UNI athletics running deficit despite millions in student $$

[bigdawg]

All Valley schools have to be concerned that this is the way things are heading. Increasing expenses but static or declining revenue isn't a good thing for any of us.

The Northern Iowa athletic department suffered a deficit of more than $765,000 in the 2015-16 academic year, according to a Thursday report from the USA TODAY network.

That loss comes after millions of dollars in assistance from student fees and direct school support.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/ ... 31e51bb48e

[Born2Shock]

All Valley schools have to be concerned that this is the way things are heading. Increasing expenses but static or declining revenue isn't a good thing for any of us.

The Northern Iowa athletic department suffered a deficit of more than $765,000 in the 2015-16 academic year, according to a Thursday report from the USA TODAY network.

That loss comes after millions of dollars in assistance from student fees and direct school support.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/ ... 31e51bb48e

This article is complete crap. The UNI fans told us that the reason they didnt have a full basketball schedule is because they didnt need one, not because they couldnt afford it.

Incidententally, I ran into a guy wearing a UNI tshirt today. He did not return my cordial wave, and scowled imstead. All UNI fans must be jerks.

[BEARZ77]

When you look at any of these reports on athletics budgets, the only real number that matters is % subsidy. The rest is all budget manipulations and differences in reporting for the most part. A school might report a slight profit in athletics while subsidizing athletics at 70% while another reports a loss but only subsidizes at 55% ; in this case the second school might be much more fiscally stable. If the amount of subsidy is set and not adjusted as the year progresses, you can see a profit or loss, but if a school adjusts the amount in line with actual expenses they often will show they met their budget, but the % of subsidy may have been different than anticipated. I don't see this as big a deal for UNI as it appears; they were $600,000 ahead the year before & this was the first reporting year for paying athletic stipends and my guess is they underestimated their expenses as a result and the % of subsidy budgeted didn't match.

This is the difference between the power conferences and our schools; very few of the power 5 conferences have to subsidize athletics and if so at very low percentages because of TV revenue, Bowl revenue, conference payments etc. If you subsidize athletics you are basically operating in the red no matter how you report your budget; it just comes down to the amount and % of the subsidy as to how your athletics department is actually doing.

[uniftw]

All Valley schools have to be concerned that this is the way things are heading. Increasing expenses but static or declining revenue isn't a good thing for any of us.

The Northern Iowa athletic department suffered a deficit of more than $765,000 in the 2015-16 academic year, according to a Thursday report from the USA TODAY network.

That loss comes after millions of dollars in assistance from student fees and direct school support.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/ ... 31e51bb48e

UNI gets less from it's students/subsidy than any other public school in the conference.

You want to start comparing SIU to UNI when it comes to funding and financial situations?

SIU gets 8,680,105 in student fees and another 6,475,166 in other school funds
UNI gets 1,998,138 in student fees and another 6,689,070 in other school funds

UNI isn't even getting "millions". It's getting a million plus, but it's not millions.

MVC budgets funding from outside sources by %
Indiana State - 77.14
Illinois State - 73.97
Southern Illinois - 65.21
Missouri State - 63.94
Northern Iowa - 49.01

Misleading thread title to a misleading article is misleading.

Either SIU's athletic budget is over bloated at 27.5m or SIU is raping their students. I'm going with raping the students. Here's SIU's mandatory athletic fee structure

12 credit hours - 315 per semester
13 credit hours - 342 per semester
14 credit hours - 368 per semester
15 credit hours - 394 per semester

Despite all that Southern Illinois comes up with a $4,303,381 deficit

The fees UNI students are paying to the athletic department total $114.50 per semester per student (229 per year).

UNI's deficit? $765,333

It'd argue UNI is a pretty damn healthy given it's a mid-major state school that comes in third in line for state funding with a legislature that has tried - repeatedly - to kill the school.

