LARAMIE— It looked to be a win for the University of Wyoming athletic department when Gov. Matt Mead approved a state budget that included a two-year, $8 million competitiveness match for the Cowboys.
And, to be certain, it was. Longtime athletic director Tom Burman said he was “thrilled” with the decision.
But with dwindling energy revenues begetting significant budget cuts both for the university and the state at large, the Cowboys aren’t exactly diving into a pile of gold coins.
“The forecast for Wyoming’s economy isn’t very good,” Burman said. “We’ve got to figure out how to manage with less, and thatap what we’re working to do.”
The athletic department is expecting a reduction of about $1.2 million in state-provided funds for the 2016-17 fiscal year, Burman said.
Whatap more, the match approved this spring by lawmakers had already been cut 20 percent from the one included in the previous two-year budget cycle. It was a reduction the athletic department decided not to argue.
“When we sensed in the session that everybody was going to take a haircut, it wasn’t in our best interest to fight it,” Burman said. “There are sometimes when you look at it and go, ‘We’ll be thrilled.’ ”
Burman said that all Wyoming sports have taken “a slight budget reduction.” The athletic departmentap priority, then, has been preserving funds for areas that directly affect athletes. That means things such as nutrition, coaching and strength and conditioning staffs.
Areas such as marketing, media relations, video production, social media and academic support are facing cuts.
“Things that we used to pay people to do, we’re either not going to do them or we’re going to do them ourselves,” Burman told the Casper Star-Tribune. “And we’re going to learn how to do them well.”
Just as the academics side of the university has had to decide which departments are less essential, Burman anticipates that the Cowboys will have to defend each of their 17 programs. An NCAA-member school must offer 16 sports to carry a Division I designation.
“I would assume at the end of the day, when we’re talking about budget cuts, and it could be just within any professional realm, you just look at areas to see where you can skin the fat,” said men’s basketball coach Allen Edwards. “Not that we were ever in a sense of being wasteful with what we’re trying to do, but you just try to be more productive with what you have.”
With state money on the decline, Wyoming athletics will have to look to increase self-generated funds, which come from ticket sales, NCAA funds, television contracts, the Cowboy Joe booster club and more.
