Do you guys realize that more than 50% of the seats at the Giant Center or Mohegan Sun would be behind the baselines?
Should PSU Basketball move back to Rec Hall?
- Thread starter dcf4psu
- Start date
No different than any other hockey/ basketball arena- including the BJC.
The Hershey/ Wilkes Barre talk was aimed more about an occasional game over Christmas break to increase exposure- not to become the permanent home court.
The Bryce Jordan Center is "owned" by Penn State's Auxiliary & Business Services department. I have no idea how much "rent," if any, ICA pays ABS for a basketball game or for office and court space rental at the BJC.
http://abservices.psu.edu/abs-units
http://abservices.psu.edu/abs-units
I have no problem with playing an occasional game at those venues. My point was that those places aren't any better for basketball than the BJC.
The worst part, is that on Saturday, Minny is going to come in here, and once again about 7,000 people, cavernous empty seats, and a giant black curtain, with a few students yelling, sounding like an NAIA game, will take place yet again.
DO SOMETHING SANDY.
DO SOMETHING SANDY.
The Nittany Lion Inn is a campus facility, if my department wants to have a staff retreat there we have to pay. If we bring in a candidate or guest speaker we have to pay for them to stay there. It's really not a difficult concept to understand.
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Yes they have to pay rent since the facility is not owned by Athletics. IIRC when it was built it was "sold" as a multipurpose facility that benefitted the entire university and community, which led to state funds being used to cover part of the cost.
But because Athletics didn't control the project, many design concerns that would have created a better environment for basketball were cut due to budgetary concerns. Without the knowledge of Athletics until it was too late.
I'm not sure if the practice gyms, bball facilities and offices, and the AD offices are owned by Athletics, or rented like the main gym. If rented, obviously it raises issues with who "owns" the improvements, such as locker rooms, lounges, meeting rooms, nutrition bar, etc.
But hey, at least the fiscal hawks can be happy we didn't spend money on the facility. You get what you pay for, though.
I think a lot of people assume university facilities are just "available" to those at the university and all you have to do is reserve the space if you want to use it. They don't realize many facilities are business entities. Even some non-business facilities cost money to use by campus organizations.
I don't think that's quite accurate. I don't believe there were any conditions regarding building a new arena that were attached to joining the Big Ten. I certainly believe that everyone and their brother felt that Rec Hall was an inadequate arena for a major hoops program and that a new arena should be built. They just happened to build one that wasn't very good for basketball.
And the revenue sharing numbers are chicken feed. Because the numbers are capped on both the top and the bottom, there's really very little difference in the monies that get exchanged. Basically, the difference between the low $$ and the high $$ is maybe $300,000. The Big Ten wasn't going to force Penn State to build a new arena so that they could take $300,000 a year extra from them. But you damn well can be sure that Penn State's administration thought that they could easily average 10,000 a game with a new arena. Yes the decision was financially driven, but certainly not by the Big Ten.
The novelty has already worn off. They drew a crappy crowd for the two games last year.
No. The real reason is that those bowl monies were given to charities and the Big Ten sure as hell isn't going to go to the charities and say give us the money back.
LOL.
For the same reason that departments can't get free rooms at the Nittany Lion Inn anytime that they want them (or free ice cream cones at the Creamery).
True except you don't need to go back and yank monies back from charities. The conference money is split evenly to each university plus, IIRC, an equal share is given to the big ten offices. You simply divide up revenues the next 2 years or so to repay Penn State what was taken.
I found this article from 2011 about the poor running of the BJC. It reported that Penn State athletics paid $19,000 EVERY home game to "borrow" the arena.
That's $323,000 per year the PSU athletic department pays just to let the men's team play on their home floor (17 home games per year). Is this still the case? How much $$ for the women's program each year?
http://blog.pennlive.com/davidjones/2011/01/no_comforts_of_home_for_hot_ni.html
A 2015 article on the poor running of the arena for sports-
http://www.pennlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/01/penn_state_basketball_has_enou.html
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Yeah, that'll go over real well. We get paid back our money and every other school takes a hit to pay for it. We'll be real popular.
WOW
Clearly, well above your pay grade (just a quick heads-up.........the "rent/own" issue ain't nearly as complicated, unusual, or significant as you seem to think it might be)
This is a good topic for you to just "run away from", and stick to the OP topic
The whole rent thing is over rated. They pay rent but they also don't have to staff and maintain the building. For example if they weren't paying rent when they spent $4.5 million to replace the floor and roof in 2014 the athletic department they would have paid for it. When the basketball suite was renovated the athletic department did pay for that but they don't pay for general maintenance of the building.
