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sports:
Athletics budget
to top $8 million
By Marten Lewerth
Summer Forty-Niner
The sports, athletics
and recreation department at Long Beach State will slide into
the 2001-02 academic year with a tentative budget of $8.1
million.
This figure is
based upon, and is roughly the same, as the 2000-01 budget,
according to Director of Athletics Bill Shumard and Ted Kadowaki,
the department's chief financial officer.
With these funds
the department covers primary funding of 18 Division 1 NCAA
teams, as well as salaries for staff members, coaches and
operational expenses.
Although $8.1 million
may seem meager in comparison to larger sports programs nationwide,
Shumard said Long Beach does very well for a mid-major program.
"Overall,
we do have better operating budgets than just about every
other public school in the Big West," Shumard said.
By way of comparison,
Cal State Fullerton carried a budget of $5.3 million to fund
17 programs last year, according to Mel Franks, that university's
sports information director.
The breakdown
The $8.1 million
sports operations budget is a combination of four factors:
- Allocations
from the university's general fund.
- Allocations
from Associated Students Inc., which includes funding provided
by the student-approved Beach Pride Referendum.
- Allocations
from an Instructional Related Activities account (IRA),
which includes money collected from students by the university
that is dispersed twice per year to the department.
- Allocations
from miscellaneous entities and endeavors, including booster
clubs, ticket sales, a scholarship drive, corporate marketing,
facility rentals and concessions.
General fund
In 2000-01 the
department was allotted $3,045,961, or less than 1.5 percent,
of LBSU's total budget allocation of $207,545,510, according
to the university's published Internal Budget. This amount,
Kadowaki said, is used primarily to cover salaries and telecommunications
costs and should carry over to 2001-02.
Associated Students
Inc.
Since the passing
of the Beach Pride Referendum last year, which collects $21
from each student per semester, the organization has significantly
upped its involvement in campus athletics. A.S.I. now contributes
$1.2 million per year, according to the group's Vice President
Danny Vivian.
From this number
Kadowaki said athletics received $908,527 in 2000-01. Out
of this, $352,400 went to team operating budgets and $304,300
went to athletic scholarships.
The referendum
funds are key because they have enabled LBSU to maximize scholarships
in each sport to limits set by the NCAA.
In the past the
department could only afford 98 scholarships per year. This
figure is now at 141.8. The maximum value of a scholarship
is $7500 under NCAA guidelines.
"Before Beach
Pride, we only fully funded [with scholarships] six sports,
our targeted sports," said Shumard. "It was a huge
shot in the arm, because for so long we had sports that were
surviving on very little. Beach Pride gave all our sports
an opportunity to raise the competitive level."
As a reference
point, Shumard singled out the women's tennis program, which
received $21,400 from the department and an additional $10,600
from the referendum allocation last year.
Because of the
Beach Pride funds, "[Coach] Jenny Hilt went from four
scholarships to eight, got on the Internet, found two great
players from Russia (Alena and Anastasia Dvornikova) and ended
up in the Top 50," Shumard said.
IRA money
These funds are
dispersed to the department from student fees collected by
the university. Kadowaki said athletics received two installments
totaling $747,000 last year. One of the primary usages of
the IRA allotment is to provide each Division 1 team with
an operating budget.
Shumard said the
numbers involved in the budgets have evolved over the years.
"In my six
years as director, we've only tweaked each of them slightly,"
he said. "You know, you come up with a number that's
workable, that allows teams to be competitive in the conferences
they play in."
Departmental funding
(mostly from the IRA allotment) is then combined with referendum
funding ($352,400) for a complete team budget.
The largest team
budget in 2000-01 was men's basketball ($245,000), followed
by women's basketball ($185,000) and baseball ($139,000).
Miscellaneous
The final component
of funding stems from various events and entities, according
to Mike Mulryan, executive director of the 49er Athletic Association.
Besides ticket
sales, concessions, corporate sponsorships and facility rentals,
these include special events, such as Jewels of the Night,
which netted $200,000 last year, and an annual scholarship
drive that raised $310,000.
Every team on campus
also has a booster club, and these groups raised about $330,000
last year, Mulryan said. The most successful of these, he
said, was the 24 Karat Club, which garnered $55,000 for the
men's basketball team.
Local businesses
contributed as well, providing tradeoffs such as meals and
uniforms in a system Mulryan called "gifts in kind,"
for a year-end sum of $325,000.
All funds collected
from outside sources are under the strictest scrutiny, Mulryan
said, to follow standards set by the university and the NCAA.
"We get audited
every year," he said, "and the NCAA has criteria
we have to follow."
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