Ski team’s long-term fate is tethered to football, basketball
Lobo fans urged to buy season tickets to boost health of athletic department
The resuscitated University of New Mexico ski program and UNM athletics found common ground on Friday.
It’s on the turf on which the Lobos play football at whatever University Stadium will be renamed.
UNM athletics’ message to the diehard ski team supporters: “Buy tickets to football and basketball,” per athletic director Paul Krebs on Friday.
The UNM skiing Twitter account (@UNMSkiing), after being largely silent since Krebs’ original decision to cut the program on April 13 in a cost-saving measure, is now tweeting away
again. On Thursday: “So we’re back and here’s how you can help us stay back! Support football and buy season tickets!”
Earlier Thursday, UNM Acting President Chaouki Abdallah announced the news at a Board of Regents meeting on campus that the ski team will be saved after all, for 2017-18 at least.
UNM athletics on Friday issued its first statement on the decision. It said the Lobo Club, which raises money for athlete scholarships, will pay for this year’s skiers’ scholarships and route that money through athletics. UNM is estimating that cost at $110,000. The remaining funding will come from a combination of private sources and the university at large. How much that will be has not been determined, though program supporter John Garcia said “well over $400,000” has been pledged.
UNM athletics will not cover any other costs associated with the program and thus figures to save “between $450,000$500,000,” Krebs wrote in an email to the Journal on Thursday. That is most of the $600,000 UNM originally said it would save by eliminating the coed program of some 25 members.
UNM acknowledges it relies on football and men’s basketball to generate revenue for the entire athletic department and that it needs football to perform better financially. Last season, football had operating expenses of roughly $6.5 million and generated $5.4 million. UNM since has announced a 10-percent reduction in season tickets, and the program has agreed to play a guarantee game of $900,000 or more in future seasons beginning this fall.
Lobo football also will benefit from the naming rights deal struck May 3 with Larry Chavez, owner of Dreamstyle Remodeling, Inc., who has pledged $10 million over 10 years to UNM in exchange for the naming rights to both the football and basketball venues. Football received $400,000 of the $1 million presented last week, gets $250,000 annually for the next two years, and $200,000 annually for the eight years thereafter.