Just the other day a report came out regarding the happening of the University of Minnesota and their athletic department over the past several years. It was hoping to find more sexual harassment issues and overspending by the previous leadership. It didn't find any sexual harassment issues but it did find that the several staff members spent money on things they "shouldn't have" according to the report.
Most people will look at the numbers that the athletic department has spent and say those numbers ridiculous and they didn't have to spend that much. I just want to put some things into perspective and let everyone know how much spending is done at the high major D1 level.
First thing I'll talk about is working with boosters. The idea behind fundraising for college athletics is that you have to spend money to make money. Athletic department staff CAN NOT go to Chipotle to meet with a perspective booster. They have to a go to a nice restaurant or steak house. Why? That is where the boosters normally eat. You HAVE to get a $100 bottle of wine because that is what the booster drinks. The hope is that those staff members can seal the deal at some point in order for that specific person to donate a significant amount of money to the department. Imagine if the development department has five dinners with the same booster in order to "seal the deal." That might cost the athletic department well over a $1,000. It's not like the staff member is going to say, "Sorry, we can't pay for your alcohol, it's against school policy." That's bad business.
While I worked at West Virginia there are many instances of overspending by the athletic department. During the Big East Tournament in New York City, the program stayed in The Roosevelt Hotel for four days. On top of the players, coaches, and support staff were taken care of, many people in the athletic department came as well. Essentially as a paid vacation. All of their meals and accommodations were taken care of. We were eating breakfast one morning, at the hotel, and they didn't have something that was pretty common for breakfast and this is what was said, "We are paying $40 per person for breakfast, you better go find it...and quickly." There was about 40 people eating that morning. And that was the norm for the three mornings we ate breakfast there. Yep...that's $4800 in three days, just for breakfast.
I'll take another example during my second year at West Virginia. The team played in the Sweet 16 in Phoenix, AZ vs. Xavier. The athletic department got a charter flight for the trip. The team, coaches, support staff as well as their families (kids included) made the trip. The band, the cheerleaders, and just about half of the athletic staff (and their spouses) that weren't associated with a specific team. We basically took over a hotel and had two or three charter buses for the whole crew. The NCAA only pays for the players and coaches. Again, a paid vacation for many of the people on the trip.
Now onto the football bowl system. I could easily write a whole blog on this but I'll try to be short. Teams will usually travel to the game a week in advance in order to get acclimated to the weather they are playing in. Just think about that a second. The whole football and support staff get a charter flight to a specific destination and then stay in a hotel for a week. The team and the support staff is around 150 people (that might be low). The really nice hotel they stay in costs $150 per night. Let's say that's 75 rooms for six nights at $150 for a total of roughly $67,500 just for the football team. If the game is in a nice location more members of the athletic department will come along with their spouses. The coaching staffs' spouses and kids will travel as well as the cheerleaders and the band. That's another charter flight and another set of hotel rooms at the same cost. That's a total of $135,000 in hotel costs for the week.
At Minnesota the athletes and staff get $40 per day for meals on away trips. Imagine if everyone got that amount. Each person gets $240 and you have roughly 250 people on the trip. That's another $60,000 right there. We can even lower that to $50,000. Can't forget about the charter flights for all those people too. That's probably close to $300,000, $150,000 of it completely unnecessary.
Last thing I'll talk about in regards to the bowl game is how it's set up as far as tickets go. Each school is required to sell a certain amount of tickets for the game. If the school doesn't sell ALL of those tickets they are "forced" to buy them and give them back to the bowl. The bowl then says the tickets will go to "local charities." When I was at WVU, the football team made the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. The school sold around 10,000 tickets of their 17,500 allotment. They were forced to pay for those extra 7,500 tickets. Those extra tickets cost around $80-$100 each. Another unnecessary and significant expense for the athletic department.
I could probably go on and on about this stuff. Most people don't know about this stuff. Last thing, when I was in college we got $17 per day from the athletic department for meals for the whole day. We generally didn't stay at hotels that had a free breakfast. It wasn't ideal but we were fortunate enough to have a coach that did a lot of fundraising to help us get good meals whenever we were on the road. And that is one of the big differences between big time D1 and D3.
