Women’s wrestling

[Travis25]

You have this all wrong. Frankly the interest in women's wrestling as already brought money to the men's program. This would be a complementary program. I know this from experience!

Great. We bring in a marginally higher revenue with no cost. The second you add it as a program, we incur huge costs that will have to come from the budget of other programs.

I am fine with adding the program if it can be offset by bouncing one of our other non-revenue sports. However, it is silly to think that our men's team needs a women's team to stay competitive. The world does not work that way. Do you really think Kansas, Kentucky, or Duke basketball would lose any footing if they lost their women's teams? Can you even tell me anything about their women's teams? Our men's program will live or die by the quality of coaching and level of financial support. The presence or non-presence of a women's program will have no significant effect.

A women's wrestling team would draw support from local wrestling nuts and Stillwater retirees with nothing else to do. While those two groups are well represented on this board, they are not big or rich enough to support a program at the level where it would need to be supported to be a net gain for the athletic department.

I would be all for bouncing women's tennis in favor of women's wrestling. Looking at the tennis roster, there is only one kid from Oklahoma and three from the U.S. I would rather have those spots go to Oklahomans, which should be better represented on a wrestling team.

 

[TheJimReaper]

Great. We bring in a marginally higher revenue with no cost. The second you add it as a program, we incur huge costs that will have to come from the budget of other programs.

I am fine with adding the program if it can be offset by bouncing one of our other non-revenue sports. However, it is silly to think that our men's team needs a women's team to stay competitive. The world does not work that way. Do you really think Kansas, Kentucky, or Duke basketball would lose any footing if they lost their women's teams? Can you even tell me anything about their women's teams? Our men's program will live or die by the quality of coaching and level of financial support. The presence or non-presence of a women's program will have no significant effect.

A women's wrestling team would draw support from local wrestling nuts and Stillwater retirees with nothing else to do. While those two groups are well represented on this board, they are not big or rich enough to support a program at the level where it would need to be supported to be a net gain for the athletic department.

I would be all for bouncing women's tennis in favor of women's wrestling. Looking at the tennis roster, there is only one kid from Oklahoma and three from the U.S. I would rather have those spots go to Oklahomans, which should be better represented on a wrestling team.

I doubt we’ll would have to bounce a program to add womens wrestling. I do wonder tho are we going to have to add another men’s program?

 

[Travis25]

I doubt we’ll would have to bounce a program to add womens wrestling.

Well of course we could find the money, but it has to come from somewhere. You guys talk about our athletic budget like it can just print an endless supply of money. News flash, our football program is in a financial fight for its life to stay relevant and continue subsidizing the current non-revenue sports.

 

[liljordan082006]

It needs to happen soon, the elite level female wrestlers are already committing to Iowa and Penn State due to they have a program already. Which in my opinion will continue to push us further back from those two. Wrestling is different than most sports in the sense of the wrestling community really sticks together.

 

[Okie_Pat]

Adding a women's wrestling program might not bring in a ton of revenue but its not going to hurt the men's program by adding it and I don't think it would be extremely costly to add. It might not move the men's program forward by a huge margin but at the very least it will bring in a larger audience increasing ticket sales. Iowa just added a women's program, so think about for the Iowa dual if they had the women's programs wrestling a dual before the men's. That will bring in a larger audience. This is more about keeping up with the times and being adaptable to the changes in the sport. Instead of watching from the sidelines we need to be ahead of the curve. At first when I heard of this I brushed it off, but thinking about it more this is something that needs to happen. Its a positive reflection on the program by saying that we are actively trying to move our program and the sport forward.

 

[liljordan082006]

Adding a women's wrestling program might not bring in a ton of revenue but its not going to hurt the men's program by adding it and I don't think it would be extremely costly to add. It might not move the men's program forward by a huge margin but at the very least it will bring in a larger audience increasing ticket sales. Iowa just added a women's program, so think about for the Iowa dual if they had the women's programs wrestling a dual before the men's. That will bring in a larger audience. This is more about keeping up with the times and being adaptable to the changes in the sport. Instead of watching from the sidelines we need to be ahead of the curve. At first when I heard of this I brushed it off, but thinking about it more this is something that needs to happen. Its a positive reflection on the program by saying that we are actively trying to move our program and the sport forward.

It will add eyeballs which in return is revenue. You are right it won't be much, but with how fast womens wrestling is blowing up and expanding you want to be up front when it happens. It will also help if we ever get a RTC having elite level woman wrestling here as well.

 

[alex1fly]

To stay relevant as a top destination for a certain sport you have to adopt certain practices. Seems like that's what this is about. The Athletic Department at OSU knows more than any of us about the financials behind it all. I really don't understand the point of arguing against women's wrestling unless it's just fun to pretend like one is in an AD meeting.