(03-18-2012 03:06 PM)Kruciff Wrote: Can someone informed on the matter detail the Administration support of the athletic department, the city / state support, budget, endowments, academics, etc?
Our University President is one of our football teams biggest fans...outside of us crazies. As far as support from the other administration I would say it is there however they are not going to spend crazy money without it being justified as having a real return.
The campaign for our indoor practice facility started with a 3mil donation the week of Sept 17th. By October 15th we had 7.6mil pledged. By Jan 8th we had 8.2mil pledged. The ceremonial ground breaking is next month (April 21st) however its not the actual start to the project as our BOT will not let it start until the whole 9.5mil is pledged.
Our state financially is in shambles however our President is leading an initiative to have us more self reliant. The "City" of DeKalb (LOL) is working with NIU to put a bid together (due next month) to host the state football finals every other year...UofI cannot host it in every odd year with the setup of the new B1G schedule. DeKalb has just approved the building of a new hotel that would directly help guests of NIU and the IHSA championships.
Our 2009-2010 athletic budget was just under 22mil. The 2009-2010 budget for USF was just over 39mil.
The two of the three biggest difference are...
NCAA/conference distributions including all tournament revenues: there is a difference of 6.6mil between us.
Tickets sales: There is a difference of 5.5mil between us. Consider that our 2009 opponents were Western Illinois, Idaho, WMU, Akron, EMU & Ball St...other than WMU most years this is...
...no way to attract new season ticket holders let alone any of our casual fanbase.
Last year our two biggest home games were hosting Army and WMU. The rest of our opponents were duds in Cal Poly (FCS), Kent St (1-4), Ball St (Tuesday night game in November) & EMU (10am day after Thanksgiving). Playing Louisville or Cincinnati at home would easily sell out (28K) Huskie Stadium on a Saturday. All the other teams WILL attract the same if not more people than a top 4 MAC team on a Saturday (20-25k+).
Taking both BE money and a reasonable increase in attendance into consideration we would be up to 29mil without any stadium expansion. This would first go towards travel, then marketing...and raises for our coaches as MAC rates wont last us long. After that we need to build a new media/suite complex...this is needed even if we do not get an invite to an other conference.
Our endowment is rather small as our first endowment campaign was started 7 years ago and finished 2 years later with over 160mil. I think that in the next year or two after the economy hopefully has improved and our vision 2020 is really progressing there will be another push to bank another 100mil+ but that just a guess.
As for our academics I am not totally aware of the specifics of every college however I do know our business, computer science and law colleges all have programs that are ranked. I feel like our Engineering students have been proving themselves in various competitions against students from schools known as Engineering powers.