<b> The Longhorn effect </b><blockquote><p align=justify>
As UT competes in the college sports stratosphere, schools like North Texas also pursue big athletics dreams — although with much smaller budgets.
Standing on a concrete patio outside his new $9.7 million athletics center, University of North Texas Athletics Director Rick Villarreal gazes south and sees a bright future — a 50,000-seat football stadium that he hopes will soon sprout from the gently rolling former fairway and propel the Mean Green into the ranks of the nation's elite teams.
"From the president to the board of regents, they've all made it very clear that there's no reason we can't have a nationally competitive program," he said.
No reason except money, that is. On a hot July day, the new athletics center, situated across Interstate 35 from the main campus north of Dallas, still had bare walls and an empty foyer. After moving in, the sports department ran out of money to add its decorations and trophy cases.
Like the University of Texas Longhorns, the Mean Green play in Division I-A with the NCAA's most competitive teams. Like UT, North Texas has high hopes for its football team. Both have powerhouse Oklahoma University on their schedules this year.
<b>The similarities end there. </b>
UT's athletics budget is $107 million this year. UNT's is $15 million. The Longhorns spend about $210,000 per student-athlete; the Mean Green, less than $40,000. UT's athletics department employs 260 — six times the size of UNT's.
The teams' financial statements also have very different bottom lines. UT is one of the most profitable programs in the country; North Texas is one of the least.
The fiscal gap between the two schools highlights the chasm between those universities where athletics is huge and everywhere else. And it's widening: UT's athletics budget is growing faster than UNT's.
How can these two schools compete on the field? They don't, really. The Longhorns have played the Mean Green twice in recent years, winning by a combined score of 121-7.
Despite such lopsided realities, North Texas and other schools continue to chase a dream of athletic eminence enjoyed by a handful of superpowers that play high-stakes leapfrog, jumping over one another to win bragging rights with the latest and best. After UT installed its $9 million high-definition football scoreboard and sound system, Texas A&M University quickly ordered up its own $12 million scoreboard package.
Less-wealthy wannabes are paying a high price, too. Texas Christian University more than doubled its football budget from 2003 to 2005, according to federal documents. Texas Tech University's athletics department burned through its financial reserves last year, partially because of its huge debt service from borrowing to improve sports facilities.
"The sad reality is you have the North Texases of the world trying to keep up and play a game they simply can't win," said David Ridpath, a professor of sports administration at Ohio University. "There's only so far they can go, and if they try to go as far as UT, they're going to lose, and their students are going to lose."
<b>'Any place but Texas' </b>
Studies disagree about the benefits that a high-profile, successful athletics program brings to a campus. Winning teams can attract students (mostly males), boost campus spirit and galvanize alumni. Though most prime-time sports programs lose money, the allure of having one remains powerful.
A 2004 Rice University study of its Division I-A athletics department found spiraling costs and a divide between the high academic standards set for regular students and those for athletes.
"As schools continue their struggle to remain competitive, the pressure to invest more and more in coaches and facilities drives up the price to play," the study noted, suggesting that the school consider dropping to a lower division.
Rice decided to stay in Division I-A, though it pledged to rein in costs. According to federal documents, however, the athletics budget jumped 20 percent from 2003 to 2005, mostly for football. The school is also completing a $23 million renovation of its basketball arena.
At North Texas, which has grown from a commuter school to a sprawling campus of 34,000 students, officials say they hope a nationally visible football program and new stadium will help the school win recognition as a top university. "The proposed stadium will be among the finest in the country," a fundraising brochure promises, "helping advance the respect and admiration this great academic institution so richly deserves."
"If this were any place but Texas, things would be different," deputy athletics director Hank Dickenson said. "But here, we got 5A high school teams with publicly funded stadiums as nice as ours."
A review of UNT's athletics budget, however, illustrates the paradox of building a competitive sports program with modest means. Winning costs money — which mediocre teams have trouble supplying.
The Mean Green earned repeated invitations to the New Orleans Bowl in the early 2000s, but for the past two seasons, the squad has posted losing records. That has taken a toll on ticket sales. And without the extra money from playing in bowl games, income dropped $600,000 from 2005 to 2006 — a significant loss for a team that overall earns less than $2 million a year.
In the past, the department sold basketball/football ticket packages in an effort to lure students to basketball games; when it separated them in 2005-06, men's basketball revenue dropped a third. (In 2006-07, for which financial data are not yet available, the team made the NCAA tournament.)
Athletics director Villarreal also cut the number of away games that the football team plays against big-time schools, typically powerhouses looking for an easy win. The games were lucrative, bringing in about $400,000 each. But they wreaked havoc on the players and the team's record.
The school's facilities, meanwhile, have been showing their age; maintenance costs jumped $500,000 from 2005 to 2006. The new athletics center nearly tripled the department's annual debt service, to $700,000.
In all, the North Texas athletics program's losses ballooned 50 percent last year. The Mean Green football team cost about twice what it earned; the basketball team cost about 61/2 times its revenue.
The university was forced to cover a $4.6 million deficit — on top of the $4.3 million subsidy that sports already receives from student fees.
"We're probably always going to run a deficit," said Mike Ashbaugh, associate athletics director for operations. "Until we get going."
<b> Betting on the future </b>
This year, UNT athletics is spending even more money in the hope that it will pay off later. It increased its marketing program by $100,000 and spent tens of thousands more hosting fundraising functions. Two new hires are chasing private donations for new facilities.
"We had a lot of people counting money, but no one out raising it," Villarreal said. The Mean Green Club now brings in about $500,000 a year — paltry by Longhorn Foundation standards, but several times more than five years ago. Hiring well-known high school football coach Todd Dodge has boosted season ticket sales 40 percent.
Villarreal said he hopes additional investments in basketball and football pay off, too. He has increased the men's recruiting budget for basketball and football. A new football apparel deal with Under Armour should eventually help the bottom line, although it will actually cost the department money while the Mean Green switch from New Balance gear.
At the same time, he is upgrading the sports complex to convince recruits that North Texas is a place to be taken seriously. The department has built 12 new facilities in the past four years.
The new athletics building has a hydrotherapy rehab room — just like the big schools — and gleaming new training and weight rooms. The new football locker room includes a players lounge with the now-standard large flat screen TVs. The foyer was finally decorated with trophies and other sports souvenirs.
The school also has new softball, soccer and tennis facilities. In 2004, UNT purchased the entire campus of a private school across I-35 from it. Since then, Villarreal has been transforming the old buildings into a "new" athletic campus, Mean Green Village.
A single-story schoolhouse is the new academic center (the old one was under the football stadium and leaked). The old gym was refloored and is now the women's volleyball center. A choral hall was transformed into an indoor golf practice room. The cafeteria will become the new basketball practice facility.
He has bigger plans, too, should the opportunity — and money — arise. The weed-choked softball field will become an indoor practice field. A baseball stadium and track and field complex will arise from empty lawns, and luxury suites will blossom in the Super Pit, the 35-year-old basketball arena in the center of campus. (He settled last year for a renovation of the basketball locker rooms and players lounges — 60-inch TV included.)
The capstone, of course, will be the new $60 million football stadium to replace the 56-year-old Fouts Field. Villarreal said he hopes to see construction under way by the end of the decade.
Yet he vows not to get too caught up in the athletics arms race. "We make sure our people get everything they need — though not everything they want," he said. "There won't have to be a logo every two feet."
By Eric Dexheimer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
edexheimer@statesman.com; 445-1774
