UNLV athletic department faces budget deficit next fiscal year

Before UNLV president Len Jessup revealed that football fundraising efforts have ramped up recently for an on-campus facility, he said Thursday at an ad hoc committee meeting on athletics for the Nevada System of Higher Education that the school will have a budget deficit in the next fiscal year.

Thanks in large part to the Rebels receiving a $1 million payday for playing a game at Michigan last season, the school expects to finish the 2015-16 fiscal year June 30 with a surplus of about $500,000 in its athletics budget.

But with no guaranteed money game on UNLV’s 2016 football schedule and men’s basketball ticket sales down 5 percent from last year at this time, the school is projected to have a budget deficit of $1.5 million to $3 million in 2016-17, athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy said.

“With basketball tickets, we have an opportunity to generate between $6 million to $9 million,” Kunzer-Murphy told the committee during presentation of a plan for a balanced budget for UNLV athletics.

“Typically, when you hire a new coach, the numbers go up, but with the last few months being a little disruptive in men’s basketball, we have some work to do.

“The beautiful thing is our new coach has been out in the community every night and our ticket sales are moving along. I believe in the years ahead we’ll catch up.”

Since Marvin Menzies was hired as the UNLV basketball coach April 22, ticket sales have steadily picked up, with $700,000 in revenue in the last week alone, Kunzer-Murphy said.

“Our basketball program will come back,” she said. “I think as this program moves forward, people will come back buying our tickets.”

Since Tony Sanchez was hired as football coach before last season, ticket sales have increased by $400,000 and are ahead of where they were last year at this time, Kunzer-Murphy said.

As part of the school’s philosophy of scheduling guaranteed cash games every other year, UNLV football’s next big payday will come Sept. 23, 2017, when the Rebels will pocket a school-record $1.3 million for playing at Ohio State. UNLV also will be paid a guarantee of $1.15 million when they play at Southern California on Aug. 31, 2019.

“I’ve talked with coach Sanchez, and he’s stepped up and said, ‘If that’s what we have to do year in, year out, I’ll do it,’” Kunzer-Murphy said.

“But we’re committed to playing a big-ticket game every other year.”

In other agenda items discussed in the meeting:

• There were mixed opinions by several members of the University of Nevada Board of Regents on whether to authorize university presidents to approve athletic director and head coach contracts rather than the Board of Regents. The item will be revisited at the regents’ next meeting Sept. 8 and 9.

• The committee approved recognition of the UNLV Rebel Soccer Foundation as an affiliated group.

• Representatives of College Sports Solutions said they should have analysis and recommendations in August for the Athletics Competitiveness and Benchmarking Study of the UNLV and UNR athletic departments. The study is intended to help the schools gauge their prospects for potential membership into a Power Five conference.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow on Twitter: @tdewey33