La Salle and the A10 - 2023 Edition

[JoeFedorowicz]

In 2021, I wrote extensively on conferences. You can find that here.

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This post will not be as long as the one linked above, but with a lot of discussion regarding transfers and portals and the A10 being a one-bid conference...I figured it could use a refresher. I'm going to start with my premise though:

La Salle's Participation in the A10 is killing La Salle Athletics

I'll get more why I believe that to be the case shortly, but lets talk taxes. I just perused the A10's 2021 tax filings which you can find here. I'm going to skip the 2021 COVID year and just look at 2020 however, where you will see that the A10 had revenues of a little over 13M, which after salaries and benefits is trimmed down to roughly 10M. The Revenue from "Tournaments" is a little over 6M but the amount from TV is 5.5M.

My guess is that this is mostly the ESPN money. 

Anyway, revenue from the A10...at least from my layman's reading of this, likely results in less than 1M dollars to the school. Resident CPAs on here please correct me. 

Anyhow, keep that figure in mind when we talk travel.

The men's basketball team's A10 away games this year included St. Louis, Rhode Island, St. Bonaventure, UMASS, George Mason and Dayton. The women's team had away games at Rhode Island, Davidson, Loyola Chicago, Richmond, Saint Louis and Dayton. Now some of them are bus rides, but long ones. And these are only the two premiere programs. It doesn't count soccer or lacrosse or any of the other squads that have to play OOC games.

It's a lot of miles for a school without a lot of money. The money from the conference isn't going to cover that travel. La Salle, at least from my outside look of it, is working hard to just financially cover the bare essentials of being in the Atlantic 10. 

So what other benefits does the A10 provide? From a basketball standpoint, it's a top mid-major most years so there's some notoriety. But 1/2 of the other team fanbases have been ready to jettison La Salle since the mid-2000s. We haven't held up our end of the bargain with the exception of a few years...and some of that is because of the changing conference landscape that I noted two years ago.

So for anyone that thinks La Salle should remain in the A10...why? I'm a former A10 athlete and the conference was very good for track and cross country when I was there. La Salle was always on top (for distance events at least) and we had people that were good both regionally and nationally. Other conferences weren't as good.

But outside of my nostalgia, La Salle just isn't a peer with the rest of the conference teams. And we're not alone....St. Joe's isn't either. Duquesne isn't. Fordham, until this year, wasn't from a basketball standpoint. The conference has evolved to be like 7-8 bigger schools and then some throw-ins...of which we are one.

But my thinking has evolved from: "other conferences might be better" to "the A10 is killing La Salle athletics." And it comes down to travel. It comes down to A10 standards being applied to a school that cannot support that infrastructure. We're in the midst of an arena renovation which, by A10 standards, should be a certain way and fit a certain amount of people...that might not be what is best for La Salle University both financially and structurally. NIL also becomes a pool that we can't swim in with schools like Dayton/VCU/SLU. And trying to do that is, in my opinion, a fool's errand. 

So I'm not going to present the same ideas that I had before, but I am going to say that I hope those in power are considering whether it is worth the hassle to just be able to state that we're part of the A10. I'm friendly with a Temple fan who is having the same conversations...at a different level and for slightly different reasons...but conference affiliation is so far out of whack for football teams that has become unruly. I don't think we're going to fix their problems without separating football from the equation....but La Salle does not have that issue and can become more nimble. 

Thoughts? Does any of this make sense? I'd love to hear valid reasons why the A10 isn't drowning the school.

[GlitterBro #2]

Only thing to add to this regarding revenue - the A10 distributes A10 Tournament money in a 75/25 split. 75% to the team getting the unit (each game is one unit), and 25% to the remaining teams in the conference. In years when we had 2, 3, and 4 teams in, that adds up if they go multiple rounds (last year a unit was worth $338K per year for 6 years).

For this year, assuming VCU is 1 and done, La Salle's take of the 25% divided by the 14 other schools will be approximately $10K a year for 6 years. Not a big chunk of change with everything you laid out regarding travel and costs.

