The Kansas City Star reported record revenues for both KU and KSU for Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2013.

KU's report shows operating revenue at $93,114,168 and operating expenses at $79,720,036 for operating profit at $13,394,132.

KSU's report shows operating revenue at $70,457,283 and operating expenses at $59,325,573 for operating profit at $11,131,710.

The KU article link at the bottom of this post points out that KU ranked 19th in the country in revenue in FY 2013! It also points out that the Big 12 in 2007 paid KU $8.4 million in television money and this has skyrocketed (to use their term) to $20.8. It was a big jump from the year before when it was $14.1 million. The five year comparison chart in today's newspaper printed article (FY 13, 12, 11, 10 and 2009) of these numbers indicates that KSU's TV revenue has grown form $11 million in 2009 to $21 million in 2013. I am not sure you can find the five year chart online but it is worth a look if you can find it.

I read these two articles and looked at the charts and I can't help but wonder why these Kansas D-1 universities should not be adding wrestling programs at this time. After reading the two articles I researched to see the latest Kansas high school sports participation numbers from the National Federations of State High School (NFHS)for 2012/2013. Wrestling ranked 5th in high school boys participation at 5,156 participants, 8.24% of the total boys participation from all Kansas sports of 62,547.

The ranking were:

1-Football- 16,189 25.88%
2-Track & Field- 9,945 15.90%
3-Basketball- 9,059 14.48%
4-Baseball- 6,143 9.82%
5-Wrestling- 5,156 8.24%
6-Soccer- 4,212 6.73%
7-Cross Country- 3,813 6.10%
8-Golf- 3,097 4.95%
9-Tennis- 2,379 3.80%
10-Swimming & Diving- 1,619 2.59%
11-Bowling- 935 1.49%

This may be the time for us as individuals and as Kansas wrestling organizations to contact our representatives and the KU & KSU Board of Regents to advocate for D-1 wrestling programs at both KU and KSU. I think that both schools could afford to have both men's wrestling and soccer programs along with any additional women programs needed to satisfy Title IX requirements.


[Here is a link to the article on the KU report:

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/03/28/4923010/ku-reports-record-93-million-in.html

Here is a link to the artilce on the KSU report:

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/03/28/4922892/k-state-shows-athletic-surplus.html

IMO, all efforts need to be directed toward Wichita State for our D1 wrestling opportunity!

Eric, I am all for the idea of Wichita State University having a men's wrestling program. It fits a lot of the criteria that Will listed on the same subject in the Kids forum topic.

My only question about Wichita State is whether they could make it work financially their last fiscal year end report basically shows them at break even with no profit. $22,676,172 in both revenue and expenses.

I really do hope WSU can someday make it work. That said though I still think KU and KSU should be able to field wrestling teams too. They are now making over $10 million a year in operating profit with the new Big 12 TV revenue sharing. Really why can they not make it work if Iowa State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Missouri can somehow make it work? Does that really seem right?

I hope that some of the DII schools would take up the wrestling banner. In my view there is absolutely no chance of KU or KSU ever even bringing wrestling to a vote. I couldn't interest them in any way putting John Mehringer into their athletic hall of fame and he was an Olympic Champion. When they dumped wrestling they left no doubt about their intentions and when the Kansas Beef Association dumped 200 thousand dollars in donated beef because of it, KSU still didn't flinch. KU is even more of a lost cause. They are going to pay homage to the sports of football at KSU and basketball at KU and that is never going to change. I think there is hope at the DII level though and I could see a point being made for that with some of their people. I don't think KU or KSU would even entertain the thought of it. No sense throwing money at that endeavor. I might be wrong but I pretty clearly remember how it all went down and they left no room for hope in the future. It may not seem right, but those schools are dominated by basketball people and they aren't going to muddy the water with anything else.

The board of regents will leave the decision to add or subtract programs from Kansas schools to the President and members of administration for that University.

Due to Title IX men's sports have been reduced to basically football, basketball (both revenue generators) and baseball. Someone needs to perform an extensive study of the correlation of the decline of men's competitiveness in non-revenue, Olympic Sports since the enforcement of equalization of men's and women's scholarships.

There is a "secret" formula for an opportunity at adding wrestling to a D1 school's men's athletic offering.

1. NO football program (86 scholarships)
2. Excess dorm space
3. No existing Title IX compliance issues.
4. A documented need to augment existing enrollment numbers.
5. Proximity to other D1 programs to compete against.

There are 275,000 high school wrestlers in the U.S. Only 76 D1 wrestling programs are in place today. That is that is approximately 753 scholarships and 2,280 roster spots.

In Kansas we have no D1 opportunity yet Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri all have one school and Iowa has three. Sad to say we are surrounded by opportunities yet offer none. This leaves our wrestlers with just ONE school that offers and in state tuition for Kansas wrestlers.

What can we do? KU and KSU are NOT the answer...

Coach, I agree with you that there is no reason to believe that the athletic departments or administrattion from either KU or KSU would decide on its own to add men's wrestling. I believe most D-1 college sports departments if able would concentrate all their time and resources just to men's football and basketball. The only way I see it possibly happening is if they were forced to field a team either thru state legislation, by the NCAA or by conference. For example, I believe the NCAA requires a minimum amount of men's teams for a Division I school or possibly it is to field a D-1 football team. KU and KSU will not add a wrestling team on a voluntary basis.

I also agree with you that there is no reason to throw money at trying to convince these schools to add a wrestling program. I think in this area we need to focus our efforts on making our legislators aware of why we believe there should be wrestling programs at our Division 1 state universities.

If the universities of Northern Iowa, Iowa, Iowa State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State can have wrestling teams then KU and KSU could too even in the face of the challenges of Title IX. Also the youth and wrestling community of Kansas deserve a D-1 wrestling programs at KU, KSU and WSU just as much as the youth and wrestling communities in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Nobody should ever have to wrestle for KSU. As far as the wrestling community is concerned their name should never be uttered. Shame on KSU and their poor treatment of wrestlers.

Could you explain why you feel this way? I am not sure what you mean.

The year before KSU dropped their program, they had a wrestler qualify for the NCAA's. The wrestler was not provided transportation or a Coach for the tournament. The wrestler hitch-hiked his way to the tournament. The media caught wind of what was going on and interviewed the wrestler.

Once the wrestler returned to KSU he was called in and scolded for making KSU look bad. They were the ones that were wrong and made a wrestler feel like it was his fault.

This wrestler was Legendary High School wrestling coach, Wayne Jackson.

I have no idea why any wrestling fan would ever want wrestling to return to KSU or why they would support KSU in general.

Thank you for your reply. I understand why you would be upset about that. What you are describing would definitely have been very poor behavior on the KSU athletic officials responsible and in charge at that time. But that had to be almost forty years ago because I believe they dropped the program around 1975. If this happened that long ago, I think most of us would be willing to look past this and be very happy if KSU ever offered a D-1 wrestling program again. It would just be a tremendous opportunity for our future young Kansas wrestlers. I know I really hope they will one day have a D-1 program at KSU again.

You are right, it happened 40 years ago. Why has it taken this long for them to apologize to Coach Jackson. An organization that can not admit when they have done wrong and make it right, does not deserve a wrestling program. What is to keep them from doing it again?

KU and WSU have my full support. KSU athletics are average at best, there is a reason for this. We don't want an average wrestling team do we? They may give up when the going gets tough. They have already done it before and left their wrestlers to fend for themselves.

Blame the person. The old 'sin's of father' comment.

Also, how can anyone support KU...what did they do to their last football coach. I can't support them, and I did not even like that coach. But, it was wrong..