Bob Knight was the coach behind the demands by the BIG coaches to leave Rec. Hall.
Rec Hall capacity would be even less than that for basketball due to bleacher having to be closed to it the court. Penn State only average less than 6,500 one season. All the people advocating for move to rec hall never mentions how they propose Penn State makes up the loss in revenue that would come from moving to a small building and also who would pay for renovations and expansion to rec hall to house the basketball teams. If they are going to play in Rec Hall permanently they need to have their own locker-room facilities.
Season Average Att. Games
1995-96 *14,823 118,589 8
1996-97 13,145 197,179 15
1997-98 9,723 136,123 14
1998-99 10,635 148,891 14
1999-00 9,350 158,956 17
2000-01 10,588 148,231 14
2001-02 8,140 113,964 14
2002-03 6,902 110,437 16
2003-04 7,614 106,596 14
2004-05 7,990 111,860 14
2005-06 6,830 122,946 18
2006-07 7,989 151,785 19
2007-08 8,041 136,693 17
2008-09 8,020 160,399 20
2009-10 8,150 130,402 16
2010-11 7,457 134,221 18
2011-12 6,937 117,933 17
2012-13 7,672 130,432 17
2013-14 6,261 106,437 16
2014-15 8,044 128,701 16
2015-16 7,255 94,315 13
*10,917 season average, six games in Rec Hall.
Here are the top 5 seasons ever in Rec Hall
Rec Hall - Average Attendance
Average Season Att. Games
1. 6,666 1994-95 106,648 16
2. 6,461 1993-94 90,458 14
3. 6,119 1992-93 79,545 13
4. 6,095 1965-66 54,850 9
5. 5,873 1990-91 82,217 14
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He hated everything about Penn State being in the B1G. He complained about the airport, the distance, the facilities, watering down of the conference and everything else.
No leg room.
The leg room at the BJC is great compared to Rec Hall. So is the seat.
I'm not saying that the seats in Rec Hall are good/great... I'm saying that if you are going to have a mausoleum of a basketball venue, then you should at least have reasonably comfortable seating. The chairbacks are nice, but I can't put my legs/feet straight in front of me. I would endure this type of discomfort for an electric atmosphere that provided a home court advantage.
No one was complaining about the home court advantage at the BJC in 1996 when the place was sold out every night, the students were right on the court (with over 4k student ticket packages sold), and we were ranked and winning. It was an awesome atmosphere. Yes, the seats are too far away on the ends, the students are no longer right on the court (and there are about 20% of them compared to that season), etc. But I don't see how going back to Rec Hall could (or would) ever be considered. And short of someone coming up with a boatload of cash (or us becoming a hoops power), the realistic options have to be looking at how to tweak the BJC to improve it as a hoops venue.
The issue is not the facility per se, it is the size. When the BJC is full the atmosphere is just fine. The problem is that when there are only 6,000 people at a game it sounds empty. As much as I love Rec Hall there is no way the B1G will allow us to move our games back there.
I have to believe there is something that could be done to reconfigure things for basketball in the BJC.
It's opportunity cost.
Rec Hall would give Penn State a legitimate home court advantage. That means more wins. More wins means more success and more interest. More interest means more revenue.
If playing in Rec Hall with the current roster resulted in 3 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, the interest in this program explodes and we cement our legitimacy with recruits. You now have a sustainable product that has great interest.
The long term financial impact of legitimizing the basketball program would dwarf any short term losses sustained by leaving the BJC.
The current version of Rec Hall is not a long term play. We would be leveraging it in the short term simply to legitimize the program. Once that happens, you'll find the funding needed to either renovate one of our current facilities or build something new.
This makes total sense.
Send it to Sandy, please. Not that she will pay attention to it, but PLEASE send it to her anyway.
LOL
Yeah.....that's how that would work.
Of course not - that's the point. The charities are where the money actually went and you can't go get it from them. So what's your plan for magically making the money appear. Take it from the other 13 schools in the conference. Good luck with that idea.
FWIW - I don't think its a huge hairy deal.......but the idea that it WOULD BE a "huge hairy deal" for PSU to "get back" the money that was stolen from it is silly (even if you create false premises to make it seem so
).Just to illustrate, and then I am going to exit.....lest any circle-jerk ensue (what's the odds on THAT happening?
