This weekend the Northeastern football team returns home battered and desperate for that elusive first win of the season. Although nobody expected the Huskies to contend for the Atlantic-10 title this year, nobody expected them to start 0-3, their worst start since 1994. Saturday’s opponent is Towson and while, at 2-1, the team has a better overall record than NU, you can expect a win from the Huskies this weekend.
Despite all the flak it takes, Parsons Field has been very friendly to the Northeastern football program the last few years. Since 2000 the Huskies home record is 22-8, including an impressive 16-2 mark from 2001-03.
I know it’s not as nice as some high school football fields, but we aren’t talking about Big 10 or ACC football here, either. We aren’t even talking about Division I football. Yet students at NU are already paying for an on-campus stadium.
Not to diss the players or the coaches, but a Div. I-AA football program shouldn’t cost us so much money.
Northeastern University is coining up some heavy dinero for this new stadium; a projected $35 million, to be exact. Well, no one knows how much of that will be paid by the university itself, but we do know the now-mandatory student activity fee will account for $10 million of it.
Regardless of who’s paying for what, it’s money the institution or its students will never see again. That’s what’s so perplexing about this investment; when you look at the numbers, it isn’t an investment at all.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of invest is “to commit (money) in order to earn a financial return.”
In this venture there will be no return.
A recently released NCAA study found that 72 percent of all Div. I-AA football programs reported their expenses exceeded their revenue in 2001, while just 19 percent reported turning a profit (nine percent reported breaking even).
Sure, Northeastern can say they are one of the lucky 19 percent making money on their football program, but that would be untrue.
Come on folks, you’ve been to a game … oh wait, no you haven’t.
The numbers don’t lie. However, even if you want to argue NU is one of the 19 percent earning the cheddar, the average profit for the successful teams is $280,000, where the 72 percent not breaking even are losing an average of $780,000.
Even if they bank on being one of the few Division I-AA programs that turn an average of $280,000 profit a year, at that rate it would take 125 years for the football program to break even.
Those odds are frightening.
To take that big of a risk on a sport that isn’t even good isn’t just borderline idiotic; it’s flat-out ridiculous.
I love football and I am a fan of our team. I think they have the potential to be excellent in the upcoming years. At this university they just shouldn’t take priority over other sports that not only play Division I, but need to upgrade their facilities much more than football.
Matthews Arena is an historical gem. It’s the oldest functioning hockey rink in the world. The only problem is … well, it’s the oldest functioning hockey rink in the world.
Instead of spending the $35 million on a new football stadium on a below average I-AA program, why not upgrade Matthews for an above average hockey program that plays in one of the best conferences in all of college hockey?
The Arena isn’t a hot box and its location is a lot easier to work with. But I don’t need a new arena like BU’s sparkling Agganis Arena. All Matthews needs is some renovations. Maybe a few more lights so you don’t have to squint during hockey and basketball games. Or maybe a Jumbotron or new scoreboard that doesn’t remind me of my days playing Atari (apparently there is a Jumbotron at Matthews. It’s just broken and in the basement).
With this investment you wouldn’t have to worry about trying to get people to come to the games. Hockey already draws a crowd despite struggling over the last few years.
Let’s face it, it just makes more sense to improve Matthews.
The trendy defense I’m hearing is by throwing down the loot for a stadium the football team will get better recruits and win more games, leading to that elusive financial return mentioned above.
OK, that seems pretty legit. But wait …
NCAA President Myles Brand tore that idea up in his 2005 State of the Association Address in early January.
In his speech, ironically titled “The Myths of College Sports: Debunking the Four Great Commonly Held Misconceptions About Intercollegiate Athletics,” Myles stated: “[A major NCAA-funded economic study] found no correlation between increased spending and increased winning or between increased winning and increased revenues.”
He warned college athletic departments to ease up on increasing spending at such a large rate and blamed the “increased ability of college sports to enhance revenue,” for the problem. Since major D-1 programs are making out like bandits through sales of media rights, the increased revenue for these schools has enticed athletic departments to invest “significant capital” in facilities “to be paid by projected future athletics-generated revenues.”
Now don’t get me wrong, I want nothing more than to have a top-notch football team, regardless of what division it plays in. I just don’t want our school to get burned for taking a $35 million gamble. Parsons Field has been good to our football program, and if students took the four minutes it takes to walk to the shuttle in front of Chicken Lou’s on Saturday’s, I wouldn’t be wasting ink on this topic at all.
– Max Lederman can be reached at [email protected]
