UNLV last academic year "met its budget for the first time in many years" with a "$52,000 surplus" for its $33M allocation, according to Mark Anderson of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL. The surplus "would have been about $500,000 more if not for the football coaching change." UNLV Deputy AD/External Relations Darryl Seibel said that he "didn't know when the department last met its budget without an infusion of money from the university beyond the budgeted amount." Athletics received the budgeted $2.2M "from the university in the most recent academic year, and the Thomas & Mack Center provided" $2.8M, which is "largely sponsorship revenue from UNLV athletic events that take place in the building." Meanwhile, UNLV AD Tina Kunzer-Murphy said that funding cost-of-attendance "is a challenge." She said that UNLV "has committed to spending $60,000" for men's basketball players and $63,000 for the women. Kunzer-Murphy: "It is our plan to move forward and provide cost of attendance for all of our student-athletes next year. There's not a plan particularly put in place, but [we're] moving toward that. In order for us to be competitive with everyone in the country, we have to find the means and the ways to do that." She also "echoed the speculation" that about 80 schools will "form their own division." Kunzer-Murphy said, "We've got to find new revenue streams and stay in the game." Meanwhile, Anderson noted nearly $85,000 in single-game online-only football tickets "were sold Thursday, the highest amount anyone associated with UNLV could remember." UNLV "already has sold" 4,129 season-tickets, "more than the 4,038 it sold all of last year" (REVIEWJOURNAL.com, 8/17).
REBEL BASE: Kunzer-Murphy noted that "ongoing plans for an on-campus football practice facility remains the department’s top priority," but an announcement about breaking ground "might be further away than she planned." She said, "I was hoping that we’d have it before the end of the season, but I’m just not sure" (LAS VEGAS SUN, 8/18). In Las Vegas, Alan Snel notes UNLV consultants "have floated the idea of extending the Las Vegas Monorail to a 42-acre site at Koval Lane and Tropicana Avenue to serve a potential UNLV football stadium and then extend the monorail to the Thomas & Mack Center and the rest of the UNLV campus." There is "no designated funding for the stadium site transportation idea, and UNLV has not even purchased the stadium site yet, but university officials want to start early on stadium connectivity issues." Another idea is UNLV also "using shuttle buses to move students and staff from campus to the 42-acre site." UNLV Senior VP/Finance & Business Gerry Bomotti said that the transportation ideas "will be part of the football stadium update that UNLV officials will present to the Board of Regents in September" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 8/18).
