Alabama football. Duke basketball. Quinnipiac hockey. These are just a few big-time programs in the country that take a lot of money to run. College athletics is bigger than ever these days thanks to things like television, social media and the advertising that you see almost everywhere you look. But where does this money come from to run such an operation? The answer may lie in the university’s tuition bill that the students pay.
What people call in college athletics call this is student fees and they vary from institution to institution. It also varies on many different things like the size of the school, the number of teams playing for the school and the level the teams compete at in the NCAA.
For instance, James Madison has a football team at its school and the team has seen great success recently. JMU is in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) of Division I college football, unlike the power five conferences that are in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
Factors like these lead to varying levels of student fees, but not for James Madison who has the highest student fees in the country. About 77% of the total JMU athletic budget in 2017 came from student fees according to the College Athletics Financial Information (CAFI) Database.
Other schools might not have to take as many student fees as other schools due to other sources of revenue. For the Big Ten, the conference has its own television network that puts money in the pockets of its member universities.
The Big Ten was the first power five conferences to start its own television network and other conferences followed suit and started their own. These conference networks now account for millions of dollars that are made each year in college athletics.
It is also interesting to point out that only four out of the 12 total Big Ten teams use student fees as revenue. The schools are Rutgers, Illinois, Iowa, and Maryland. This could be because the revenue from media rights and conference distributions for the entire conference is north of half a billion dollars.
But not every school has football. College athletics departments fall into one of three categories: FBS and FCS if the school has a football team and Division I – no football (NFS). And the data shows that student fees at these schools are higher than fees at schools that have football.
Football is the most popular sport in the country and it attracts that most eyes so, in theory, it stands to make the most money. This rings true for the Big Ten and the money those schools get with their media rights. So, the schools without football struggle to see money like that.
Also, most schools without football are smaller schools that have smaller budgets than what you might find in the Big Ten.
When it comes to college sports and where the money comes from to operate the athletic departments, you might not need to look any further than the bill the students have to pay to attend the school because they might be also helping foot the bill for their school’s athletic teams.
When Quinnipiac University President Judy Olian posted news on Instagram last spring that the school would officially sponsor club sports teams, baseball players took notice.
The players, including many who did not survive the cut for Quinnipiac’s Division I team, immediately applied to make club baseball official.
“The boys were actually freaking out in the group chat,” said Brendan Cavaco, who helped to start the informal club team in 2017. “We were all excited.”
But the news that followed crushed the team. The Hamden Braves, as they are known, would not be among the group of clubs to receive official sponsorship. Yet the team still competes in club baseball without official sponsorship as it awaits formal university sponsorship.
“So, everyone found out through like the Twitter and Instagram club pages,” said Finbarr Saunders, an infielder. “Everyone was obviously disappointed because we knew we would be like on our own again.”
Cavaco and several other players formed the club in 2017 so they could continue to play baseball.
Cavaco said he understood the decision but added he might have been misled.
“The only thing that I made some of my teammates and I frustrated was that we were informed by the start of the application process that every team has a clean slate,” Cavaco said. “So even if you’re not established, you know, a fair shot or if you’re established first or prior.”
Cavaco said the school ended up selecting club teams that have played for years, undermining the clean-slate competition.
When asked for a comment, Michael Medina, the associate director for intramurals, pointed to a Q30 Television interview on the launch of club sports for his formal response.
“The professionalism that we all handled ourselves in the room of giving every team an equal, a fair chance of being a club sport, I have to take my hat off to everybody on the committee who helped me along with this process,” Medina said during the interview.
Medina added that more club teams could be coming to Quinnipiac soon.
“I think the university realizes this is an initial investment and that there’s going to be potentially more club sports teams that come around in future years,” Medina said.
Players make the walk to the field at Central Connecticut State for their game on October 26.
The Braves again found themselves isolated. Back to running the day-to-day operations on their own again. But the questions still remained. Cavaco knew that he couldn’t let this bad news stop him or this team.
Cavaco and Christian Cooper worked to form the team but learned quickly that they needed to handle such baffling off-the-field pieces such as insurance.
“Insurance, definitely, lack of funding from the school,” Cooper said. “I mean we’re all generating from each other as far as money goes and field space that still an issue. Just being able to get a baseball field. Honestly, if you can think of it, it’s something we’ve got to deal with.”
The two decided to form a non-profit organization to serve as the legal infrastructure through which insurance and player dues would be handled.
Now they needed a team and getting the word out was the next step. When they got the team, the dues from the players were collected and the Braves were now in business.
“I think that’s pretty interesting that, you know, it’s just a bunch of high-quality baseball players come together to still buy something they love to do,” outfielder John Pesce said.
And whether they liked the decision made to not bring them on as a club sport or not, the Braves had a season to play in the spring and it was the team’s first full season as a team playing in the American Club Baseball Association. They ended up winning the championship that spring.
“A lot of guys actually use it like as a chip on our shoulder,” Saunders said. “Like, like they didn’t approve us. Like they don’t want us, you know, like that kind of mentality.”
But there is a lot that goes into a season like that. Money is a big factor in it all. Money gets you on the field to play and money gets you the umpires to call the game. And that money the Braves have comes from the players on their roster. The players had to pay $250 per semester they were on the team, a total of $500 for the fall and spring.
