re: Louisiana audits find three university athletics programs losing money

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App State’s application numbers skyrocketed after their win in college station.

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was it that big a deal?

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ULL needs to try to become a doormat in a bigger conference that generates more revenue

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And you need facilities to do that. They are spending to leverage themselves into another conference, I’m sure the big 12 is their goal.

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No doubt, the SBC is a better football conference right now, especially in the East division.

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The west had the two best football teams in the conference last year lol. Troy and South Al. Top to bottom of each division was almost a wash, with the west probably squeaking out ahead since we beat Marshall head-to-head.

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current conference situation anymore palatable

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I had to look to see who all CUSA backfilled with. There are some stinkers with New Mexico St, UTEP, and FIU, but Liberty, WKU, LTU, and MTSU is a good core for all sports. Dallas Baptist in Baseball was a good grab. Will be interesting to see how Jax, SHSU, and Kennesaw acclimate, but they all look like teams that will at the least be competitive for bowls after a year or two.

I will say this, the narrative towards LTU has been night and day year to year with this recruiting cycle with some of the transfers they've landed, the Scott kid out of Zachary lighting it up recently, and the number of guys they have that are still in the NFL playoffs. The last couple of months the narrative regionally and nationally towards that program has been overwhelmingly positive.

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And you need facilities to do that. They are spending to leverage themselves into another conference, I’m sure the big 12 is their goal.

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That’s part of the problem, the stadium is in near disrepair due to neglect from the previous and current administration. There isn’t a choice, it’s either condemn the stadium or bond it out.

To the poster who mentioned the RCAF. It isn’t autonomous like TAF is. It falls under the UL Foundation umbrella. It’s partly why institutional support is higher at UL than other in-state programs. RCAF is also hamstrung to an extent by the UL Foundation not allowing RCAF to solicit athletic donations from certain donors.

Should the program operate at a deficit, absolutely not. The real question is the administration, once again trying to stifle athletic success by limiting what the athletic department can do to raise funds, trying to be successful.

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RCAF is also hamstrung to an extent by the UL Foundation not allowing RCAF to solicit athletic donations from certain donors.

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I didn't realize this was still a thing going on in Martin Hall.

It was certainly the case for two solid decades under Ray Authement as university president. There was no RCAF back then, because he would not allow an athletic booster club, but he also gave the directive to coaches of certain folks they were not allowed to try to solicit support from.

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I think there's a daily bitch session on Ragin Pagin about separating RCAF from the University.

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Probably for good reason if this stated above by Chewy is true:

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RCAF is also hamstrung to an extent by the UL Foundation not allowing RCAF to solicit athletic donations from certain donors.

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…..and That’s just pure BS right there. Just regurgitated nonsense from the UL__’s who pucker up every time Tech’s name is even mentioned.

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It's the truth I don't really know what you want baw

Think about this logically. You really think ULM wouldn't want Tech in their conference considering Tech has been the one refusing to play them for 30 years?

It was Tech or JMU one of who saved a bunch of travel cost for every SBC school in the west and who has had traditional rivals in the conference.

Tech swung and missed on the AAC and then dragged the SBC along for too long until they chopped them.

You can keep telling yourself you're administration would have rather been in a conference with SFA though

Unfortunate because it would have been a great add

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Some Lafayette-area pol will float a bill that would require LSU to share their AD profits with other state schools. One guy tried this years ago and the bill got laughed out of committee.

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Ok, so I did a little asking around the university to get more information about this deficit.

The $5.3M must be reported due to the reporting structure of the audit criteria. Nothing new there, it’s the same for every system school. What’s not reported is how the university covers the deficit. The $5.3M is covered through auxiliary fees. Those fees are self generated through parking permits, parking garages and other ancillary fees on campus.

From what I have been told, the audit does not have a line item to account for the money so legally it must show a deficit. If the audit had a line item that would allow those auxiliary fees to be reported then the budget would be balanced.

The university isn’t bleeding money, it’s budget is covered. There is absolutely no chance UL, who hates athletics, would continue to willingly operate at a deficit.

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I believe the other audited ULS schools also have those auxiliary fees, however the resulting dollars do not go to athletics and instead go to upkeep/maintenance for said garages, buildings, etc. I believe ULL is the only school that moves this money to athletics. So still not apples to apples with the other schools and, as such, the deficit as audited.

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You are correct. No other ULS program does this. It’s not that they can’t, they choose not to.

The auxiliary fees are still used for the maintaining of the parking garages as well. There are excess and that’s moved to athletics.