Article SEC levies hefty fine against Mississippi State for field storming after victory over Arizona State - Steve Samra

[QuadrupleOption]

Our AD operated at a deficit in both 2023 and 2024, so $500K is not insignificant. But you gotta spend money to make money, right?

Selmon could always go the Templeton route and sell one of our SEC home games...

I admit that I am totally ignorant about how athletic departments operate, but you'd think socking away 10% and investing that money would yield far more in the long-term than spending every penny you make every year.

Then again, we are already behind everyone else in AD budget so I understand the pressure.

 

[Bulldawg77]

Will one of the cry babies here start a GoFundMe campaign to pay for the fine?

Hell we can’t some fans to give to BC/SEF you think they going to give to a go fund me.

 

[MoronDawg]

You guys were a little rough on @pseudonym. Please remember that we are land-grant folks, and some of us studied cost accounting and math. Granted, we aren't the most fun fellas to meet at the party.

From what I read, waiting three minutes before storming the field would have saved us $500,000. That's a rate of $10,000,000 per hour, which seems like a pretty good investment in resolve. But, you can't put a price on joy.

It was a phenomenal win, and it costs $0 to be kind to your Bulldog brethren and sistren.

 

[pseudonym]

You guys were a little rough on @pseudonym. Please remember that we are land-grant folks, and some of us studied cost accounting and math. Granted, we aren't the most fun fellas to meet at the party.

From what I read, waiting three minutes before storming the field would have saved us $500,000. That's a rate of $10,000,000 per hour, which seems like a pretty good investment in resolve. But, you can't put a price on joy.

It was a phenomenal win, and it costs $0 to be kind to your Bulldog brethren and sistren.

It really just comes down to where you want to spend your money:

-an SEC caliber edge rusher
-not waiting three minutes

I won’t get mad at anyone for their choice, but this could be the new marshmallow experiment.

 

[mike tice]

It was worth it to this old fan.

Yeah. I’m with ya

 

[mike tice]

Being mad about storming the field because we won a huge game is peak Mississippi State fandom.

Yup

 

[leeinator]

Being mad about storming the field because we won a huge game is peak Mississippi State fandom.

If we happen to knock off UTK in similar fashion and storm the field again, does the cost go up to $1 million? There's no way to stop 10-15K students/fans from charging the field.

 

[MoronDawg]

I don't think that anyone was angry about it. It would be awesome (and great publicity) to see a gofundme that wiped out the balance of the fine. Lots of State fans saying that it was worth it. Let's do it!

 

[Dawgzilla2]

If we happen to knock off UTK in similar fashion and storm the field again, does the cost go up to $1 million? There's no way to stop 10-15K students/fans from charging the field.

Its $500,000 for each offense. Same fine in basketball, where protecting the court should be easier.

Im not sure if the fine structure applies to other sports. How bad would it suck to be fined $500K for our fans storming the soccer field?

 

[thekimmer]

The point of the fine is for schools to come up with ways to deter the storming. More security, more notification to the crowd that they must wait...if necessary start arresting and/or fining however many offenders you can.

The students might wait for that timer to tick down if they know the first few offenders will get arrested.

That is only going to work if you are in a situation where running on the field has become habitual as kind of a lark. A genuine, organic field storming is spontaneous and unpredictable. Very difficult for schools to anticipate and once it happens nobody is going to wait 3 minutes and you would need 100 officers with pepper stop it. It is also a time honored thing in college sports. That is why I think each team should get one mulligan a season unless someone on the other team was injured or threatened during the event.

 

[Perd Hapley]

It really just comes down to where you want to spend your money:

-an SEC caliber edge rusher
-not waiting three minutes

I won’t get mad at anyone for their choice, but this could be the new marshmallow experiment.

Again, you’re expecting the impossible in the “not waiting 3 minutes”, if you think the spontaneity of an emotionally charged event like 10,000 euphoric fans can be tamed by sheer willingness on their part. That’s an absurd proposition. Its no more reasonable than throwing 5,000 pieces of candy into a kindergarten classroom full of kids and no teacher, and expecting them to not pick any of it up.

