Athletic Budget Update #48

The University of Nevada has added a $5 surcharge to all of their season ticket packages and $1 surcharge to all individual game tickets in football and men's basketball to support the the band, which was going to be eliminated due to the budget. The surcharge is expected to bring in $50,000 in revenue.

Iowa has been able to complete a number of projects including construction of a new boathouse and installation of field turf in the football stadium in spite of the athletic program's budget challenges.  They also hope to begin a $47 million renovation to Carver-Hawkeye Arena in the near future. 

Coaches at California State Universities are trying to figure out how to take 24 mandatory furlough days in the coming year so that the competitiveness of their programs is not effected. 

Maryland has released a five year plan for its athletic program that suggests they would consider cutting sports if they faced severe economic circumstances.

Fresno State's previously gloomy budget situation has become somewhat brighter due to increased revenue from a deal with Learfield Sports and $228,000 more in revenue from the WAC and the NCAA.  

There is a series of proposals being debated in NCAA Division II that would make 10% reductions to the number of contests played, ban practice and competition between Christmas and New Years Day, and move preseason practice a week later than the current starting date for many sports. 

Washington State is considering moving another game to Qwest Field (this time against Oregon) in order to help generate additional revenue. 

Odds and Ends

Following up on the post "Should we be more concerned about the golden throne or the ivory tower?", the Seattle Times posted an article about the rising costs of higher education generally, with a telling  quote on why higher education costs so much.  "Our sole goal is to find cookies and stuff our mouths," says Ehrenberg, who directs the Higher Education Research Institute at Cornell University. "Colleges and universities like to grab as many resources as they can. We want to make ourselves as good as we can. We want the best facilities, students, resident halls and labs, so there's this tremendous drive to be better, and that costs money."


The Doonesbury of sports, Tank McNamara has been running a series of jokes related to the secret football coaches poll that has been criticized by UltimateSportsInsider.com.