“Basically, we are in the early stages of talking about how we can better integrate the Boosters and our athletic department,” Thrasher told the Democrat following the meeting. “My idea is to see how we can bring those two organizations closer together, both from the standpoint of the overall mission of athletics, the prioritization of facilities, the synergy of staff, to make it a more effective organization."
Thrasher’s five-year contract expires in January 2021. Chief of Staff David Coburn was named by Thrasher as the Seminoles’ interim director of athletics last August, and Coburn told the Democrat last week he has been asked to serve while FSU overcomes "a short-term financial challenge.” The Seminole Booster Board is also preparing a transition plan for the retirement of CEO and President of Seminole Boosters Andy Miller, who has served as President since 1975 when he was hired at age 24.
With all three leadership positions likely to change within a year or two of each other, now is the time to prepare for the transition.
“All of us have kind of a shelf life of a few more years probably here,” Thrasher said.
In some schools, the fundraising organization reports directly to the athletic director. While Seminole Boosters does not report directly to the athletic director, the athletic director, the President of FSU, chairman of the Board of Trustees and Chairman of the University’s Athletic Committee – an NCAA requirement – serves on the Boosters' board of directors and executive committee.
Congrats to the @FSUFilm grads who worked on 3x #Oscars nominated @BealeStreet; director @BarryJenkins; cinematographer James Laxton; producer Adele Romanski; editors Joi McMillon & Nat Sanders; and Nicholas Huynh, Ryland Jones, Nicole Machon, April Moore & Anthony Penczner! pic.twitter.com/NBORN73gAl
FSU alum Jonathan King ('92) was the executive producer for two of this year's Best Picture nominees: “Roma” and “Green Book.” "Green Book" won, beating out other competitors "BlacKkKlansman," "Black Panther," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "The Favourite," "A Star Is Born" and "Vice."
Only a limited number of a movie's producers can be officially listed on an Oscar nomination, so King didn't get to speak at the podium. However, Participant Media, the company King works for, was the first to be thanked.
King oversees development and production of narrative feature films at Participant, which focuses on producing films that create social awareness and change. Among his many credits, King also developed Best Picture winners “Lincoln” and “Spotlight,” and “A Fantastic Woman,” which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film last year.
“Green Book” was also nominated for Best Leading Actor (Viggo Mortensen), and won for Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali, who also won Best Supporting Actor for “Moonlight”).
The movie has another kind of local connection. One of the hotels listed in the real "Green Book" was in Thomasville, Ga. An effort is underway to restore the building
Here’s a fun piece of trivia for your morning: A Florida State University grad was among the winners at the last night’s Academy Awards.
FSU alum Jonathan King, class of 1992, was the executive producer for “Green Book,” the film that won Best Picture this year. He was also the executive producer for “Roma” another nominee, along with “BlacKkKlansman,” “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Favourite,” “A Star Is Born” and “Vice.”
This wasn’t King’s first time at the Academy Awards. In 2013, he was the executive produce for “Lincoln,” which received a nominee for Best Picture.
Whistleblower claims money improperly diverted from housing fund for rec building, Greek house parking lot
As the president of the University of Central Florida resigned this week in connection with misuse of state money for campus buildings, the University of Florida confirmed it has launched an internal investigation into the possible misuse of millions in public money.
UF officials sent a prepared statement Wednesday afternoon, but would not elaborate on the investigation’s length or scope.
“The University of Florida takes very seriously its role as a steward of public funds and a recipient of the public’s trust,” the statement reads. “Therefore, the university swiftly and aggressively addresses allegations of business practices that do not support university and/or state laws, regulations and policies.”
An anonymous whistleblower sent a complaint to the governor’s office as well as the Florida Department of Education. The whistleblower, using an anonymous email account, also sent the complaint to The Sun.
According to the complaint, Norbert Dunkel, then-UF’s associate vice president for auxiliary services, and Nancy Chrystal-Green, then-director of student activities and involvement, misused more than $3 million, to construct a $1.8 million building for the Center of Outdoor and Recreation Education and $1.3 million to clear 3 acres of woods to prepare three Greek housing lots.
Both Dunkel and Chrystal-Green were later promoted, Dunkel to associate vice president for student affairs, and Chrystal-Green to assistant vice president for student engagement.
The Sun last week filed seven public records requests asking for, among other things, emails sent and received by Dunkel and Chrystal-Green. This week, UF denied the requests, citing an open investigation.
