SPORTS
A Fluctuating Budget
Financing Athletics at Gettysburg College BY JACK HERR // SPORTS EDITOR
“O
ur spending has varied wildly,” said Executive Director of Athletics and Campus Recreation Mike Mattia when asked about the state of Gettysburg College’s Athletics budget. With 25% of the current student body being student-athletes, sports represents a major aspect of Gettysburg, so understanding the Athletics budget is crucial to an appreciation of the College’s overall finances. As with all areas of Gettysburg’s finances, the COVID-19 pandemic has likely permanently impacted the Athletics budget. The inconsistency the pandemic introduced to our lives since the spring of 2020 is still being felt, especially when it comes to Athletics. While the onset of the pandemic completely shut down all sports, COVID and the restrictions that arose to combat it have had lingering effects: teams could only play a limited number of games last year, team training trips have been canceled and postponements and cancellations of games this year have all contributed to making pinning down a consistent Athletics budget “difficult,” according to Mattia. But where does the money for Gettysburg Athletics come from? According to Mattia, the College itself shoulders almost all of the financial burden, contributing roughly 95% of the to-
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tal budget. Outside of the College funds, the Athletics department uses the Orange and Blue Club (O&B), Athletics-specific endowments, and a handful of sponsors who provide the extra funding needed to round out the budget. If you have been to a game on the Gettysburg College campus or have watched a livestream hosted by our Athletic communications team, you have likely heard an advertisement for the Orange and Blue Club asking for donations. O&B acts as the fundraising arm of the Athletics department and is connected to College Advancement. Each team fundraises through O&B, which Mattia said is used to “help enhance the overall experience for student-athletes,” going beyond “covering the costs of basics such as uniforms, equipment, travel, officials fees and recruiting, which the general fund covers.” O&B also hosts an annual “golf classic” fundraising program to further support the Athletics budget. Since 95% of the Athletics budget comes directly from the College, whose overall finances have been at the mercy of COVID, it is easy to link this to the tumultuous state of the Athletics budget. Executive Director Mattia did not provide specific numbers for how each of the 24 varsity teams on campus are funded, saying that “with all of
the discord of the last few years, providing numbers would show an incomplete look at the actual costs to run the athletic department.” This “discord” has made it hard to track the Athletics budget; according to Mattia, there are no real trends to point out, and overall spending has fluctuated from team to team depending on whether a team’s season was fully canceled or partially limited due to the pandemic. Any money that was given to Athletics and then funneled to a specific team would also have to have been sent back to the College administration if a team’s season was cut short, meaning those funds could be lost for good going forward. However, it is safe to say that teams such as football, lacrosse and baseball require the most funding given the size of their rosters and coaching staffs (football, for example, had 101 rostered players and eight coaching staffers in the 2021 season, compared to women’s golf who has seven players and two coaches), the facilities and fields they practice and compete on and the equipment and training they require. Looking at the football example, though, a team who went 1-9 this year and has not had a winning season since 2015, calls into question whether a team’s level of success should be a factor in determining how much funding they receive.
P H O T O B Y A LY L E I A W E I N
