3yards has this in the newslink..for those who missed it, I think this article might be a good one in this thread..
Geiger, OSU should explain massive debts
Published: Friday, December 3, 2004
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Ohio State and its athletic department have a massive debt problem on their hands.
According to a Bloomberg news story republished in the Columbus Dispatch Wednesday,
OSU\'s "athletic debt" as of June 30 is $202,671,662 - the most of any public institution in the nation. You read that right, $202 million.
You all wondered why prices went up for football tickets? You wondered why they would enter into that tacky naming deal for the
OSU-Michigan game? Here is your answer. It would appear that our athletic department went to the M.C. Hammer School of Finance. I bet the administrators were enticed by the Hammer School\'s catchy alma-mater: It\'s lender time, na, nah, nah, na - lender time. Come on, sing it with me.
It had always been a common pregame media-mealroom rumor that
OSU had run up massive debts in the renovation of Ohio Stadium and in the construction of the Jerome Schottenstein Center. None of us in the media could hammer down any real information because none of us (definitely including myself) had even the foggiest financial or business background to make sense of the documentation, much of which was public. So it isn\'t that anything was being covered up, just that it took a financial journalism specialist from Bloomberg to make sense of it. Then, of course, the Dispatch buries the story in the business section.
The mention of the Schott reminds me - that massive debt number does not include any debt incurred by the $105 million bond for that building. That debt is now in the books under the Office of Student Affairs (meaning that when the Underground or French Club are broke - you should know what to blame).
To put this in perspective, the school trailing behind
OSU with the most debt is Wisconsin, owing only $90 million. That is less than half, but still a considerable amount.
Now, I think students and fans at
OSU need to have an explanation of what the plan is to pay this debt back.
Bill Shkutri,
OSU\'s senior vice president for business and finance said in the article that they would not permit
OSU to default on its loans - which is of course a good thing. But he also said that the school\'s options, should revenues run short, would be to find more donors or cut teams.
Cutting teams? That would be the ultimate outrage to me and every single participant and fan of non-revenue sports here at
OSU. I have criticized
OSU a lot here in four years, but Andy Geiger and his staff has reason to be proud of the fact that
OSU had in 2002 the third-most varsity sports (37) in the country behind only Harvard and Princeton. That\'s great and so is the fact that not only do we give these athletes great facilities and all the benefits of education, but these teams win too.
It\'s going to take more than President Holbrook telling them to go do some research to placate the fencers, women\'s ice hockey players, pistol marksmen and women, or men\'s volleyball players that they are going to have to transfer or stop playing because Geiger, Holbrook or Brit Kirwan couldn\'t read a balance sheet.
Well, it\'s time for accountability from our administrators. How are we going to pay back this money? Students and fans are owed this by the athletic department. Too many people put too much time and money into supporting these teams to not have earned the right to know whether their favorite team might cease to exist or that they might have to pay even more to watch them.
It would seem logical that Andy Geiger, whose plate I will admit has been more than full recently with Clarett-gate and such, would want to in his final years as director of athletics, seal his legacy as a man who did a great deal for this university and its athletic department and not to have left them both with staggering overruns and a reputation for tattered excess.
If the athletic department is going to raise football ticket prices, they should agree to freeze prices for students at least. I don\'t have any qualms with them raising prices for non-students, the demand is clearly there for tickets and so they have room to raise prices. That\'s not robbery, that\'s capitalism. But for students it\'s a different story. Students already plug thousands of dollars into the University and should not be as vulnerable to price raises as they are to tuition hikes.
Also, whoever the new director of athletics is in a few years should pledge not to cut a single sport. Also, they should pledge to continue to not have to dip into the tuition revenues when they have overruns. People who don\'t go to the games, should not have to pay a dime for them. They currently don\'t, and that must continue.
Please, Andy - you did something very good a few weeks ago when you came out and outlined why all of Maurice Clarett\'s allegations weren\'t true. Now tell us how
OSU is going to pay this debt off. You\'ve been straight with students and fans before, please ... do it again. You were straight with me in October 2003, when you called me self-important (and probably right, too) as we fought over the phone - do that again. Be straight with me, be straight with all of us.
Could you just do it this time in a slightly lower voice?
