Northwestern Should be a Basketball School

[AdamOnFirst]

Making a full thread on this. I'm a football guy over basketball by a wide margin, but last night just emphasizes that NU is better suited to be a basketball school. The crowd is great and our campus and students are quick to pack out Welsh-Ryan, unlike football where it's a constant struggle even when the team is alright. We get a much higher percent in purple, and our small stadium is a true atmospheric advantage in many ways. There is a MUCH larger national history of small academic schools being premium basketball programs. Chicago seems like the perfect place for a little basketball school to be.

Jackson, Schmidt, and the department should act accordingly. Football shouldn't be starved, it's still the cash cow and we should still invest enough for a competitive and respectable team, but when making revenue sharing and other resource decisions the emphasis should be on dollars for hoops. For example, if the typical football school is taking their $20 million in revenue sharing and giving $14 million to football, $4 million to basketball, and $2 million to everything else, NU should give football $11M and basketball $7M.

 

[FeralFelidae]

It's not the worst idea in the world.

 

[clarificationcat]

Making a full thread on this. I'm a football guy over basketball by a wide margin, but last night just emphasizes that NU is better suited to be a basketball school. The crowd is great and our campus and students are quick to pack out Welsh-Ryan, unlike football where it's a constant struggle even when the team is alright. We get a much higher percent in purple, and our small stadium is a true atmospheric advantage in many ways. There is a MUCH larger national history of small academic schools being premium basketball programs. Chicago seems like the perfect place for a little basketball school to be.

Jackson, Schmidt, and the department should act accordingly. Football shouldn't be starved, it's still the cash cow and we should still invest enough for a competitive and respectable team, but when making revenue sharing and other resource decisions the emphasis should be on dollars for hoops. For example, if the typical football school is taking their $20 million in revenue sharing and giving $14 million to football, $4 million to basketball, and $2 million to everything else, NU should give football $11M and basketball $7M.

I have thought the same thing. I have been going to football games for a very long time and there have only been a few games where I thought we had a true home field advantage. Even this year, we can’t fill a high school stadium. I don’t see a path forward to be consistently good in football in the current environment. Of course, happy to be wrong.

 

[SmellyCat]

When I was a student, NU was bad at both, but I was definitely more of a basketball guy (I rarely missed either, for what it's worth). Then, when NU hoops continued wandering in the wilderness after Evan Eschmeyer left and Barnett, Walker, and Fitz frequently led NU football to fun seasons. My travel plans to Chicago often revolved around going to a football game, but until last year against Dayton, I hadn't been to a game at WRA in years.

Well, I am all in on basketball again. It's not quite being a fair-weather fan (lord knows I have supported a lot of lousy-weathered teams over the years) - it's just that team is more fun. If I HAD to pick one team to be good and the other to be terrible, I guess I'm saying let's go with basketball, as it's just possible in this day and age to do it, and I fear NU will never be able to commit to doing what it takes to turn into a football school in the era of the transfer portals and NIL.

 

[rogerkim]

Making a full thread on this. I'm a football guy over basketball by a wide margin, but last night just emphasizes that NU is better suited to be a basketball school. The crowd is great and our campus and students are quick to pack out Welsh-Ryan, unlike football where it's a constant struggle even when the team is alright. We get a much higher percent in purple, and our small stadium is a true atmospheric advantage in many ways. There is a MUCH larger national history of small academic schools being premium basketball programs. Chicago seems like the perfect place for a little basketball school to be.

Jackson, Schmidt, and the department should act accordingly. Football shouldn't be starved, it's still the cash cow and we should still invest enough for a competitive and respectable team, but when making revenue sharing and other resource decisions the emphasis should be on dollars for hoops. For example, if the typical football school is taking their $20 million in revenue sharing and giving $14 million to football, $4 million to basketball, and $2 million to everything else, NU should give football $11M and basketball $7M.

This is an interesting idea. I especially like the idea of not starving the football program, but making sure that basketball is given a slight emphasis/priority. This definitely tracks with which sport I have always thought it would be easier to make a leap to top-tier competitiveness. You only need a few elite players in basketball and you're suddenly a tourney team, while in football, you have to have several solid OL and DL players, along with great skill position players, plus the depth on both sides of the ball to withstand the inevitable injuries.

