A member of the State Board of Regents recently suggested that the University of Northern Iowa needs to examine the financial viability of the school’s scholarship football program.
“Sooner or later, UNI is going to have to address scholarship football,” Michael Gartner told UNI President Benjamin Allen nearly a month ago during a discussion of the school’s proposed budget cuts for the current academic year.
“Eventually it’s an issue that has to be addressed because so much tuition and general appropriation money goes into the athletic department at UNI in contrast to Iowa State University and the University of Iowa,” Gartner said.
Last week UNI head football coach Mark Farley had no comment on Gartner’s statements, but UNI athletic director Troy Dannen did.
“We have a consultant that is coming to campus to review the football program as a whole,” said Dannen. “Whether it be as a scholarship program as we look at it (UNI football) today, whether it be non-scholarship, whether it be a full-blown FBS scholarship program or whether there should be no football at all. Those are the options to examine for football at Northern Iowa.”
The UNI athletic department will receive $4.6 million in general fund and student fee money, $1 million less than the year before. UNI’s current budget calls for $11.5 million of spending which is substantially less than Iowa State’s $43.2 million budget and Iowa’s $65 million. The problem that Gartner points out is that UNI requires more general fund money than Iowa State and while having a smaller overall budget. Iowa State will receive $3 million this year from the general fund, while Iowa will receive $882,000.
Although scholarship football requires the most spending in the UNI athletic department (approximately $3.6 million a year), it also brings in the most revenue (approximately $3.1 million a year). “People need to realize that there is a lot of giving to UNI athletics, around $1.5 million a year, that isn’t tied to any particular sport,” said Dannen. “I know for a fact that a lot of that giving is due to the football program. So there are other revenue streams that are tied to football that don’t necessarily show up on the balance sheet as a football- related income. That’s really important.”
Dannen also responded to Gartner’s comments by saying, “Our scholarship football program is crucial to our commitment to decrease our reliance on general fund money.”
If UNI were to cut the scholarship football program, a recently signed 10-year advertising rights package with Learfield Sports valued at an average of $1 million annually may be lost. In addition, there is no likelihood that Iowa or Iowa State may not play a non-scholarship Northern Iowa football team. That would mean the loss of $325,000 alone next year for the Panthers’ scheduled game against Iowa State and the loss of $500,000 from Iowa in their next scheduled game.
Although there is a consultant coming to examine the current FCS scholarship football program at UNI, Dannen says, “If you look at Northern Iowa football compared to virtually every other FCS level program in the country, we are generating a lot more revenue while only spending a very average amount.”
