A Washington state senator has proposed a bill that would give the state oversight of athletic departments that run a deficit for three consecutive years.
The bill, if passed, could immediately become applicable to Washington and Washington State. The two athletic departments have been in deficits the previous two years. The bill proposed by Sen. Michael Baumgartner on Wednesday would mandate the budgets of the athletic departments be approved by the state’s commerce, labor and sports committee.
Baumgartner, a Republican from Spokane, is the chair of that committee.
“College sports play an important role in higher education, but we need to take a closer look at how schools are budgeting for these programs,” Baumgartner said in a release. “If they’re persistently underwater in terms of budgeting and over-relying on public subsidy, they need some oversight.”
Washington State’s athletic department has run a deficit of over $13 million for 2014 and 2015. Athletic director Bill Moos said in March that a major contributor to the deficit was lower-than-expected revenues from the Pac-12 Network.
According to USA Today’s database, Washington’s athletic department had revenues approximately $1 million less than expenses in the 2014-15 fiscal year and received a $3.9 million subsidy. Washington State’s subsidy was over $6.1 million.
But Washington’s budget problems aren’t getting better, likely because the 2014-15 fiscal year was propped by a one-time payment from the Pac-12 Network. In June, the Seattle Times reported the school had a projected deficit of nearly $15 million.
Jennifer Cohen, introduced as UW’s new athletic director [in May] said in an interview Friday that the triple-whammy of added student-athlete welfare costs, plus a 15-percent, two-year decline in ticket sales plus $17.5 million in debt payments for new facilities created “the perfect storm” to put the budget deep in the red.
Baumgartner is the state senator who was actively involved in a November hearing with Washington State regents over the suspension of defensive tackle Robert Barber, who was eventually reinstated to the team later that month. Baumgartner reportedly became heated over the discipline given to Barber by the student conduct review process and shouted “If you don’t fix this, I goddamn will” while leaving the meeting.
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While we can all agree a balanced budget is a good idea in a perfect world, we have a feeling lower-tier sports would suffer if athletic departments were forced to cut expenses to match revenues by state governments. Given that football, and to a lesser extent men’s basketball, is a revenue driver for athletic departments, Washington and Washington State probably wouldn’t be too inclined to cut costs there. Especially in the midst of a successful run.
A (relatively) quick fix is to figure out a way for widespread distribution of the Pac-12 Network, which doesn’t have the footprint the SEC Network and Big Ten Network do. But in an era of cord-cutting and a future of lesser rights fees for sports, that may be something much easier in 2013 than 2017.
For more Washington news, visit DawgReport.com.
For more Washington State news, visit WazzuWatch.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
