I contemplated writing this as an actual letter to the editor at the Daily Sentinel, but didn't want to bring that level of public of scrutiny to our current baseball athletes. They didn't do anything to deserve that.

But I wholeheartedly believe that now is the time to pull the plug on the program.

TallTexan said:

---

Since restarting the program in 2006, SFA baseball has posted a 430-579 record, a paltry 42% winning percentage. We notched just 10 wins the past season.

While there have been a few bright spots for the restarted program, notably Willie Vest & Hunter Dozier playing on the MLB stage, actual success for the program has been few and far between. The team currently plays at the city's little league park and stadium plans have fallen through, even with a lead donor(Bo Pilgrim/Planned Pilgrim Park https://sfajacks.com/news/2006/11/30/Bo_Pilgrim_Park_at_SFA_to_bring_home_11_8_million_a_year_for_Nacogdoches).

According to one parent of an early player, Baker Patillo shared with her that he hadn't even been consulted when the Athletic department decided to re-launch baseball. Which likely led to the tepid support for a major infrastructure project on their behalf.

Today's price tag for a baseball/softball facility in the same range would likely top 25 million, a significant increase from the 14 million price from 2006. Marshall is spending 23 million for baseball only. Kennesaw State is paying 12.3 for a renovation of their existing stadium.Georgia State's new stadium will cost 15.85 million. So SFA is easily looking at tens of millions of dollars for a "college level" park.

We are also facing headwinds from college baseball at large. The House Settlement that is likely to take 300k from SFA's budget a year is also expected to bring full roster scholarships to college baseball's Power 5 teams. Whereas teams can currently only offer 11.3 scholarships per baseball team, Texas, OU & the like would now be able to offer a full ride to all 30 players on their roster. That will make any fringe/tweener athlete instantly jump to take roster spots on P5 teams. Don't get me wrong. That is great for those athletes, but it means even tougher recruiting for a school like SFA.

Sure, SFA could continue to sponsor baseball with our existing facilities, with similar or worse results with the upcoming NCAA changes. Why pay for a program where we are continually fighting with one hand tied behind our back? Where we have no history of success nor the infrastructure to achieve it?

We'll need to likely spend 10-15 mil just to compete with the other teams on our level on a regular basis .Given all of SFA's other needs, both athletically and as a university, we have to sit back and ask ourselves if investing millions in this program makes sense. There is an opportunity cost, and baseball certainly does not bring in the eyeballs of our Football/MBB/WBB teams. Men's Soccer, Volleyball, or Tennis could share some facilities with existing women's teams.

In my opinion, it's time to axe Baseball, once and for all.

---

Texan,

Your depth of knowledge is evident. I am also among those that believe SFA should consider dropping baseball. The only reason that I am given pause, is our new affiliation. Will "they" provide the funding to get us an on-campus facility we can be proud of, and recruit to? Dr. Weaver probably knows the answer, so I am willing to let the powers that be make that decision over the next couple of months.

If indeed the capacity/desire to build/support a D1 baseball team is not there, then I believe SFA should pivot too men's tennis or possibly soccer. SFA has had success in tennis (D2 - 1984 1985) and produced a couple of national champions. The benefit of shifting to tennis, would be that our existing facilities are adequate and with a minor expansion of the existing locker room could house and additional squad.

Time will tell. Looking forward with great interest.

The biggest thing that gives me pause on baseball is costs for a new facility.

However, I look at what these teams are building in that 15 million dollar range, I'm flabbergasted. Plus, the Softball team would need a new facility too and has definitely had more success to earn it.

I would have a hard time justifying a baseball program spending 15 million any day. If you told me it could be done for 3 million per program? I could see that working out.



This was 23 million dollars for Marshall and I say to myself, where? How?

Obviously there isn't 20 million dollars worth of profit in it or these companies would be undercutting each other with a ruthless normally reserved for piracy. But that's some berms, a level playing surface, a single seating area, and some nice looking suits/lockerroom or two. It's not rocket science and it's not so massive that you'd think it was an engineering feet like the channel tunnel.

And some of the 15 million dollar projects look far simpler than this. I just don't understand how they hit these costs this quickly.

If McBroom/Weaver had a "here's a starter pack plan" that got us some good progress towards better facilities that could be rounded out later, I'd be willing to listen. On or near campus would help too.

Texan, you do provide a good and comprehensive argument for dissolving the baseball program. My take is that I believe that SFA could be a top tier team in the SLC and East Tx area with proper funding and facilities. Plenty of homegrown baseball talent in east Tx and the Houston area to recruit from....but you can't recruit without proper facilities and backing from the athletic dept.
Very simply, commit to a new park and funding OR drop baseball all together, would be where I stand.

I know Texan pushes for soccer quite a bit, I have no interest in soccer myself. How does soccer play out in East Tx? Are their a lot of leagues and interest? Of course here in Austin soccer is big and I would guess growing in popularity. I don't believe that it would be a big draw at SFA or in East Tx but I could be wrong as I don't have many contacts in the 20ish age range to ask about soccer level of interest.

Like BigJack, I expect that Pres Weaver and McBroom have or are putting together the athletics plan and budget. They will have the say and make the decisions while we watch and wait.

Ljacks&Longnecks said:

---

Texan, you do provide a good and comprehensive argument for dissolving the baseball program. My take is that I believe that SFA could be a top tier team in the SLC and East Tx area with proper funding and facilities. Plenty of homegrown baseball talent in east Tx and the Houston area to recruit from....but you can't recruit without proper facilities and backing from the athletic dept.
Very simply, commit to a new park and funding OR drop baseball all together, would be where I stand.

I know Texan pushes for soccer quite a bit, I have no interest in soccer myself. How does soccer play out in East Tx? Are their a lot of leagues and interest? Of course here in Austin soccer is big and I would guess growing in popularity. I don't believe that it would be a big draw at SFA or in East Tx but I could be wrong as I don't have many contacts in the 20ish age range to ask about soccer level of interest.

Like BigJack, I expect that Pres Weaver and McBroom have or are putting together the athletics plan and budget. They will have the say and make the decisions while we watch and wait.

---

You may be underestimating the breadth of soccer in Texas. Nacogdoches in particular. Clint Dempsey. From Nacogdoches. Possibly one of the top 2-3 US National players in the past 20 years. Tied with Donovan for 1st in all time goal scorers.

That being said, if a sport is to be dropped and a new one added I would think dropping baseball to adding men's tennis They (SFA leadership)seem to have some discretion in making building renovation/new build (capital expenditure). You could "gold plate" tennis for $3 million. One tenth the cost of building D1 baseball facilities.

Ljacks&Longnecks said:

---

Texan, you do provide a good and comprehensive argument for dissolving the baseball program. My take is that I believe that SFA could be a top tier team in the SLC and East Tx area with proper funding and facilities. Plenty of homegrown baseball talent in east Tx and the Houston area to recruit from....but you can't recruit without proper facilities and backing from the athletic dept.

Very simply, commit to a new park and funding OR drop baseball all together, would be where I stand.

I know Texan pushes for soccer quite a bit, I have no interest in soccer myself. How does soccer play out in East Tx? Are their a lot of leagues and interest? Of course here in Austin soccer is big and I would guess growing in popularity. I don't believe that it would be a big draw at SFA or in East Tx but I could be wrong as I don't have many contacts in the 20ish age range to ask about soccer level of interest.

Like BigJack, I expect that Pres Weaver and McBroom have or are putting together the athletics plan and budget. They will have the say and make the decisions while we watch and wait.

---

I'm definitely with you that if we were to keep the program, we should invest in making it competitive. I'm just not sure that even a competitive to win the Southland baseball team could justify a 10-15 million dollar facility price tag.

There's a lot of other uses that the athletic dept could find for that huge chunk of change.

Regarding Soccer, it's definitely growing in Texas/East Texas. Angelina, TVCC, TJC, all have men's teams now.

Palestine is pretty darn good for their level in soccer, as are some other area schools.

Personally that would be my bet to get ahead of the curve bc eventually every major college in this state will be playing it on the D1 level. It will be like when we got in on the ground floor with women's basketball.

Soccer is HUGE in the Houston area...lots of athletes to scout!

Good points, BigJack and Texan. I do realize the worldwide popularity of soccer but really don't have a finger on the pulse of soccer with youth etc. I do like the "ground floor" point Texan. l well remember Ladyjack basketball back in the day before all the Big schools knew what it was.
Therefore I won't hold the soccer idea in a bad light. Still baseball for me but I don't have the funds to "build it so they will come".

