Financial Future: WSU Athletics
WSU Athletic Budget to be Discussed at Board of Regents Meeting
ZACH RUBIO | DAILY EVERGREEN FILE
After six year at WSU, Pat Chun leaves Pullman for Seattle, AD job at Washington.
June 8, 2023
Last Friday, the Washington State Athletics fiscal year 2023 budget was submitted to the WSU Board of Regents, which is meeting Friday.
According to the Cougar Athletics – FY23 and FY24 Budget Adjustments and Financial Management Oversight slideshow and documents that were submitted, there will be four areas discussed.
Action item one is focused on the athletics budget adjustment and its approval for the fiscal year 2023.
This action will explain the decrease in the Pac-12 Conference Revenue Distribution, how WSU Athletics Revenues are falling short of the projection, operational costs exceeding the approved budget, transactions in the athletics CFO role, fiscal year 2023 budget remediation, improved budget monitoring and financial accountability.
Action item two is focused on the athletics budget transfer for the fiscal year of 2023. In this action item, it presents the projected cumulative athletics deficit for the fiscal year 2023.
Action item three will focus on the athletics budget approval for the fiscal year 2024.
The main focus of this item is to create a balanced budget for the upcoming year. According to the document, athletics will remain committed to managing operations to budget expectations to budget expectation and closely monitoring potential impacts on current and future year budgets.
These items were submitted by Leslie Brunelli, Finance and Administration executive vice president and Athletic Director Pat Chun.
In the fiscal year 2022, WSU athletics reported a balanced budget which was the first balanced budget WSU had in athletics in over a decade, Chun said in a media webinar last Friday.
“Unfortunately, FY23 did not meet our expectations,” he said.
In the webinar Chun also emphasized a sense of urgency with how the market has been the last year and is focused on making it to the finish line, he said.
Within the discussion, the current and future athletics budget action item four will discuss the delegation of authority to assign athletics media rights.
The main focus of this action is to facilitate future revenue-sharing agreements with athletic conference partners. In order to do so it will be necessary for the university to execute a contract or series of contracts and agreements regarding the use of its athletic media rights.
This item was submitted by WSU President Kirk Schulz.
All items will be discussed Friday at the Board of Regents meeting from 7 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
mark • Jun 10, 2023 at 7:02 am
well once again wazzu athletics couged it and have a million and one excuses and YET again is taking more money from depts. that manage their money. read excerpt from article, “To cover the growing debt the regents will once again be asked to temporarily transfer money from university departments to cover the deficit at the end of the current fiscal year. At the end of this month 74 million dollars will be transferred from housing and dining, parking and transportation and reserves to cover Cougar Athletics debt.” I have a few suggestion… fire Chun, stop ALL athletic projects, focus all moneys and donations to the depts. that are owed plus 6% intrest, pay all other debts, require all dept heads to take accounting /buisiness couses, shut down the athletics dept dining center and lay off their employees or move to open positions. Just an idea.