Fuel prices zing athletic budgets

[MeanGreen61]

http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...338/1006/SPORTS

Fuel prices zing athletic budgets

Area universities working on ways to save money

Louisiana Gannett News

Rising fuel costs have created a difficult job for athletics directors as they prepare their budgets for the upcoming academic year.

The fluctuating gas prices make it harder to create a firm budget, especially for spring sports. Schools across northern Louisiana are facing serious questions when it comes to travel.

"It is an issue for all of us," said Louisiana Tech athletics director Jim Oakes. "We do the best we can in cutting corners and arranging flights and bus transportation."

Tech plays in a particularly far-flung league which features members across the nation, placing greater demands on budget planning.

"We plan early on," Oakes said. "We know what our schedule is going to be and we look for savings whenever possible."

Athletic directors must look throughout the department for sources of revenue to alleviate the increase in fuel costs. Oakes faces the inevitable truth that his teams must fly to their WAC opponents based in the Pacific and Mountain time zones.

"It just calls attention for all of us in collegiate athletics to generate additional monies to meet the challenge of rising travel cost," Oakes said.

Louisiana-Monroe has its own demanding slate of away games scheduled for 2006, including Kansas, Alabama, Arkansas State, Troy, Arkansas, Florida International and Kentucky.

Grambling athletic director Troy Mathieu has been at his position less than a month, but he's discovering what a crunch the spiraling fuel costs can place on an athletic budget.

The football team has offers to play opponents across the nation, but Mathieu has to consider how much fuel costs will cut into Grambling's profit margin. If gas prices zoom up to $4 a gallon, as some analysts are suggesting, it could eliminate their profits.

"We're trying to work out some creative arrangements where we may hold on the uncertain expenses of taking some of these long trips," Mathieu said. "It doesn't make sense to put our whole department's budget at risk because we might commit to a guaranteed sum of money that looks good in 2006 dollars. We're trying to work out some arrangements so that we're protected."

Northwestern State, which like Grambling participates on the Division I-AA level, faces a non-conference schedule against I-A opponents Kansas, Baylor and Ole Miss. The Demons will travel by bus for the Baylor and Ole Miss games, but fly to Kansas.

"There may be some changes that occur during the year, for the most part, the number we plug into our budget based on that bid is going to put us pretty close to what we spend," said Northwestern State athletics director Greg Burke.

"We budgeted that figure anticipating higher-than-ever gas prices."

Centenary athletics director Taylor Moore said he did more planning for his department's budget than ever before.

Travel-related expenses constitute 50 percent of his athletic budget. It's the largest expense for his department behind scholarships and salaries.

"It's always been a huge component of our expenses," Moore said. "It's a big challenge. Every department regardless how big you are and how much your revenue is, it's something you've got to look at."

The Gents' conference, the Mid-Continent, has members from Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Utah. Fortunately, some of the expense is limited because members alternate home-and-road series each year.

[Huff]

Our local school district just negotiated fuel prices for the 2006-07 school year. They could not get a firm price from any supplier. The best they could get was eight cents per gallon above the cost of the supplier's cost. It could go up a lot if fuel prices continue to rise.

Those nice folks at La Tech could curb their fuel costs very easily. The Sun Belt Conference would be a lot closer than the WAC. I hate to wish bad things on anyone, but if the cost of fuel causes them to come into the Sun Belt, it would not be all bad for them or for the Sun Belt Conference.

[Guest e-bone]

If athletic departments are run like businesses, why wouldn't they use futures to turn that variable cost into a fixed cost?

[meangreendork]

If athletic departments are run like businesses, why wouldn't they use futures to turn that variable cost into a fixed cost?

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Odds are, it hasn't been thought of that way yet. I'd think they'd build some sort of margin on top of that estimate as well, especially with the volatile nature of the Middle East.

The ADs can also find their most intelligent players, combine them into a research group, and have them work on cold fusion.

[PlummMeanGreen]

I venture to guess that Greyhound or Continental Bus Lines (or whoever is still in business) will probably be pickin' up some extra business from non-BCS schools this Fall. There may also be a few more "get there on Game Day and leave after the game" scenarios, too. Probably why even SMU or TCU may want to schedule a few more games with UNT, but thats their right of choice.

This gas thing is affecting every part of American life. God only knows that if our allied armed forces did not have a presence in Iraq what we would be paying per gallon at the pump today. My guestimate would be about $10 (+/-) per gallon perhaps? I'm neither a Republican or Democrat, but maybe George W. knew what he was doing after all with the U.S having a distinct presence in Iraq? OK, enuff' of this political subject from me.

Edited July 23, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen