Lehigh Football Nation
January 28th, 2011, 09:42 AM
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/jan/27/fgcu-athletics-board-trustees-chair-admits-adding/
The chairman of the Florida Gulf Coast University Board of Trustees has had a bit of time to digest the football feasibility study numbers that were distributed during the Jan. 18 meeting.
And he finds them impossible to swallow.
At least for now.
"Well, I don't see how the finances work," Scott Lutgert said a week after the presentation. "I think it's an insurmountable task to get the finances to work at this time.
"However, at some time in the future, it will work."
There's the ever-present fudging of numbers in their analysis ($4.8 million a year loss? No revenue? That seems really unlikely.) But there's also some interesting tidbits that are not bunk, too.
In addition, because of Title IX (the NCAA's gender-equity laws), FGCU, which is not interested in non-scholarship programs like those at fellow Atlantic Sun schools Jacksonville and Campbell, would have to add 110 female scholarships to offset 90 football ones. The annual increase for that alone (not counting the cost to kickstart 2-3 more women's programs in order to add the scholarships) would be $5.9 million.
The Carr Sports Associates study covered only scholarship football. There are several reasons FGCU is not interested in the other route: It is not going to spend tens and tens of millions of dollars to buy land and build a facility for non-scholarship football. There are only three non-scholarship leagues, and one of those is the Ivy League, and the few schools that do play non-scholarship football are much smaller.
Construction of a 15,000-seat stadium, two practice fields, parking and support service facilities would be around $90 million. And that doesn't include the cost of the 100 acres FGCU would have to purchase to house football. FGCU's 760-acre campus "which is almost half jurisdictional wetland," the report stated, does not have room for football.
"Right now, it probably won't work," Lutgert said. "It's probably 5-10 years down the road -- 5-10 years down the road to make the decision to start doing it ... that puts it at 10-15 years down the road."
There's also interesting tidbits on Mercer's (non-scholarship) and Kennesaw State's (scholarship) football programs that are ramping up. That's an awful lot of Atlantic Sun programs that are playing football... but a deep institutional divide between those that want scholarship and true non-scholarship football.
The chairman of the Florida Gulf Coast University Board of Trustees has had a bit of time to digest the football feasibility study numbers that were distributed during the Jan. 18 meeting.
And he finds them impossible to swallow.
At least for now.
"Well, I don't see how the finances work," Scott Lutgert said a week after the presentation. "I think it's an insurmountable task to get the finances to work at this time.
"However, at some time in the future, it will work."
There's the ever-present fudging of numbers in their analysis ($4.8 million a year loss? No revenue? That seems really unlikely.) But there's also some interesting tidbits that are not bunk, too.
In addition, because of Title IX (the NCAA's gender-equity laws), FGCU, which is not interested in non-scholarship programs like those at fellow Atlantic Sun schools Jacksonville and Campbell, would have to add 110 female scholarships to offset 90 football ones. The annual increase for that alone (not counting the cost to kickstart 2-3 more women's programs in order to add the scholarships) would be $5.9 million.
The Carr Sports Associates study covered only scholarship football. There are several reasons FGCU is not interested in the other route: It is not going to spend tens and tens of millions of dollars to buy land and build a facility for non-scholarship football. There are only three non-scholarship leagues, and one of those is the Ivy League, and the few schools that do play non-scholarship football are much smaller.
Construction of a 15,000-seat stadium, two practice fields, parking and support service facilities would be around $90 million. And that doesn't include the cost of the 100 acres FGCU would have to purchase to house football. FGCU's 760-acre campus "which is almost half jurisdictional wetland," the report stated, does not have room for football.
"Right now, it probably won't work," Lutgert said. "It's probably 5-10 years down the road -- 5-10 years down the road to make the decision to start doing it ... that puts it at 10-15 years down the road."
There's also interesting tidbits on Mercer's (non-scholarship) and Kennesaw State's (scholarship) football programs that are ramping up. That's an awful lot of Atlantic Sun programs that are playing football... but a deep institutional divide between those that want scholarship and true non-scholarship football.