Long Beach State sports fans shouldn’t expect President F. King Alexander to unilaterally impose the Beach Legacy Referendum (BLR) any time soon.
In March, more than 3,898 students voted down the BLR — approximately 60 percent — which would have paved the way for a new 5,000-seat soccer stadium and other athletic facility upgrades while increasing student fees $95 per semester by fall 2010.
Alexander, whom the Student Fee Advisory Committee advised in April to implement a lower fee, said he doesn’t want to see athletics “fail” but cited the economy and other student-related needs, such as Associated Students Inc.’s “funding deficits because of enrollment decline.”
“We can’t predict our future, we need to just be very careful about decisions that we make that impact students, and I’m very glad that we didn’t act and do something over the summer,” he said in his office last Friday. “At some point, we need to look at lots of things we haven’t been able to do for students.”
However, Alexander didn’t rule out the possibility “down the road.”
“I’m very glad that we’re taking a very cautious, wait-and-see approach to this,” Alexander said. “It’s not something in this bad economy that we’re moving to do anything with.”
David Benedict, senior associate athletic director, said a new plan to present to the SFAC is not in the works “at this moment.”
“There are many factors to take into consideration when evaluating the prospects of a new student fee,” Benedict said via e-mail. “However, we have no timetable for if/or when we would request the opportunity to present a new plan to the Student Fee Advisory Committee.”
For 2009-10, LBSU’s projected athletic budget is $12.1 million but the 2010-11 budget has yet to be determined, Benedict said.
The athletic department’s challenges have “remained fairly consistent” since the outcome of the vote, he said.
“The need for additional resources to support our student-athletes, coaches and our facilities is still significant,” Benedict added.
Six months removed, Benedict said the athletic department learned that a change in voting — from a paper to electronic ballot — “may have played the most significant factor in the outcome of the vote.”
“In the future, should we ever be seeking another fee, we would really need to take a hard look at the most effective way to communicate to the entire student body, so that we could be certain that we did everything possible to educate as many of them as possible,” Benedict said.
Dedan Brozino, director of marketing and corporate sponsorships, said the athletic department is “moving forward” and is looking for other ways to raise money.
With UCLA students not returning to classes until the end of the month, Brozino said he was approached by UCLA to sell Bruins football tickets for its student section, which wasn’t reaching full capacity.
“I said, ‘I’ll sell tickets if we can get a kickback,’ ” said Brozino, who added that only about 25 or 26 tickets have been sold with a $5 profit made per ticket. “So that’s about $100 we didn’t have.
“But it has no tie-ins with the BLR. It’s just [money] we can use to add to our game atmosphere. … Everybody’s got to fundraise.”
Brozino said about $60,000 was cut from the marketing budget, including one full-time staff position. In total, three positions and $215,000 were cut from athletics, Benedict added.
“All of our sports have had their operating budgets reduced by 3 percent. However, teams like men’s volleyball, men’s and women’s golf and soccer have to raise an additional 50 to 100 percent of their state allocated budget just to meet their operating expenses,” Benedict said.
“Long Beach State Athletics has always been a program that accomplishes more with less. For example, just last weekend our women’s volleyball team defeated UCLA, which was ranked No. 7 in the country, we swept them three straight,” he continued. “These are the types of victories that our program prides itself on, however the financial divide between the BCS vs. non-BCS schools continues to grow wider, which makes it much more difficult for our coaches and student-athletes to compete on a national level for championships.”
The main focus, Brozino said, has been planning for the upcoming men’s and women’s basketball season, which starts in November.
Brozino said he’s getting the Monson Maniacs student section more involved in future promotions, which will include an overnight campus sleepover prior to the men’s basketball season opener and an expansion into more student support for the women’s basketball team this season.
“They’re our biggest asset,” Brozino said.
The athletic department has put together separate season ticket packages for families. For the 49er men’s team, a group of four tickets are available for $100, and the women’s team’s plan runs at four tickets for $50.
“We’ve already sold more packages this season than we did all of last year,” said Brozino, who added that the end zone section of the Walter Pyramid will be renamed to “Boston’s Family Section,” a partnership with Boston’s Restaurant and Sports Bar. “Our goal is to sell-out the end zone section. It can fit about 300 families of four.”
Last season, 54 men’s and women’s season ticket packages were sold while more than 60 packages have already been sold for the 2009-10 season, Brozino added.
Other ticket-related promotions include allowing free admission to high school students, as well as all faculty and staff, Brozino said.
“It’s to boost the campus morale,” he said, adding that a slight hit in ticket sales would be irrelevant given the furlough situation. “We need to do this together as a campus and not just as an athletic department.”
Each faculty and staff member can receive up to two free tickets per athletic event, including the opportunity to purchase two additional tickets at a discounted rate. To receive complimentary tickets, each faculty and staff member must present a university photo ID at the Walter Pyramid box office.
Nine athletic events during the 2009-10 athletic year — men’s basketball games against Alaska-Anchorage for the Nov. 14 Homecoming season opener and Cal State Fullerton on Feb. 4; baseball games against USC on March 3, CSUF from May 14 through 16 and UC Irvine from May 28 through 30) — will be excluded as “blackout dates,” which means no free tickets will be available.