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Men’s and Women’s Basketball: Pay to play – UL basketball teams march on

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, March 15, 2016

 

 

They did not qualify for the much-revered NCAA Tournament.

But the 2015-16 seasons will continue anyway for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette men’s and women’s basketball teams, with both playing in what amount to consolation tournaments for mid-major programs not invited to the big dance.

The UL women face Northwestern State on Wednesday night at the Cajundome in the 16-team Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI) that it won last year, and the men take on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi later Wednesday night at the Cajundome in the 26-team CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT).

To make it happen, the Ragin’ Cajuns will pay to play.

And, based on what they paid last year, the price isn’t cheap.

The Cajun men and women did the same thing last year, and when combined the cost exceeded $55,000 — about $8,200 for the men, according to figures obtained this week from UL, and almost $47,000 for the women.

With a men’s basketball budget of $1.4 million last season and a women’s budget of $1.1 million, that’s only a small percentage in the grand scheme.

But it’s money going out nonetheless, and it could be more or less this year, depending on how many home games the two teams play.

Yet, even in these tough economic times, when the state and its public universities are looking in every crevice for ways to trim budgets, the Cajun athletic department adamantly believes a few extra games are well worth the expense.

As UL athletic director Scott Farmer sees it, there are two reasons.

“One of them simply is it keeps our program out there for another week, or another two weeks, or another three weeks,” Farmer said. “It keeps it in the public’s eye. And that’s what we are in athletics: We’re a marketing tool, if you will; a way to market our university.

“So this just helps keep that out there … versus some schools that are done (and) you won’t hear about them again until we start playing again next October.

“So … we see that potential loss,” Farmer added, “as being a way to invest in what we’re doing for our university.”

The UL men, who played in the 2014 NCAA Tournament when current NBA Orlando Magic point guard Elfrid Payton was on the roster, played three CIT games last year.

The Cajuns beat Incarnate Word and Sam Houston State on the road, then lost to eventual tourney-champ Evansville in UL’s historic former home, Blackham Coliseum.

“Playing in this tournament has been good for us,” UL coach Bob Marlin said this week. “The experience should help us going forward.”

The CIT charges teams $36,500 to host a game, and covers some costs including referees. Its semifinal-round and title games are cable-televised nationally by the CBS Sports Network.

The teams that host games keep the entire gate, which means for some — if enough tickets and sponsorship are sold — it can be a money-maker.

Teams that travel have most of their expenses reimbursed, but do not share in the gate or receive any added money.

In UL’s case last year, the Cajuns spent slightly more than $10,000 for travel to two games — and were reimbursed roughly the same.

For the game they hosted, however, they had about $50,000 in expenses: the $36,500 host fee; about $9,000 costs for security, a fire marshal, game management, programs, signage and promotions; and $4,500 for moving its floor to, and the use of, Blackham, where basketball typically is no longer played.

They also brought in about $41,800 in ticket sales and sponsorships, meaning slightly more than $8,000 was spent when it was all said and done.

UL coach Bob Marlin, shown here working the sideline

UL coach Bob Marlin, shown here working the sideline against UL Monroe earlier this season, has his Cajuns in the CIT again. (Photo: Advertiser file photo)

The women, meanwhile, played all four of their WBI games at Earl K. Long gym.

They had approximately $60,000 in expenses for the four games combined: a $10,000 hosting fee for each of the first two contests, a $12,000 fee for each of the other two; $14,400 for officials, about $1,500 for game management and about $1,000 for promotions and other expenses.

They brought in about $14,000 in ticket sales, sponsorships and concession sales.

The bottom line: The Cajuns spent nearly $47,000 to play in the tournament that ended with winning the WBI title.

“It’s a tremendous cost,” UL women’s coach Garry Brodhead said.

“But our administration wanted to give us that opportunity, and last year, without that opportunity, just think: Our record … we ended up winning 23 games because of it.

“It’s such a positive thing, for us, on the women’s side,” he added, “to have this opportunity.”

Brodhead wants his youngsters to have more practice time, and his seniors to have a shot at winning back-to-back championships.

Even if it’s not an NCAA title.

“We want to play in postseason all the time, because I think it’s a great experience,” he said.

“Anytime you can extend your season, and you’re playing more and practice more, I think you build a program. Every sport here wants to be a champion, and the way to do it is to play into those types of tournaments to see where you end up.”

Playing at home, where win-loss records typically are much more favorable, could help both women and the men advance.

With the Cajundome not available last year, the Cajun men were forced to play their first two CIT games in 2015 out-of-state.

UL did not want that to happen again this year, so UL will get into the Cajundome — albeit at considerable cost.

An Arenacross event was held in the building last weekend, and the Southwest Black Rodeo will be held there Saturday, so UL is paying about $12,000 to remove and later replace dirt that otherwise would have remained down on the floor between both events.

UL does not own the Cajundome, so as a tenant it sometimes incurs extra costs — such as when it paid about $4,500 earlier this season just to flip the floor and put its hardwood over the Louisiana IceGators’ hockey rink simply so it could practice in the building.

The Cajuns, Farmer said, “just decided, ‘You know what? Let’s do what we can this year to try to keep (the men) at home.’ … So we just made decision to pay the extra to go ahead and have the dirt taken out.”

“It’s a pretty large undertaking,” Marlin added, “to get done in a couple days.”

But the Cajuns opted to do it, because they thought it was important to stay home and — at least in theory — boost their chances of winning.

“That is a lot of money,” Farmer said, “(but) we’re gonna go to our fans and ask them to come out in droves and buy tickets and help to pay that investment back off.”

Paying to play in tournaments such as CIT and the WBI really is considered an investment, which goes to Farmer’s second school of thought on why doing so is — as the Cajuns see it — well-worthwhile.

He doesn’t want to lose money.

Scott Farmer, UL athletic director, does want the season

Scott Farmer, UL athletic director, does want the season to end early for Cajun basketball players. (Photo: Advertiser file photo)

But not competing, the UL athletic director suggests, would be short-changing the program’s players.

“Those kids work hard,” Farmer said. “They do everything they can.

“They laid it out there, and, yeah, we came up short of our (main) goals, but I’m not willing to say, ‘That was your last game yet.’ I think that they deserve, if we can do anything, another opportunity to compete.”

But isn’t it also a chance to save some money in a state, and times, where every penny counts?

“To answer your question bluntly, yes we could,” Farmer said. “But we really try not to cut anything that directly affects our student-athletes. That’s the last thing we want to cut: … And this is postseason; it’s part of their experience.”

   PAY TO PLAY

   The UL men and women’s basketball teams both are playing in postseason tournaments starting Wednesday night. They played in the same events last year, and here’s what it approximately cost them to take part:

   MEN

   EXPENSES

   $36,500: Host fee (one game)

   $9,000: Security, fire marshal, game management, programs, signage, promotional

   $4,500: Moving court to Blackham Coliseum

   Total: $50,000

   INCOME

   $41,800: Tickets, sponsorships

   

   TOTAL COST OF PARTICIPATING

   $8,200 (approximate)

  

   WOMEN

  

   EXPENSES

   $44,000: Host fees (four games)

   $14,400: Referees

   $1,500: Game management

   $1,000: Promotional/misc.

   Total: $60,900

  

   INCOME

   $14,000 (rounded): Tickets, sponsorship, concessions

   TOTAL COST OF PARTICIPATING

   $46,900 (approximate)

   Source: Figures provided by UL athletics