how you ask the question (always the fun part with AI), our endowment ranges anywhere from $722m a year ago to the billions. I take it that the billions figure is a guesstimate that includes land, buildings and central plant. The phrasing for the $722m makes it look more like financial instruments, notes receivable, etc.. Which, as you guys have noted, is not the same as having $722m to spend. What we have to spend is the portion of the investment earnings that the trustees choose to utilize in a given year. The following came up, claimed to be from the endowment report:
"For the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2024, total WSU Foundation endowment pool assets increased $60 million from $663 million to $723 million. Total return for the Foundation's endowment during Fiscal Year 2024 was an increase of 10.8 percent. Donated additions to the endowment during this period totaled $26 million."
What that tells me is that we made 10.8% on $663m ($71.6m) and donations added $26m, for a total of $97.6m. The stated value at the end of the period was $723m, for an increase of $723m - $663m = $60m. So the amount the trustees chose to spend from endowment funds would be (simplified accounting, but pretty close) $97.6m - $60m = $37.6m.
Most endowments (and virtually all healthy endowments) make far more from their investments than donations in a typical year, though obviously in a year when the market takes a dump or a creditor goes BK that could vary. If the $26m donation rate (which represented about 4% of the original $663m at the start of the period) holds constant or increases, the added 4% is a nice sweetener over time...similar to your company 401(k) match.
I'd have to call our endowment "healthy". If it were a pension pool it would be in the green zone.
Getting back to athletics, the historic difference in state funding for the legacy PAC vs the legacy MWC schools is significant, and now that we are on that playing field, we'd need more state help to maintain our previous position. That seems unlikely, at least at the full former MWC level, so creativity is required. I think we are seeing some of that now. Ask me again in 3-4 months and I'll have a much better picture of the journey.
"For the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2024, total WSU Foundation endowment pool assets increased $60 million from $663 million to $723 million. Total return for the Foundation's endowment during Fiscal Year 2024 was an increase of 10.8 percent. Donated additions to the endowment during this period totaled $26 million."
What that tells me is that we made 10.8% on $663m ($71.6m) and donations added $26m, for a total of $97.6m. The stated value at the end of the period was $723m, for an increase of $723m - $663m = $60m. So the amount the trustees chose to spend from endowment funds would be (simplified accounting, but pretty close) $97.6m - $60m = $37.6m.
Most endowments (and virtually all healthy endowments) make far more from their investments than donations in a typical year, though obviously in a year when the market takes a dump or a creditor goes BK that could vary. If the $26m donation rate (which represented about 4% of the original $663m at the start of the period) holds constant or increases, the added 4% is a nice sweetener over time...similar to your company 401(k) match.
I'd have to call our endowment "healthy". If it were a pension pool it would be in the green zone.
Getting back to athletics, the historic difference in state funding for the legacy PAC vs the legacy MWC schools is significant, and now that we are on that playing field, we'd need more state help to maintain our previous position. That seems unlikely, at least at the full former MWC level, so creativity is required. I think we are seeing some of that now. Ask me again in 3-4 months and I'll have a much better picture of the journey.
I 100% agree that LBSU could be a future Pac-12 school if they invested in football.
Team could play at Dignity Health Stadium in Carson (where SDSU played). NCAA FBS only required 15K for min. capacity for football.
This move, gets the Pac-12 visibility into the LA TV market.
LBSU's baseball team nickname - "the dirt bags" - is awesome and would/could expand the Pac-12 baseball brand a bit.
Their sports program in general is pretty competitive. My little sister was a scholarship soccer player for them and during her time there, I would pop onto their website to see what their programs were doing and they all seemed to be successful in some way or another. I agree that if they expanded to football, it would be healthy addition.
Day 3 of mediation and nothing. Me thinks that the MW is holding somewhat firm as they feel confident they would win in court. Just my opinion, which is almost always spot on. Link to another "no news" update from our favorite hack Wilner.
www.spokesman.com
On the land grant endowment, interesting article from a year ago. I did not know that most or all of the related land was taken from the various tribes. Almost half from the Yakamas. As far as WSU reaching out to the tribes, in 5 plus years in Yakima I have seen zero presence in the Rez down here. Except when The Mighty Loyal One traipses down there for the cheap gas. 60-80 cents a gallon lower than non-Rez gas right down the street. $3.40 yesterday when I filled up. Down the street it's over $4.
