Once again the university administration has screwed the pooch. I don’t know how many times the fans can be Charlie Brown’ed and continue to support the program.
Most of y’all remember the talk of development around Cajun Field with a retail and entertainment district. Well it turns out that the Kroc family, McDonalds franchise owners, as well as Stan Kreinke owner of the LA Rams were the two big fish developers who were backing the development. Also a Walkons addiction to Russo Park that would have funded the locker room addition.
The real estate deal with zero liability on the university, other than losing the real estate for other ventures was a straight 25 year lease for $30M annually. If that $30M would have been allocated towards athletics, even if just for facility renovation, we would be on par budget wise with the top of the American and equal to several P5 programs self generated revenue.
This development would have completely transformed the city of Lafayette and made the athletic campus the heart of the city. Good job once again by our administration.
I’ve also heard rumblings that T-Joe will withhold the auxiliary funds from the athletic program. These funds are self generated within the university, parking tickets, parking passes and other similar means. The amount has been roughly what the general fund transfer would be if we used that to supplement the athletic budget. It is $10m ish a year. So we can look for a 30% decrease in budget next fiscal year if this holds true.