Some close to the high school sports scene have stated that the real reason the non-TPS schools are walking away from the Toledo City League is this is the excuse they’ve been waiting for to depart. That some of the schools felt they did not make enough revenue:
The outgoing schools have long gotten the short end of the CL’s practice of sharing football and basketball gate revenues with the TPS members, who consistently drew much smaller crowds at their home games.
[Clay athletic director Mike] Donnelly said that during the 2007-08 school year, Clay generated $50,000 in gate revenue and kept only $30,000 of that amount when the total CL kitty was divided.
Some believe the new Three Rivers Athletic Conference will be one of the top conferences in the state since TPS is not included and the rankings will be higher. A highly recommended discussion on this took place on a message board forum called, NCAbbsLINK.
It’s now being reported that TPS is creating an ad hoc panel to try to figure out a way to salvage what’s left of the Toledo City League, I’m not sure what advice is going to be garnered from “area sports figures and others with expertise” Blade August 24 beyond being told that TPS should not have axed freshman football and basketball. Any student who wanted to play freshman year (or for any of the sports TPS eliminated) will have to transfer to a private school or move out of the area. The chances of them then coming back to be able to play varsity for their original TPS school is slim…
As the earlier Blade article from July pointed out:
It would take 153 total departures from the six high schools and six middle schools to nullify the $884,000 in savings.
If that number seems high, consider that it roughly translates to just two boys and two girls in each grade (7 through 12) at those six high schools and their six feeder middle schools. Four students times six grade levels times six high school/middle school pairings equals 144, which translates to about $835,000. At 153 student transfers, the district would lose $887,400 in state funding.
It’s pretty much a given with the elimination of some sports programs, the elimination of freshman football and basketball and the transportation issues, TPS will lose at least 153 students if not more. I know there are some of you believed TPS should have cut their whole sports program, that transportation was more important than high school sports. Yet the reality is if the sports program was completely cut, TPS would lose even more students to private schools or schools outside the area with sports program.
Like it or not, while we aren’t Texas? Friday Night Lights are considered crucial by many…
