Soaring Travel Cost Puts Pinch On Athletic Budgets

[MeanGreen61]

http://wvgazette.com/Sports/WVU/200806190823

[MCMLXXX]

Aren't you glad we are not in the WAC. La Tech may take the biggest hit in D1.

[FirefightnRick]

Aren't you glad we are not in the WAC. La Tech may take the biggest hit in D1.

And they deserve it.

Rick

[the real grad88]

http://wvgazette.com/Sports/WVU/200806190823

MORGANTOWN - Tammy Cavender's job has never been easy, but seldom has it been this exasperating.

There's not much that the travel coordinator for West Virginia's athletic department can do about it, though, just like there's not much she or anyone else can do when it's time to fill up her own car with gas.

"How are gas prices affecting you?'' Cavender asked. "Maybe you can cut something here or there, but at the end of the day there's not much you can do about it.''

Rising fuel prices are putting the pinch on WVU's athletic budget in all sorts of ways. Assistant athletic director for finance Russ Sharp points to everything from fuel to run the vehicles used by athletic department staffers - both cars for transportation and equipment used for maintenance - to the costs incurred by the department's food management service, Sodexho, for shipments from suppliers.

But where the real sticker shock comes is for the huge amount of travel required by athletic teams competing in a Big East Conference that stretches from Florida to Rhode Island up and down the East Coast to Chicago and Milwaukee in the Midwest. Throw in the occasional non-conference football game in Colorado or a bowl game in Arizona and the costs can be overwhelming.

It starts with a bus trip to Pittsburgh International Airport that in the past few years has increased from $600 to $700 to nearly $1,000 now, includes costs for more bus transportation in the destination city and can be sandwiched around a chartered flight that costs $240,000................

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As I posted a couple of weeks back, gas prices are not going to have to go to $10.00 a gallon in order to be a factor in forcing conference realignment change...as some on this board suggested. Athletic departments are feeling it right now. How much more will this effect the midmajor programs with tighter budgets and less wiggle room. IT WILL BE A FACTOR VERY SOON...just watch.

[the real grad88]

When you add the fact that midmajors are lucky to have 20-30K at most home games and when those matches could be against a program that is just a bus ride away as opposed to a $250,000 charter flight away, sooner or later the numbers begin to scream at you, "The status qou makes no sense!"

Let's see...we could have a Houston or SMU game at UNT or Arkansas State or LA Tech for the cost of a $5000.00 bus ride OR have a $250,000 charter flight to Marshall or Alabama, when the crowd is going to be about the same either way. Which makes the most common sense? Like I said before, when programs begin to have to choose between paying staff or paying the cost of far-flung travel for no additional benefit, then the phone will start ringing.