Ranking Big East Athletic Departments

[Jet915]

Saw this analysis of athletic departments in the Big East and found it interesting.

https://www.athleticdirectoru.com/articles/athletic-department-power-index-big-east/

[ArmyVet]

Good catch. In some ways, the AD rankings mirror the success of the respective basketball programs. No surprise there.

[Jet915]

Good catch. In some ways, the AD rankings mirror the success of the respective basketball programs. No surprise there.

Only "anomaly" right now would be Seton Hall, Willard doing more with limited resources.

[butlerguy03]

If you take out the "non-revenue sports" category, a tier system is obvious.

Villanova

Xavier
Georgetown
Creighton
Butler
Marquette

Providence

Seton Hall
St. John's
DePaul

[ArmyVet]

Where would UCONN be slotted?

[Letsgonova]

The UCONN athletic department currently running $40M+ annual deficits and currently trying to figure out how to be one of only 4-5 FBS independent schools? The one whose primary basketball and football facilities are 30 miles from campus? And said basketball facility needs $200M in investment but won't get it because it's owned by a bankrupt state government?

I would say, low.

[FenwayFriar]

The UCONN athletic department currently running $40M+ annual deficits and currently trying to figure out how to be one of only 4-5 FBS independent schools? The one whose primary basketball and football facilities are 30 miles from campus? And said basketball facility needs $200M in investment but won't get it because it's owned by a bankrupt state government?

I would say, low.

Bill Marsh is rolling over in his recliner with that talk. But yea all true.

I will say I'm a bit surprised that PC is only 6th in terms of facilities. Improving facilities was the clear #1 goal of our current AD when he took over in 2001. At that time they basically had high school level facilities for many sports. Since then every single sport PC sponsors has new or completely renovated facilities. They built brand-new facilities for: field hockey field (2005), fitness center (2007), outdoor track & field complex (2014), lacrosse/soccer stadium (2016), softball field (2016), tennis courts (2016), and basketball practice facility (2018). Also made $80 million renovations to The Dunk in 2008, $3 million renovation to the women's basketball arena in 2012, and complete renovations to the ice hockey arena and swimming pool in 2013. Hard to believe any other Big East school can match that over the span of the last 15 years. I mean Georgetown still hasn't finished construction on their football/soccer stadium they started building in 2005...

[Xudash]

The UCONN athletic department currently running $40M+ annual deficits and currently trying to figure out how to be one of only 4-5 FBS independent schools? The one whose primary basketball and football facilities are 30 miles from campus? And said basketball facility needs $200M in investment but won't get it because it's owned by a bankrupt state government?

I would say, low.

Bill Marsh is rolling over in his recliner with that talk. But yea all true.

I will say I'm a bit surprised that PC is only 6th in terms of facilities. Improving facilities was the clear #1 goal of our current AD when he took over in 2001. At that time they basically had high school level facilities for many sports. Since then every single sport PC sponsors has new or completely renovated facilities. They built brand-new facilities for: field hockey field (2005), fitness center (2007), outdoor track & field complex (2014), lacrosse/soccer stadium (2016), softball field (2016), tennis courts (2016), and basketball practice facility (2018). Also made $80 million renovations to The Dunk in 2008, $3 million renovation to the women's basketball arena in 2012, and complete renovations to the ice hockey arena and swimming pool in 2013. Hard to believe any other Big East school can match that over the span of the last 15 years. I mean Georgetown still hasn't finished construction on their football/soccer stadium they started building in 2005...

Earlier this month, Xavier completed the athletic/workout facilities side of the HUB for students, to go along with the wellness and classrooms sections (https://www.xavier.edu/mission-identity/xaviers-mission/buildings-statues-and-beauty/hub), so it is now fully functioning. It's for the Xavier community, not athletes, per se.

But it's opening has now enabled Xavier to close the O'Conner Sports Center for the purpose of transforming it into the Champions Center: https://goxavier.com/news/2018/8/19/all-for-one-fund-xavier-announces-plans-for-the-heidt-family-champions-center.aspx. That work just started up. If you happen to be familiar with Xavier's campus, you'll note that Schmidt Memorial Fieldhouse isn't shown in the picture (it shows trees where Schmidt now stands). I believe the University intends to tear it down in the near future. Probably a good idea, but a building that goes back to 1928 with a lot of history coming from it.

Otherwise, I don't believe we have much of a soccer stadium in terms of stands (it sits where our old football stadium used to be located), the baseball facility is nice in terms of setting (looks back towards Victory Parkway and the old Academic Row), but isn't state-of-the-art by any means, the tennis courts are newish, and the golf teams have their own $2 million practice facility at Maketewah Country Club, which is about 10 minutes from campus.

The Cintas Center has had another $25 million pumped into it for fan experience stuff, new locker rooms, a new practice facility, and new health and training facilities for athletes.

Overall, with respect to the Big East conference, while we have some very nice NBA-type facilities in the conference for hoops, I believe the Big East benefits greatly from Xavier's Cintas Center and Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse. Hinkle has the tradition with a capacity of 9k'ish. Xavier's 10,500 seat facility is posh as collegiate facilities go, including the private suites, Joseph's Bar, Norwood Cafe bar set-up in the nosebleed section, high tech fan experience center, etc. It was built to become a cash register for the school and it's done a great job of that.

It's no surprise to me that Nova came out on top in this rating. Marquette and Xavier in that order probably makes sense, given Marquette's overall set-up.