Financial woes mount for FSU athletics; teams likely to see budget cuts
The already severe budget crunch facing Florida State's athletics department due to COVID-19 is even worse than expected, athletics director David Coburn told the university's Board of Trustees on Friday.
Four months after slashing about $20 million from the Seminoles' operating budget, Coburn said expenses related to COVID safety protocols have exceeded projections, and the school also has produced less revenue than expected from home football games.
"We're still substantially in the red unfortunately," Coburn told the Trustees during their regularly scheduled meeting. "Quite frankly, we underestimated the loss on the ticket sales side."
Due primarily to those issues, the Seminoles soon will start looking for ways to cut operating budgets of various sports programs, Coburn said.
"Up to this point, we've been able to spare the sports budgets for the most part," he said. "But I think we're now getting to the point where we're going to have to get down into the sports budgets ... and that may very well impact performance, if not now than in the future."
By reducing seating at Doak Campbell Stadium to around 19,000 seats per game (25 percent of capacity) to allow for social distancing, the Seminoles expected to lose about $11 million on ticket sales this fall, Coburn said at the Trustees meeting in September.
But through four of six home games, FSU has approached that number only once, when a crowd of 18,016 attended the North Carolina game. The Seminoles drew 17,538 for Georgia Tech, 13,589 for Jacksonville State and 16,568 for Pitt.
Compounding the Seminoles' financial issues has been a loss of membership in Seminole Boosters, the athletics department's fundraising arm. Because those annual contributions are usually aligned with season ticket sales, there has been a dropoff from over 13,000 members to more than 9,000.
Board of Trustees chair Ed Burr thanked Coburn for making difficult cost-cutting measures, but also asked what is being done to replace the departed boosters.
"We can't cut our way out of this problem," Burr said. "We're going to have to grow our way out of this problem at some point in time."
New Seminole Boosters CEO Michael Alford said his organization has begun working on a new "One Tribe" fundraising campaign, designed to recruit donors who aren't necessarily interested in buying football tickets. Alford and Coburn noted that FSU fans can become Seminole Boosters for as little as $70 per year.
FSU's athletics department already was strained financially due to a prolonged downturn in the football program, but the coronavirus pandemic has magnified those concerns.
Twenty-five full-time positions in the department were eliminated during the summer and salaries were reduced across the board, with a goal of cutting the operating budget by about $20 million.
NOTEWORTHY
* FSU plans to allow up to 2,600 fans at home men’s basketball games this season, Coburn said. There will be plexiglass barriers separating the teams and the fans, and all fans in attendance will be required to wear protective masks.
FSU is one of five ACC teams planning to allow fans at games, according to Coburn.
* Longtime faculty athletics representative Pam Perrewe is retiring this year, Coburn said. Perrewe had been in the position since 2011.
"That is a big loss for us," Coburn said. "She will be missed. I can't tell you how much she will be missed."
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