Several years back, Baptiste came to an Alumni Board meeting and was asked why we are staying in the A10. He said because it is a multi-bid conference and gives us the best chance of making the NCAA Tournament and getting revenue from it. That revenue is drying-up since in the past 6 years we've gone from regularly getting 3+ into the dance and having some advance, to now 1. With decreased tournament revenue, are the travel costs justified? I'm thinking no, unless we see a path forward for the A10 to get more into the tournament...but I'm not seeing a path for that with the transfer portal pulling talent away and only a few A10 programs able to compete in the NIL space.

[JoeFedorowicz]

Thanks for the addition of the units. 10k a year helps cover a bus trip to UMASS.

[GlitterBro #2]

Yeah, in years where the A10 did well I think there were 7 units in 2012, and 10 in 2013...with us getting a lot of that paid out over 6 years. That's dried up. At this point, tournament revenue doesn't keep us in the A10. And multi-bid never should have been a reason given that we made it once in over 25 years of A10 play.

[theneumann64]

I think the landscape is going to shift so dramatically in the next few years that speculating on which current conference would be better is a fool's errand at this point, because they will all look so different in the near future. But I generally agree with the points being raised here. I think most of the advantages we might have enjoyed in prior years from being in the A-10 are diminished or gone, while most of the disadvantages to it still remain.

[MisterD]

I think you're right and, if we're going to continue as a program, I think we have to ride it out because being in the A-10 is going to set us up better for the new world than preemptively dropping would.

[a10champion15]

I'm not surprised this topic came up and I'm sure it's going to be a common theme amongst A10 programs after their worst year in two decades. I understand the concern that Joe's making, the travel is a huge expense and given the value the A10 is bringing La Salle right now I get it. However, it's way too early to be concerned. Why?

1. Many are going to harp on the A10 "not being the same" after it's worst year in 2 decades which is an outlier. The A10 came off a season where there was major turnover between coaching staffs, players and a new program joining. Plus a few bad coaches being retained. In addition, everything pretty much went wrong from injuries, schedules and expectations. The league had a bad year but it's way too early to mail it in that we are a 1 bid league going forward now. The league has to do a better job scheduling and get more out of it's quality programs. If the WCC and MW can have strong years in the new NET area, the A10 can as well.

2. Revenue, I don't think we can just right off the revenue here. The school getting around 5 million alone in media rights. Bernadette is one of the best conference commissioners across the NCAA and has done a great job navigating a landscape that is becoming more pressurized against high/mid majors. I have to see the financials down to the details but I'm looking at CAA and MAAC tv contracts. Their revenue from media rights alone isn't even 20% of what we're getting. I don't think moving to the MAAC while we reduce travel expenses would be enough to make up for the revenue lost.

3. NIL isn't the end all be all. First, it's literally the wild west right now and nobody has any idea what the market value is right now. Some players are getting several 100K or more while others are only getting 10-20k (part of which comes from the school). La Salle will have some difficulties here for sure when competing with a number of programs but the A10 in a great position (outside of UMass) where they don't have 85 football scholarships and NIL packages to worry about. In addition, if you can make some inroads in the international pipeline you can consolidate your NIL packages to prioritize local or domestic recruits.

Overall, we will see what happens as the college landscape is constantly changing as neumann mentioned. The A10 could turn around and have a few strong years after this. It's something worth keeping an eye out but I think we need to see how the conference performs over the next several seasons, let the arena, Dunphy era and the next hire play out before we really talk about it.

[JoeFedorowicz]

Mar 13, 2023 10:56:44 GMT -5 MisterD said:

I think we have to ride it out because being in the A-10 is going to set us up better for the new world than preemptively dropping would.

Would love for you to explain this more. How?

[JoeFedorowicz]

Mar 13, 2023 11:19:40 GMT -5 a10champion15 said:

I don't think moving to the MAAC while we reduce travel expenses would be enough to make up for the revenue lost.

This is where I think you're wrong.

[GlitterBro #2]

Mar 13, 2023 11:19:40 GMT -5 a10champion15 said:

1. Many are going to harp on the A10 "not being the same" after it's worst year in 2 decades which is an outlier. The A10 came off a season where there was major turnover between coaching staffs, players and a new program joining. Plus a few bad coaches being retained. In addition, everything pretty much went wrong from injuries, schedules and expectations. The league had a bad year but it's way too early to mail it in that we are a 1 bid league going forward now. The league has to do a better job scheduling and get more out of it's quality programs. If the WCC and MW can have strong years in the new NET area, the A10 can as well.

