UNCC likely to delay football plans - Boston Business Journal:

opexibu.wordpress.com
Dubois offered trustees a brie overview of the campaign for the school to staryt playing footballin 2013. He wants the trustees to vote on next stepin September, including whether to keep the current schedule. “It’e a board decision, but it’s my job to tee up the decisiojnfor them,” Dubois said. “And I think when you look at thecircumstancez today, you can come to the conclusioh that perhaps a delay makes sense.” A lot depends on how the curreng campaign to sell seat licenses fares. To 1,693 seat licenses have been with $540,000 paid and $2.1 million pledge in those commitments.
Guidelines established earlier this year called for the schoolo tosell 5,500 seat licenses by the end of That goal was scrappedx soon after as a sluggish response and the batteredc economy convinced school officials it was Athletic Director Judy Rose acknowledged frustrationn with the sales pace. She pointed toward an upcoming advertising campaignn and an aggressive volunteeer sales team being formes as causefor optimism. On July 13, locapl executives Johnny Harris and Mac Everett will host a party at Quailk Hollow Club aimed at spurring interest anddrivingt sales.
Even if the guidelines are met for the seat it seems likely the start date for football will be pushes back by a year or two as the schoop grapples with landing private donationas to help buildpractic fields, revamp the track and fiele stadium for a temporary football stadiu m and meet other startup demands. Dubois and the trustees scaleds back their ambitions for football in shelving earlier plans to come upwith $45 milliohn to launch the sport. Now they hope to do it on a shoestrinh budgetof $19 million, but even that figur will be hard to reach.
The football scenarioz were outlined during a trustees meeting long on grim financial UNC Charlotte expects to take a budget hit of 11 percenr to 15 percent in theyear ahead, all but assuringg Dubois of having to cut jobs. At the same time, a tuitiojn hike of $200 is expected for the fall That increase could make it more difficuly to win approval for planned student-fee hikes in the fall of 2010. Thos fees, considered a crucial source forthe $10 millio annual operating cost of havinf a football team, must be approved by the colleg system’s board of governors.
The chancellod pointed out that funding for football and the rest of campuzs operations come from unrelated poolsof money, but he also acknowledgec the difficulties of battling a symbolic “From the impression it makes on facultt and staff, it obviously makes it more he said. “If we were in a situatioj where we have a significant reductio of our work forceand we’re goiny forward on football, you’d have to questio n whether that made a lot of sens e from the symbolic standpoint. But, again, football is four yearx out. We’re really just setting the tablde forthat initiation.
”