The Binghamton University athletic department will have more than just player statistics and game points to keep track of now that New York state knocked off about $2.3 million of the University’s budget. Bearcats sports was among the areas that got hit with cutbacks. Now administrators, teams and coaches alike are taking necessary steps to keep everything running stable.
“We took our cuts the way the rest of the campus did,” said Director of Athletics Joel Thirer. “We took our percentage cut. It was not unsubstantial but it was [actually] a significant number for us. The marketing and development staff will have to work in overdrive to make up for the amount of the money that has been removed from our budget.”
The cuts, according to Thirer, will not affect the department immediately, but coaches and teams have been on notice to watch their spending closely. The budget is not a hard and fast number, so the administration hopes to slowly ease into the process. The budget cut, Thirer stressed, is just something that was put out to the administration to consider.
“We’re asking all the coaches to be judicious with how they spend the resources that they have with understanding that if there is another round of budget cuts … we’re gonna have to make reductions,” Thirer said. “Everybody has been put on notice to be very cautious on how they spend their money.”
Open positions within the department will remain unfilled, and other ventures, such as landscaping projects will be capped off. Athletics has also asked teams, whenever possible, to spend less time on the road when they go away to play games. Something the Bearcats won’t have to worry about, however, is equipment, which they purchased for the most part with last year’s funds.
“Anything that could be put off we are not doing right now in order to meet the cuts to minimize the impact on our student athletes and our teams,” Thirer said. “You know in some time we may have to curtail spending in other ways.”
To prevent a greater monetary loss, Senior Associate Director of Athletics Jason Siegel and the marketing and development staff have taken certain steps to stabilize the budget.
Siegel manages all the fundraising and promotion for Bearcats sports. The budget cuts will not change the way he and the staff go about their business. Rather, it will create a greater sense of importance of the job they will have to do in order to counterbalance the cuts. This includes fundraising more money, selling more sponsorships and raising the prices in ticket sales.
“We have dozens of new advertisers that are coming on board,” Siegel said. “We’ve had an opportunity to have more regional ad buyers and national ad buyers inside the facility. On the revenue side that is our mission, which is to raise as much money as we possibly can to offset some of these cuts.”
Coaches have also been made aware of the situation and are wary of what they need to do to keep the cuts from biting back.
“Right now they are not really affecting us except that I am watching my budget very carefully just to make sure I don’t spend anything I don’t need to spend,” said BU track and field head coach Mike Thompson. “I’m not nervous about it [because] everyone is going through the same situation, not just athletics. It is what it is. It’s a national problem so I just work around it and we’ll do what we need to do.”
BU men’s basketball head coach Kevin Broadus agreed along the same lines as Thompson.
“If they cut it, they cut it. I’ve got to live with it,” Broadus said. “I say the same thing with my players. You’ve got to deal with what you have.”
The teams also try to make the most of any sort of budget that they are given, whether it’s an operating budget, equipment budget or scholarship budget. They try to make sure they are not overspending and at the same time they try not to be extravagant in anything they do.
“You don’t need to be on a sports team to feel a shortage of money. I mean, I feel it in my own household,” joked BU men’s soccer head coach Paul Marco. “I think our administration is handling the situation very well. I think they are trying to keep the sports at the level we are competing or improving at.”
Teams are already taking necessary steps to conserve money and resources.
“I’m very, very cautious. Some of the trips where we normally fly to, we [now] drive.” Broadus said. “You have to understand, in this business it’s all about dollars and cents. You just got to make the most with what you have. Thank God we are sponsored in many ways … but we still have got to be cautious. There is more than one way to skin a cat, you know, and we just have to look at those other options.”
In the meantime, according to the department, the University is trying to do the best job it can and put on the best quality programs it can for students, the staff, for the University itself and for the community. They promise to continue in providing a program of excellent quality and make due with its share of whatever the University’s cuts are.
“We haven’t taken any balls or any shoes away from anyone yet,” Thirer said. “In terms of our operations, all our coaches have been advised to be cautious with their spending, that in the event of further cuts, we may have to reduce the operating budgets of the teams. We’ve already have had one round of cuts the way the University has had, and in the event there is a second round, we’ll absorb that as well. We’ll weather it the best we can.”