Given the current landscape across the nation, organizations and business are looking for alternative methods to save money to combat the issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chief-executive-officers and higher-ranking officials for many companies are relinquishing their own funding to help off-set losses while it’s even trickled down to the NCAA.
With no clear end in sight to the financial pressure caused by the pandemic which has already canceled the annual March Madness Basketball Tournament and all of spring sports, President Mark Emmert and the association’s senior management will be taking 20-percent pay-cuts. Those considered the association’s vice presidents will take 10-percent cuts.
This after the organization already announced that the direct distribution to division one conference and schools for 2020 will be $225 million instead of the expected $600 million. Most of that was in direct correlation to the cancelation of the lucrative basketball tournament.
But are there measures that can be done on an individual school level?
There is no question that there will be a revenue loss for each program but at this point it’s hard to put a finger on what that will look like and what it could look like in the future according to Shane Lyons, director of athletics at West Virginia. That’s because so much remains uncertain.
Iowa State has already taken measures to help on an individual level by implementing a one-year, temporary pay reduction for athletic department coaches and certain staff. That measure alone would reduce the total payroll by $3 million for the Cyclones athletic programs.
In Ames there also will be a one-year temporary suspension of all bonuses/incentives for the coaches in the athletic program which will save an additional $1 million.
Obviously, things greatly hinge on what unfolds with the availability of the football season this fall considering it is the cash cow and is the lifeblood for these colleges. But has West Virginia looked at alternative methods as well to try to safe some cash given the current climate?
As of now that has yet to happen and the goal is to try to keep those contracts in place.
“It’s a matter of trying to look at the budgets and trying to remain whole moving forward,” Lyons said.
Still there could be other revenue streams that make themselves available such as the possibility of ticket sales for football games.
All of these options, as well as others, will continued to be explored in the wake of the financial ramifications of the coronavirus but for now like so many other things it’s a matter of wait and see.
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