Aaron Stollar is a senior in journalism. He can be reached for comment at stollar.8@osu.edu.
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The big secret is out. The rumors and whispers can now be said out loud.
Ohio State and its athletic department have a massive debt problem on their hands.
According to a Bloomberg news story republished in the Columbus Dispatch Wednesday, OSU's "athletic debt" as of June 30 is $202,671,662 - the most of any public institution in the nation. You read that right, $202 million.
You all wondered why prices went up for football tickets? You wondered why they would enter into that tacky naming deal for the OSU-Michigan game? Here is your answer. It would appear that our athletic department went to the M.C. Hammer School of Finance. I bet the administrators were enticed by the Hammer School's catchy alma-mater: It's lender time, na, nah, nah, na - lender time. Come on, sing it with me.
It had always been a common pregame media-mealroom rumor that OSU had run up massive debts in the renovation of Ohio Stadium and in the construction of the Jerome Schottenstein Center. None of us in the media could hammer down any real information because none of us (definitely including myself) had even the foggiest financial or business background to make sense of the documentation, much of which was public. So it isn't that anything was being covered up, just that it took a financial journalism specialist from Bloomberg to make sense of it. Then, of course, the Dispatch buries the story in the business section.
The mention of the Schott reminds me - that massive debt number does not include any debt incurred by the $105 million bond for that building. That debt is now in the books under the Office of Student Affairs (meaning that when the Underground or French Club are broke - you should know what to blame).
To put this in perspective, the school trailing behind OSU with the most debt is Wisconsin, owing only $90 million. That is less than half, but still a considerable amount.
Now, I think students and fans at OSU need to have an explanation of what the plan is to pay this debt back.
Bill Shkutri, OSU's senior vice president for business and finance said in the article that they would not permit OSU to default on its loans - which is of course a good thing. But he also said that the school's options, should revenues run short, would be to find more donors or cut teams.
Cutting teams? That would be the ultimate outrage to me and every single participant and fan of non-revenue sports here at OSU. I have criticized OSU a lot here in four years, but Andy Geiger and his staff has reason to be proud of the fact that OSU had in 2002 the third-most varsity sports (37) in the country behind only Harvard and Princeton. That's great and so is the fact that not only do we give these athletes great facilities and all the benefits of education, but these teams win too.
It's going to take more than President Holbrook telling them to go do some research to placate the fencers, women's ice hockey players, pistol marksmen and women, or men's volleyball players that they are going to have to transfer or stop playing because Geiger, Holbrook or Brit Kirwan couldn't read a balance sheet.
Well, it's time for accountability from our administrators. How are we going to pay back this money? Students and fans are owed this by the athletic department. Too many people put too much time and money into supporting these teams to not have earned the right to know whether their favorite team might cease to exist or that they might have to pay even more to watch them.
It would seem logical that Andy Geiger, whose plate I will admit has been more than full recently with Clarett-gate and such, would want to in his final years as director of athletics, seal his legacy as a man who did a great deal for this university and its athletic department and not to have left them both with staggering overruns and a reputation for tattered excess.
If the athletic department is going to raise football ticket prices, they should agree to freeze prices for students at least. I don't have any qualms with them raising prices for non-students, the demand is clearly there for tickets and so they have room to raise prices. That's not robbery, that's capitalism. But for students it's a different story. Students already plug thousands of dollars into the University and should not be as vulnerable to price raises as they are to tuition hikes.
Also, whoever the new director of athletics is in a few years should pledge not to cut a single sport. Also, they should pledge to continue to not have to dip into the tuition revenues when they have overruns. People who don't go to the games, should not have to pay a dime for them. They currently don't, and that must continue.
Please, Andy - you did something very good a few weeks ago when you came out and outlined why all of Maurice Clarett's allegations weren't true. Now tell us how OSU is going to pay this debt off. You've been straight with students and fans before, please ... do it again. You were straight with me in October 2003, when you called me self-important (and probably right, too) as we fought over the phone - do that again. Be straight with me, be straight with all of us.
Could you just do it this time in a slightly lower voice?
Aaron Stollar is a senior in journalism. He can be reached for comment at stollar.8@osu.edu.
