San Jose State University’s athletic department has some serious decisions to make this year as it faces budget cuts following the postponement of all fall sports.
The unpredicted loss of revenue from just the football team could cause budget cuts across all sports at the university going into next year. This leaves athletic department officials having to allocate funds between all teams, but the question is, will it be distributed evenly?
On Aug. 10, the athletics department released a statement announcing that the Mountain West Conference is indefinitely postponing all scheduled fall sports contests and its championship events. The fall sports affected by this decision include men’s and women’s cross country, football, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball.
An August update to the CSU Operating Budget, posted by SJSU on the website for the Administration and Finance Division, disclosed an approximated $323.2 million decrease in recurring government funding for the CSU compared to 2019-20. The revenue loss for the athletics department is an estimated $3 million.
The report states that, in addition to the state reduction, the campus faces a number of other reductions in revenues and increases in expenditure as a result of the pandemic, such as a loss in tuition revenue, housing revenue and sponsorship revenue.
The loss of a fall sports season, and particularly the loss of the 2020 football season, is a devastating financial blow for the athletics department that could impact the university’s ability to recruit and retain top-tier athletes for next year.
Following the announcement from the Mountain West Conference, Athletics Director Marie Tuite told the Silicon Valley Business Journal in an Aug. 13 article that, “every expense that we have except scholarships . . . is on the table,” she said. “We would have to look at everything.”
Evidently “looking at everything,” does not include looking at decreased funding for enhancements to the CEFCU Stadium.
According to the same Silicon Valley Business Journal article, athletic department officials are going through contracts such as the $8.7 million deal the university signed with Citizens Equity First Credit Union in 2016. This contract specifically deals with the CEFCU Stadium; officials will need to find out if missing a football season also means missing one of the 15 annual naming rights payments from CEFCU.
No football games at the stadium this fall will also cause a revenue decrease because of the loss of scoreboard and game program advertisements, adding to the list of lost assets this year.
The NCAA finance report for 2018-19 college football revenue lists SJSU’s total revenue from the program at more than $32.7 million. The expense breakdown reports more than $14 million for coaching and staff salary and more than $8 million for athlete scholarships.
Despite budget uncertainties, the athletics department is continuing construction on the CEFCU Stadium on South Campus and a new operations center called the Spartan Athletics Center. According to a statement released by the department, the center will be a multi-story facility that will be equipped with state-of-the-art locker rooms, an auditorium, offices, spectator seating on the 50-yard line and a Hall of Champions event space.
The project is a rebuild on the stadium’s east side and also provides support to the SJSU men’s and women’s soccer programs. Currently, the project budget is listed at $40 million. This is an outrageously large sum of money to keep reserved for a facility that will not be used for its full purposes any time in the near future, especially with the knowledge that the department is struggling to make ends meet.
The Spartan Daily requested an interview with Charlie Faas, the university’s vice president for administration and finance, and received a response from Kenneth Mashinchi, senior director of media relations. Mashinchi said, “At this time, we are still evaluating and assessing . . . When there is greater certainty with the sports schedules for the 2020-21 school year, San José State University then will be in a better position to answer budget questions.”
