If you were AD

and WBB was losing a reported 4mm/year to be lower mid SEC (currently 10th) would you:

  • Its WBB, balance the budget, fall to the bottom and put the dollars elsewhere

  • Commit more dollars and get to top 1/4 of league

  • Stay status quo

  • Im glad Im not AD


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Dec 2, 2021
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According to the controller, WBB had $700k in revenue, but Basketball (M&W) brought in $4.3 million from TV. So, at most WBB got $700k of that and MBB got $$3.6 million. Guess that seems like the right split at about 15%.
 

johnson86-1

All-Conference
Aug 22, 2012
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Fair enough. I mean, we are basically debating which secondary sport is 'best' or 'most important'. In the end, its still a distant secondary sport to Football and Men's Basketball.
I just think 3 Women's Basketball titles in 5 years would have more of an impact engagement with the university from fans and media than 3 CWS titles in 5 years.

But this is really like debating who was better- Karl Malone or Hakeem Olajuwon.
Incredible players, legitimate solid debate that could be had based on metrics, but in the ends its a debate about which player was better even though both are not even close to being in a conversation for who is the best player of all time.
I think generically across the country, the answer would be women's basketball success is better for the school. If you go back to 2022 (excluding the last couple of years b/c I'm not clear on whether that's a legitimate surge in interest or just Caitlyn Clark phenomena), they still get more eyeballs than the college baseball world series I think by a pretty decent margin (having trouble finding easily comparable numbers because the entire CWS is being lumped together for averages from most of what I see).

But for MSU and a handful of other SEC teams, I think the impact locally is much more important than the national numbers so that baseball success is more important. Lots of your name recognition that you would gain from women's basketball just isn't I don't think going to translate into tangible gains for MSU, whereas I think having a super successful baseball program and the excitement on campus it would generate would actually boost enrollment and engender loyalty from existing students in a way that women's basketball success will not. Lot of speculation on my part, but that's my impression.