NMHU’s athletics budget boosted
Windfall will help with rising travel expenses, improving fan experience at games
With an annual athletics budget that’s one-tenth the size of UNM’s, New Mexico Highlands has learned to make the most out of what limited funding it receives for its sports programs.
This week, the NCAA Division II school got a significant boost.
The NMHU Board of Regents announced the Highlands athletic budget for the coming year has jumped 7.1 percent thanks to an additional $260,000 in allocations from the state and other sources. The Cowboys’ total budget is now $3.77 million, which includes $195,000 in projected revenues from sponsorships, ticket sales and corporate exchanges.
“Obviously we’re pretty happy about that, but I can tell you exactly where that money’s going to go without having to really think about it,” said NMHU athletic director Andrew Ehling.
That cash infusion, he said, is almost entirely earmarked for the costs of travel. As any AD can attest, the business of college sports has gotten significantly costlier since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to the inflationary rise in travel expenses.
“We’ve had to really augment the athletic budget,” said NMHU vice president for finance Max Baca. “It’s not necessarily that they are not operating within budget means, but there are expenses beyond their control that we’ve been working with director Ehling on this past year.”
It doesn’t take a deep dive to find the causes, Ehling said.
“We’ve stayed in the same hotels for years, and the rooms that used to run us about $80 a night in 2019 are now averaging around $115,” he said. “It’s not like we’re going from a Motel 6 to a Hilton. And it says nothing for the cost of gas, of meals, of even finding a bus driver. For some reason, we’ve had a hard time finding drivers. We’ve got four buses on campus, and we’re down to two drivers. It’s not just us, either. It’s like that everywhere.”
The pandemic didn’t make it easier. NCAA and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference health guidelines limited hotel rooms to two athletes in the wake of the COVID-19, half of what it was before the coronavirus emerged. That
translated to more rooms, more expenses and more headaches.
“For a football team with 80 people, it added it,” Ehling said. “Then you add on an extra bus to get them there and back. It was tough.”
Ehling said the NCAA and RMAC are easing that stance and will allow teams to go back to four players per room next season.
Whether any additional funding will be left to improve facilities or fuel specific programs, Ehling didn’t say. The 2022-23 budget will be, however, the largest NMHU athletics has ever had.
The reach the goal of nearly $200,000 in additional revenue, the school has moved Shanna Halalilo-Dominguez into a fundraising role specifically for athletics. The wife of Cowboys men’s basketball coach Mike Dominguez, she is now the department’s associate athletic director for external operations. She’s also the first person ever assigned to a fundraising role targeting just the athletic department.
“She’s going to make my life a lot easier because she’s building on great ideas that really have a lot of potential to generate funding,” Ehling said.
One thing the school is looking to drastically improve is fan-oriented. During the regents meeting, university president Sam Minner said he attended the final men’s basketball game of the regular season on Feb. 26 and came away with several ideas.
“We have no marching band, we have no pep band at this point; I’d like to change that,” he said. “We have some cheerleaders, kind of. They’re kind of volunteers. We have the Highlands Sweethearts, young girls who do routines and that’s all a volunteer thing. We need to ramp up that game day experience, so I am going to be rewarding — unless the wheels fall off — Andrew with some money there.”
Baca told the board a nonrecurring fund of $50,000 is earmarked for athletics to enhance the game-day environment.
It’s all music to Ehling’s ears. After struggling to get his entire department through the pandemic, the additional funding from the state and the university is only made better by having a school president who understands the value of athletics.
“No, to have someone like [Minner] hearing your concerns and doing what he can to be on your side and find the help you need, it’s so important,” Ehling said. “It gives me hope that we’re actually going to get through this thing. We’re definitely moving in the right direction.”