“They’ve actually done all, the administrative part,” manager Jim Withington said. “And that includes procuring fields, getting umpires, you know, practice facilities and all that. They do all that out on the road.”
The carpool of Hamden Braves pulls out of Hogan Lot before their game at Central Connecticut State.
Speaking of the road, the Braves have logged a lot of miles on the road too. Road trips mean driving personal cars, not hopping onto a team bus.
Uniforms still need to be purchased, and the team is searching for a place to practice to stay sharp for ACBA play.
But one thing that might separate the Braves from the others is the team dynamic. The team plays loose. They have the music going, even if it isn’t considered their home game, and every player has a walk-up song.
“We work so hard during the week academically that maybe go in the cage for an hour or go in to play baseball for a couple of hours, it’s really meant to like relieve some stress,” Cavaco said about the way his team plays.
Even their skipper agrees, and Withington does not mind how his team plays loose because they proved they could win that way.
“They do enjoy themselves but when it’s time to take it seriously and get out and play, they do that too, which they proved,” Withington said.
At the end of the day, the players on the Braves are just there to keep playing the game they love to play. Even if they aren’t affiliated with the school, they won’t stop them from playing America’s Pastime. But the thought of being a club team of all Quinnipiac students that wasn’t selected as one of the club sports still remains.
“You just got to deal with what you have. I can’t do anything to change that decision and we’re going to try our best as a team to show that we deserve an affiliation,” Pesce said. “But, you know, we’re all still having a good time. It’s not changing the way we play.”
Multiple racist incidents have been the topic of discussion across the campus of Syracuse University. These incidents have taken place over the past month on the western New York campus.
One of the incidents included a white supremacist manifesto that was “air-dropped” to students in a campus library on a Monday night.
Black students have been leading a sit-in at Syracuse University for 6 straight days. #NotAgainSU has a list of demands for their university, including:
◾️Expel anyone involved in racist incidents ◾️Hire more counselors that represent marginalized groups pic.twitter.com/1JhNW67MtE
Other reported incidents include nine racist or anti-sematic emails or graffiti on the campus.
As of Thursday, four Syracuse students have been arrested in connection with these incidents.
The university also canceled all social activities with the fraternities on campus in response to a black student who claims she was verbally assaulted on campus later Saturday night.
The Sleeping Giant State Park has been reopened for some time not, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded the Town of Hamden with just over two million dollars in aid.
The money is for the tornado recovery after a tornado ripped through the area of Hamden by Sleeping Giant State Park in the summer of 2018.
“People are just glad that is it open,” Quinnipiac student Jack Main said. “After it having to be shut down for two years for clean-up and stuff like that.”
The damage from the tornado included many downed trees that fell throughout the various pathways in Sleep Giant Park. The park reopened back in June of 2019.
Soon after winning reelection in Hamden, Mayor Curt Leng announced that acting police chief John Cappiello will be taking over the post full time pending approval from the legislative council.
Cappiello also just recently announced that he recommended Officer Devon Eaton be fired after Eaton was involved in a shooting in New Haven back on April 16.
Black Lives Matter New Haven calling for justice for Paul Witherspoon and Stephanie Washington. They are calling for the firing of Devon Eaton and Terrance Pollock following the State Attorney investigation of the April 16 officer involved shooting. pic.twitter.com/YC9axAmZ8t
Eaton fired 13 shots at the car of Paul Witherspoon III during a traffic stop. Witherspoon was not injured but his girlfriend, Stephanie Washington, was seriously injured.
After the incident, there were protects in Hamden and in New Haven calling for the firing of Eaton. Eaton was also charged with assault in connection with the shooting.
Quinnipiac Student Government Association hosted its annual “Ask Away” event on Tuesday, Nov. 19. Students who came to the event in Burt Kahn Court were encouraged to, you guessed it, ask away on tough topics happening in society.
Students discuss various topics during “Ask Away” which was a safe space for students to talk about topics.
Topics of discussion ranged from abortion, politics, race and more. The topics were about things happening on campus and going on nationally.
“My idea was to create a space to have inclusive and controversial dialogue,” SGA Vice President of Student Experience Esau Greene. “Where students can kind of learn to agree to disagree.”
Students were spilt up into different tables to talk about these difficult topics in a calm and civil conversation.
As the podcast studio keeps jumping around from building to building on the Mount Carmel Campus of Quinnipiac University, a new hire was announced that put a name to the person who will be running the said studio.
The new podcast center director is David DesRoches and he comes to Quinnipiac from Connecticut NPR where he worked as an education reporter.
Photo of David DesRoches
“I’m naturally a creative person,” DesRoches said. “[In] journalism you don’t really have an outlet of opportunity to be creative, but you’re drawn to the facts.”
DesRoches said he is excited about building the podcast program from the ground up and he looks forward to enlisting the help of the Quinnipiac community, especially the students.
And Quinnipiac students, though they are excited about the new studio, have some expectations of the new space on campus and of its new director.
“[I want] an inclusive space,” senior Leah Lavin said. “I think we see a lot with these editing labs, the mac labs and the library and we think of it as only for [communication] students, but everyone likes to podcast.”
On top of serving the students and the university with the podcast studio, DesRoches said he wants to go further and give a voice to Hamden and the surrounding areas.
“I just really want to be a resource for the university and also for the community,” DesRoches said. “Part of what I want to do is do content that bridges the university with the area that expresses the values that we share.”
