The Athletic Director's Corner

Aug. 27, 2007

Strengthening Butler University Athletics

A positive student-athlete experience, competitive teams and fiscal sustainability are the three goals of Butler athletics. As Butler's athletic director, I have been charged to increase athletic financial support in order to sustain our programs. At the same time, the costs for operating our sports teams have risen significantly. Additionally, the revenue that we must return to the university continues to rise. Our need to eliminate two sports during the spring semester of 2007 was due to a lack of available funding for the athletic department as a whole. It was with great regret that I faced approximately 40 student-athletes and told them that we could no longer support them or their teams. We are working extremely hard to find a way to avoid repeating that action.

We currently offer 19 sports at Butler, and we receive the vast majority of our ticket revenue through the sale of men's basketball tickets. This is consistent with the history of Butler athletics and continues to be a focus in the advancement of our funding. The model that has made Butler basketball successful has long included increased funding in order to provide fiscal sustainability.

It is critical that athletics remain fully integrated into the mission of the university. We can point to tremendous success in this regard by reference to our student-athletes' graduation rates, retention rates, volunteerism and character. Winning is not more important than these values and our philosophy is rock solid. We also believe that we can have excellence both in the classroom and in athletic competition. While it is true that the entire group of our student-athletes has long been successful in the classroom, it is also true that they have not been successful as a group in athletic competition. This has been due to our inability to support them with competitive resources.

Much of what makes Butler a special place is the willingness of all to pull their weight in pursuing the mission and goals of our university. If enough people are similarly moved, we will not only survive, we will thrive.

Priority Points System

Although I am not surprised to find some displeasure and disagreement with the priority points system, I want to assure you that we have received significant support for this new and necessary program. Fifty percent more of our 2006-07 season ticket holders became athletics donors during the six weeks after the announcement of the priority points program. Further, to be clear, there is no requirement to be a donor in order to purchase tickets. Although a mandatory donation is a common "best practice" at many schools (Valparaiso, Xavier, Creighton, etc.) across the country, we have chosen to make donations optional.

While no donation is required in order to purchase seats in Hinkle, I do realize that based on this new system some season ticket holders (donors and non-donors) could be relocated. However, with 10,000 seats and 1,072 season tickets there is plenty of room for all. Prior to the system's implementation, I received complaints from donors who were not rewarded with preferred seating locations for their donation. The decision to go to this system was made to better serve our student-athletes.

With respect to our prior season ticket holders and prior athletics donors, we have devised the system to award points for past men's basketball season ticket holders, past athletics donors and current athletics donors. We have asked no one to redirect their donations, nor have we penalized those who have previously redirected their athletics donations to other areas of the university.

Below is a list of the most pertinent issues that we are attempting to address with the implementation of the Priority Points System: