Budget Deficit

[goeagles17]

Not so great article about a budget deficit in the SR today: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/jan/13/eastern-washington-tries-to-address-58-million-ath/#/0
Seems doom and gloom at the start but it does provide some insight to the guidance they got from that firm and some actions items appear to be going into place.

 

[MLEagle]

Agreed that there is some hope in the article that there are at least plans for progress, but one thing that was very concerning to me was the suggestion that Eastern might only have 4 home games so they can have an extra body bag game for revenue. That would be a huge slap in the face to the program and fans.

 

[LDopaPDX]

Y'know what might help drive some revenue? Adding 6,000 seats to Roos Field.

I wonder if our admin sees what Montana is doing and recognizes the lost opportunity? They roll in $$$ every weekend. And they aren't even all that good at football.

As for basketball playing more road games, is that serious? They only played one D1 non-conference game and that was in the middle of Winter break. Two years ago, Chaves didn't schedule a single d1 non-conference home game. Not one. Where are these additional road games going to come from?

 

[scottywashere11]

Y'know what might help drive some revenue? Adding 6,000 seats to Roos Field.

For real... what are we at? 25, 26 straight sold out games? That means we have just been p!ssing money away with the lost opportunity to collect ticket revenue

 

[luckyintheorder]

Cullinan only knows how to dismantle organizations, that is her history. Not a visionary, not insightful, not motivational. One of her favorite words is "retrenchment". Wait for it....

 

[air045]

I have a solution. Improve the stadium and go D1A and join Mountain west.

 

[clawman1]

Y'know what might help drive some revenue? Adding 6,000 seats to Roos Field.

I wonder if our admin sees what Montana is doing and recognizes the lost opportunity? They roll in $$$ every weekend. And they aren't even all that good at football.

As for basketball playing more road games, is that serious? They only played one D1 non-conference game and that was in the middle of Winter break. Two years ago, Chaves didn't schedule a single d1 non-conference home game. Not one. Where are these additional road games going to come from?

Could it be that much of the scheduling in BB and FB was driven by the budget rather than common sense?

 

[marceagfan5]

This is ridiculous, it can’t get much worse…

1) 2011 Was our biggest mistake, we didn’t capitalize on anything, we only played four home football games that year, did nothing to improve the stadium, it was piss poor capitalization that year coming off a magical 2010.

2) If we don’t schedule home nonconference game this year in football, we are going to lose a lot of fans and support. The schools that regularly do this are Portland State and Idaho state, and their fan support is terrible…

3) The only thing I read in this article, or at least assume, is now our ticket prices will go way up, the amount of games we can attend will go way down. Both our football and basketball schedules this year were absolute jokes, and it appears that’s going to be par for the course moving forward…

 

[Obzerver]

 

[clawman1]

How does our athletic budget compare with other BSC schools? UND will be completely back to Summit League, Missouri Valley Football Conference, what is their budget?
Maybe we are just under budgeted?
Cut salaries of tenured professors by 10% and give it to athletics :clap:

 

[bigskybears]

How does our athletic budget compare with other BSC schools? UND will be completely back to Summit League, Missouri Valley Football Conference, what is their budget?
Maybe we are just under budgeted?
Cut salaries of tenured professors by 10% and give it to athletics :clap:

Towards the bottom of the conference, just below UNC.
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

 

[clawman1]

How does our athletic budget compare with other BSC schools? UND will be completely back to Summit League, Missouri Valley Football Conference, what is their budget?
Maybe we are just under budgeted?
Cut salaries of tenured professors by 10% and give it to athletics :clap:

Towards the bottom of the conference, just below UNC.
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

Both North Dakota schools are in the 25 mil range while Eastern is 13 mil, slightly more than half, WOW. It is obvious who sees value in athletics!

 

[kalm]

How does our athletic budget compare with other BSC schools? UND will be completely back to Summit League, Missouri Valley Football Conference, what is their budget?
Maybe we are just under budgeted?
Cut salaries of tenured professors by 10% and give it to athletics :clap:

Towards the bottom of the conference, just below UNC.
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

Both North Dakota schools are in the 25 mil range while Eastern is 13 mil, slightly more than half, WOW. It is obvious who sees value in athletics!

This, but I have to believe it's considerably easier for them to get both private donations and money from the state. The Dakotas (similar to Montana, or Idaho, UNH) are land grant/research/flagship universities for the entire state offering advanced degrees in medicine, law, aerospace, etc. Eastern churns out teachers, social workers, and public administrators. Wealthy alumni are more prevalent for the Dakotas of the world.

But...

EWU made a commitment to DI athletics decades ago...to swim in this pool... and has underfunded athletics ever since. This is not a revenue or athletic department problem, this is an administration funding problem and a choice.

Until, unless the administration BoT, and the State recognize this, I'm afraid we're going to have to just continue being over-achievers despite our competitive disadvantages.

 

[EdubU10]

hno: hno: hno: That's how I feel about it all.

 

[LDopaPDX]

How does our athletic budget compare with other BSC schools? UND will be completely back to Summit League, Missouri Valley Football Conference, what is their budget?
Maybe we are just under budgeted?
Cut salaries of tenured professors by 10% and give it to athletics :clap:

Towards the bottom of the conference, just below UNC.
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

Both North Dakota schools are in the 25 mil range while Eastern is 13 mil, slightly more than half, WOW. It is obvious who sees value in athletics!

This, but I have to believe it's considerably easier for them to get both private donations and money from the state. The Dakotas (similar to Montana, or Idaho, UNH) are land grant/research/flagship universities for the entire state offering advanced degrees in medicine, law, aerospace, etc. Eastern churns out teachers, social workers, and public administrators. Wealthy alumni are more prevalent for the Dakotas of the world.