I would like to reserve judgement on the issue of the stadium/arena of basketball vs football until after the new Ryan Field is built. From everything we have heard, it is supposed to be the football equivalent of Welsh-Ryan Arena, with smaller capacity, more intimate setting, better acoustics, etc. But I would generally agree, with the size of our undergraduate student body, the Wildside's impact on homecourt/homefield advantage will probably always be bigger in basketball than in football. It's just a numbers game: even if every single undergrad (8,845 for 2024) shows up to a football game at the new Ryan Field, that would be just 1/4 of the capacity (35,000 estimated). If every undergrad shows up to a basketball game, Welsh-Ryan would be filled beyond capacity (7,039).

I remain hopeful that, if our football team can achieve some success in the new Ryan Field's inaugural season, the students will attend and have a greater impact on our homefield advantage thanks to better acoustics in the new stadium, similar to how the student section in WRA gets to a thunderous level at times.

 

[pschatz25]

Makes sense. It's certainly nice to see the vision of new WRA as more of a home court advantage finally coming to fruition. Last year was critical in building momentum and the team delivered. I live in Evanston and you really noticed the increase in interest. I saw more families from my kids' school at games last year than ever before. And several of them bought season tickets this season.

I started going to football games in the early 90's and have been on the roller coaster as its gone up and down a few times since then. The falloff in interest since 2020 has been sad to see. It was shocking how small the crowds were last season. And despite the hype for the temporary stadium the cracks of fan apathy were clear even before the season started. It's going to take a long time to rebuilt.

 

[EagerFan]

I've been a basketball cats fan for a long time. I think NU is much more of a basketball school than a football school, but that might just be my own bias.

But I don't know that the numbers for this year's football is entirely solid - I was interested in going, but the school totally priced me out of the market, and I'm too lazy to try and find stuff on the secondary markets. I think that pricing was a huge mistake for a lot of reasons and I hope they reconsider/lower it next season.

For the money game, I think an equitable split is fair. Football needs more money to entice/hang on to a similar percentage of difference makers.

 

[jensberg]

I've been a basketball cats fan for a long time. I think NU is much more of a basketball school than a football school, but that might just be my own bias.

But I don't know that the numbers for this year's football is entirely solid - I was interested in going, but the school totally priced me out of the market, and I'm too lazy to try and find stuff on the secondary markets. I think that pricing was a huge mistake for a lot of reasons and I hope they reconsider/lower it next season.

For the money game, I think an equitable split is fair. Football needs more money to entice/hang on to a similar percentage of difference makers.

I went to school in the late 60s when we had a pretty good basketball team and football team. I used to go to games for both. Basketball was much more enjoyable to me as that's a sport I played all my life. Kind of agree with the concept since basketball is easier to be successful at with just a few key players required.

 

[lunker35]

Making a full thread on this. I'm a football guy over basketball by a wide margin, but last night just emphasizes that NU is better suited to be a basketball school. The crowd is great and our campus and students are quick to pack out Welsh-Ryan, unlike football where it's a constant struggle even when the team is alright. We get a much higher percent in purple, and our small stadium is a true atmospheric advantage in many ways. There is a MUCH larger national history of small academic schools being premium basketball programs. Chicago seems like the perfect place for a little basketball school to be.

Jackson, Schmidt, and the department should act accordingly. Football shouldn't be starved, it's still the cash cow and we should still invest enough for a competitive and respectable team, but when making revenue sharing and other resource decisions the emphasis should be on dollars for hoops. For example, if the typical football school is taking their $20 million in revenue sharing and giving $14 million to football, $4 million to basketball, and $2 million to everything else, NU should give football $11M and basketball $7M.

I said that 15 years ago and most of you thought I was crazy. Finally becoming a reality.

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

I said that 15 years ago and most of you thought I was crazy. Finally becoming a reality.

We are still a football school, just better in basketball.

 

[EagerFan]

There's just a much smaller margin for error in games for football as there just a handful of games played for the entire season. Lose 6 or 7 conference games in basketball and you're still in the race for the tourney. That many losses in football and you're Purdue.