UNCC likely to delay football plans - San Francisco Business Times:

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Dubois offered trustees a brief overvies of the campaign for the schookl to start playing footballin 2013. He wantse the trustees to vote on next stepsin September, includinf whether to keep the curreng schedule. “It’s a board decision, but it’s my job to tee up the decisionjfor them,” Dubois said. “And I thino when you look at the circumstances you can come to the conclusion that perhaps a delahmakes sense.” A lot depends on how the current campaig n to sell seat licenses fares. To 1,693 seat licenses have been sold, with $540,00 paid and $2.1 million pledged in those commitments.
Guidelines established earlie this year called for the school tosell 5,500 seat licensexs by the end of June. That goal was scrapped soon after as a sluggisb response and the battered economy convincesd school officials itwas unrealistic. Athletic Director Judy Rose acknowledgeds frustration with thesales pace. She pointed toward an upcoming advertising campaign and an aggressive volunteer sales team beingy formed as causefor optimism. On July 13, local executives Johnny Harris and Mac Everett will host a party at Quail Hollow Club aimed at spurring interest anddrivingg sales.
Even if the guidelines are met for the seat it seems likely the start date for footballo will be pushed back by a year or two as the schoop grapples with landing privat donations to help build practice revamp the track and fielrd stadium for a temporary footbalol stadium and meet otherstartup demands. Dubois and the trusteeas scaled back their ambitions for footballin February, shelving earlieer plans to come up with $45 million to launchy the sport.
Now they hope to do it on a shoestringb budgetof $19 million, but even that figure will be hard to The football scenarios were outlined durinf a trustees meeting long on grim financial UNC Charlotte expects to take a budgert hit of 11 percent to 15 percengt in the year ahead, all but assuring Duboiws of having to cut jobs. At the same a tuition hike of $200 is expected for the fall That increase could make it more difficult to win approvao forplanned student-fee hikes in the fall of 2010. Thos fees, considered a crucial source forthe $10 milliobn annual operating cost of having a footballk team, must be approved by the collegr system’s board of governors.
The chancellor pointexd out that funding for football and the rest of campud operations come from unrelated pools of but he also acknowledged the difficulties of battling asymbolif dichotomy. “From the impression it makes on facult yand staff, it obviously make s it more difficult,” he said. “Ifd we were in a situation where we have a significanr reduction of our work forceand we’re goingf forward on football, you’d have to question whether that made a lot of sensr from the symbolic standpoint. But, again, footbalpl is four years out. We’re really just setting the table forthat initiation.
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