Today in History
Dunkel and Chrystal-Green both declined interview requests or to provide other comment to The Sun on Thursday.
Memos between Dunkel and Chrystal-Green were among those denied by UF officials on the grounds that they are part of the investigation.
A letter from the governor’s office said the complaint had been forwarded to UF’s Office of Internal Audit. The Department of Education referred the matter to the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees UF and other state universities.
“Consistent with UF’s standard practice with these types of allegations, UF administration has launched an immediate investigation that will examine these claims appropriately,” UF’s prepared statement read.
The investigation comes on the heels of UCF President Dale Whittaker resigning after investigations revealed the school used, or planned to use, $85 million in leftover operating funds on construction, in violation of state rules. Last September, state auditors discovered that UCF used funds intended for operating expenses toward construction of a new $38 million on-campus academic building.
UF internal documents shared with The Sun by the whistleblower detailed the projects on the Gainesville campus, both of which were authorized by Dunkel and Chrystal-Green and involved Department of Housing and Residence Education funds. UF on Thursday declined to review the documents for authentication.
An auxiliary fund accounts for most of the Department of Housing and Residence Education’s budget, according to the UF documents. Some of the money comes from the collection of dorm rents. The funds are pledged to repay debt from dorm construction.
The funds are for use in housing and housing maintenance, and spending for construction would have to be approved by the UF Board of Trustees, according to a state official.
Neither the CORE building nor the Greek house lots are connected to UF Housing’s mission, the whistleblower’s complaint contends.
There is no allegation that Dunkel or Chrystal-Green used any UF housing money for personal use.
For the CORE building, which was completed in 2017 and is used to store equipment used for student recreation, documents show eight scheduled payments of $244,000 from 2014 through July 2021.
For the Greek housing lots, a UF memo dated March 14, 2016, shows Dunkel and Chrystal-Green pledged a $1.3 million loan beginning in April 2016. Under the agreement, to repay the loan, any fraternity or sorority that used the space would be charged one-third of the construction cost (about $400,000) at the time the lease agreement with UF was executed.
Construction crews began clearing forest land for the Greek housing lots near Hume Hall in September 2016, less than five months after Dunkel and Chrystal-Green signed off on the agreement.
Dunkel was given the task of overseeing UF’s Department of Housing and Residence Education on an interim basis in September 2017 after its senior director, Azfar Mian, was arrested and five other housing officials placed on administrative leave. Mian was charged with embezzling $180,607 in university funds. The amount of money officials said had been embezzled swelled by another $470,000 when a second UF housing official, Stina Schoneck, associate financial services director, was arrested two months later following UF auditors’ discovery of a secret bank account. Both cases are still pending.
"As much as $85 million in state education and general fund money was improperly channeled into construction, including $38 million that went into development of the new Trevor Colbourn Hall that opened last summer; another $13.8 million was spread around on eight other construction projects at UCF; and budgeted another $32.7 million for other construction projects."
"A widening financial scandal at the University of Central Florida, which may have cost a newly minted president his job, has raised deeper questions about whether a culture of ethical shortcuts and lapses in oversight took root during years of unbridled growth at the institution.
...
For the last two decades, the story of the University of Central Florida has been about more students and more buildings. Under John C. Hitt, who preceded Whittaker and led the university for more than a quarter century, Central Florida transformed from a midsize commuter campus into a behemoth public research university of 66,000 students.
The once-sleepy institution gobbled up territory in Orlando, added a medical school, and cultivated a zealous athletics department that has floated plans for a resort-style "recovery cove" where Division I athletes can glide down their own private lazy river."
""Florida Rep. Randy Fine actually suggested Wednesday afternoon that the University of Central Florida should be shut down for five to 10 years over the school's misuse of at least $38 million to construct a campus building."
It is the most watched opening season College Softball telecast on the ESPN2 Family networks. Keep in mind, normally ESPN’s first ESPN2 telecast has aired around March. The Noles-Vols had stiff competition for viewership as the game went up against UFC on ESPN and the NBA All-Star game on TNT.
The game was still the most watched ESPN2 telecast. Here are the performance numbers from previous seasons on ESPN2.
