IU Athletics announces $6M surplus

Three years ago, there was a huge deficit.

IU Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan was getting heat from students and trustees, and his department was struggling to meet financial goals from ticket sales, especially in football.

But at Thursday’s board of trustees meeting, Greenspan delivered the athletics department annual report and painted a starkly different picture.

Having spent the better part of a decade running up debt, Greenspan’s department has gone from annual deficits of more than $2.5 million in 2001 to a surplus of more than $6 million in the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

The turnaround makes a success out of the department’s long-term plan, passed by the trustees and former IU President Adam Herbert in November 2005. The plan called for the elimination of budget deficits by 2008.

The plan involved a set of cutbacks – including taking 500 seats away from the student section on the lower level of Assembly Hall and raising student basketball ticket prices by $4 per game – that allowed the athletics department to shy away from a $30 athletics fee for students.

Herbert asked Greenspan to formulate the plan at the September 2005 board of trustees meeting following eight consecutive years of large deficits.

The athletics department has raised income across the board, according to Greenspan’s report. IU recently signed a contract with adidas worth more than $2.6 million per year until 2015-2016. Revenue from football ticket sales has been almost $2 million more than budgeted projections since the plan was enacted, and Memorial Stadium will host eight home games this year, all but guaranteeing Greenspan an even bigger surplus.

The extra money will go toward new projects like the North End Zone Project and the basketball training facility, which have already been funded. Plans are in the works for other projects, like a new baseball and softball facility where the North Fee Lane Fields are currently located.

Greenspan also commented on other aspects of IU athletics and took a moment to focus on compliance – an issue brought to the forefront by NCAA charges against the men’s basketball program and former coach Kelvin Sampson. Greenspan said IU has a “good compliance culture” and cited the University’s history of compliance and self-reporting.

He said IU self-reports about 25 second-tier violations each year – about middle of the road for big state schools – and that the NCAA looks favorably upon schools that self-report.

-Staff writer Matt Dollinger contributed to this report.