Two Texas universities weigh pros, cons of starting football programs
By Eric Dexheimer
AUSTIN - AMERICAN STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, October 01, 2007
Ninety-nine percent of colleges and universities lose money on their athletics programs, and football teams cost the most. Yet the allure of a marquee team is so strong in Texas that some schools that don't currently compete in the sport are tempted to start.
Two large universities considering adding intercollegiate football to their campuses recently have run the numbers. Their reports, both delivered in the past year, offer a detailed window into the game's high finance — and low return.
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi administrators say they hope Division I-AA football will boost school spirit and attract more male students to the university, which has ambitious growth plans. At the University of Texas-San Antonio, administrators say they see football as an essential building block toward becoming a top school. Each would lose millions of dollars every year.
Two years ago, the University of Texas-Arlington decided to pass on starting a football team after a study showed it would cost more than $20 million the first five years. Both UTSA's and TAMUCC's reports warn of football's outsized expense — as much as $8 million annually in UTSA's case and about $3 million at Corpus Christi.
"It's the most labor- and financially intensive sport to add," said TAMUCC Athletics Director Brian Teter. The cost would be borne largely by students, in the form of higher fees.
Where would the money go? At Corpus Christi, adding football would nearly double the current coaching and support salaries, from $700,000 to $1.2 million, and add $1 million in administrative costs. Scholarships for football players would tack on another $1 million.
There's more: New equipment ($128,500) and a training room ($40,000). Installing new turf in Buccaneer Stadium would cost $750,000; new locker rooms and lockers are another $750,000. Converting a classroom to a restroom, building a coaches' office and player meeting rooms, an equipment room, practice fields and video operations is an additional $1 million.
Other startup costs are less obvious. Adding football means Corpus Christi also would have to add women's soccer to comply with Title IX's gender equity rules. That's another $300,000.
While Corpus Christi's goal is to compete in the I-AA Southland Conference, the UT-San Antonio Roadrunners aspire to eventually play in larger and higher-exposure Division I-A. NCAA requirements make that even more expensive.
Division I means more scholarships. UTSA estimates paying for football players' education would start at $375,000, in 2009-10, and climb to $2 million by 2014-15, when the school attained Division I-A status. Adding summer school and fifth-year aid for some student-athletes costs another $100,000 or so.
Traveling to away games would cost $300,000 a year —and rise an estimated 50 percent four years later. Recruiting costs add $120,000 a year. UTSA's study also doesn't account for several large-ticket items, such as an academic support program, adding or enhancing broadcast operations and additions to the sports medicine and training facilities — all crucial components of a big-time program.
Though it wouldn't be used exclusively for football, the new athletics center the university hopes to build would add to the start-up cost. The school hopes to raise the $62 million privately.
Neither start-up program would come close to paying for itself. "Most I-A athletic departments are able to generate less than one-fourth of their total operating revenue from gate receipts, donations, conference distributions and miscellaneous sources such as television, radio, corporate sponsorships and special events," UTSA's report acknowledges.
UTSA's consultants estimate that by 2014, when the school wants to hit I-A, football would siphon $14.5 million a year from university coffers, the vast bulk of that — $13 million — paid by students in the form of fees.
That's more than double the current fee assessment, and would cost each student about $500 a year, according to internal studies. Nevertheless, earlier this month UTSA students voted overwhelmingly in favor of taxing future student bodies to pay for football.
At Corpus Christi, students would be asked to pay an additional $600,000 in fees annually for football. While some of the cost would be made up by as-yet undetermined corporate sponsors and merchandise sales, the university, which now subsidizes athletics to the tune of $1.1 million, would be expected to pay the rest. Though the exact sum is unknown, "the average Southland Conference university that sponsors football provides $2.83 million in 'general university support,'" the report notes.
Both schools say they are still studying whether football is worth it.
"There are a lot of people in Texas who believe that to have a first-class campus, you've got to have football," said David Gabler, assistant vice president for communications at UTSA. "There is prestige connected to schools that compete on the athletic field."
Still, Teter cautions, "If you're going to launch a program, it better be the right way or it'll be an albatross around your neck for years to come."
edexheimer@statesman.com;
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