Seawolves Fans

Stream link: http://www.collegesportslive.com/?media=576319

It's almost kickoff time gents! This is a must win I say. 8-3 gets us to the playoffs, but 7-4 does not I believe. We'll need this game as I don't think we'll get past JMU. Rhode is trailing right now and will likely lose to Maine, diminishing the value of winning next weekend. We've got to get this one. Go Seawolves!!

This is the first of a four game home and home series we've signed with Fordham. Great games for us to have against local competition. Should be a fun one. Let's get the W and head into CAA play. Fordham has put competitive teams on the field before in recent years, but this is one we should still win. Go Seawolves!

Live stream link:
https://www.facebook.com/StadiumCollegeFootball/videos/1120031701478274/

USA Today compiled a list of the Athletic department revenues and expenses as well as the % of the budget that's subsidized. There's some VERY interesting data in here to say the least. This is for the 2015-16 school year. Note that this is only for public schools as they're required to release the data, but privates aren't (so the Ivies and big privates like USC, Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Duke, etc. aren't on here). Despite only being public schools on here, I think this gives us a very good idea of where we're at.

Among FCS schools (top 5):
JMU #59 overall (You get what you pay for clearly, they won the FCS natty this year)
Delaware #77 overall
UC Davis #82 overall
Stony Brook #90 overall
New Hampshire #99 overall

The schools immediately ahead of us and behind us as far as overall athletic budgets are:

87   Utah State   
88   Ohio   
89   Appalachian State
90   Stony Brook   
91   Central Michigan   
92   Nevada   
93   San Jose State

And here are all the FBS schools that are below us in terms of overall revenue, plus North Dakota State just for the hell of it

91   Central Michigan   
92   Nevada   
93   San Jose State   
94   Georgia Southern   
95   Eastern Michigan   
96   Marshall
97   Western Kentucky   
98   Florida International   
104   Georgia State   
105   Toledo   
106   Texas-San Antonio
108   Troy   
109   South Alabama
112   Coastal Carolina   
114   New Mexico State   
117   Kent State      
118   Southern Mississippi   
119   Louisiana-Lafayette
120   Ball State
121   North Dakota State
124   Louisiana Tech
126   Bowling Green
127   Idaho
...
170   Louisiana-Monroe (LOL)

Buffalo is #78 on this list just behind Delaware and despite being FBS their total revenue is only 3 million a year more than ours.

Despite being FCS, we're already in the top 2/3rds of the public schools in the G5 in terms of athletic department budgets and spending. Including outspending several Mountain West teams. Some of these programs are quite good too. I take this to mean that we could move to FBS tomorrow and still field a competitive program without spending an additional dime of money if we chose to do so. FBS obviously would have increased travel costs, scholarship awards, stadium expansion, etc. so our budget would have to rise, but so would our revenues due to the vastly increased visibility of being FBS. This was quite eye opening to me since despite not performing like it, we're at the very top of FCS in athletic spending and are already well positioned for the big time. We just need to improve our stadium, and finally get that invite. Winning some football games in the mean time would also greatly help (Get Priore OUT!!).

I also find it fascinating how with the exception of UC Davis (darkhorse Pac-12 expansion candidate in the far future), the top 5 schools in the FCS are all in the CAA and all have been rumored to want to move up to FBS and form a new conference. Very interesting indeed.

Source:
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/