Athletics budget cuts

Posted by: @mr_woogers

a decrease in revenue for athletics from the pandemic – almost $4.3 million – leading to Saluki Athletics adopting an approach to address financial challenges.

So why cut $9 million if revenue dropped 4.3mill ?   Makes no sense unless you just want to gut athletics.

 

Athletics loses money every year. Just means it lost more last year. 

I still say building a new stadium instead of dropping football will turn out to be one of the worst decisions SIU has made.

Even the lower tier bowl games get more viewers than the FCS Championship games IIRC.

Football is on the rise crowds will grow and it will in turn be a wise decision to build a new stadium and renovate the arena you always have to invest in infrastructure 

The football program loses more money annually than the $3 million the program wants to cut from the budget. 

Posted by: @barkeep-1967

While it certainly sucks. Every school is facing budget cuts. Covid hurt everybody terribly. Going from 26 million to 23 Million for 3 years will probably not kill that much. Plus if there is a big increase in income does it change ?  Say like an elite 8 run 😁

I would argue that the collective reaction to Covid was what hurt things terribly. An important distinction. 

Posted by: @salukiworld

Time to drop to the OVC, can’t be competitive in the Valley with those kinds of budget cuts. 

I sincerely hope you were heavily into the brown liquor when you posted this. 

An increase in enrollment would go a long way in helping the athletics budget. 15,000 students vs 11,000 students is the difference of about $2.52 million.  In the meantime… how about a Saluki-Insider lottery fund as Woogers mentioned? 😅

Posted by: @packerdawg

An increase in enrollment would go a long way in helping the athletics budget. 15,000 students vs 11,000 students is the difference of about $2.52 million.  In the meantime… how about a Saluki-Insider lottery fund as Woogers mentioned? 😅

I think I have a better idea. How about the folks running the show get off their collective butts and raise some money for athletics? Rightly or wrongly, the teams that represent the university are the face of the university. I can solemnly assure you that among the 175,000 SIU alumni base there are people who have the wherewithal and the will to help their alma mater. But first you have to ask them! I very well remember Mario Moccia describing meeting Jim Belushi at the Kansas game in California when we played them in the Sweet Sixteen. He was amazed to learn that Belushi was an alum. Well guess what? That was his job to not only know it, but to open a line of communication with the alumni base. There was a survey of SIU alumni done by a research firm commissioned by the SIU Foundation in conjunction with the latest capital drive, which raised tens of millions of dollars. The research firm reported that they (the firm) had never seen such love for a university as they experienced in talking to SIU graduates. A common response of the alums was "what took you guys so long to ask?" I can report this with confidence because I was on the foundation board at the time.

Let's think outside the box and imagine 100 donors who each year contribute $30,000 apiece to SIU Athletics. Call it the Saluki Century Club. That is the three million per year that the university intends to cut. The contributions do not have to be cash, a very popular means of contributing these days is in the form of stocks that have appreciated considerably above their original cost. So you contribute $30,000 worth of Apple that cost you $10,000 and you have an income deduction of $30,000 for tax calculation purposes. And please don't think there aren't people out there who can afford to do this, there are plenty of them, but you have to ask! I think it would be really helpful if the "leaders" of universities had some real world experience, they are quite myopic in their view of "things" in my humble opinion. 

Let's get out of the gloom and doom mindset and get creative.

I just now saw on SIU Foundation Instagram page that $25 milliion was raised in FY21, the second best year ever, the prior year was $28 million. I have heard good things about Matt Kupec the (relatively) new CEO of the foundation. It's out there folks, you just have to go get it.

Interim AD Matt Kupec talked with River Region Evening News about the budget cuts:

I renewed my Grid Iron club membership earlier this week.  I encourage everyone to join.  I read it raised $250k this past year.