Nina's Sports Bad Boys Blog World: Program-specific donations at Cal may alter funding practices

The way colleges fund some sports could change to rely more on program-specific donations after fans and alumni of the University of California scrambled to save four sports that the school had announced would be cut or downgraded.

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Donors' efforts at the University of California-Berkeley have helped save three sports, including baseball, from being cut during to funding.

GoldenBearSports.com

Donors' efforts at the University of California-Berkeley have helped save three sports, including baseball, from being cut during to funding.

Cal's situation and the donors' response "reverberates around the country," says Colorado associate athletics director for development Jim Senter, a member of the National Association of Athletic Development Directors' executive committee. "College presidents look at that, athletic directors look at that ? and say, 'OK, if they can do that, the money is out there. What's our rallying cry? How do we get people on board?' "

In late September, Cal announced it would discontinue baseball, men's and women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse and drop rugby from varsity to club status. A little more than six months ? and about $18 million in donations ? later, all but men's gymnastics have been continued with 7 to 10 years of funding in place and permanent financing plans in the works.

Donors' willingness to preserve these programs, similar to the manner in which benefactors saved two of three sports slated for discontinuation at fellow Pacific-10 school Arizona State in 2008, could have an impact on how colleges attempt to finance athletics programs amid the ongoing funding crisis in higher education.

"By no means are we going to be able to do this with all our sports," says Cal vice chancellor Frank Yeary, "but there are additional sports where I think we believe we can go and have people help us over time make them self-sufficient. ? I think that's quite possible for us in the future and there may be lessons for others as well."

Many NCAA Division I athletics programs rely heavily on institutional funding sources, as well as student fees, at a time when appropriations to schools are being cut by state legislatures. Cal determined it needed to reduce campus support of its program from $12.1 million in 2009-10 to no more than $5 million per year by 2014. To help achieve that goal, the school decided it would drop baseball, men's and women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse and it would make men's rugby what it called a "varsity club" sport.

In February, the school announced the women's teams and the rugby team had found at least $8 million in backing. On April 8, it said baseball supporters has come up with $9 million, close enough to a $10 million goal to allow for continuation; the school also said men's gymnastics was a little less than halfway to meeting its fundraising target of $4 million.

When Cal officials announced the cutbacks, they did not outline a scenario under which the teams could be preserved as varsity sports.

"I want to stress that our decision to cut the sports ? which was a very painful decision for us ? was not, in the first instance, a fundraising strategy," Yeary says. "We made a decision that we didn't want to make about these five sports but that we felt ? we had to make given our financial realities."

At the time, those realities did not include a group of donors who had committed a combined $18 million to provide long-term funding for just four teams. During the 2008-09 fiscal year, Cal's annual athletics giving totaled $15.6 million, and in 2009-10, that figure fell to $10.2 million, according to financial reports the school filed with the NCAA. Cal also was raising money for two massive capital projects ? the refurbishment and seismic retrofitting of its football stadium and the construction of an athletic training complex.

However, benefactors of women's gymnastics, women's lacrosse, baseball and rugby came through with money that Yeary says he expects to soon reach $20 million, and Cal has committed to keeping them while waiting to see whether men's gymnastics backers can finish marshaling the $4 million the school now says they need to restore that sport.

Now, people around college athletics are asking how this could happen at Cal, how many other schools' donors can replicate the accomplishment and what are the potential implications of funding athletics programs in this manner.

"We've always known that we have an extremely loyal and generous community, especially in sports," Yeary says, "but it's also true that the level of money that was raised over the last six months is unprecedented in our experience in terms of raising money for athletics and in particular raising money around individual sports."

Because of cuts in state funding and controversy on Cal's campus about the amount of institutional funding the athletics program was receiving, two task forces ? one from the faculty senate, the other from the chancellor's office ? scrutinized the athletics department in 2010. Those probes resulted in what Yeary calls "better transparency and financial discipline" in athletics. So when Cal officials were explaining their decisions to supporters of teams slated to be cut, they were able to show exactly how much money would be saved, not just on team-specific coaching salaries and scholarships, but also on shared services, including strength and conditioning, medical support and academic advising.

"I think that one of the lessons we have learned," Yeary says, "is that transparency ? and education with the community about the realities of the true cost of each of the individual programs does generate a level of support from the individual sports communities that maybe we haven't seen before ? and that may be true elsewhere" around the nation.

It's a lesson that also has been learned at Arizona State, which in 2008 announced it was going to drop wrestling, men's swimming and men's tennis. It took wrestling backers 10 days to come up with enough money to convince school officials to keep the sport, swimming donors about two months. (Men's tennis was not restored.)

Stephen Ponder, senior associate athletics director for development, says in the wake of that experience, "every team here realized (funding) was a real issue and it heightened awareness to fundraise for their specific sport or the (athletic booster) club overall." Baseball-specific annual contributions have increased more than 40% from 2008 to 2010, when they were just over $210,000, according to the school's NCAA financial reports.

But Amy Perko, executive director of the reform-minded Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, says that while donor efforts to keep teams are "obviously a win for the athletes," the need for such extraordinary measures reflect systematic problems in athletics financing "that will not be solved by individual fundraising campaigns."

"Every school is different in its ability to generate the sums of revenue needed," she says. "This doesn't take aim at some national policy issues that need to be addressed and would be best for the financial health of all schools."

Jeff Orleans, former executive director of the Ivy League ? where it isn't unusual for specific teams to be heavily supported by targeted donations or endowments ? says schools have to weigh a variety of factors when deciding to field teams on those terms.

Among them is determining what really is the appropriate size for their athletics program and "being careful about how much you rely on donated, alumni money ? whether it's raised in advance of when you need it, or raised only when your back is to the wall ? because at some point you give up control over your program if it's entirely beholden to donors," says Orleans, now with Alden & Associates, a college athletics search and consulting firm that provides guidance on financing matters.

"Once you've thought about those things," he adds, "I think it is the right question to say, 'Everybody raises money for football and basketball. Are we doing what we can, within the financial expectations we've established, to raise money from alumni and other supporters of the program in general, and of teams one-by-one, so that we can take the pressure off the overall institutional budget, so we can take the pressure off the AD to schedule TV games on Tuesday mornings, so we can relieve all the pressures ? not just the pressure on the central administration?' "

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