Was it an outlier, or is it the new norm? Seems it has been trending downward both in number of bids and in number of games which translates to NCAA unit money. 

2023 - 1 bid, ? games
2022 - 2 bids, 3 games
2021 - 2 bids, 2 games (1 of which was COVID forfeited)
2020 - no Tourney
2019 - 2 bids, 2 games
2018 - 3 bids, 5 games
2017 - 3 bids, 4 games
2016 - 3 bids, 5 games
2015 - 3 bids, 5 games
2014 - 6 bids, 10 games
2013 - 5 bids, 12 games
2012 - 4 bids, 7 games
2011 - 3 bids, 6 games
2010 - 3 bids, 5 games
2009 - 3 bids, 6 games
2008 - 3 bids, 6 games

[a10champion15]

Mar 13, 2023 11:22:34 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

Mar 13, 2023 11:19:40 GMT -5 a10champion15 said:

I don't think moving to the MAAC while we reduce travel expenses would be enough to make up for the revenue lost.

This is where I think you're wrong.

It's impossible to know without seeing the details. Plus, there is a certain donor who charters flights for them from time to time.

[MisterD]

Mar 13, 2023 11:21:14 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

Mar 13, 2023 10:56:44 GMT -5 MisterD said:

I think we have to ride it out because being in the A-10 is going to set us up better for the new world than preemptively dropping would.

Would love for you to explain this more. How?

If you assume conferences aren't going to look much like they do now in a decade, you assume at some point we're going to have to sell people on our presence. We have three things in our favor and one of them, history, probably doesn't matter much if at all. Our selling point is going to be "we're a high-mid major in Philadelphia" and without the first part, its hard to see why any new or restructuring conference would pick us over Drexel, let alone St. Joseph's of PA.

[JoeFedorowicz]

Mar 13, 2023 11:46:08 GMT -5 a10champion15 said:

Mar 13, 2023 11:22:34 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

This is where I think you're wrong.

It's impossible to know without seeing the details. Plus, there is a certain donor who charters flights for them from time to time.

100% on seeing the details. But traveling with a party of 25 or so to these places for multiple nights...that adds up fast. And imagine not having to charter flights to St. Louis or Buffalo or wherever Davidson is. Hopefully that donor could reallocate their funds. 

[JoeFedorowicz]

Mar 13, 2023 11:51:19 GMT -5 MisterD said:

Mar 13, 2023 11:21:14 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

Would love for you to explain this more. How?

If you assume conferences aren't going to look much like they do now in a decade, you assume at some point we're going to have to sell people on our presence. We have three things in our favor and one of them, history, probably doesn't matter much if at all. Our selling point is going to be "we're a high-mid major in Philadelphia" and without the first part, its hard to see why any new or restructuring conference would pick us over Drexel, let alone St. Joseph's of PA.

Is that a selling point when you look at La Salle's record or La Salle's facilities or La Salle's campus? I think it's more likely that we're kicked out of the A10 as opposed to invited somewhere else.

[MisterD]

The facilities and campus aren't going to change if we're voluntarily in the MAAC and if we don't establish ourselves as a lock top-half or better program there, the floor is the limit if the MAAC blows up.

[JoeFedorowicz]

Mar 13, 2023 12:17:17 GMT -5 MisterD said:

The facilities and campus aren't going to change if we're voluntarily in the MAAC and if we don't establish ourselves as a lock top-half or better program there, the floor is the limit if the MAAC blows up.

So you're proposing a fake it til we make it plan

[MisterD]

Essentially. Google says the opposite of guilt by association is honor by association and that's basically what I'm leaning on. Last time we were in a lesser conference we were really good, enough so to move up. If we move back down and don't immediately succeed, I'm not quite sure where that leaves us.

[JoeFedorowicz]

My argument is currently that it leaves us bankrupt. I was a ‘never drop down’ guy until about five years ago, but as the A10 has ballooned to a conference spanning 25% of the continental US, my views have evolved.