The cost seems large, but it is (mostly) a one-time cost. One would have to look at what the university gets in return. I counted approximately 40 student/athletes on the current team. These student/athletes put butts in seats in the classroom, and if it's anything like golf, very few of them are on full scholarship. Let's assume that they stay all four years, live on campus and pay partial tuition. Let's say the total cost they pay out of pocket is $15,000 per year. That's minimum $600,000 to the university every year just in tuition and housing. There are other benefits from having these students attend and play as well, not only to the university but also the community as a whole. Assuming that a stadium has an average life of about 30 years, the university is receiving $18 million in today's dollars just from tuition and housing.

For any of you business majors, I know that doesn't take into account the present value of money or any of that stuff, but it gets way too complicated if you start adding in those factors. However, the point is that the administration should do an evaluation of whether the NPV of the income flows over the life of the investment are more than the cash outflow of building the stadium.

The biggest question I would have is where would a new stadium even go with our current layout of a university. Honestly if we were smart about it we would nestle it into some piney woods and have a super pretty backdrop but I'm not sure where you'll find that near campus within walking distance. Just take a look at App St baseball field. Surely youve seen the fall colors one here's one without them.


There facility is a bit outside but still near the university though.

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

Ginger & Jack(s) said:

---

The cost seems large, but it is (mostly) a one-time cost. One would have to look at what the university gets in return. I counted approximately 40 student/athletes on the current team. These student/athletes put butts in seats in the classroom, and if it's anything like golf, very few of them are on full scholarship. Let's assume that they stay all four years, live on campus and pay partial tuition. Let's say the total cost they pay out of pocket is $15,000 per year. That's minimum $600,000 to the university every year just in tuition and housing. There are other benefits from having these students attend and play as well, not only to the university but also the community as a whole. Assuming that a stadium has an average life of about 30 years, the university is receiving $18 million in today's dollars just from tuition and housing.

For any of you business majors, I know that doesn't take into account the present value of money or any of that stuff, but it gets way too complicated if you start adding in those factors. However, the point is that the administration should do an evaluation of whether the NPV of the income flows over the life of the investment are more than the cash outflow of building the stadium.

---

A fair assessment. I'd reckon our baseball team is near "tuition profitable".

Some rough math:

Cardenas Salary:85k. Two assistants at 45k apiece(total guess). That puts you right around 200k a year in employee expenses.

Tuition & fees; Baseball can offer up to 11.3 full scholarships per year. There are 39 players on the roster, so let's use 40(tbh I thought they were closer to 30). So let's say 175k for tuition for the scholarships.

But you have 30 kids paying full freight at 15k per year. We do need enrollment growth and those are guys who might otherwise attend UT Tyler, UH, UT Arlington if not playing baseball, etc. So 450k in "revenue".

450-200k-150k leaves you with 50k. If your training,travel,etc budget falls below that, SFA does not lose money on baseball. Might even do a little better than break even.

If you wanted to factor in overall benefit, you could also look at the room nights booked by travel parties/parents, both for SFA & if we hosted any travel league tournaments with a shiny new stadium, etc. The estimate for that in 2006 was 65k annual room nights. Which is an extra financial boon for Nacogdoches, though not for SFA directly. If that 65k number is accurate, that's around 400k per year for Nacogdoches in extra hotel tax per year. I'm not even going to guess the food/sales tax amounts.

Though I will readily admit, I have no idea how they got that 65,000 rooms number. It seems way way too ambitious.
https://sfajacks.com/news/2006/11/30/Bo_Pilgrim_Park_at_SFA_to_bring_home_11_8_million_a_year_for_Nacogdoches

At it's most generous interpretation, you're looking at an extra 4-500k per year for the Nac/SFA community and essentially a free 40 students for SFA. Present value of the 500k a year is 6.8 million.

So an argument could definitely be made to spend around 7 million on a baseball stadium(especially if you can get a little help from the city of Nac to bring the SFA side cost down).



From an opportunity cost perspective, though, we have to compare it against what we could do for a different sport, likely Men's tennis or soccer. Obviously, men's tennis is not going to sell many room nights and zero tickets. You've got 4.5 scholarships & a roster of 8ish. So 3.5 times 15k, for around 45k a year(not sure how much tennis coaches cost or travel, but we probably lose money after tuition).

For men's soccer, average roster size of 25, 10 scholarships. 15 athletes at 15k apiece, 225k rev, 75k after other scholarship expenses, so slightly less than breakeven, but no large upfront cost like a baseball stadium. Some room nights, but only 8 home games so not a ton.

TLDR: I'd still go soccer, bc it's close enough to breakeven, but can grow as the sport grows. Baseball could make sense if you can make a Southland competitive stadium for 7 mil or less(including Nac's financial benefits).


