MEGA Frenk Out - Who Next?

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BUT HE FEEEEEEEELS LIKE WE COULD SUEEEE

The ACC Grant of Rights was "ironclad" until it wasn't. Now they're being sued over it.

The University of Miami has a $5 billion annual budget. The point is, if you have money to pay smart lawyers, you can sue somebody. Welcome to America.
 
Sitting right alongside football doing nothing when Julio came in to the schoolyard he inherited the number 48 ranking in U.S. News & World Report as he leaves Miami is 67
 
Even if that were true, I would have forgiven her if she would have fought. At least go down swinging.

I get why people defend Donna Shalala. She is a nice lady. It's like being mad at your grandma. Everybody loves grandma. The best light I can paint her in is to say maybe she was just the wrong leader for Miami at the wrong time. We needed someone who could take this to the mat, and we didn't have it.

But, for the record, I don't agree that we lose that fight to the Marlins if we take it up. Whether it's the Herald or some other way, the fight is ultimately won in the court of public opinion. And I just happen to believe that the local hometown university, who at that time were national championship contenders every year, is a far more sympathetic and likeable actor than the billionare New Yorker Jeffrey Loria and a bunch of crooked politicians.

"Save our stadium from the politicians and the outsiders who want to rip it down." That should be the easiest fight ever. But we didn't even throw a punch. I think we could easily have made it a political fight that was winnable.

Well that.... and you sue. We should have **** well sued.

I hear ya. The time between “referendum approval” and “lease cancelled” was sooo short though. Other cities have fought “new stadium redevelopment” battles over far longer periods.

Again, we had very little legal standing. It’s not like we were suing a PRIVATE landlord. We would have sued the city. We would have tried to fight the law and everyone knows the law wins.

One additional nugget. The city violated state and county law on the contractual arrangements on all the parking garages. Not to bore anyone to death, but a TRUE government property used for public purposes is not subject to property tax.

But the City of Miami blatantly broke the law by turning over the parking garages (and revenue) solely to the Marlins for at least 81 days each year (more if concerts are scheduled). So the first time Dade County tried to (correctly) assess property tax on the City, the city politicians exploded and threatened the Dade property assessor. He eventually backed down on the face of threats to ruin him professionally and personally.

And, yes, this actually happened. I’m not making any of this up. My former employer leases government owned land for two well-known auto racetracks in Florida. I know way more about this **** than I wish I knew.
 
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Two sides to everything. As a responsible journalist, I feel it’s important not to just given one side of the story. This is not defending her or saying I like her, just giving the complete picture.

A big reason we are even in the game right now for the B1G is due to her emphasis on academics and building up the biomedical program.

Some might say that even though Clemson has been extremely successful in the last 15 years while we’ve been pretty much garbage that entire time , the B1G is far more interested in UM than Clemson because we are AAU accredited and they aren’t even remotely close to it.

UM was climbing into the Top 25 of schools when she left. We went from Suntan U to being #38.

The Shapiro thing is silly. She took a big check from a donor. She didnt know he was a grifter. You think Harvard has given back the $10 million that Jeffrey Epstein donated?

The players wanted Coker. If you want to say she should have ignored the players , that’s fair. Shalala wanted Barry Alvarez as either coach or AD. I think we would have had a different trajectory if that had happened.

As for the Orange Bowl, I have heard so many people blamed for it , I don’t know what’s true.
your objectivity is much appreciated.
 
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In 2012 it was 36..... That was the year my daughter entered as a freshman
For anyone who is curious about how U.S. News & World Report change their rankings that impacted private universities in a lot of ways and some more here is a fairly accurate summary from AI lane.
Yes, it is true that U.S. News & World Report has made changes to its ranking methodology over the years, and some of these changes have affected private universities differently than public universities.

One significant change occurred in the 2019 rankings (released in September 2018). U.S. News made adjustments to the way it calculated the "student outcomes" portion of the rankings, which accounts for 35% of the overall score. The key changes included:

1. Increasing the weight of graduation and retention rates.
2. Decreasing the weight of expert opinion (peer assessment surveys).
3. Incorporating social mobility factors, such as the graduation rates of Pell Grant recipients.

Private universities, particularly those with smaller enrollments and more selective admissions, often have higher graduation and retention rates compared to public universities. As a result, the increased emphasis on these factors in the rankings methodology tended to benefit private institutions.

However, the introduction of the social mobility factor aimed to recognize universities that successfully graduate students from lower-income backgrounds. This change was seen as an attempt to balance the rankings and acknowledge the role of public universities in providing access to higher education for a broader range of students.

Another notable change occurred in the 2021 rankings (released in September 2020) when U.S. News eliminated the "acceptance rate" factor from the methodology. This decision was made to reduce the incentive for universities to artificially inflate their selectivity by encouraging more applications. The removal of this factor had the potential to impact private universities that traditionally had lower acceptance rates.

It is important to note that while these changes in methodology have had some impact on the rankings of private and public universities, the overall effect varies depending on the individual institution and the interplay of various factors. The rankings continue to evolve as U.S. News & World Report refines its approach to evaluating and comparing universities.
 
I am still a go with Joe. Sorry for being late, I was at a tax conference at the Fontainebleau. Took a Lyft to Caja Caliente and then swung by Vicky Bakery to get pestelitos for some co-workers.

On the drive to MIA, my phone started blowing up. I’ve been waiting in line at the Centurion Lounge and they just came out to tell us it’s a 90 minute wait. WTF?!

I think a lot of flights are getting cancelled.
A TAX conference! Sounds exhilarating.
 
I hear ya. The time between “referendum approval” and “lease cancelled” was sooo short though. Other cities have fought “new stadium redevelopment” battles over far longer periods.

Again, we had very little legal standing. It’s not like we were suing a PRIVATE landlord. We would have sued the city. We would have tried to fight the law and everyone knows the law wins.

One additional nugget. The city violated state and county law on the contractual arrangements on all the parking garages. Not to bore anyone to death, but a TRUE government property used for public purposes is not subject to property tax.

But the City of Miami blatantly broke the law by turning over the parking garages (and revenue) solely to the Marlins for at least 81 days each year (more if concerts are scheduled). So the first time Dade County tried to (correctly) assess property tax on the City, the city politicians exploded and threatened the Dade property assessor. He eventually backed down on the face of threats to ruin him professionally and personally.

And, yes, this actually happened. I’m not making any of this up. My former employer leases government owned land for two well-known auto racetracks in Florida. I know way more about this **** than I wish I knew.

I would have preferred to let a court decide if we had legal standing or not. If we lose we lose. At least we tried something.

I'm a banker, not a lawyer. So I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you what the outcome of us suing Loria and the city etc would have been. I'm not qualified. But I will give you the business perspective, and that is, sometimes you don't have to win a lawsuit for that lawsuit to be worth it.

You're just letting Loria and the city know that you're willing to drag them deep in to the mud scratching and clawing. You make them decide if it's worth it reputationally for their baseball team, which relies on local fan support, to be painted as the bad guy for all their underhanded shenanigans.

You use the likeable grandmother persona Donna has to your advantage, and you paint a picture in the public's mind of the nasty billionaire New Yorker evicting the sweet little old lady who is running the local college.

Or you do something else. I think I've made my view clear though, I would have been for playing hardball and you tell Loria you may get the Orange Bowl but it's going to cost you. And you're going to pry it from my cold, dead hands. Maybe you'd rather build your baseball stadium next door instead.
 
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