Bulls Not Getting Big Budget Boost

[ChiTownBull]

http://sports.tbo.com/sports/MGB2I0NJT8E.html

A Tribune staff, wire report

Published: May 17, 2005

TAMPA - When South Florida joins the Big East Conference this upcoming school year, the Bulls' athletic department operating budget is scheduled to increase by only 2.6 percent.

Since USF accepted an invitation in November 2003 to join the Big East, school officials have continually said the athletic department would need an increased budget to be competitive. However, USF's preliminary budget of $19.2 million for 2005-06, to be presented to the school's Board of Trustees for approval Thursday, is only $495,000 more than last year.

USF Trustees also will vote whether to ask the state for permission to sell $53 million in bonds for 2006-07 - $29 for renovations to the Sun Dome, including a new practice facility, and $24 million for expansion of playing and practice areas, including new soccer, tennis, baseball and softball stadiums.

ir,4p8,9l Since the bonds are not for another school year, the only Sun Dome renovations planned to be completed in time for USF's initial season in the Big East are new scoreboards and a new playing floor, Athletic Director Doug Woolard said.

Other renovations to the Sun Dome, such as replacing the molded plastic seats and adding luxury boxes, wouldn't occur until 2006-07 at the earliest.

USF's proposed budget remains at least $12 million less than the average budgets of the seven other Big East football members using figures from three years ago, the latest data available from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

With possible tuition and state salary increases, USF's $19.2 million budget may increase before it is finalized later this summer, said Rick Costello, an associate AD and CFO for the athletics department. USF President Judy Genshaft also can make adjustments.

``As Doug has said, we want to be the best athletic program in the Big East, but we're not putting the cart before the horse,'' Costello said. ``We're taking this one day at a time. [uSF Foundation fundraisers] Vicki [Mitchell] and Lee Roy [selmon] are knocking on a lot of doors.''

Costello said increased ticket revenue in the Big East also could help increase the department's budget.

Brett McMurphy

[bullzpen4636]

the title's a bit misleading, getting the 50 million in upgrades is more important than how much our athletic budget went up. to my knowledge, we haven't gotten any big east revenue yet, so why is he whining about our athletic budget increase?

[Guest 19usf96]

the title's a bit misleading, getting the 50 million in upgrades is more important than how much our athletic budget went up. to my knowledge, we haven't gotten any big east revenue yet, so why is he whining about our athletic budget increase?

Those upgrades don't come if the bond issue is not passed and if it is passed they still won't come for another year or so.  

The operating budget with the 2.6% increase will be at 19.2 million and with the possible adjustments and raises that might come up before summer, as the article mentions, USF's athletic budget, IMO, will be lucky to hit 22 or 23 mil (no real math here - just guessing).  Still well underfunded as compared to other BE schools.  

The real question that needs to be asked is, how much of that budget is going to football?  Football is driving the bus and if they are severly underfunded, as compared to other programs, then we will really be in trouble.  However, if the football team is operating within a reasonable window (in dollars not percentage) of the funds allocated towards its sport, as compared to the other BE members, then the outlook is not so bleak.  Once that is discovered then the next question is basketball, men's and women's.........etc.

[Apis Bull]

I don't mind them increasing the budget slowly and carefully.  We'll get there, I'm sure of it.

[Cubanbull]

Since we havent gotten any money from being in the BE yet, it seems prudent to keep our budget to what we can afford, until we see extra bucks comming in. We should be seeing increase revenues once season starts in both football and basketball. Next year our operating budget should increase by more IF our revenues have increased. The bonds are VERY important because we need those facilities upgrade.

[CyberBull]

When deciding on a headline for this story the Tribune could have gone two ways:

1. "USF Seeks Permission for $55-million in athletic facilities improvements"

or

2. "Let's make the headline sound as negative as possible"

Sometimes you can't win.

If the athletic department would have increased the budget $10-million this upcoming year to $30-million then the local rag would be writing this headline, "USF being seeks irresponsible budget increase for Sports"

I just laugh at the UCFers who think that the Tampa Tribune is a USF propaganda machine.

IMO, exercising caution during our first year in the Big East is important. Good portions of the budget are coaching salaries. It would be irresponsible for Woolard to give all his coaches an instant bump w/o seeing how they are going to perform in a big conference setting. We all love our coaches, but unfortunately not all of them are going to be up to the challenge. Beyond this first season, once we have a better idea what our revenues are going to be we need to start making good decisions about how we should spend our money. Remember when Woolard was hired he said that spending money for the sakes of spending money is NOT the best way to build the department. . Don’t get bogged down on next year’s budget numbers b/c if the weather cooperates USF going to have a banner year attendance wise in football and basketball and that money is going to back into the department.

What is exciting for me is that Woolard's athletic village is going to be a reality within the next couple of years b/c eventually the proposed bond issue is going to be approved. Unlike some other places where the announce projects before having financing or real revenue models.

BTW…before some of you guys start-bashing Brett realize that he doesn’t write the headlines. Be glad that he is the one that broke the story I’m sure this is not the last that we are going to hear about the proposed bonds measure.

[Papa_Bull]

Although Brett doesn't write the headlines he evidently was surprised by the relatively small increase, since we have had much larger increases in the past. I think many of us were expecting about a 10% increase in order not to fall any further behind the Big East schools. After all, a Big East team with a $35,000,000 budget just needs to raise their budget a much smaller fraction to pull even further ahead.

In reality I don't know how important it is for us to have a 10% increase right now, but the perception will be that we don't plan on competing in the Big East for quite some time. It's probably more of a PR matter than anything else.

I agree that the upgrades to our facilities are of much more immediate importance than raising the budget dramatically just for show.

The other day I posted a link to 2003-2004 numbers for all the teams. Here it is again for those who want to see where we stand.

 http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college/orl-sptncaachart08050805may08,0,2938912.htmlstory?coll=tf-main-sports

 

[NAM37]

Small budget = small ad campaign = little non-alumni community support

[ChiTownBull]

Small budget = small ad campaign = little non-alumni community support

the way i see it is spend the $$$ to advertise now and if over the next 10 years we continue to develop this product will sell itself.

[Guest 19usf96]

In my previous post I mentioned how the real question is not the size of the total budget but how much is allocated to football.  That is more important because football is the money-maker and provides funds for all other sports.

According to Howie's link (thanks Howie ), USF (5.1 mil) has as much fball revenue as UConn(4.8 mil), RU(5.7 mil) and UC (4.7 mil).  Although, these four schools are farther behind than the other 4 we are right in the thick of things and can be competitive on the field.  If UConn did it so can we.  

This is where the budget needs to increase so that we are somewhere between UofL(9.7) and PITT(19.3 mil).  That is the part we should be more concerned about, the fball revenue part of the overall budget.  If we increrase the fball budget and we perform well, it will pay off for all psorts involved - which will lead to an overall increase in the budget as more money comes in and better products for all sports at the university.

Just my 2 cents.....fball revenue needs to increase because IMO, it drives all other sports at the university.