Slight Update; the 7 mil PV figure counts the Nacogdoches Sales/Hotel tax benefit for both baseball & softball programs, so you'd need to build a baseball/softball field for less than 7 mil for the numbers to work for a net gain for SFA/Nac as a whole.

jboy93 said:

---

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

---

SFA discussed buying it a few years back. But Idk what came of that.

jboy93 said:

---

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

---

Only issue you have is La Nana that could flood that area. I bet you its in the flood plains. Would be an alright spot if you can squeeze it in.

TallTexan said:

---

jboy93 said:

---

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

---

SFA discussed buying it a few years back. But Idk what came of that.

---

Seems like a great area that the college would benefit from, no matter if they put baseball/softball there or not! It's been a wooded area since I was there in the late 80's early 90's.

SCH890 said:

---

jboy93 said:

---

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

---

Only issue you have is La Nana that could flood that area. I bet you its in the flood plains. Would be an alright spot if you can squeeze it in.

---

This is the same thing I ran into when looking near downtown under an SFA/Nac Joint partnership angle.

Banita & Lanana hem us in quite a bit.

TallTexan said:

---

SCH890 said:

---

jboy93 said:

---

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

---

Only issue you have is La Nana that could flood that area. I bet you its in the flood plains. Would be an alright spot if you can squeeze it in.

---

This is the same thing I ran into when looking near downtown under an SFA/Nac Joint partnership angle.

Banita & Lanana hem us in quite a bit.

---

I remember the creek flooding the Coliseum once but I was a little kid back in the 70's.

jboy93 said:

---

TallTexan said:

---

jboy93 said:

---

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

---

SFA discussed buying it a few years back. But Idk what came of that.

---

Seems like a great area that the college would benefit from, no matter if they put baseball/softball there or not! It's been a wooded area since I was there in the late 80's early 90's.

---

Based on the tax map, it doesn't look like we bought it.

But I do agree that it would make sense for the uni to own it. Some of that space between Starr Ave, Appleby Sand, & Glenn Hollow could make sense too.

What's the lifespan remaining on Raguet Elementary?

TallTexan said:

---

jboy93 said:

---

TallTexan said:

---

jboy93 said:

---

Who owns the area north of the parking lots up to the Nac post office? Seems to be just woods!

---

SFA discussed buying it a few years back. But Idk what came of that.

---

Seems like a great area that the college would benefit from, no matter if they put baseball/softball there or not! It's been a wooded area since I was there in the late 80's early 90's.

---

Based on the tax map, it doesn't look like we bought it.

But I do agree that it would make sense for the uni to own it. Some of that space between Starr Ave, Appleby Sand, & Glenn Hollow could make sense too.

What's the lifespan remaining on Raguet Elementary?

---

Raguet looks much smaller than I remember on google maps but also looks like they are doing construction so not sure how old those pictures are.

Just seems that there is opportunity to get things on campus if the college wants to get serious about things!

I know everything can't be about athletics but let's get serious about it, As they would say where I'm from, "it's time to s@*t or get off the pot!"

I don't know exactly how old those satellite photos are, but the Naymola basketball center isn't in them.

SFA needs to purchase all available and adjacent/nearby property to expand the campus as needed for academic and athletic purposes.

wawwhite said:

---

SFA needs to purchase all available and adjacent/nearby property to expand the campus as needed for academic and athletic purposes.

---

I've always thought a good strategy for big SFA donors would be to purchase the McDonalds and other commercial properties on north street, and then once the leases pay them back, donate them to the university in case we ever need to expand that way.

But we couldn't even get the lots at the corner of Starr and North without screwing it up.

It has been decades since I've been to Nac but isn't there land available across from the commuter parking lot? SFA could build an overhead crossing bridge to 'safely" access it. Things always appeared to get screwed up as far as SFA was concerned. My Dad's POV was it was the city of Nacogdoches that always screwed it up for SFA. in some manner.

Hey JBoy93. Did yalls baseball coach leave at TJC?

TallTexan said:

---

Hey JBoy93. Did yalls baseball coach leave at TJC?

---

Didn't leave, promoted to AD!

jboy93 said:

---

TallTexan said:

---

Hey JBoy93. Did yalls baseball coach leave at TJC?

---

Didn't leave, promoted to AD!

---

Ah gotcha. Makes sense. I saw the opening listed and was like "wait".