):_______________
If the B1G brought in $36 Million per year of "divisible" bowl money in each year that they held back the PSU share (so lets say PSU had $3,000,000 stolen from them per year for two years, and each other member school received $3,000,000 per year......I don't know the exact figures, and it doesn't matter to illustrate the point):
Lets say next year the B1G brings in $42,000,000 of "divisible" bowl money (I'll assume that all 14 members are now entitled to "full shares"....though I do not know that for a fact....but, again, it doesn't matter wrt the illustration).
Before doling out the booty of $42,000,000....the B1G should portion out the $6,000,000 of stolen revenue they owe to PSU - and forward that to PSU (making them "whole" for the years in which funds were stolen from them) - and then allocate out the remaining $36,000,000 equally to the 14 member schools.
This would make the situation "whole".....PSU, and every other member of the conference, would now have their equal allocation of the Bowl revenue pot. (assuming PSU wouldn't insist on also receiving interest on the stolen money
)And the fact that the B1G decided to steal money from PSU - and give it to "charities" (I believe it is your contention that the B1G did give this money to "charities", and I won't argue the point with you) becomes a cost burden that would be shared equally by all member schools (including PSU)....and all member schools would now be "equally treated" with respect to the allocation of all Bowl revenues.
It ain't even hard.
It's as simple as falling off a log......unless one DOESN'T WANT TO understand it.
If Rec Hall is such a home court advantage, why didn't it work pre-BJC? Or for that matter post BJC since we lost to Princeton in our Return to Rec game?
How many ECBL championships did we win playing there? Ans: zero
How many Eastern Eight championships did we win playing there? Ans: zero
How many Atlantic 10 championships did we win playing there? Ans: zero
We played in those conferences from 1976 until we joined the Big Ten (minus a couple of years as an independent), We never once won a conference regular season championship in all those years.
Playing in Rec Hall would create a lot more problems than it would solve.
Except in your example every other school just got a reduced payout to pay us back. They will not be happy. It's not like you're reducing the amount they're getting by an amount they previously received and shouldn't have... that money went to charity.FWIW - I don't think its a huge hairy deal.......but the idea that it WOULD BE a "huge hairy deal" for PSU to "get back" the money that was stolen from it is silly (even if you create false premises to make it seem so
Just to illustrate, and then I am going to exit.....lest any circle-jerk ensue (what's the odds on THAT happening?
_______________
If the B1G brought in $36 Million per year of "divisible" bowl money in each year that they held back the PSU share (so lets say PSU had $3,000,000 stolen from them per year for two years, and each other member school received $3,000,000 per year......I don't know the exact figures, and it doesn't matter to illustrate the point):
Lets say next year the B1G brings in $42,000,000 of "divisible" bowl money (I'll assume that all 14 members are now entitled to "full shares"....though I do not know that for a fact....but, again, it doesn't matter wrt the illustration).
Before doling out the booty of $42,000,000....the B1G should portion out the $6,000,000 of stolen revenue they owe to PSU - and forward that to PSU (making them "whole" for the years in which funds were stolen from them) - and then allocate out the remaining $36,000,000 equally to the 14 member schools.
This would make the situation "whole".....PSU, and every other member of the conference, would now have their equal allocation of the Bowl revenue pot. (assuming PSU wouldn't insist on also receiving interest on the stolen money
And the fact that the B1G decided to steal money from PSU - and give it to "charities" (I believe it is your contention that the B1G did give this money to "charities", and I won't argue the point with you) becomes a cost burden that would be shared equally by all member schools (including PSU)....and all member schools would now be "equally treated" with respect to the allocation of all Bowl revenues.
It ain't even hard.
It's as simple as falling off a log......unless one DOESN'T WANT TO understand it.
Using your example, $42M divided by 14 schools is $3M each. If we take $6M off the top to pay back PSU, that leaves $36M to distribute, as you said. Which divided by 14 schools is $2.57M each. So all schools would take an over $400K hit from their distribution to pay us back. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Now, if the conference were to open up their coffers and pay us back without cutting revenue distributions, fine. That's a route to pursue. But asking other schools to take a big cut so we can get all of our money... Uh huh. You've in essence penalized all of them to make us whole. Won't happen.
Now, if anyone (besides the corporate offices) should pay us, it's the freakin Spartans and their loud mouth President. She was very vocal when Sandusky happened, and now we find they've been sitting on their own similar issues the entire time. Won't happen, but at the least she should be issuing us an apology. Often it's those that yell the loudest that have the most to hide.
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