GREELEY, Colo.—University of Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn is painting a better picture of his department’s financial health this year.
Bohn said Thursday that his department is in the black a year after he had to ax men’s golf and eliminate a dozen staff positions to cut costs. Although final figures won’t be known until next week, Bohn said the department will end up “with a surplus” for the 2006-07 fiscal year.
“We’ve made huge strides considering where we were a year ago,” Bohn said.
The football program, which generates about $8.5 million a year, is the only profitable program at Colorado. Bohn predicted season ticket sales will top 23,000, up from 20,450 last year in coach Dan Hawkins’ first season in Boulder.
He said 39 of 41 luxury boxes at Folsum Field had been sold and club seat sales were up 9 percent from last year.
New basketball coach Jeff Bzdelik said he will visit four schools in August to glean the best ideas for a basketball practice facility that will be built on campus. He said the commitment to the building allows him to tell recruits that there’s more to CU than just a beautiful campus, great weather and the chance to compete in the Big 12.
“We can actually say we’re putting X amount into a new basketball operations center, we’re putting X amount into new locker rooms,” Bzdelik said.
Bzdelik’s Buffaloes will open the 2007-08 season Nov. 9 against New Mexico and will play at a tournament in Madison, Wis. The Buffs will visit Wyoming, Colorado State, University of Denver and Air Force, where he coached the last two seasons.
“To play the entire Front Range on the road is an extreme we’ll want to balance out in the future,” Bzdelik said.
He said he’d like to play a couple of big schools on the road every season: “If you want to be safe, you shouldn’t be in this business.”
With a dozen football games now scheduled, the Buffs open Sept. 1 against CSU at Invesco Field in Denver and won’t get a break until the by week Nov. 17, a week before they play Nebraska in the final regular season game of the season.
“I would prefer for it to be in the middle of the season,” Bohn said.
Asked what his top priorities were when camp opens next month, Bohn said, “When you go 2-10, the list is long. You don’t have a top three.”
CU was recently ordered by the NCAA to pay $100,000 over the next two fiscal years to a hunger or homeless relief charity, but Bohn said Colorado law prohibits the university from such direct donations so CU will send the money through the NCAA for disbursement to a charity of the school’s choice.
The fine was a result of inadvertently undercharging 133 athletes for meals over six academic years.