TallTexan said:

---

Ginger & Jack(s) said:

---

The cost seems large, but it is (mostly) a one-time cost. One would have to look at what the university gets in return. I counted approximately 40 student/athletes on the current team. These student/athletes put butts in seats in the classroom, and if it's anything like golf, very few of them are on full scholarship. Let's assume that they stay all four years, live on campus and pay partial tuition. Let's say the total cost they pay out of pocket is $15,000 per year. That's minimum $600,000 to the university every year just in tuition and housing. There are other benefits from having these students attend and play as well, not only to the university but also the community as a whole. Assuming that a stadium has an average life of about 30 years, the university is receiving $18 million in today's dollars just from tuition and housing.

For any of you business majors, I know that doesn't take into account the present value of money or any of that stuff, but it gets way too complicated if you start adding in those factors. However, the point is that the administration should do an evaluation of whether the NPV of the income flows over the life of the investment are more than the cash outflow of building the stadium.

---

A fair assessment. I'd reckon our baseball team is near "tuition profitable".

Some rough math:

Cardenas Salary:85k. Two assistants at 45k apiece(total guess). That puts you right around 200k a year in employee expenses.

Tuition & fees; Baseball can offer up to 11.3 full scholarships per year. There are 39 players on the roster, so let's use 40(tbh I thought they were closer to 30). So let's say 175k for tuition for the scholarships.

But you have 30 kids paying full freight at 15k per year. We do need enrollment growth and those are guys who might otherwise attend UT Tyler, UH, UT Arlington if not playing baseball, etc. So 450k in "revenue".

450-200k-150k leaves you with 50k. If your training,travel,etc budget falls below that, SFA does not lose money on baseball. Might even do a little better than break even.

If you wanted to factor in overall benefit, you could also look at the room nights booked by travel parties/parents, both for SFA & if we hosted any travel league tournaments with a shiny new stadium, etc. The estimate for that in 2006 was 65k annual room nights. Which is an extra financial boon for Nacogdoches, though not for SFA directly. If that 65k number is accurate, that's around 400k per year for Nacogdoches in extra hotel tax per year. I'm not even going to guess the food/sales tax amounts.

Though I will readily admit, I have no idea how they got that 65,000 rooms number. It seems way way too ambitious.
https://sfajacks.com/news/2006/11/30/Bo_Pilgrim_Park_at_SFA_to_bring_home_11_8_million_a_year_for_Nacogdoches

At it's most generous interpretation, you're looking at an extra 4-500k per year for the Nac/SFA community and essentially a free 40 students for SFA. Present value of the 500k a year is 6.8 million.

So an argument could definitely be made to spend around 7 million on a baseball stadium(especially if you can get a little help from the city of Nac to bring the SFA side cost down).



From an opportunity cost perspective, though, we have to compare it against what we could do for a different sport, likely Men's tennis or soccer. Obviously, men's tennis is not going to sell many room nights and zero tickets. You've got 4.5 scholarships & a roster of 8ish. So 3.5 times 15k, for around 45k a year(not sure how much tennis coaches cost or travel, but we probably lose money after tuition).

For men's soccer, average roster size of 25, 10 scholarships. 15 athletes at 15k apiece, 225k rev, 75k after other scholarship expenses, so slightly less than breakeven, but no large upfront cost like a baseball stadium. Some room nights, but only 8 home games so not a ton.

TLDR: I'd still go soccer, bc it's close enough to breakeven, but can grow as the sport grows. Baseball could make sense if you can make a Southland competitive stadium for 7 mil or less(including Nac's financial benefits).


Slight Update; the 7 mil PV figure counts the Nacogdoches Sales/Hotel tax benefit for both baseball & softball programs, so you'd need to build a baseball/softball field for less than 7 mil for the numbers to work for a net gain for SFA/Nac as a whole.

---

. Three arguments FOR tennis. 1) Men's soccer is a fall sport. Competes against football for eyes. 2). We've had historical success in men's tennis 3) We could renovate or add on to our existing tennis facilities, easily for far less than what we need to do for soccer.

if they build the new stadium on campus, which I believe will happen, then they will start to pick up better talent across the board. Coach V has won at high rate over his career and can do it with big bombs away ball and small ball. He will get the most of the players.

With more and more games showing up on ESPN and other channels it can be a way to get more exposure to the school. Their is a TON of baseball talent between East Texas, Dallas Fort Worth area and Houston to dominate the conference and then see what the future holds. Baseball is changing dramatically with these new scholarship rules going into place.