What Gives?

[meth]

Maybe some of the ISU fans can answer, but as I was reading the Pantagraph, there is a story on the
new US Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington spending well over $100K to install a new basketball floor.
Since there are no teams who will be playing regularly there or who will call that coliseum their home
court, then why are they spending all this dough? They cite an occasional Globetrotters game or a high school tourney game
but doesn't Redbird Arena already serve that function? Seems like doing this will cause a money loss
for both facilities, both of which were built with public funds.

[DannyCooksey]

Re: What Gives?

Maybe some of the ISU fans can answer, but as I was reading the Pantagraph, there is a story on the
new US Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington spending well over $100K to install a new basketball floor.
Since there are no teams who will be playing regularly there or who will call that coliseum their home
court, then why are they spending all this dough? They cite an occasional Globetrotters game or a high school tourney game
but doesn't Redbird Arena already serve that function? Seems like doing this will cause a money loss
for both facilities, both of which were built with public funds.

Look


For the last time................Redbird Arena was not built from PUBLIC FUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I realize there is, for whatever reason, a tremendous amount of confusion on this matter from certain members of this forum. I am here to help you cease from spreading inaccurate info.

RA was constructed from 2 areas

1. Private Donations.........the largest single private donation campaign in ISU history at the time. Since this was done in '87-'89, this figure may have been surpassed since.

2. Student Fees increase before, during, and for a short time after construction.


That's it. Period. end of sentence. So unless you made a donation yourself or you had a son or daughter who went to ISU (I'll bet not- ). You didn't pay a nickel of the cost of the 17.2 million dollars to construct RA.

So once and for all. Say it with me with feeling................REDBIRD ARENA WAS NOT CONSTRUCTED BY A SINGLE PENNY OF 'PUBLIC FUNDS'.

In regards to this new facility with a new floor. I have no knowledge

[tornado]

smoke and mirrors, as public funds are involved all along the way! Even if you buy what's said by certain public officials (which, by the way nobody else ever seems to do unless you want to prove this point).
Student funds means that less of the $$ the students paid to ISU went to pay everything else, so they had to use more public funds on all those issues.
And I would love to see the tax statements that prove they pay all the same taxes that a privately owned, similar facility would pay.....

Even if you argue that students are assessed a fee to help pay for RA, then it is in essence a TAX> those students have no option as they are required to pay it when they enroll, so the money therefore comes from assessing the public.

Then there are numerous public agencies (police, inspections, etc.) that must be paid for the facility to function.
I recall when the city of East Peoria told all its citizens that not one cent of city or tax revenue would be spent on the Festival of Lights, until the evidence comes out it's just a convenient way of accounting so they pay by taking $$ out of a different pocket.

[daPAWW1]

Redbird Arena

My wife and daughter graduated with multiple degrees from ISU and we did donate to the construction of this fine facility! However, since construction the facility has not made money and has required the help from us 'tax' payers to keep it going (lights, heat, and etc.)! Now if you truly believe the 'private' sector has paid 'all' the way for Redbird, I've got a bridge in Minnesota I'd like to sell you!

Anyway it is a great arena for bball regardless of who's paying! And I love the place as long as BU is winning!

[mike radigan]

There was absolutely no reason to build US Cellular Coliseum, a.k.a. the Judy Dome.

[smitty]

Redbird arena gets lots of support now and in the past from taxpayers.

Isn't it owned by ISU? In that case, they pay no property taxes, and also get off tax free in many other areas, while venues that are private, like the facilities at Illinois Wesleyan do have to pay taxes.

And isn't the land that the arena was built on, and all the surrounding land that a private facility would have had to purchase, owned by ISU (the state/taxpayers)? That land would obviously be used for other purposes if it wasn't occupied by an arena that sits there.

And if anyone really thinks the arena was built without the taxpayers having to pay for some of it, they are fooling themselves. Realize that the "student fees" that were mentioned, were paid by the thousands of students who have attended ISU courtesy of taxpayers subsidizing their tuition and fees in the first place. If not for all the taxpayer money that put those tens of thousands of students in school at ISU, they would not have had enough students to collect fees from to even consider this project.

[DannyCooksey]

Re: What Gives?

Maybe some of the ISU fans can answer, but as I was reading the Pantagraph, there is a story on the
new US Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington spending well over $100K to install a new basketball floor.
Since there are no teams who will be playing regularly there or who will call that coliseum their home
court, then why are they spending all this dough? They cite an occasional Globetrotters game or a high school tourney game
but doesn't Redbird Arena already serve that function? Seems like doing this will cause a money loss
for both facilities, both of which were built with public funds.

I didn't say anything about operational costs. I was referring to the construction only of the facility.

I couldn't care less about the operational costs as this was never in question. I was simply disputing the funding for the construction only. That was not public funded.

Carry on

[cpacmel]

There is alot of semantics in this this thread.

If you didn't go to ISU or have a kid that went to ISU, you didn't pay 1 cent toward the construction of Redbird Arena.

And yes Tornado, ISU students had no choice but to pay the Redbird Arena fee when they enrolled at ISU. The students had a referendum and it was approved.

The Redbird Arena fee is no different than say a fitness center fee, library fee, golf course fee, etc.

If someone at a given school never uses the fitness center, that doesn't stop them from being charged to use it. (taxed?) And they are also required to pay that fee for the fitness center when they enroll, even if they never use it.

I have noticed over the years here that some Bradley fans love to complain about how their taxes built Redbird Arena. That simply isn't true. UNLESS they went to ISU or sent someone to ISU.

