Georgia Tech’s “lower-than-expected ticket sales in football and men’s basketball, along with heavy expenses involved in the football team’s trips to the ACC Championship game and the Sun Bowl," will leave the athletic department with a net loss of $1.8M for the fiscal year that ends Sunday, according to Ken Sugiura of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. The losses “will be covered by the department’s fund-balance account.” Ticket sales generated $9.2M in revenue, $1M "less than budgeted.” Playing in the ACC Championship game and the Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso “cost $376,000 and $325,000, respectively, as the department was required to purchase unsold tickets out of its allotment.” Total expenses for the year were $54.9M against revenues of $53.1M. Associate AD & CFO Frank Hardymon said that the department “could have covered the loss with a draw off the endowment," which grew by about $6.6M to $96.5M, "but chose not to do so in order to preserve its long-term financial health.” The proposed budget for the upcoming year will be $66.9M, a 14.9% increase "over the concluding fiscal year, despite conservative projections on ticket revenues.” The department “still expects stronger sales because the home football schedule includes games against Georgia and Virginia Tech” (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/28).
OPTION ACTION: In Atlanta, Michael Carvell writes GT football coach Paul Johnson is "one of college football’s most entertaining coaches to follow on Twitter,” as he is “quick to offer an opinion on an array of different topics, mostly sports.” He “sure looks like he’s having a lot of fun on social media” after he “resisted Twitter for the longest time.” Johnson is “opinionated, witty, candid and funny.” He said, “I’ve got (163) tweets, so it’s not like I’m killing it. I might go a couple of days without one, and then there’s one a day or two a day. If I’m sitting home, watching TV and see something funny, it’s like ‘OK, I’ll tweet about it’” (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/28).
