The University of Hawaii at Manoa athletic program aired a plan last week for dealing with its chronic deficit, but the plan is already getting push back from at least one key constituency, the students.
Last Friday, the newspaper reported athletic director David Matlin’s budget presentation to the Board of Regents (“How the University of Hawai’i at M?noa Athletic Department wants to balance its budget“).
Matlin laid out a plan to raise over $14 million in new annual revenues over the next four years. He identified several potential sources.
UH Athletics’ Initiatives: $4.7 million
Student Fees’ Increase: $1.7 million
Direct Legislative Support: $5.5 million
Increased UH Institutional Support: $2.3 million
The proposal would double the current student athletic fee from $50 to 100 per semester. And the additional “institutional support” would also come from tuition dollars.
The story on Matlin’s proposal was posted at Kaleo.org last Friday. And on Monday, a Ka Leo editor penned this far less than enthusiastic reply with a clear message: “Dear UH Athletics, stay away from our wallets.”
Irene Fang, Ka Leo’s associate opinions editor, raised several key points, including one that nobody seems to want to talk about, “the student body’s apathy towards athletics.”
In a nutshell, Fang says, students are at UH to get an education and a college degree, and most aren’t affected by athletics.
At the same time, she argues, the financial reality is that Hawaii isn’t in a position to raise the kind of money needed to field a competitive football team. And schools that do don’t accomplish it with student money.
Mid-ranked University of Washington (UW) spent almost $30 million, as reported by PointAfter.com, which is roughly how much a university should spend on a competitive football team. However, there are no UW athletic fees. Reported by Husky Athletics, 97 percent of the athletic program is self-sustained, with the remaining three percent coming from the state. In fact, four of the top five NCAA ranked schools in Texas, Michigan, Alabama and Ohio State charge no student athletic fees, as reported by USA Today.
And given the stagnant or declining share of state revenues that have been allocated to the university system, and especially the flagship Manoa campus, in recent years, seeking additional ongoing revenues dedicated to support of the athletic program seems like a long shot, at best.
And that’s the biggest problem.
The earlier Ka Leo story quoted Matlin.
“We have no professional teams, so UH athletics is our NFL, NBA, and MLB,” he said. “When our teams are doing well and competing for national championships, the morale of the state is uplifted.”
You can’t continue to squeeze the university’s primary mission, education, in order to fund a competitive athletic program that is of primary interest to those outside the university.
So while the numbers in Matlin’s plan may add up, the politics of it don’t.
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You have said it all Ian. “You can’t continue to squeeze the university’s primary mission, education, in order to fund a competitive athletic program that is of primary interest to those outside the university.” http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/28028920/lawmaker-says-eliminating-degrees-would-save-uh-money
Doesn’t anyone recall that one legislator tried to eliminate several departments at UH last year? What it means to me is that instead of promoting learning the trend is to subsidize athletics at all costs. Crazy.
If the fans want football, they should be willing to pay for it out of their own pockets. If they won’t, there’s no excuse for forcing the students and the remainder of the State’s taxpayers to finance their preferred form of entertainment.
This season should be the last for football at UHM. Obviously it is not a sport meant to be played in Hawaii. I am sitting now watching a sold out Nebr./ Iowa game on TV. 90000 plus at the packed Lincoln stadium. Hawaii will never have that enthusiasm. A waste of money, good leadership cuts the losses.
“and competing for national championships”… Once every 2 decades… The students seem happier.
Good grief. At least be a realist.
Kudos to the brave KaLeo editor Irene Fang. It takes courage to write what she wrote. I remember football players trying to smash open the door to harm a KaLeo writer when he wrote an article that they didn’t like. I also recall one of the team members trying to physically intimidate the 70 year old Aunty who ran the cafeteria cash register, after she caught him stealing food.
When I attended UH most students didn’t attend football games. Students in the dorms where the football team lived were often in fear of the football team. They would blast bass from their cars and generally live the “thug life”. It didn’t mix well at a university where people were trying to study. Team members were notorious for racing around dangerously on motorcycles or mopeds through campus doing wheelies to get attention. I always wondered how they passed their classes as the ones in my classes only came sporadically.
Gee. So the best idea this Matlin guy can do is go the legislature and the UH students with hat in hand? I betcha had Keith Amemiya been chosen the AD instead, more creative ways of raising funds would be explored, such as expanding corporate sponsorships. Too bad the regents decided to go with a paper pushing bureaucrat instead of a proven mover-and-shaker in Hawaii’s sports/business community