[thelasallelunatic]

Mar 13, 2023 12:08:17 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

Mar 13, 2023 11:46:08 GMT -5 a10champion15 said:

It's impossible to know without seeing the details. Plus, there is a certain donor who charters flights for them from time to time.

100% on seeing the details. But traveling with a party of 25 or so to these places for multiple nights...that adds up fast. And imagine not having to charter flights to St. Louis or Buffalo or wherever Davidson is. Hopefully that donor could reallocate their funds. 

Davidson is outside of Charlotte.

[MisterD]

Mar 13, 2023 13:22:44 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

My argument is currently that it leaves us bankrupt. I was a ‘never drop down’ guy until about five years ago, but as the A10 has ballooned to a conference spanning 25% of the continental US, my views have evolved.

I don't think we're that far apart; my entire reasoning here is predicated on there's no way we're in the A-10 in the mid-term future (either because it collapses or the top or bottom is pushed out) and a double-move would be worse.

[blueandgold]

I hate idea of 96 teams in tourney, but would that help A10? I guess the answer depends on if this was outlier season or if the lack of A10 inclusion in NIT suggests we’d be in further trouble.

There will always be bottom feeders in every conference. Someone has to be. But we need to have more outliers like 2013 to make it palatable economically. But frankly between lack of football, transfer mania, and NIL - our facility situation is a symptom and maybe not the problem at this point.

[a10champion15]

Mar 13, 2023 14:03:49 GMT -5 MisterD said:

Mar 13, 2023 13:22:44 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

My argument is currently that it leaves us bankrupt. I was a ‘never drop down’ guy until about five years ago, but as the A10 has ballooned to a conference spanning 25% of the continental US, my views have evolved.

I don't think we're that far apart; my entire reasoning here is predicated on there's no way we're in the A-10 in the mid-term future (either because it collapses or the top or bottom is pushed out) and a double-move would be worse.

Conferences kicking programs out of their respective conferences doesn't happen.

Overall, we just have to see how everything evolves. Between our own efforts between the current/future coaching staff, facility improvements, performance of the A10, expansion of the tournament's impact, NIL refinement and overall the stability of our program there are so many other things to navigate right now and moving to the MAAC or wherever only complicates it further.

Rather have the revenue, reputation of the A10 along with the resources that brings than worry about travel expenses.

In terms of expansion, historically some of the last 8-12 teams are high/mid majors. I hate the idea of expanding but yes, it more likely than not helps the A10. For example, Dayton, VCU and maybe SLU would have been in last year.

[JoeFedorowicz]

That specifically doesn’t happen. But the biggest eight schools might decide to find four more that help them.

[1863]

It's a rarity, but it happens.

The Big East kicked Temple football out of the conference some years ago.

[belfieldhappyhour]

Mar 13, 2023 8:49:53 GMT -5 JoeFedorowicz said:

So for anyone that thinks La Salle should remain in the A10...why? I'm a former A10 athlete and the conference was very good for track and cross country when I was there. La Salle was always on top (for distance events at least) and we had people that were good both regionally and nationally. Other conferences weren't as good.

But my thinking has evolved from: "other conferences might be better" to "the A10 is killing La Salle athletics." And it comes down to travel. It comes down to A10 standards being applied to a school that cannot support that infrastructure..... NIL also becomes a pool that we can't swim in with schools like Dayton/VCU/SLU. And trying to do that is, in my opinion, a fool's errand.

Thoughts? Does any of this make sense? I'd love to hear valid reasons why the A10 isn't drowning the school.

I've talked about this before, but when I worked there when Brennan was starting out, he changed the budget setup for every team. He basically went to every coach and said your expense budget is $0. Whatever you fund raise is yours to keep/use. I wonder if that is still the case, and how does that effect our Title IX compliance, if at all.

So, for the basketball teams, that seems pretty easy. They can raise a few hundred grand (just throwing a rough figure out there, not being specific) so they can get to the Miamis and Oklahomas and Pepperdines of the world with about 20/25 people traveling. But when the track/cross country teams want go to a big event in NYC, Joe what would that be, 75-100 people or am I over-estimating? Even if its only 50, that's a bus and 25 hotel rooms (at least) for say 2 nights. That's easily $40,000 right there. So, my long-winded answer to the money not covering the travel, this would be an easy way to see that to see how/why you are right on that.

The swimming teams farthest out-of-conference away meets were at Seton Hall. Men's soccer went to UVA, and for all I know, got paid to get their asses kicked. Women's soccer had their longest trip to Colgate. So it seems those 'Olympic' sports are definitely handcuffed in their scheduling, or at least schedule accordingly so most stuff can be day trips.

Flipping to the NIL, and I'll say here what I was going to say in the "The Death of Mid-Major Second Bid Teams" thread. I have no grasp on what an Explorer athlete is getting and from who for an NIL deal. Being in a big city like Philadelphia is great to help attract students, but are the NIL deals really there when there are 6 D1 schools in the region? I'd imagine the biggest deal anyone around here got was the TV/truck ad that Ryan Arch had. But what about our top guys, like Nicklberry or Brickus (again, just examples). Can they even get a $10k deal?? I'm curious because I don't know.

I think the transfer portal and NIL are needed, BUT, I hate how they are being intertwined. As @glittebro #2 pointed out, a kid who started at Mason was Big East player of the year. Did he just transfer up because he was good, or did Marquette say, hey, we have a $50,000 NIL deal for you if you want to transfer here? To me, that's BS. I understand the coaches are playing by the rules, I just hate the combination of the rules.

Let's look at possible conference moves. MAAC, long trips to Niagara and Canisius, which is way better that SLU and Davidson, but harder to get to. America East, trips would include UVM, UNH and Maine. Nothing easy there. Big East, hahaha, Marquette and Creighton are as bad or worse than any trip we have now. CAA gets you Northeastern and Charleston. NEC has trips to Merrimack and St. Francis (PA), can't get there from anywhere. Patriot is BU, Holy Cross, Colgate.

So, are we in the right conference, maybe not. But there are challenges with any conference we could move to.

I'll end this meandering post a dream scenario thought. It would be great if football (for those that have it) and basketball teams had their conferences, and the Olympic sports could be in their own separate conference with regional schools to make scheduling/travel easy for everyone.

[kinesiology]

What little I knew about D1 funding/expenses is 50 years old. I’m impressed and intimidated by the facts and general knowledge you guys have cogently expressed. The following thoughts may well have no chance of actually happening.

So anyway, it seems to me that a logical solution would be to allow the La Salles of the collegiate world to be true D1 only for men’s and women’s b-ball. Kind of a reverse of the solution when La Salle brought back football. Everything else stayed D1 but football went into an imaginary D1. Basketball could stay in D1 but all other sports drop to a true 2 or 3 and play more locally.

No idea how many scholarships are allotted to non b-ball sports but they’d certainly be less in D2 or disappear altogether in D3.

Would the loss of D1 status in the other sports hurt enrollment significantly? I’d guess not. I realize there’s a lot of alums of these sports that would fight it.

La Salle is far from alone in these concerns. It probably includes most of their old (D1) football peers. The NCAA has to be open to solutions like this.

Please be kind in telling me how dumb this idea is.

[JoeFedorowicz]

Mar 13, 2023 20:19:29 GMT -5 kinesiology said:

Please be kind in telling me how dumb this idea is.

It's backwards. If you're going to look at it by record/ability...basketball would be in the bottom half of competitiveness.

Mar 13, 2023 20:19:29 GMT -5 kinesiology said:

Would the loss of D1 status in the other sports hurt enrollment significantly? I’d guess not. I realize there’s a lot of alums of these sports that would fight it.

It would be the death knell for most sports. For instance, I would have been the best mid-distance runner in a lot of local D2 and D3 teams' history, with a couple of exceptions. I was an above-average runner at La Salle and held a couple relay records for a hot minute, but by no means anywhere near the best.

[MisterD]

You’re the best in explorertown ; )

[JoeFedorowicz]

Mar 13, 2023 21:51:28 GMT -5 MisterD said:

You’re the best in explorertown ; )

I look like an asshole in that post.

[GlitterBro #2]

Your times are your times, man. It's one of the more objective measures in sports. You didn't come off badly...times are fact-based