The athletic department’s budget is stretched beyond its means, due in part to buyouts of prematurely dismissed revenue-sport coaches, of which [University of Minnesota coach Tim] Brewster is now the third in four years.
His original contract was set to expire after the 2011 season, but since Maturi gave him a two-year contract extension in January, the University is now on the hook for about $775,000 in Brewster buyout costs, according to the Star Tribune, which also reported the athletic department had to take out a loan from central administration to cover $5 million worth of buyouts associated with the early terminations of Brewster’s predecessor Glen Mason and former basketball coach Dan Monson.
Gearing up for a fourth winner.
Look at this article about MSU’s budget problems and its fierce defense of an unpopular, financially killing sports program. Read the comments top administrators there make about keeping football going. Textbook provincialism… or why Missouri State will always be Missouri State.
Board of Governors Chair Elizabeth Bradbury said athletics help to make the school a destination-place locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
“When you look at being that kind of a university, typically you are looking at schools that have good, strong athletic programs,” Bradbury said.
“Student-athletes are some of our best ambassadors,” Bradbury added.
MSU ain’t any sort of destination place.
A commenter on the article lists a bunch of schools that have dropped football, and notes that most of them are better schools than MSU. Another commenter makes the obvious point that athletes – especially football players – tend to be the worst ambassadors.
The vp for student affairs makes the pro-football case yet more astutely:
“If we didn’t have football, what would happen to our band program? If band isn’t as vibrant … those musicians also are involved in orchestra, ensembles and all that goes with that.”
A commenter responds:
Those football players are just a support group for the band! I will send this statement to the National Academy of Sciences to prove that football is very important to the academic pursuit of musicianship.
Then there’s the university’s president:
Asked if athletics teams could be on the chopping block in the future, Cofer said, “I don’t answer hypothetical questions.”
You can see why Cofer’s skittish about answering future-oriented questions. MSU’s last president was way bullish on the money the new basketball stadium would make.
The [recent state] audit … pointed out that JQH Arena operated at a loss in its first two years and, according to the current budget, is projected to operate at a loss for 2010-11, as well.
As a result, operating transfers from the athletic fund were needed to cover losses.
Cofer said he’s working on a plan for improving finances for JQH.
Yessiree Bob we’ve got that plan in the works fer sure.
… in swimming, has died in a World Cup race. He lost consciousness during the last leg of the open water event.
People are stunned, and it’s too soon for any official theories. But the water was very warm, and “several swimmers were treated for heat exhaustion at a nearby hospital after the event.” Maybe he had a heart attack.
Crippen’s sister is a senior at Virginia, and also a swimmer.
Montana State University’s president explains how they’re financing the thing.
… Asked what would happen if ticket sales weren’t enough to cover MSU’s debt, Cruzado said MSU was taking every precaution in its financial plan, but the details are still being worked out…
Asked what would happen if private fundraising fell short, she said, “Failure is not an option.”…
… beat Bethesda Chevy Chase High in football 42-28 yesterday. In dramatic style.
[A]t this time in 2008, the Wildcats had not won a game in four years.
“I don’t think it’s a great idea to be honest with you, because I have the one class tonight. I’m not a big football person. I’m here for the education,” student Jackie Fulco said.
A student at the University of Central Florida fails to get on board for the half-day-because-of-football thing.
… the Sports Sites I Like on Wendy Parker’s sports blog, Wendy’s Parker’s Extracurriculars.
University Diaries! A sports site!!
… for fearless entrepreneurial zeal.
… In IRS documents filed to maintain its tax-exempt status, the KU athletics department reported financial liabilities for 2008-09 of $93.67 million, an increase of about 57 percent from a year earlier. The report also showed long-term debt of about $46.56 million for 2008-09. That figure is more than triple the $15.06 million debt listed the previous year.
… There also are indications that even if the nation’s economy takes a turn for the better, donor dollars [which KU expects to pay the debt] may be harder to come by…
A money strategy as American as apple pie.
The Boston Globe reports on the overwhelmingly positive results of Northeastern, Boston U., and Hofstra having dropped football.
Quite a few other universities continue to “spend between $3 million and $5 million annually on the sport for equipment, scholarships, travel, coaches’ salaries, and facilities, and their teams generate little interest on campus or success on the field.” Some of these universities will certainly drop it…
It won’t happen in the south, of course, where football is a religion.
But imagine… Imagine how strange it would be if significant numbers of schools did can football. You’d have a diminishing group of big boys – Texas, Florida, that lot – begging someone to play with them…
Of course, these schools could just keep playing against each other, but fans would get bored and demand more variety. Hm…
UD predicts that eventually Alabama will pressure Nick Saban to give back 2.5 of his 4.8 million dollar yearly salary so that Alabama can create a football program at another university. Other southern universities with four million dollar coaches will do the same. In order to have someone to play against, these places will begin funding and running football programs at northern universities. Four or so times a year, an organized group of fraternities and alumni from these schools will come up here and deliver PowerPoints on how to do really sloppy drunken tailgates that the whole family can enjoy, etc.
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Update: Details on the Southern Model here.
“I’ve never been to Michigan-Ohio State, but I can’t imagine it being near the experience that the entire weekend is of [University of Oklahoma]-Texas,” OU senior Matt Patten said. “The stuff that goes on down there is just ridiculous. I mean you have an enormous amount of alcohol all over the place down by the hotels where we all stay. Fights are breaking out all around you between OU fans and Texas fans…”
What bothers me more is that a coach who is responsible for a non-academic activity and for a team that is smaller than most classes at IUPUI would earn more money than most faculty members, and that she would have a contract that allows her to earn three years of pay after the university determines that her services are no longer wanted.
A professor at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis notes the strangeness of a fired basketball coach getting $300,000 in severance (the local newspaper has had to file a complaint with the state for release of records, since IUPUI sees no reason to explain to the world why it has done this). The professor wonders why athletics “loom larger than the central mission of the campus.”
The answer to this is clear: Athletics is the central mission of the campus.