Ucf: Funny Funding? They Do Huge Athletic Projects While It Seems We

[NT80]

Can't?

Nearly $170 million worth of new athletic facilities being built at UCF, none involving state $ or student $. How can they do this and all we need is a measly $60 million?

"No state dollars, tuition or student fees will be used to finance the convocation center, which is part of a $107 million project being funded through a bond issue taken out last year. The bond will be paid back with revenues from the project through a direct-support organization, a nonprofit corporation created by the university to finance it. Naming rights also are available for the convocation center."

(note: this does NOT include their new football stadium being built at the same time!).....

New 10,000 seat arena:

http://ucfathletics.cstv.com/facilities/co...ion-center.html

New football stadium:

http://ucfathletics.cstv.com/facilities/uc...thouse-bio.html

"The estimated $47 million Bright House Networks Stadium is part of a total $60 million project that includes financing costs, reserve requirements, infrastructure, roads, parking and practice fields for football, soccer and baseball."

Edited April 21, 2007 by NT80

[DeepGreen]

"The university has raised about $29 million in private donations for the stadium...."

Just a little something I wanted to highlight while I wait on the big spring announcement from UNT athletics. Wait....were they talking about next spring?

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

1. Attendance

2. Conference

3. Future

UCF's attendance is in the 30,000 range; North Texas 16,000. The bond holders can reasonably expect that the bonds will be paid off due to stable attendance. UCF is one of the better universities for revenue vs. expenditures ratio.

Conference USA returns more money to its member institutions than the SBC does. They also draw better than the Belt based on average attendance. The conference is more stable than the Sun Belt because thay have been around longer and can more easily find replacements.

It is likely that UCF may be invited to the Big East due to its proximity to USF and the warm climate so their future is bright.

North Texas cannot match any of those criteria. If we were in CUSA I believe that we might come close to matching their attendance figure but we are nowhere near being able to joinn a major conference.

In spite of that, I believe that if we can have an average attendance in the 25,000 range, with 10,000 season ticket holders, I feel fairly confident that we would be able to issue bonds to build our stadium. That decision could be tempered by the amount of donations pledged. If we can raise as much as the $29 million that UCF raised, then I think we'd see the stadium by 2009. IMO we have until the end of the year to make those things happen.

[NT80]

It is likely that UCF may be invited to the Big East due to its proximity to USF and the warm climate

I still think Memphis would have the edge over UCF for that next Big East spot, but maybe not; I was surprised they took USF. Florida has all those East Coast alums/retirees that help draw attendance to see their schools when they come down to play in the sun. Any defect from CUSA would be good for NT's chances to join. The only way to really upgrade our attendance consistently is to upgrade our schedule and mostly conference games. I think we'll draw well for OOC games with Navy and in a couple years Air Force and Kansas State. UCF drew 50K last season hosting Virginia Tech.