I guess UNI could do what MSU does and lie about the numbers to make them come out even. Remember how MSU was withdrawing from hosting events because they couldn't afford to upkeep their facilites and sports getting cut because of funding? All of that and they apparently broke even - to the penny - every year for the last 13 years

Can tell it's July though. The DSM Rag is actually writing about UNI - and that is only because it's time for it's yearly UNI funding hit piece - where they just copy and paste from last year, which was a copy and paste from the year before, which was a copy and past from the year before.

It's also ignoring that UNI turned a profit, larger than the deficit of this most recent year, the year before

[Make MVC Great Again]

Have thought about this idea for years but with this report it seems necessary.

What if athletic department only sponsored the revenue sports, football and basketball. Not necessarily eliminating other sports, but making them pay a fee to use school facilities, logo etc.

Now I know all of you are going to scream Title 9, but clearly the practice of sponsoring sports that don't bring in revenue have not worked. This is entirely looking at the business aspect of it. It might not be fair, but desperate actions need to be taken now to eliminate this from getting worse.

[Snaggletooth]

Have thought about this idea for years but with this report it seems necessary.

What if athletic department only sponsored the revenue sports, football and basketball. Not necessarily eliminating other sports, but making them pay a fee to use school facilities, logo etc.

Now I know all of you are going to scream Title 9, but clearly the practice of sponsoring sports that don't bring in revenue have not worked. This is entirely looking at the business aspect of it. It might not be fair, but desperate actions need to be taken now to eliminate this from getting worse.

See you already know the answer - yes if you implemented your plan you would be sued quickly. You cannot discriminate, equal opportunity has to be provided.

[BEARZ77]

I guess UNI could do what MSU does and lie about the numbers to make them come out even. Remember how MSU was withdrawing from hosting events because they couldn't afford to upkeep their facilites and sports getting cut because of funding? All of that and they apparently broke even - to the penny - every year for the last 13 years

First please note I defended UNI earlier in this thread and gave several examples of different ways individual schools adjust and report their budgets. So don't go getting your panties in a wad and start making s*** up to degrade other schools because you didn't like the article about UNI. Missouri State does exactly what I indicated earlier in that they adjust the amount of subsidy given to athletics based on actual expenses, so yes the budget reads as balanced at the end of the year. ISUr on the other hand, even though subsidizing at a higher level, reported a slight profit in athletics. Just differences in how budgets are established and reported. Doesn't matter how you report them, if you have to subsidize anything at all, you lost money on athletics. Every school in the Valley does, even WSU before leaving. They just subsidized a lower % than everyone else.

Also MSU did not withdraw from hosting events because they couldn't afford upkeep; they withdrew from Track and Field host when they were told they had to add additional facilities[ a separate javelin throw area] at their own expense in order to host the event. We also technically did not cut any sports this go round, we replaced Field Hockey with Sand Volleyball as a cost savings measure thereby keeping the same # of Women's sports so as to not get into title 9 conflict but saving a chunk of change because of the lesser expense. We had had a donor fund the Sand VB course a couple years ago with the expectation we would pursue the sport. Facility wise MSU arguably outclasses the majority of the other Valley schools, we have both the largest and 2nd largest on Campus Arenas in the league, arguably the best basketball and baseball facilities [ yes we rent the baseball] new soccer, lacrosse, track and field facilities, a new athletics academic support facility, and a great 3 year old student activities center very similar to the one MU built. The football stadium and field underwent renovations just a couple years ago. I have said numerous times over the last few years, while we have not done as good of a job on the field , one area we have at least invested in is infrastructure.

[Kip Dynamite]

Could not agree more. The facilities at MSU are now the best in the entire Valley. Top to bottom. The donors and the administration have stepped it up big time over the last 5 years in that area.

[unipanther99]

Folks, we're all in the same boat here. There's no point in trying to guess who's corner of the boat might go under first. Just start bailing water.

[bigdawg]

Folks, we're all in the same boat here. There's no point in trying to guess who's corner of the boat might go under first. Just start bailing water.

This. This. This. Which is the point I made in my original post for those attacking SIU.