Uno Talking About Adding Football?

[SUMG]

Sorry, but I don't see that happening:

http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/

[UNTflyer]

Wasn't there talk about their basketball team folding?

I don't see this at all.

[stebo]

It is a silly idea, but it wouldn't be Bowl subdivision football. Here is a basic rundown. UNO plays 9 sports and still need to add 7 more just to get back to NCAA Div I requirements (they have a waiver from the NCAA until 2012). Now - keep in mind that they also have to meet the Sun Belt requirements of 16 sports in which the Belt offers a championship (so they can't just add women's bowling and stuff to get there). Going into this summer - they were going to shut down thier entire athletic program. There are major cutbacks going on all through the state of LA and UNO was having all subsidies pulled from their athletic dept. A vote by the students for a very modest athletic fee (that would generate the $2 million needed to operate the 9 sports they currently have) failed by a vote of 57 to 43. I think that it would have been $100 bucks per student per semester. Ayway - it failed. So the AD was basically letting the kids know that he would let them out of their ships - the department was going to fold... Along comes the owner of the Hornets and he gets together a group of business people in New Orleans to raise $2 million to keep them afloat for the next year (basically - their fans say that the vote was poorly worded and poorly executed and they wanted a re-vote with more research/time/effort). Those businessman came up with the cash and that is enough for the BARE minimum. Along comes this inheritance out of nowhere. Some dude that was worth $150 million passed away and divided his estate equally between the LSU, UNO, and Tulane athletic programs. He didn't go to school at those schools - was just very proud of his New Orleans heritage and didn't have family that he wanted to give it to. So the will has not been combed through yet... but initial figure are $45 million to UNO before any taxes. Athletic donations are not 100% tax deductible - but the guy is no longer with us... so I guess it would be taken out of the estate. I have no idea if there will be estate taxes by the time this gets sorted through as it is on temp restriction but expires soon (and doesn't expect to be renewed in its current state). Conservative estimates have said that the school might come out of it with $35 million (which would be only about 20-25% taxes).. So how far will $35 million take you? Honestly - not that far. They can get up to the required 16 sports to stay as a Div I program but there will be travel to go along with these new players, new equipment, new uniforms, new coaches, new scholarships, etc, etc.. They might be solvent for 3 or 4 years with the cash - but if the vote fails again - they will not have a plan for after... here is where football comes in...

Students would vote for the fee if it involved football. UNO has talked about adding football for years. They have a club team and play at Tad Gumley park (seats about 24K), about 10 minutes away from campus... the problem is - they don't have enough money to go all the way with it (straight to FBS) so they will need to go the Lamar route through IAA. I don't know where that puts them with the Belt.

I really think that this would be a good time to part ways with UNO. If they get their act together and add football (at the real Div I level) then we should look at them down the road - but for now, it is time to shake hands and thank them for the memories. They have been trying to cut corners in every way possible. Their swim team has been campaigining for "virtual" meets where they swim at UNO being timed by a ref. Those scores get faxed to another school who also would swin and have a ref time their scores and that would be the swim meet - pieces of faxed paper competing. That is how bad of shape they are in - they can't afford any type of travel - even to local schools in the area for things like swim meets. Their basketball attendance is poor. I dunno - when the announcement came out that they were dropping the program - their alumni didn't rally to save it like the Tulane alumni did, it took the owner of the local NBA franchise to save them with $2 million bucks from him and his friends. When Tulane faced these same problems a few years ago, their alumni came through and saved the day and students voted in a fee to keep it solvent. What UNO has is a bandaid on a broken leg right now. The will money made sure that they would have bandaids for the next few years and get their sports up to code - but it will take all the money to run the program and add the sports during that time. After... how do you pay for 16 sports when you can't pay for 9?

Anyway - I know this was a long post but I have been following this on the Belt board. Football is being talked about because the school knows that they still need the fee (and another vote) and there is no way that they get the students to tax themselves even more without at least getting a football team out of it.

[Arkstfan]

Athletic donations are not 100% deductible if you receive benefits (ie. ticket or parking priority, decals, etc.). Dude is dead and won't be taking any UNO athletic booster club benefits so it is 100% deductible.

The Sun Belt mandate is 15 sports the conference sponsors a championship.

NCAA only requires 14 sports for Division I membership and roughly half of scholarships awarded unless grandfathered in (Ivy). FBS membership requires 16 and awarding a minimum of 200 scholarships.

UNO is currently spending $4 million on athletics with $1.4 million of that coming from the school. The student fee income is down roughly 35% post-Katrina, and ticket sales and sponsorships down by similar numbers, roughly the hole in their budget to get to 15 sports.

The shut-down was threatened because the state was going to slice $15 million out of UNO's budget and the school was needing the $1.4 pleged to athletics to help make up that short-fall.

If the student fee had passed that revenue would have gone from $1.9 million to an estimated $4 million to $4.2 million. They currently net about $700,000 from other sources. The school supplement isn't going away after all and local business leaders have pledged to make up shortfalls.

If the entire gift were put into endowment, UNO would generate enough to at least match the university contribution and likely more. I suspect they will be more proactive and create some multi-use facilities, guarantee the construction bonds using the gift and probably generate enough renting the facilities to itself and local high schools and regional events to pay the bonds back preserving the corpus of the gift.