And the Eastern Michigan Softball/Title IX saga continues....

[marriard]

Eastern Michigan once again has been ordered to continue/reinstate softball.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/02/12/eastern-michigan-softball/2852003002/

Eastern argued they would rather start lacrosse than reinstate softball because they have to give out the same # of scholarships for either team, but since the lacrosse team roster is much larger more of those players would have to pay tuition to the school so cost wise it would be less. Basically the court said Eastern was so out of line with Title IX that if they don't shut up, then they probably face the threat of the court making them do both.

Interesting to note that the cost for the softball program (fully funded) is right at $870,000.

The complete saga so far:
https://www.mlive.com/expo/news/g66...igan-university-sports-elimination-saga-.html

The obvious question was asked - since EMU has always sucked at football (although there is hope they are progressing but still no one is turning up) and is most of the athletic budget money - why not just cut football? However, there are massive multi-million dollar conference penalties and game cancellation contract penalties for stopping football which effectively keep that off the table. Football has basically made it more expensive to cut football than it would be to continue playing.

So, EMU has to have a softball coach appointed by April 1, prep the facility, prep schedules, etc, etc for next season. Since they didn't field a team this year, they are starting with basically no players, have one summer to recruit a full team and a University that doesn't really want to stand behind them and is probably not going to provide them a cent more than they are legally forced to.

Just in case your 2019/2020 DD is looking for a D1 team and wants a REAL challenge.

 

[J.Galt]

Football can make money, no other sports ever will.


They cut 4 sports in total, 60 male athletes and 25 female athletes.

Plus lacrosse can share fields with soccer and football where softball would need it's own, unique, facility

 

[marriard]

Football can make money, no other sports ever will.

Garbage...first most of the financial reporting colleges do is smoke and mirrors which effects the reported numbers. One D1 school I know reports a loss on the Athletic Department but only because they treat athletics PURELY as a cost center. All ticket, concession, merchandise, parking and even TV money is reported in the colleges general revenue.

Basketball mens make money and womans basketball is supposedly a zero dollar sport (and with smaller venues and rosters it is easier to do so)... Baseball somehow reports that it makes money (not 100% sure I believe this)and as of the last report so does softball (thank you ESPN)

Football is either make or lose big - sure the Power 5 conference teams have potential to make a lot of money, but at most schools (like Eastern Michigan for example) - football is a massive black hole where massive amounts of money disappears


Of course there is a large element of marketing for the colleges in sports at all levels. Done right, most studies show a large net-gain for schools that have successful programs even below the D1 TV-money driven schools

A lot of their best athletes in non-revenue sport go on to extremely successful careers and give back to the school as alumni. I am told by some people I know in alumni relations (i.e. the people in charge of getting alumni to donate to the school) that ex-athletes are disproportionally more likely to donate back than regular students.

 

[inthunder]

Anyone have an idea of who they are looking at for the head coaching position

 

[Chaz McNulty]

Anyone have an idea of who they are looking at for the head coaching position

Are you thinking of dusting off your resume?

 

[inthunder]

No, definitely not. It appears that the school does not want anything to do with softball and my resume is quite un-impressive lol

 

[marriard]

And the saga continues: Appeal court says they don't have to hire a coach (well, yet at least).

https://www.freep.com/story/news/ed...ichigan-university-softball-coach/3304324002/

At this point, the legal fees alone have to be equal to anything they would have spent or saved.

And putting forward a compliant TitleIX plan... well that is going to be EXPENSIVE.

Yay.. courts.

 

[Sparky Guy]

I bet if an independent auditor was let loose in their books they'd find more than enough money in administrative waste to fund the sports.

 

[marriard]

I bet if an independent auditor was let loose in their books they'd find more than enough money in administrative waste to fund the sports.

Also football is just a massive sucking sound for EMU. No one has ever turned up to watch it, it costs a fortune and they protect it by agreeing to a massive 'leaving a conference fee' which basically means you are better losing $2-3M per year on football because you don't have the $20-30M to pay the MAC conference to shut it down.

They want to do lacrosse because it means 'more students paying tuition than softball' - which is probably quite a reach - while football funds a full squad of full ride players and a coach who makes more than softball takes to run...

Even with this decision, the best case scenario is that the courts are going to make EMU put forward a full plan that is TitleIX compliant across their athletic department. That is going to be interesting because frankly they have LOTS of clear issues they probably really don't need to be publicly discussed...