Could it be we are interpreting Dr. Wood all wrong regarding the FCS to FBS transition? Could it mean a transition from Financially Challenged Situation to Financially Broke Situation?

I am SO stoked that we got a MW invite, football included or not. I can’t imagine we would join the conference without serious plans to join for football in the future, and having that landing pad set with our new conference affiliation is really fantastic for the future of UCD football. Now, sac joining the FBS as an independent is arguably worse than just staying in FCS with current conference alignment. We saw what happened when Idaho was FBS independent, and the csu system is facing many more challenges unrelated to football already, that could leave sac as a loner without much support to back them. They don’t have the insane levels of support financially like a say, liberty university did when they moved up, no matter what Luke Wood says.

It's my understanding that that schools cannot individually make this decision, it has to be decided by the conference.

Soccer and football can share a stadium but aren’t prefect roommates. Soccer is like baseball in that there is a range of acceptable field dimensions, but the preferred dimensions are significantly wider than a football field. At elite levels they want different turf profiles. Soccer will want natural grass cut shorter and elite foreign players will refuse artificial turf. Football tends to make do with (or even celebrate) adverse field conditions, just ask the Packers or Bills. So shared stadiums tend to skew to soccer specs because of how temperamental South American soccer stars are. I saw one cry one time that he couldn’t play because the water droplets were too big and he wanted the sprinklers changed to a finer mist. A shared stadium could work with current USL/FCS talent. But if both teams upgraded, an MLS/FBS relationship would be more strained. Here’s an example of overlaid striping.

9 - We signed a $318,000 contract for conceptual plans for the new stadium
10 - We’re going to be able to give more athletic scholarships
11 - We’re raising student fees by @$2,700 for 2025 (fees are covered by athletic scholarships)

It’s what our student athletes deserve. And the rest of Sac State students deserve…? What percent of the SCUS enrollment are student athletes? Football players?

has that 2,700 been ratified?

Actually not sure where it stands. Some type of raise probably certain. Likely hefty.

If a team goes independent , do they get any media rights monies?

Might as well shoot for the moon Sac!

https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/sports/college/football/2025/01/20/notre-dame-football-college-football-playoff-money-payout-performance-bonus/77695626007/

if they can sign a deal with NBC, more power to them. UCONN and UMASS get decent basketball money, probably an order (or two) of magnitude more than Big Sky basketball money.

Dr. Mike: I always thought Notre Dame Football was an interesting hybrid. They have an agreement with the ACC to play 5 conference teams per season (for stability) and still retain their independent status.
This year they reaped the benefits keeping all the media money from the playoffs. Will be interesting to see if other programs follow suit. We’ve entered a different era.

UCLA athletics lost $51.8 Million last year, and over $200 Million in the previous 6 or 7 years.

Movielover: I believe it. Does UCLA have the donor base to sustain this? CAL is having a challenging transition. Same with Stanford. Why in the world did they break up the Pac12? Asking for more media money. Sheesh!

don’t forget UCLA has to pay Cal $10M a year. There’s a story today by Jon Wilner about the ACC media deal snd the hosing that Cal and Stanford agreed to out of desperation. The unknown is that the ACC might pay out differently to FSU, Clemson, Miami and UNC due to their higher profile - more hosing!

Add to it the article earlier in the week about the grind the 4 cross country road trips are for basketball and this doesn’t seem sustainable.

Dr. Mike: This is insanity! The ACC has taken advantage of Cal and Stanford. Andrew Luck will evaluate and tweak Stanford Football. He sounds passionate and professional in his interviews.
Troy Taylor will need to perform. Same with Coach Wilcox at Cal. Heard Cal got the 5 star QB back originally committed to the Bears.

Wow, I never thought about it in that manner. Could it be that they think their program will not survive if left in FCS so they are trying to get supporters to fund this since otherwise they'd have no shot?

Wood is an idiot. The guy is not qualified to run an ice cream stand. In any other place he’d already be run out of town.

I think the Big Ten money hasn't kicked in yet - $65 - $75 Million per year minus money for Cal plus playoff money.

The UCLA BB HC said he looked at previous years results, and UCLA was below .500 east of the Mississippi every year. But Big Ten teams come once a year west, and stay in the same place. UCLA hoops travels east 4x? 4x vs 1x. Talk about a grind.

FWIW, UCLA Athletics needed over $200 Million over five years to cover shortfalls.

Four West Coast teams join a conference with 14 teams in another time zone, and they complain about travel?
But as far as east and west of the Mississippi is concerned Iowa and Nebraska are west of the Mississippi. Minnesota is on the west bank of the Mississippi, so there are 11 campuses east of the Mississippi and 7 west.

Yeah, why would we want the guy largely responsible for securing the SnapDragon stadium project at San Diego State in charge of our facility and long-term athletics goals!?

was he the SDSU president at the time?

Pretty sure you know the answer to that, but he was instrumental in getting student buy in - new fees approved, donors. He knows what he's doing.

I hope he’s successful - sac needs better facilities. But the SDSU situation where you have a well established FBS that was drawing pretty well in a market that just lost their NFL team seems different than Sac’s very hazy FBS future. I’m not sure students will hop on the bandwagon so that they MIGHT get more out of state students.

allow me to point out nobody is taking notes and the only guy with a computer definitely has Outlook open going through unread mail, must be super engaged. It’s not Autocad, BIM, or Revit. Having been in this exact business, this guy has all the tells of a charlatan. I bet he is very annoying to actual professionals.

It appears to me that they took advantage of some free meeting space in the lobby of a mid range hotel. Free, cheap coffee in the background. I’m betting it was a local Hampton Inn or Residence Inn somewhere between Sac and SF. That’s where deals get done I suppose.

I said the same thing about meeting in the hotel breakfast lobby on X, they sure are hyping every little thing up to the max. They literally just admitted after finally being pressured by local press that the previous stadium renderings were just “guidelines” and what they want and not actual plans for the stadium. How they will build in phases with the 1st phase being just 2.5 million and mostly being bathrooms and some seats in endzone added. When asked about if the total would be near the cost of SD state stadium they responded with no, and admitted that it will be less and how they would have to live within their means. So again they are just hyping every little thing to fool non northern CA/sac area fans who believe everything and treat sac state like they are the next USC/UCLA in Ca, which is hilarious. I mean they are a good state school but come on.
I also wondered how sac state is funding the president’s little field trips to accomplish these things when they in such a deficit. Viewing stadiums of similar size can easily be done for free online with videos/pics/renderings/zoom. Such a waste of time/money especially when visiting sites that cost way more than their “dream” budget allows so again a waste and big propaganda tool

Selling the dream. Probably hoping a benefactor steps forward w $5M, $10M, $20M to get the ball rolling.

The first “phase” is $2.5 M? That is not a phase, but a small project for a university campus. This seems like a desperate effort to deliver something.
I give Dr. Wood credit for making waves and getting attention for it though. I really think his “FBS or Bust” statement says it all. If they cannot get FBS money the program is on the block.