[amckillip]

Re: What Gives?

Maybe some of the ISU fans can answer, but as I was reading the Pantagraph, there is a story on the
new US Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington spending well over $100K to install a new basketball floor.
Since there are no teams who will be playing regularly there or who will call that coliseum their home
court, then why are they spending all this dough? They cite an occasional Globetrotters game or a high school tourney game
but doesn't Redbird Arena already serve that function? Seems like doing this will cause a money loss
for both facilities, both of which were built with public funds.

I didn't say anything about operational costs. I was referring to the construction only of the facility.

I couldn't care less about the operational costs as this was never in question. I was simply disputing the funding for the construction only. That was not public funded.

Carry on

In some ways in was publicly funded, a lot of donations that were given to the university, that would normally go towards operation of the university, are now going towards the building of RA. Therefore public funds are needed to run the school, it's a common tactic to appease taxpayers that that's not where there money is going. If you look I'm SURE ISU didn't see a 17 point whatever million dollar spike in their donations for that period. BU is doing the same for the building of their sports complex, we are not seeing a spike in donations high enough to support that, we are just using money that would of gone to programs or other areas - the only difference is our operational money comes from students who go to the school.

I personally have no problem with paying for a public school's arena with public money, thats how a public school works. Do we get mad when a public park is renovated that we personally don't use? And don't let BU Grads fool you, even BU gets some public money, ask them where a large chunk of the money for the construction of the communications building came from...

[jimbob]

This is like the Illini people saying not one cent of tax revenue ever goes into their athletic budget

[tornado]

Wow, here's a killer story that shows where the money does come from at state schools
to run their athletic departments. Now keep in mind, that the Illini people and others will tell you that their athletic budget NEVER uses any public funds or tax dollars. They tell you that and hope you are just naive or stewpid enough to buy it.
Here is a story about the state universities in Arkansas.
(and I am sure it is the same in every other state)

Read it for yourself, but in summary, the athletic department budgets of all their state universities
comes to a total of $89.23 MILLION !!!!
(the flagship school is University of Arkansas-Fayetteville,
"UA-Fayetteville expects to spend $ 48. 68 million running its program this year")
and here is how they are going to pay for it....
They are going to take the general funds from taxpayers and from state coffers...-- money actually intended for general school and student funds, and intended to pay teachers and other workers!
"To help cover the costs, six universities plan to use more than $ 1 million (EACH) of their education and general budgets"

"Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff each will transfer $ 1. 078 million from their education and general budgets for athletics.

Henderson State University in Arkadelphia will transfer $ 1. 04 million, Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia will transfer $ 1. 05 million and the University of Central Arkansas in Conway will transfer $ 1. 075 million."

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/197582/

and the article goes on to cite how a BIG percentage of the money used to recruit and run their athletic departments come from the general tax revenue that was ACTUALLY INTENDED FOR "schools???‚¬?„? educational and general funds and other auxiliary revenues such as dorms and food service."
(DIRECT CUT AND PASTE OF QUOTE FROM THIS ARTICLE...NOT MY WORDS!)


So never again let some state school fan buffalo you into believing their athletics pay for themselves or that their football programs generate enough revenue to be totally self-sufficient, because it ISN'T true and never has been.
When Bradley says it is operating or building new facilities fully by private funding,
THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH. THE OTHER GUYS ARE FLAT OUT LYING.

[Da Coach]

And here is a story that's been cited before. Missouri State was forced to drop 5 varsity sports a couple years ago, because they were losing too much money and they couldn't get enough revenues from the University's general funds (taxpayer funds) to bail them out. This article states that in 2005, Missouri State's intercollegiate athletics budget was about $11.1 million, with about $5.1 million coming from the university's general fund ???‚¬??? an increase of $600,000 from the year before.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/other/2005-12-16-missouri-state_x.htm

Here is a list of all the Div I schools in 2006 and their athletic budgets. Bradley ranks #229 out of 331 with a budget around $8.2 million. Note that the figures for the top 120 schools are all multiple times the budget of Bradley's, and they are almost all the state schools.

http://www.midmajority.com/info.php?a=schools-budget

Here is the MVC alone, and Bradley is 9th out of 10 schools, competing with schools that have millions of dollars more to spend. It is amazing that the MVC is able to compete with the big state schools, and equally amazing that Bradley can stay competetive in the MVC against the state schools that have far more resources and dollars.--

http://www.midmajority.com/info.php?a=schools-budget&c=VALLEY

[Dallas Brave]

Most state gov'ts and their institutions like to appear quite ingenuous when it comes to how programs are funded.

In Texas, the state makes a lot of hoopala about how the state lottery proceeds go to support education. What they don't tell you is that original funding that was allocated to education is now budgeted elsewhere. So the net impact to education funding is practically nil.

That said, I'm sure no State of Illinois tax proceeds ever, ever somehow support the athletic programs at the state universities

[chitownBUB]

Another fact in that Arkansas article is that at the five state universities cited, only 26.3% of the athletic budgets are
funded by "athletic revenues". Self-sufficient or self-funded are the terms we hear a lot and would require 100% of the
budget costs be covered by "athletic revenue", and instead it is only 26%. I don't have a problem with my tax dollars funding good university programs, but I do have a problem with being lied to and told that none of my money is being used there!

[bert notorius]

The basketball court follows the old axiom that you have to spend money to make money. That reminds me...there's this '65 Corvette I've had my eyes on. I could stand to make a few bucks...