It can only be controlled by regulation and suppression by a heightened security presence, which again costs a lot of money…..a lot more than $500k. And then the true, unmeasurable cost is far more if you ever have a public headline like “Dozens of MSU Fans Billy Clubbed / Tear Gassed / Stun Gunned after storming field”.

You have this binary view where it’s either “pay for something we want” or “pay for something we don’t want / flush the money down the toilet”, when the reality is that we have to do the 2nd option by default in some form or another, its unavoidable.

 

[pseudonym]

Again, you’re expecting the impossible in the “not waiting 3 minutes”, if you think the spontaneity of an emotionally charged event like 10,000 euphoric fans can be tamed by sheer willingness on their part. That’s an absurd proposition. Its no more reasonable than throwing 5,000 pieces of candy into a kindergarten classroom full of kids and no teacher, and expecting them to not pick any of it up.

It can only be controlled by regulation and suppression by a heightened security presence, which again costs a lot of money…..a lot more than $500k. And then the true, unmeasurable cost is far more if you ever have a public headline like “Dozens of MSU Fans Billy Clubbed / Tear Gassed / Stun Gunned after storming field”.

You have this binary view where it’s either “pay for something we want” or “pay for something we don’t want / flush the money down the toilet”, when the reality is that we have to do the 2nd option by default in some form or another, its unavoidable.

I haven't said anything about security, event staff, etc.

I'm just saying it would have been better ($500k better) for the field not to be stormed in a manner that earned us a fine. You can compare our fans to kindergarteners and say what happened was unavoidable. That doesn't change my opinion that storming the field is not worth the $500k fine.

Do you agree with others that are saying, not just that it was unavoidable (I think that's your point), but that storming the field when we did was worth the $500k fine? It's fine if you do, I just have a different opinion.

 

[Perd Hapley]

Do you agree with others that are saying, not just that it was unavoidable (I think that's your point), but that storming the field when we did was worth the $500k fine? It's fine if you do, I just have a different opinion.

If you are asking about was it worth it to storm instead of waiting 3 minutes, I don’t really even think its a valid question.

You can’t set a timer on an impulsive / emotionally charged event like that. It wouldn’t happen at all in the first place if fans were rational enough in that moment to follow such a constraint.

If you’re asking if the positive, intangible benefits of the field storming (publicity on ESPN, SEC shorts, etc. with the goal post, fan enthusiasm / buy-in, long term memories made for new generation of MSU fans) all outweigh one $500k fine, I’d say that’s also difficult to answer because placing a monetary value on all those things above would be difficult, and it would be even more difficult to determine when in time that value was fully realized. But a case could certainly be made for it.

My overall opinion is that the field storming is a nothingburger, and there will be no long term ramifications at all that are positive or negative that arise from it, when considering all the factors.

 

[dawgstudent]

SEC levies hefty fine against Mississippi State for field storming after victory over Arizona State by Steve Samra

We got 500K of PR buzz from the W so I'll call it a wash.

 

[FlotownDawg]

One example of why the field storming was worth the $500K. My oldest daughter is a senior at State. I went to the game with my wife, parents and my youngest daughter, who is a senior in high school. My oldest sat in the student section and was one of the ones who rushed the field, something she had always wanted to do. My youngest daughter, who is a high school senior and is in the process of visiting colleges, doesn't even like football, but even she was hyped when the game ended and the students rushed the field. She has visited State and is going to visit a couple other big schools, but also has an opportunity to run cross country at a small Division III school. So it's go to a big school like MSU, or be a college athlete at a small school. My MSU student daughter called us from the field and sent us pictures. On the walk back to the car, my youngest said "That game kind of makes me want to go to a school like this." Now, I don't know if she will wind up at Mississippi State or not, but an experience like that game and the field storming is a huge promotional tool for the university. It's an experience and a feeling that people want to be a part of. Mississippi State is cool, or whatever the kids say nowadays. That is worth way more than a $500K fine.