Monday, May 24, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.
UNLV Rebel fans would have to fork over an extra $1 per ticket to attend basketball or football games if university regents approve a proposal to use the proceeds for college academic programs.
University Regent Howard Rosenberg, a University of Nevada, Reno art professor, is trying to draw the Board of Regents' focus back to what he believes is its main mission of academics by proposing a $1 surcharge be added to university athletic events to raise money for academic needs.
"Athletics are auxiliary to the university, and athletics should pay a little bit toward the academic side," Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg requested that the proposal be placed on the board's agenda for the upcoming meeting in June in Elko after the board approved more than $9 million in athletic expenditures at the March meeting.
University athletic departments in Nevada receive relatively little funding from the state and raise most of their multimillion budgets on their own. Nevertheless, they still wouldn't be able to exist without the university, Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg, chairman of the art department at UNR, also said he finds it frustrating to see money and attention lavished on university athletics while academic departments struggle to meet basic educational needs. Unlike the athletic department, academic areas cannot easily raise money through things like ticket sales.
"I don't have enough seats, I don't have enough space and I don't have enough teachers and I've had it," Rosenberg said.
"It's my intention to try to raise some money for the academic programs and to focus attention on the fact that we really have problems (in academics) that need to be addressed."
Rosenberg's proposal, however, does not include any numbers on what a $1 increase would do to ticket sales and whether it would raise a significant enough amount to be worth the extra burden placed on those who attend athletic events.
Most of Rosenberg's fellow regents were hesitant to discuss the proposal at all until they knew more information about the reasoning behind it and the ramifications. Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers, who has been a major donor to athletics and academic programs at Nevada's universities, said he did not know enough about Rosenberg's proposal to comment on it, but Rogers said he didn't think it was that big a deal.
Athletic directors at UNR and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, were also hesitant to comment. But officials in both departments said ticket prices for next year have already been set.
A few regents said they recognized that at the heart of Rosenberg's proposal was his question about the priority of athletics within the university.
Regent Jack Lund Schofield said he understood where Rosenberg was coming from, but believed that athletics should have an equal role with academics.
"To me athletics have taken a back seat to academics and making a more research-based institution," Schofield said. "But I think they go hand-in-hand. If you don't have good athletics, we wouldn't have the popularity that we have right now at UNR with the winning men's basketball team."
Schofield argued that good athletics can help promote a university in a way that academics alone cannot, and he pointed to institutions such as Duke, Notre Dame and the University of Southern California, which are highly respected for their academic integrity yet place an equal emphasis on athletics.
"I think we need to improve athletics and go back to the glory days of (former UNLV basketball coach Jerry) Tarkanian so that students all over the world can break down the gates to enroll in our schools," Schofield said.
Regents Jill Derby and Bret Whipple, on the other hand, said they were intrigued by Rosenberg's proposal and wanted to learn more about it.
"I'm a great supporter of the academics," Derby said. "I believe the balance there is very important, but academics is our mission."
Regents Mark Alden and Steve Sisolak, who cosponsored the proposal in support of Rosenberg, similarly said they were philosophically in agreement but wanted to know more about the financial impact.
Currently, UNLV charges anywhere from $5 a seat for general admission to a soccer game to $28 for one of the best seats at the Thomas and Mack Center for a Rebels basketball game. Admission to any athletic event is free with a student ID.
UNLV typically sells about 7,000 season tickets and 52,000 individual game tickets per season for home football games, generating about $1.8 million, Jerry Koloskie, senior associate athletic director, said. Basketball raises about $1.7 million a year, with 4,600 season tickets and 28,000 individual tickets. All other sports combined raise just under $70,000.
The ticket sales make up only about one-fifth of the athletic department's $22 million budget, and the rest is raised through scholarship donations and fund-raising, Koloski said.
Neither Koloski or UNLV Athletic Director Mike Hamrick wanted to comment about Rosenberg's proposal, but Koloski said that his staff has to very carefully examine the reasons behind any raise in ticket prices.
In the past few years, Koloski said, ticket prices have only been increased to keep up with the economy -- to cope with the rising costs of security, facility maintenance and electricity.
Revenue numbers were not immediately available for UNR, though the Reno university did have similar attendance numbers and ticket prices for their sporting events.
UNR Athletic Director Cary Groth was also hesitant to comment about the proposal because, she said, she knew nothing about it. But she agreed with Schofield that athletic programs support academics by bringing publicity to the school.
Publicity such as the Wolf Pack's recent basketball success can save the university millions in advertisement and recruitment costs, Groth said.
"I'm not familiar with any other university in the country that has an academic surcharge, so to speak," Groth said, adding that she personally would not be in favor of such a surcharge.
"I think there are other ways we can work together, and I think that is something we are working on at both institutions," Groth said.
The Board of Regents is also slated to vote on a new, multi-year employment contract for UNR's men's head basketball coach Trent Johnson during the June meeting. The five-year contract includes a $251,840 increase over Johnson's current contract, which expires in one year.
The package is designed to retain Johnson after he successfully led the men's basketball team to the "Sweet Sixteen" round in the NCAA national championship this season. The agenda also includes resolutions to honor the UNR men's and women's basketball teams for their successful seasons.
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