But...

EWU made a commitment to DI athletics decades ago...to swim in this pool... and has underfunded athletics ever since. This is not a revenue or athletic department problem, this is an administration funding problem and a choice.

Until, unless the administration BoT, and the State recognize this, I'm afraid we're going to have to just continue being over-achievers despite our competitive disadvantages.

While this is all true, there is no way anyone can say Eastern is fundraising to their potential. We've got ultra-rich alumni just like those schools do. We just don't get after donations with the same vigor. Keep in mind, we already had a donor on the hook for a stadium expansion with private money back during the Wulff years and totally f'd it all up over a contract dispute. Our pathetic endowment is proof that Eastern views it's fundraising potential on par with higher-end high schools or community colleges. If Cullinan can get that culture to change, she'll be moving in the right direction.

 

[goeags85]

I am worried about the deficit but also believe that if there is a idea of what this thing will look like and a plan and everyone working together that it can get there and do something nice for a stadium expansion.

 

[kalm]

How does our athletic budget compare with other BSC schools? UND will be completely back to Summit League, Missouri Valley Football Conference, what is their budget?
Maybe we are just under budgeted?
Cut salaries of tenured professors by 10% and give it to athletics :clap:

Towards the bottom of the conference, just below UNC.
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

Both North Dakota schools are in the 25 mil range while Eastern is 13 mil, slightly more than half, WOW. It is obvious who sees value in athletics!

This, but I have to believe it's considerably easier for them to get both private donations and money from the state. The Dakotas (similar to Montana, or Idaho, UNH) are land grant/research/flagship universities for the entire state offering advanced degrees in medicine, law, aerospace, etc. Eastern churns out teachers, social workers, and public administrators. Wealthy alumni are more prevalent for the Dakotas of the world.

But...

EWU made a commitment to DI athletics decades ago...to swim in this pool... and has underfunded athletics ever since. This is not a revenue or athletic department problem, this is an administration funding problem and a choice.

Until, unless the administration BoT, and the State recognize this, I'm afraid we're going to have to just continue being over-achievers despite our competitive disadvantages.

While this is all true, there is no way anyone can say Eastern is fundraising to their potential. We've got ultra-rich alumni just like those schools do. We just don't get after donations with the same vigor. Keep in mind, we already had a donor on the hook for a stadium expansion with private money back during the Wulff years and totally f'd it all up over a contract dispute. Our pathetic endowment is proof that Eastern views it's fundraising potential on par with higher-end high schools or community colleges. If Cullinan can get that culture to change, she'll be moving in the right direction.

I don't know if any athletic department is funding to their potential, but can you give us a breakdown of what Eastern has failed to do compared with other schools in our situation? Yes we have utlra-rich alumni. Do we have as many? Do you know for a fact we haven't reached out to them with the same vigor?

Our endowment is indeed pathetic. High-end high schools have full time directors of development and fundraising professionals on the payroll. We didn't even have a full time compliance officer until the late 2000's. Private high schools also charge a ton for tuition and probably rival directional universities when it comes to placement. So I guess you're kind of right.

Can we fundraise better? Sure. We have to. Here's the 2017-2019 Athletics Budget presentation posted on the EWU Sports 2018 Facebook page. I think it shows among other things, the number of self funded athletics programs in FCS is 0 :lol: ,that we're near the median in institutional funding of athletics, that we're well below the median in student funding of athletics, that we're below average in total subsidy/support, that we're below average in total budget and revenue, and that we're middle of the pack in the Big Sky when it comes to fundraising.

The confusing part is that we're close with Davis when it comes to fundraising but they're $20 million ahead of us in total revenue. I'm also not quite sure what the form 990 revenue represents.

https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/Athletics-UBC-Budget-Hearing-Presentation-April-11-2017.pdf?token=AWzL0xgobVOyaJFD3yncOC2wnaLmYR2KPeNY84HoPr7H8tfhb0_JYk2YME8CFcX5Af5xnHmrvE8wFeSGamNyziMcw9sVd9-x6tCrjrMtuD6vtb8GecJCciCsHgh4aYhuyrcH06mGXKTnKrdMKYt4v8vy


Again, state flagship/research/land grant universities like Montana and Idaho are always going to be able to fundraise better. We need to up our game in that area for sure, but the school administration, state, and BoT need to recognize that a school in our situation might need to open up the check book more often to support Div. I athletics.

 

[LDopaPDX]

Based on our endowment and revenues, it's hard to think we are fundraising well compared to our peers. Most other Big Sky schools seem to move on facilities projects rather quickly.

Interesting that you being up Davis, because they have by far the largest reservoir of cash in the conference. Their endowment is around $1b, while the conference average is closer to $100mm. Granted, they are a huge university. Idaho is smaller than Eastern now and has roughly 10x the endowment. Part of this can be chalked up to the fact that between the Frederickson and Arevalo regimes, Eastern was mostly a commuter school with no growth and no identity. It's only been the last decade or so that EWU has changed their focus to being a traditional school and pushed to expand their enrollment.

 

[93bird]

Fundraising is not a priority. I know this personally. Eastern prefers its image as a folksy, affordable school for students working to cure society's ills. It does not recognize alumni who lead industry or create wealth. Unfortunately, I have come to accept this.

 

[goeags85]

93bird. Sorry to hear that's your experience. I run with some money people that are alumni and they are asked often and give often. I am the pauper of the group. They get stroked pretty good. There probably needs to be more consistently.