The Noles and Vols were the most watched TV program on ESPN2 on Sunday. The game outrated Men’s College Basketball games like Memphis at UCF (Sat 6pm on ESPN2 212,000 viewers) and Oklahoma at TCU (ESPN2 Noon 268,000 viewers). The game also had more viewers than both NHL’s games that aired on NBC Sports Network on Monday night including the Tampa Bay Lightning versus Columbus Bluejackets broadcast gaining 281,000 viewers while the Boston Bruins versus San Jose Sharks game saw 184,000 viewers. Numbers for games that aired on ESPNU during the tournament in Clearwater were not available.
ESPN’s next telecast on ESPN or ESPN2 will be ESPN March 23 when Washington travels to Eugene to take on Oregon at 4pm.
#FSU included in this article as reporting $2.2 million in softball revenue for the 2016-17 season. https://t.co/dTU12ocy4E
The top school listed -- Florida State (the 2018 NCAA champions) -- reported $2.2 million in softball revenues. Baylor University also reported $2.2 million in revenue and 42 additional programs reported more than $1 million in revenues.
When we look at all college sports, we see that only three men's sports -- football, men's basketball, and baseball -- report larger revenues than women's softball. The Department of Education reports revenue on at least 30 men's college sports, so at least 27 men's college sports are not doing as well today at women's softball.
The data from the Department of Education only goes back to the 2003-04 season. When we adjust the revenue data for inflation, we don't see a single college softball team reporting more than $1 million in revenue 14 years ago. So, in just 14 seasons we have seen remarkable growth in the amount of money in softball.
When we look at football and men's baseball, the growth in revenues was 115.8 percent and 185 percent respectively. In women's basketball, revenues grew 158.3 percent. But in women's softball, total reported revenues grew by 217.4 percent. Yes, softball is growing faster than all these sports.
The growth in women's softball isn't just seen in the revenue data. In 2015, it was reported the Women's College World Series between Michigan and Florida averaged 1.85 million viewers. Meanwhile the Men's College World Series only averaged 1.4 million viewers. So, the WCWS attracted 31% more viewers than the CWS in 2015.
In 2017, it was reported that Oklahoma's two-game sweep of Florida averaged 1.72 million viewers, the most watched sweep in WCWS history. The opening game of this series -- a game that lasted 17 innings -- had 1.583 viewers. This was the most viewers for an opening game in WCWS history. Those numbers were significantly larger than what ESPN was attracting for Monday Night Baseball that same year. According to Marketwatch, ESPN was only seeing 1.1 million viewers on average for Major League Baseball on Monday night in April that season.
In 2018, the WCWS ratings declined. It was reported the second game of the series between Florida State and Washington only attracted 1.5 million viewers. Although the 2018 series didn't attract quite the same audience as Oklahoma and Florida the year before, Sports Media Watch did report that
"... FSU’s win was the most-watched weeknight baseball or softball game since MLB Opening Day (Giants-Dodgers: 2.0M). It topped the competing Marlins-Cardinals MLB game on FS1 by nearly 300% (383K)."
The television ratings numbers tell the same story we see in the revenue numbers. Women's college softball can no longer be described as just another "non-revenue" sport. Increasingly softball teams -- and their players -- are major attractions for a universities' sports fans.
Well, it might finally be time to tweet #EverybodyFocused. Multiple sources close to the Florida State Athletics program have shared with NoleGameday that the Seminoles are exploring possible changes to the football team’s uniforms. Those changes have the possibility to be implemented as soon as the upcoming 2019 season.
FSU has received a large amount of backlash dating back to 2014 when they shifted from the old uniforms to what they wear now. A lot of fans aren’t happy with the look, especially when it’s pretty much matching with Boston College, and they’ve been extremely vocal about it across social media. Basically, since their inception, the ‘Noles current jerseys haven’t been much of a hit. The discussions between Florida State and Nike are still in the early stages but there’s been a push behind the scenes to try and get this done as quickly as possible.
Now might be the perfect time for a change. The Seminoles signed a 10-year contract extension with Nike in 2013 but typically they’ve made amendments to that contract every four to six years. Recently, those contract amendments occurred in 2005, 2011, and 2013. The deal is currently set to provide FSU with $1.5 million in base contributions and $3 million in supplied product over its final four years.
As of now, the program is only looking at possible changes to the football team’s uniforms but that could always change as we move forward. It makes financial sense for both sides to push for a change that would allow them to both appease the fanbase and sell new merchandise.
the report referenced is after amortization and depreciation and after paying the FSU Athletics Endowment $960,000 in interest earning as CT is an investment of the endowment. Those investment earnings, along with about $2 million additional endowment investment earnings are transferred from SBI to athletics to help fund the cost of scholarships.
That timing of that audited report is only for the First Phase of CT. We are now on phase 3.
In addition to what the investment is earning for scholarships, CT has appreciated tremendously which is a huge benefit to the scholarship endowment so many of you all care about. When we sell CT, the proceeds from that sale go directly into the endowment fund. So CT is actually helping FSU build our scholarship endowment.
In additon to the appreciation on the actual land on which CT resides, CT has driven up the value of all the land in the area of which SBI owns some 20 acres. Some of it is used for parking (lot 10 is one such parcel). Some for RVs. And some is a commercial investment, for instance the CVS on Woodward and Pensacola is a long term lease of SBI land and we still own Burt Reynolds Hall on Hayden Road and Pensacola and Champions Hall which houses football an regular students. All of those properties are income producing with the income earned a part of the $21 million annual transfer from SBI to Athletics.
All of these properties, and others, serve as a safety net or reserve fund. While we don't care to sell any of the appreciating land we accumulated through donations, bargain sales, or life estates, it is a reserve fund for a rainy day.
CT has been the catalyst for a lot of appreciation in our "reserve fund" and helped to provide our fans with amenities when coming to Seminole sports events.
Good question. I think I gave a pretty thorough answer above. Short answer: it is generating almost $1 million a year in earnings to the scholarship endowment with those earning being transfered to athletics for scholarships each year. But it also has driven up the value and the earnings on a lot of other income producing property in the area which helps SBI fund a $21 million annual transfer to the athletics budget. See my previous post for more.
FSU staked it's future on ESPN (which regularly tears it down) and the ACC Network (which is 5 years too late to the market).
Overall attendance at Doak has taken a hit as well. FSU’s average home attendance in 2014 was 82,211; it has not eclipsed 76,800 since, and it was only 70,943 in 2017.
What Coburn realized soon after stepping in was that the Seminoles’ financial picture was a little more daunting than he expected.
During his hour-long interview with Warchant and the Democrat, Coburn explained that FSU’s athletics budget is getting hit hard from both sides -- revenues and expenses. The result for the 2017-18 fiscal year was a $3.6 million deficit, and a similar shortfall is expected for 2018-19, despite several cost-cutting measures Coburn put into place during the fall.
And if a series of revenue-generating ideas are not successful in the coming year, the athletics department could have an even tougher time making ends meet in 2019-20.
The Seminoles also are paying off the new HD scoreboards and ribbon boards that were installed in Doak Campbell Stadium before the 2016 and ‘17 seasons. FSU also has had to invest about $4.5 million in infrastructure and technology to prepare for the new ACC linear television network, which is set to launch later this year.
Six months into the job, the former chief of staff anticipates additional cutbacks as he searches for new revenue streams to help balance an athletics budget that again faces serious annual financial challenges.
Coburn has been proactive with his strategy as FSU works to overcome an operating deficit that hovered at $3.6 million last year and is projected to be similar this year.
While Coburn has expressed concerns about the department’s operating budget over the next couple of years, he notes that fundraising for capital facility gifts and scholarships is progressing very well. Seminole Boosters Inc., the independent fundraising arm of athletics, launched a five-year $100 million campaign for athletics in September and already has raised more than $60 million towards a variety of men’s and women’s sports projects.
Coburn continues to describe his future as interim athletics director as open-ended. Last August he replaced Stan Wilcox, who accepted a job with the NCAA. After evaluating the department’s finances, Coburn implemented a 4 percent reduction in what he described as “non-operating costs” within the athletics department. That reduction, Coburn said, is roughly $600,000 from FSU’s $106 million athletics budget. He noted in December that no cuts were made to the football recruiting budget.
Big-time college athletic programs such as FSU are making more money - and spending more money - than ever before. Coburn views FSU's budget as a three-year challenge, dating back to 2017-18.
He said that year ended in a $3.6 million deficit. He expects this year's deficit to be similar, citing the continued slide in season ticket football sales and booster contributions, in addition to expenses such as coaching contract transition costs, the infrastructure for the ACC Network that launches in August and the scoreboard costs in Doak Campbell Stadium.
Coburn hinted the 2019-20 deficit could be deeper, again largely depending on season football ticket renewals.
