ECU Athletics operating in the red

Collegiate Sports
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This is one issue that thank the Lord, (and honestly Judy too) we don’t have. At least we know our budget is not dependent upon winning the way ECU’s clearly was, and App’s probably is. Now we need to win and see what can do with the influx.

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Moral of the story, don’t outspend what you bring in in your worst season of record.

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At least we have a baseline for both revenue sports now. :joy:

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ECU might have planned future budgets based upon what the American Athletic Conference was receiving from its tv contracts earlier in the 2010s. The amount of tv money has diminished since then.

Football, men’s hoops, and baseball cost them about $11,000,000 out of a $39,000,000 budget. Assuming they spend about the same on men’s and women’s sports, do their other men’s sports cost $8,500,000? They dropped men’s soccer a few years ago.

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That sucks for me. I have a meeting with them to sell them some athletic storage equipment next week.

Then it goes from bad to worse for those guys.

http://www.reflector.com/News/2018/09/07/ECU-trustees-get-discouraging-student-enrollment-report-from-provost.html?utm_source=Business+North+Carolina+Daily+Digest&utm_campaign=5c1e19bbcd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_7_2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7ae5defd0d-5c1e19bbcd-122549317#new_tab

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clt asks when do we pass them in enrollment at this rate?

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We have already.

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We passed ECU’s enrollment in 2016 and UNC-CH’s this year. We are second only to NC State in terms of enrollment now.

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I was searching online for enrollment numbers for this year - are they out anywhere yet? 2017 was 29,300+

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http://www.reflector.com/ECU/2018/12/06/Transfers-helping-Pirates-settle-debt.html

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clt says that could be problematic for their new coach

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Official enrollment numbers usually do not come out until mid to late January of each year.

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http://www.reflector.com/News/2019/05/06/New-ECU-leadership-faces-significant-financial-challenges.html

Thorndike told BOG Chairman Harry Smith, Clinton Carter, the system’s senior vice president for finance and budget, and BOG member Jim Holmes, chair of the audit committee, that she no longer could balance the books, Smith said on Friday.
“She told us point blank, ‘I cannot make the numbers work any more. We are facing a large reduction in workforce at ECU,’” Smith said.

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Sounds like extremely tough times in Greenville through out multiple departments:

“While ECU generated more than $20 million in cash from state appropriations and tuition tied to enrollment in 2016, the projections show enrollment funding sources losing more than $10 million this year. ECU Physicians is expected lose an additional $5.3 million, and athletics is expected to lose more than $12 million, according to the projections.”

“In the last three years, ECU has doubled its debt from 200 million to 400 million, seen its cash flow go from a positive 30 million to a negative 40 million and suffered declining enrollment,” he said. “It is neither responsible nor rational to blame this on the legislature."

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What seems to be the problem there?

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Declining enrollment and shitty FB.

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I am no demographer (who knew that was a job!), but people are leaving rural America and moving to urban locations in large numbers, so I am not surprised when I see that rural universities are losing enrollment to urban universities.

P5 schools in the boonies (i.e., Clemson, Penn State, Georgia) will probably be less impacted by this student migration than non-P5 schools that do not have their legacy, alumni base, and sports programs.

Eastern NC has more pigs than people (real stat), and that is not the draw it used to be.

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UNC governing board member Mike Williford, an attorney from Fayetteville, is the liaison to the ECU trustees and helped guide selection of the new members. He said officials at the state and local level are devoting time and expertise to ensure problems are corrected with innovative, forward-looking measures rather than cuts.

An idea that he supports is a waiver on the cap of out-of-state students that can be admitted to the university, currently set at 18 percent for state schools. Allowing a number greater than 18 percent, taking care not to exclude qualified in-state students who want to attend, can help ECU reach its enrollment capacity while increasing revenues with out-of-state tuition.

Out-of-state students pay higher tuition to attend ECU than North Carolina residents, but ECU is an attractive option to many who live on the East Coast because it’s a nearby, quality school and still cheaper than paying in-state tuition where they live, Williford said

It is my estimation that ECU will be allowed to do this by the BOG and Legislature. All of the other UNC system schools will be required to follow the 18% rule for out of state students. The net result will be that ECU will climb out of their financial crisis and, eventually, exceed Charlotte and UNC-Chapel Hill in enrollment.

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So what ECU is saying is that they cannot succeed if they must play by the same rules as everyone else?

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