Current Issues In Sport Management
With the expense of college football, and the NCAA rules that ended the last attempt that the University of California, Santa Barbara had at having a successful football team, it is not likely that the USCB Gauchos will be returning to the field any time soon. The other sports that are represented by teams at UCSB made a whopping $658 in revenue last year, so, from the outside, investments in UCSB sports do not look promising. However, if someone wanted to attempt to have a football team at UCSB, there are some ways that it could be done, but they are risky and all of them are long shots.
First, funding opportunities and resources would have to be identified, secured, and tapped. The state of California used to support over 80 percent of UCSB’s programs. Today, thy fund only about 43 percent. There are many other resources that can be accessed such as charitable funds including alumni who may have played football when they attended or who just want to support a UCSB football team, foundations and corporations. UCSB could have a football arena named for Burger King or some other large corporation popular with college aged people. Partnerships are another possibility for sponsorship. Nike is a good example. Phil Knight, the owner of Nike attended University of Oregon, and Nike funded the building of Autzen Stadium where the Oregon Ducks play as well as the upgrade of the team that has taken them to the playoffs several times in recent years. If a major sports corporations were to fund UCSB men’s football, they may also be able to make money by accessing useful university resources such as research centers and other campus venues for corporate events. After all, Santa Barbara is a beautiful city. It would make a wonderful place to hold a convention. If a corporation partnered with the college to sponsor a football team, they would have first dibs on the facilities for convention events. Not to mention, the output from colleges, namely intellectual capital, that would help the corporation reduce costs and protect their assets would also be theirs to access without the pesky R&D expenditures. Some sports related corporation might be interested in the possibilities, but someone for UCSB will have to make an effort to pursue them, hound them, and make them see all the benefits in it for them.
However, the costs of supporting a college football team are high. The salaries for coaches alone would go well over $200,000 if the coaches are male. Maybe UCSB could make history by hiring a female men’s football coach. After all, they could probably get away with paying her less as they appear to do for the women’s coaches. Once the salaries of coaches, assistant coaches, trainers, doctors, and other support personnel was covered, then there would be operational costs to consider. Uniforms for the number of players required to have a decent football team are not cheap. The arena would have to be built and maintained. At some point in the future it would most likely need upgrades and repairs too. Finally, other necessary expenditures would include consultants, player acquisition and temporary staff. These add up to a lot of necessary funding from charities, foundations or partner corporations willing to shoulder the costs.
Another way to lower the cost of having a men’s football team would be to cut programs that are currently unpopular and/or losing money. UCSB men’s basketball and baseball are not ranked very high. Perhaps they should go in favor of a football team, and what about water polo? Is that a big money maker? It hardly seems likely. The women do much better. Perhaps the football team should be a women’s football team. Cutting programs and making adjustments to create a winning team—because it is winning teams that draw the fans and the revenue from the fans—would be helpful in restoring the college to its former football status, that of actually having a football team.
If one were to lobby for a UCSB football team, they should start with generating enthusiasm for it on campus. If the students were invested in having a football team, they could set about generating enthusiasm in other sectors such as their parents, who may be alumni, or other people who might be persuaded that Saturday football games in Santa Barbara might bring some increased economic gains to the city. Getting students interested may be as simple as demonstrating to them how much better campus life would be with a football team. Showing them videos of the campus spirit that is generated from college football may do the trick, but demonstrating to them how donors are more likely to donate to improve the campus in other areas if there is a football team may be the most rational method.
Others may be encouraged to invest so that they can have a venue for their business even if they cannot afford to have the stadium named for them. For instance, having a food booth at a stadium is a pretty coveted prize. Local entrepreneurs may be persuaded to invest so that once the stadium was built, they could have another outlet for their business and one with great returns and low overhead based on their investment in the arena. Laying out the benefits for those willing to invest is a good strategy because it looks as if they are being charitable, but they are really purchasing something for themselves. For example, those who donated funds at a certain level would purchase themselves some really valuable seats with which they could impress their friend and out-of-town guests or they could just use them for family or business outings.