Still need to root around and break down those endowment figures.......
www.columbian.com
Pac-12, Mountain West begin mediation over poaching penalty lawsuit, other legal action
The Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences began their long-awaited mediation Monday in an attempt to settle the poaching penalty and exit fee lawsuits with potentially more than $100 million at stake.
www.spokesman.com
On the land grant endowment, interesting article from a year ago. I did not know that most or all of the related land was taken from the various tribes. Almost half from the Yakamas. As far as WSU reaching out to the tribes, in 5 plus years in Yakima I have seen zero presence in the Rez down here. Except when The Mighty Loyal One traipses down there for the cheap gas. 60-80 cents a gallon lower than non-Rez gas right down the street. $3.40 yesterday when I filled up. Down the street it's over $4.
Still need to root around and break down those endowment figures.......
WSU profits from lands taken from Native tribes
Part of moving forward, says Dr. Zoe Higheagle Strong, Nez Perce, is telling the whole story.
www.columbian.com
Mediation is confidential. You're not going to get news conference at the end or during unless the parties agree to do so.Day 3 of mediation and nothing. Me thinks that the MW is holding somewhat firm as they feel confident they would win in court. Just my opinion, which is almost always spot on. Link to another "no news" update from our favorite hack Wilner.
Pac-12, Mountain West begin mediation over poaching penalty lawsuit, other legal action
The Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences began their long-awaited mediation Monday in an attempt to settle the poaching penalty and exit fee lawsuits with potentially more than $100 million at stake.
On the land grant endowment, interesting article from a year ago. I did not know that most or all of the related land was taken from the various tribes. Almost half from the Yakamas. As far as WSU reaching out to the tribes, in 5 plus years in Yakima I have seen zero presence in the Rez down here. Except when The Mighty Loyal One traipses down there for the cheap gas. 60-80 cents a gallon lower than non-Rez gas right down the street. $3.40 yesterday when I filled up. Down the street it's over $4.
Still need to root around and break down those endowment figures.......
WSU profits from lands taken from Native tribes
Part of moving forward, says Dr. Zoe Higheagle Strong, Nez Perce, is telling the whole story.
I travel throughout North America with my job, and my family are mostly based in New England. When I tell most people that I went to WSU, they either don't who that is or they get us mixed up with UW. The East coast and Midwest just aren't in tune with what goes on out West. If they're going to follow other regions/markets, it's going to be those East of them.
P12 after dark kicks off between 10:00PM - 11:00PM back East. The same is true for Mariner and Kraken games. The Northwest sports scene doesn't matter to anyone outside of the NW. This is why the relegation stuff doesn't really affect me. Yes I wish the P12 would have stayed together, but how much longer are Colleges and Universities going to be a thing anyway? I'm not talking about athletics, I mean institutionally. Do you see kids lining up to goto traditional Universities in 20 years? I don't. My kids are both in honors programs for whatever that's worth, but honestly, I think in many ways they would have better off becoming HVAC technicians and opening up their own businesses down the road.
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I fail to see how anyone thinks MWC has good leverage, or more specifically thinks they’d win in the lawsuit regarding pac12 and anti-competitive clauses. If anything, this process will take awhile because there are separate lawsuits being negotiated in the same mediation. Pac vs MWC, Utah State vs MWC and Colorado State vs MWC. Fresno and SDSU cannot sue because SJSU is still a part of the conference and the affiliation excludes them from doing so. Otherwise you’d have more involved. The process is settling poaching fees, exit fees, and money already withheld. MWC is trying to retain UNLV. This isn’t something that takes place quickly. They are drafting settlements while a mediator takes it back and forth between parties and their legal representatives look over the proposals. Lots of moving parts. MWC needs money now to appease their schools, Pac12 needs it to get their bigger fish. Texas St is there already. Both can’t afford to wait to execute their bigger plans, but Pac12 can get to 8 before MWC can pay 25 million to UNLV and AF in bonuses.
Sun Belt Texas State is bigger fish? Bigger than what? NMSU? Certainly not bigger than UNLV, Wyoming, even UNR and SJSU. We sneered at Sac St.
In my humble yet almost always right opinion, the MW has plenty of leverage. Let's see - a scheduling agreement with poaching provisions that the Pac signed, and the exit fee agreement that the traitors signed. Seems like leverage to me. What is the Pac's leverage? The MW was severely damaged by our poaching. Fact. We made no effort to work on the spelled out reverse merger. Fact. The MW gave us a lifeline, with caveats (poaching), then we backstabbed them anyway and cried foul over the agreement that we signed in supposedly good faith. Fact. Case closed.
Reminds me of the old story. A guy comes to a river, and a rattlesnake asks if he will carry it across. They get to the other side and the rattlesnake bites him. The guy sez "Why did you bite me". The rattlesnake sez "you knew what I was when you picked me up". That is about the only argument the Pac has.
No, Tx St is in the pocket. Depending on settlement, the money may allow for Memphis or Tulane. They won’t announce any school for ‘26 until all schools are solid and signed. Tx St is not the bigger fish obviously.
As far as the contractual poaching stuff goes, if we can’t agree on being non competitive as far as we pay 10m/school but every other conference would pay 0 for poaching, we may as well not discuss. Contract law exists for a reason. If a signed contract was the end all, there wouldn’t be a field of law called contract law.
As far as MWC throwing us a lifeline, we paid over 2x the going rate of a typical FCS @ SEC buy game per game. The MWC then moved all the “good” matchups to their home games and put them mostly on Fox networks for ratings. Smart. Then asked for 4x going rate for 2025. So spare me the lifeline narrative when it benefitted them in multiple ways. They leveraged it to the max.
Its really sad and unfortunate, really.
Could be rose colored hindsight glasses, but I felt like the 90's and early 2000s were a heyday for WSU to grow their brand and school and, for whatever reason, complacency set in. I remember hearing word of the great vet school and upon review, its not very highly regarded in national rankings. For that matter, none of the academics are very highly regarded, including our vaunted Com school.
WSU - where dreams of grandeur go to die.
I can't believe that you seriously think Tulane and Memphis are in the mix. Or frankly, that Tx St is a done deal. If so, why the secret?
You make a point on other conferences paying -0- poaching fees. OK. How many other conferences have entered into a sort of last-minute scheduling agreement, completely rearranging their conference schedule and even dropping a league game in favor of WSU/OSU? Pretty sure the answer to that is never. So the poaching fees may be a new item, but there is no relevant precedence to discard them.
Contract law - are you an attorney? Curious so I know whether I need to lump you in with Gibby and behave appropriately.
It doesn’t matter whether the agreement was friendly/non-friendly/5 years out/2 seconds before the season…whatever. The reason the MWC did it is it benefited them. They got money, they got more eyeballs, and they got it on their homesites. The fact of if the fees are anti competitive has nothing to do with if the scheduling agreement hadn’t been seen before. To restrict trade for one entity that is available to all other similar entities with heavy penalties is anti-competitive.I can't believe that you seriously think Tulane and Memphis are in the mix. Or frankly, that Tx St is a done deal. If so, why the secret?
You make a point on other conferences paying -0- poaching fees. OK. How many other conferences have entered into a sort of last-minute scheduling agreement, completely rearranging their conference schedule and even dropping a league game in favor of WSU/OSU? Pretty sure the answer to that is never. So the poaching fees may be a new item, but there is no relevant precedence to discard them.
Contract law - are you an attorney? Curious so I know whether I need to lump you in with Gibby and behave appropriately.
As for the if Tulane or Memphis or UNLV are still on the table..there would be no other reason to wait. I’m not saying it will workout, but they certainly are still trying more than a few scenarios with all this money up in the air. I’m not sure I personally even want the conference to span that far, but it’s obvious they are working multiple options however far fetched they are. Tx St biggest boosters keep showing up to events with Pac12 shirts on. Seems like it’s there if Gould wants it.
I can't believe that you seriously think Tulane and Memphis are in the mix. Or frankly, that Tx St is a done deal. If so, why the secret?
You make a point on other conferences paying -0- poaching fees. OK. How many other conferences have entered into a sort of last-minute scheduling agreement, completely rearranging their conference schedule and even dropping a league game in favor of WSU/OSU? Pretty sure the answer to that is never. So the poaching fees may be a new item, but there is no relevant precedence to discard them.
Contract law - are you an attorney? Curious so I know whether I need to lump you in with Gibby and behave appropriately.
The Memphis AD has suggested, hinted, said, etc, that IF IF the PAC were to approach Memphis with a Serious, better offer(Not a repeat of the Lowball offer, the PAC offered to Memphis), then Memphis might probably seriously consider joining PAC, that they are open to being approached, negotiation, etc.
If the PAC get enough money from the PAC, MWC mediation, settlement, Memphis could be back in Mix, play, as a big fish to maybe joining PAC.
Memphis is not clear cut out of the mix of maybe Joining PAC, IF PAC gets enough money from settlement, and if PAC makes a reasonable offer to Memphis, and if doesn't lowball Memphis.
Me, others have seen Memphis make these statements, etc, in various videos. And various credible experts, Wilner, Canzano, etc, have said as much, and know more, are more credible then you.
