Takedown Report

UNO looks at cuts, fee increases, wage freezes to balance athletic budget after move to Division I

TDR Editor’s Notes ; Well, there is no satisfaction here in showing that we were correct in stating how foolish the University of Nebraska-Omaha was in dropping wrestling and football to make a move to division I. Why did they? It was to satisfy the ego of the new Athletic Director who came in with no experience in directing athletic yet a failed career as a professional athlete and a failed career as a sports broadcaster. This genius was not even aware that his school’s wrestling team had won the national championships the previous two years. He made the class move of calling the coach on the night of winning their 3rd consecutive nationals to tell him that wrestling was being cut. The long time coach Mike Denney, Handle it with class. He did what he could to appeal the decision and then moved on to start a new program at Maryville University. Now as is shown in the linked article the annual debt of the athletic program has DOUBLED and now they are sucking money from students and academic programs. I doubt that the A.D.’s salary or budget has been reduced any. It is challenging to say who has made a more foolish and unwise financial decision in dropping wrestling, UN-O or Boise State. (refer back to earlier postings)
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The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s move to Division I athletics came with the promise of big-time college games, but it also has come with bigger financial woes and worries. Now in its second year as a full Division I program, UNO battles to increase revenues, cut expenses and fulfill a pledge that moving into Division I would stabilize athletics financially and solidify Maverick sports as a respected force on campus and in Omaha. A public records request by The World-Herald shows that many strategies, large and small, have been considered or deployed over the past year to right an athletic department that gushed with budget overruns in 2015-16. UNO has suggested everything from cutting expensive K-Cup coffee for employees at Sapp Fieldhouse to eliminating country club memberships for coaches and sports administrators to monitoring team and staff travel more carefully. UNO officials expect to balance their athletic department budget this year with a large infusion of university money and propose to raise student fees for the athletic department in 2017-18 by about $13 per semester for most students. The amount of direct university support for athletics rose at UNO from about $4.3 million in 2010-11, the year before the four-year transition to Division I began, to about $8.6 million last year, according to NCAA financial reports.
Rest of the story at ….http://www.omaha.com/news/education/uno-looks-at-cuts-fee-increases-wage-freezes-to-balance/article_13e7f7a4-196c-5d28-abd3-9e958b2b7d02.html

June 3, 2017 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized