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What Gives?

M

meth

New member
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.
 
Re: What Gives?

meth said:
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.
Click to expand...

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- :D ). 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
 
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..... :roll:

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.
 
Redbird Arena

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!
 
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.
 
Re: What Gives?

meth said:
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.
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
Re: What Gives?

DannyCooksey said:
meth said:
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.
Click to expand...

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
Click to expand...

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...
 
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.
 
Last edited:
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
 
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 :?
 
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!
 
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...
 
State money or not, ISU didn't need a new arena. The only time they filled Horton was when the Braves showed up.
 
Chico said:
State money or not, ISU didn't need a new arena. The only time they filled Horton was when the Braves showed up.
Click to expand...

This statement is about as true as the earth is flat.

As for the original topic in this thread, I really dont know why they are installing a basketball floor, other than to get more events to possibly try and slow down all the $$$ the colliseum is losing. They are also getting some fairly big name musical acts (John Mayer, Ted Nugent, Sammy Hagar, etc) there as another way of rectifying their cash problems. Not sure if a few Globetrotters games or even a HS tourney of some sort will help, but I suppose at the very least having a hoops floor is a way of adding another part to the "multi-purpose" facility.
 
tornado said:
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)
Click to expand...


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.
Click to expand...

Tornado if you are sure it's the same in every state, why don't you provide us some links to this type of stuff for the state of Illinois?

If this type of thing is as prevalent as you say it is, you shouldn't have any problem any problems coming up with links and articles concerning our state, rather than Arkansas.

As much fun as it is to read about Henderson State, Southern Arkansas, Arkansas State, Arkansas Tech, etc... it would be much more enjoyable and relatable if you can provide us with info that contains Illinois State, Southern Illinois, Univ of Illinois, etc.

I look forward to reading your links and the info you find.
 
I have,mel...
I cited the Arkansas link because it is as current as yesterday morning, just so I don't hear the age old excuse that the link is out of date.

But anyone who checks can see that when it comes to things like budgets and spending tax dollars, there is a whole lot of obscuring and hiding going on, and so I would say it is the burden of those spending our tax dollars to show where it goes....
not the burden of those being taxed to dig to discover how they are spending it.

By the way....I did find this out.....

Redbird Arena, like the golf course and Hancock Srtadium were indeed built and paid for by dollars that came from long term bonds that were sold to raise the money.

BUT...the University IS and will be for a long time, paying OFF those bonds, and guess where they get the money to do that?
Some of it comes from "revenue generated from facilities".
http://www.policy.ilstu.edu/fiscal/auxiliary.html

But not all of it...
Some of the bond payments and legal costs are made from revenue funds and appropriations from the State.
AND-- whatever has to be spent for upkeep such as replacement of parts of the facility and upkeep also comes from the general funds, as they don't go out and issue more bonds!
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...d+arena"+and+"bonds"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us


cpacmel, tell me who paid the $1 million+ to put the new scoreboard in?
It was once stated that "the majority" was coming from "sponsors", but how about the rest?
Do a little digging and you'll see that general funds were used for that also.
Even if you can argue sponsor and donor dollars went to the scoreboard, some of those dollars are just paper shuffled to the scoreboard instead of to other public projects at the university.
Just more "creative accounting".
 
cpacmel said:
why don't you provide us some links to this type of stuff for the state of Illinois?

If this type of thing is as prevalent as you say it is, you shouldn't have any problem any problems coming up with links and articles concerning our state....
Click to expand...


cpacmel...here are the figures for Illinois, read 'em and weep.

The public universities have to make their financial data public, and here it is for Illinois State.

FOR Illinois State:
Total cost in Athletic Dept (budget) = $9,514,664
(includes unitemized, miscellaneous "Other Operating Costs" of $1,748,290 !!)

Where it comes from:
Ticket Sales: $811,439
Student Fees: $4,600,000 (wow the students really get hit hard!)
Contributions: $753,030
Direct Instutional Support: $1,026,274 (money from general funds of unievrsity to help balance budget)
NCAA/conference distribution: $900,064 (thank you Bradley Univ. for getting to the Sweet Sixteen!!)
Media revenue: $53,132
Concessions, parking, etc.:$140,613
Ads & sponsors: $391,791
Camps: $120,171
"Other":$166,700

So the total amount that constitutes "self funded" dollars is $811,439 + $900,064 + $53,132 + $140,613 + $391,791 +$120,171 = $2,417,210
out of a total athletic budget of $9,514,664,.

So the "self-funding" at ISU actually only pays for about 25% of the athletic budget.
The other 75% comes from the general university funds, the students fees and tuition, and from the tax payers through other means!
http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/revenue_stat/show?school_id=119



How about at U of I??
Well, in short....total operating budget in athletic dept= $47,915,540
Amount that come from "self-funded" sources= $30 million, or only about 65% of the total budget...far from being self funded!!
http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/revenue_stat/show?school_id=54

The numbers don't lie...feel free to look up any other public university in Illinois and it's the same across the board, they compete with Bradley using gobs of taxpayers' dollars, that were never intended to help keep the athletic departments solvent or competetive.

At Bradley NO TAX or STATE funds are used to float the athletic dept.!
NONE.....this is the truth!
 
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