Yeah, at various points our engineering, com, business, and vet schools were all well regarded. But I think in all cases our admin decided we were pretty good, so didn’t need to work at it anymore. Complacency set in, we believed our own press, and we stagnated in our strong areas while we focused on trendy, niche programs like viticulture.
Bad management, bad strategy, bad results.
That made me chuckle. Wilner and Canzano and credibility are mutually exclusive statements.
There have been stories over the years that these college rankings are more political than they are accurate. US News & World Report has Gonzaga #98 and WSU #189 in the latest rankings for national universities. Based on what?
Pretty good article from this evening about where things are:
www.reviewjournal.com
Are Mountain West, Pac-12 close to a truce as deadlines approach?
The Mountain West and Pac-12 appear motivated to reach a deal that would allow them to finalize a contentious split that saw five schools leave for the Pac-12.
www.reviewjournal.com
I'm sure there is an element of that, but most of the rankings I saw had some data to them - post grad success rate, salary, etc.
WSU's now "College of Communication" went into the sh*tter when Lawrence Pintak took over. He drove away a lot of talent in that department.
"WSU - where dreams of grandeur go to die." Agree. I said it recently in another thread but WSU doesn't nail the little details while whiffing on the big ones.
Well it is almost midday Thursday. Is it safe to assume that the mediation talks have failed and we are off to court?
If so, good job Teresa, etc. of pushing the issue back for who knows how long. (insert sarcasm emoji here). It'll really help in trying to secure our 8th team and I suppose the elusive media deal.
If so, good job Teresa, etc. of pushing the issue back for who knows how long. (insert sarcasm emoji here). It'll really help in trying to secure our 8th team and I suppose the elusive media deal.
I have been involved with mediation talks before and I am not surprised on how long this is taking due to the issues and amount of money involved. These things take time and I would have been surprised if they came to an agreement after a couple of days.
OK, but the issues are pretty simple. MW wants their full or close to full fees from the Pac and the Traitors. The Pac and Traitors want to pay little or nothing. Side issue I guess is, if either or both sets of fees are reduced, does that reduction then apply to new poachees (UNLV for instance). How long should that take to figure out?
Of course if you have a room full of attorneys, all billing by the hour, and an assured catfight between Gorgeous Gloria and Teresa (or sheep/donkey face as the WCS board refers to her) it could drag on for weeks. How about a mud wrestling match between the 2 with winner take all?
This is not a surprise at all. You've been told that mediation is confidential. So, there is no reason to expect a press conference. It's entirely possible that the parties resolved some issues, but not others, that the talks went in a direction that was beyond settlement authority requiring one or both parties to confer with the various decision makers, that they've totally resolved all issues and need to get the various boards of regents for each school to sign off, or any number of other things.
This is a problem that predates Schulz. Particularly with regard to athletics, WSU has had no imagination since...ever.
Academically, I'm not really sure where the problem started. Com, business, engineering, and vet were still pretty strong in the late 90s/early 2000s, but it appears that they stopped evolving at about that time. Not sure why, but some theories:
- Business is a program that nearly everyone who hands out diplomas offers, so it might have just wilted under a flooded market. Well, that and the proliferation of live evidence that you don't need a college degree to succeed in business.
- Business may have also suffered from over-emphasis on niche, small-demand focuses like viticulture. Seriously, they built an entire building for a program that has like 30 kids in it.
- Com may have failed to follow the modern trend of making journalism entertainment instead of being news.
- No explanation for the fading of technical and scientific fields like engineering and vet...that's just a lack of development.
- Across the board, programs have suffered from a lowering of standards. As state support has faded, it has become more and more necessary for WSU to admit less and less qualified students just to get the tuition dollars. Less qualified students require more support, which costs more money, which means we need more dollars. Those students also mean more emphasis on faculty who spend more time teaching and less time in research, so they become less up to date with the latest trends and technology.
And if they put it on pay per view on late night cinemax, maybe it makes the money to pay the fees?OK, but the issues are pretty simple. MW wants their full or close to full fees from the Pac and the Traitors. The Pac and Traitors want to pay little or nothing. Side issue I guess is, if either or both sets of fees are reduced, does that reduction then apply to new poachees (UNLV for instance). How long should that take to figure out?
Of course if you have a room full of attorneys, all billing by the hour, and an assured catfight between Gorgeous Gloria and Teresa (or sheep/donkey face as the WCS board refers to her) it could drag on for weeks. How about a mud wrestling match between the 2 with winner take all?
Wait....did I just come up with the solution for west coast sports? Can we add mud wrestling as a sport?
Yes Gibby, I don't need a
