To the common sports fan looking at the craze of March Madness and the insanity of Division I football, it would seem there is more than enough money floating around college athletics to ensure departments should have no problem paying for budget line items. However, the more informed individual is aware schools constantly have difficulty funding the sports that help make college a special experience for both athlete and fan alike. This issue came to the forefront yet again this past week, with two universities making news not for their accomplishments in the classrooms or specific playing fields, but in the accounting and athletic department offices, where disparate funding techniques were on display.
As previously written about here in an article regarding the declining state of college wrestling, despite the sport’s historic achievements of late, it appeared another NCAA wrestling team would be defunded with the shuttering of the Cleveland State program. However, due to the outcry of local wrestling fans and programs such as the Wrestlers in Business Network, Cleveland State announced the team would continue to be funded thanks to an increase of $1 per credit hour in student fees, or about $15 per semester. The decision, which was voted upon by the student body population which the increase will affect, will allow for wrestling to continue despite the introduction of lacrosse on campus, as well as an unnamed women’s sport. What appeared to be a disappointing situation for a campus in America’s hotbed of wrestling enthusiasm was instead averted through listening to the pulse of a community, both on campus and around it.
While some might see the decision to increase the cost of college by even a dollar in the name of athletics to be a misappropriation, Georgia Tech took a distinctly different tack in increasing the revenue of its athletic department. Hosting rock ‘n’ roll legends the Rolling Stones for an on-campus concert at the school’s Bobby Dodd Stadium certainly qualifies as a headline-grabbing approach to fundraising, an issue that requires greater and greater creativity as costs rise and recruiting becomes more competitive. Georgia Tech AD Mike Bobinski hopes that the concert will add around $250,000 to the Tech athletic department coffers, although if history sets precedent this tactic doesn’t look like it will become a normal routine; the last concert at Bobby Dodd Stadium was nearly twenty years ago.
With the costs of scholarships and other associated encumbrances rising all the time, athletic departments must find creative ways to satisfy their communities both on campus and off. While some schools discover the student body population is willing to pay a little more to keep a sport alive, others are thinking on a much larger scale, bringing in international superstars to boost revenues. What Georgia Tech, Cleveland State, and most universities have in common, however, is the need for its administrative teams to continually think outside the box to address an issue that looks to only be more demanding in the future.
Feature image via M. Stone/Boston Herald
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