Rebels athletics:

UNLV Athletics bracing for difficult budget situation this year

The Rebels finished with a balanced budget for a second straight year, but that’s unlikely to continue

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L.E. Baskow

UNLV Athletic Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy confers with Deputy Athletic Director Darryl Seibel as the Rebels face Fresno State in the Mountain West tournament Thursday, March 10, 2016, at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Fri, Aug 26, 2016 (2 a.m.)

UNLV Athletics has reported a balanced budget for the second straight year, although athletics director Tina Kunzer-Murphy is already projecting a probable shortfall for the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Kunzer-Murphy and several UNLV officials met with local media on Thursday for an annual state of the department luncheon. Included was a discussion of UNLV’s most recent budget, which was submitted with an extra $1,256,055 in revenue covering an extra $657,251 in expenditures to leave the department with $598,804 in its budget reserves.

UNLV Athletics' total revenue in 2016, including the $2.8 million it receives from the Thomas & Mack Center, was $35,684,359 while its expenditures were $35,085,555.

Three things in particular helped UNLV’s total revenues: an extra $1 million in institutional support from the university, an extra $430,397 from football and a $1 million buyout from men’s basketball coach Chris Beard, who left UNLV for Texas Tech after less than a week officially on the job. None of that is expected to come in this year; in fact, not only has athletics been told not to expect an extra influx of institutional support, the budgeted amount will drop from about $1.2 million to $800,000.

“Next year we will not be bringing in a surplus,” Kunzer-Murphy said.

The Beard situation was obviously unique and it’s one that UNLV is OK not repeating. Football’s revenue could again exceed expectations, most likely through ticket sales, but this year there’s no guaranteed payout game to help balance the ledger.

The Rebels brought in about $1.4 million last year from a trip to Michigan and a related TV bonus game. This year their marquee road trip, Sept. 10 at UCLA in the Rose Bowl, is part of a home-and-home series after the Bruins came to Sam Boyd Stadium last year. The Rebels will get about $1.3 million to play at Ohio State in 2017 and $1.15 million to play at USC in 2018.

Kunzer-Murphy’s future

After several months filling the interim role, Kunzer-Murphy officially became UNLV’s full-time athletic director on Jan. 1, 2014, with a three-deal that runs out at the end of this year. So far, there has been no approval for an extension, and as Dec. 31 draws closer that outcome becomes less and less likely.

Then-president Neal Smatresk hired Kunzer-Murphy and then left for the same position at North Texas before she was officially in place. It’s possible that current UNLV President Len Jessup would prefer to bring in someone of his own choosing.

Kunzer-Murphy said she plans to continue conversations with Jessup and expects to have a substantive update in October, though on Thursday she at times sounded like someone preparing for the end.

“I’m going to decide what’s best for us,” Kunzer-Murphy said about her family, which includes husband Greg Murphy and a second grandchild expected soon.

Kunzer-Murphy preferred to discuss her excitement for the fall season rather than whether these will be her final months as athletic director. If they are, she said she has few regrets about her tenure.

“I’ll tell you this, there are not many things I would change,” Kunzer-Murphy said. “This program is being repurposed, refurbished and I’m really glad that I played a small role in that and I believe in what we’re doing. I love some of the things that we’ve got and there are a lot more things that we need to do.”

Notes

• Kunzer-Murphy said all nine women’s sports plus men’s basketball and football will now receive full cost of attendance benefits.

Last year, through support from private fundraising, men’s and women’s basketball both had full cost of attendance, which covers the difference between a full scholarship and additional expenses like transportation, cellphone bills and miscellaneous expenditures. Title IX requires equal distribution between men’s and women’s sports, so in order to cover the max 85 football scholarships the university must also cover that many women’s scholarships.

The department is still figuring out exactly what it’s going to do with UNLV’s other men’s sports, including baseball, golf, soccer, tennis and swimming and diving. Some may receive partial cost of attendance.

• Season ticket sales for football are up while men’s basketball sales continue to decline.

As of Monday, UNLV has sold 4,238 football season-ticket packages, which is up slightly from the 4,150 sold at this time last year. In 2015, UNLV finished with about 5,000 packages sold, a number they expect to eclipse this season.

Meanwhile, men’s basketball ticket sales have fallen at about the same rate as the team’s overall victories. UNLV currently has sold 5,198 season-ticket packages, down from 6,058 sold at this time last year.

But the bigger trend is even more concerning, as the final tallies have steadily fallen:

2012-13: 9,411

2013-14: 8,344

2014-15: 7,120

2015-16: 6,561

Thanks to a chaotic recruiting process and inheriting a difficult schedule, coach Marvin Menzies is unlikely to reverse that trend in his first season. The challenge will be to soften the fall and slowly persuade people to get back on board.

• Kunzer-Murphy said she expects the proposed football facility to cost about $28-$30 million, and an official announcement could come by January. The plan is to break ground next spring and build it in about 18 months on land inside Rebel Park.

• Members of the athletic department recently met with student leaders to propose an increase in student fees toward athletics, which are currently some of the lowest in the Mountain West. The proposal would raise the fee 50 cents per credit hour, and if approved this winter by the Board of Regents, the increase would go into effect in 2017-18.

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.

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