Keeping an eye on the future

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Published: June 22, 2008

This is the 2nd in a two-part question and answer session with Virginia director of athletics Craig Littlepage on various topics concerning the Cavaliers’ athletic program with Daily Progress sports editor Jerry Ratcliffe.

Daily Progress: Yesterday we concluded that portion of the interview discussing a future wish list, and at the top of that list was a new field house for Virginia’s field teams. What would have to happen to make a field house a reality?

Littlepage: We would have to have a formal plan in place for what the programming is that would be built into it — would it include locker rooms, offices and so forth. It would have to go through a formal process through the University to get it into the planning, a project that could be studied, built, and then there’s the financial question. For any project at the University, we have to have a certain amount of money in hand before anything can start.

So, there’s the study, the conceptual piece of it, the design piece of it, then the funding ... what it takes to put the financing together, to build it, to operate it. It’s not just that you’re raising money potentially to build a facility, but what are the operating costs? You have to think in terms, particularly now because of the increase in the cost of utilities, that it becomes even more important to understand how you’re going to recover the costs of running a building either through an endowment, or through cost sharing of activities that might be held at the building, etc.

Q: Should it happen, what would be the ideal location for such a field house?

A: If we built a stand-alone field house, I would think the place would

be where University Hall, the Cage and Onesty Hall are currently sitting. There just aren’t many plots of land in the area of the University that give us the square footage and acreage that area gives us.

Some of the programming in that type of facility would be what is already in University Hall, such as locker rooms. There may be other ways of having an indoor facility. There have been possibilities discussed such as a bubble over one of the existing fields.

Q: What’s up with University Hall? How is it being used and just what’s in it?

A: It is still a functional building. There have been a number of things that have taken place in University Hall that have and will make it a useful building for six, seven years or longer. We have enhanced a number of locker rooms in there. We still have the weight room, the equipment room, our Lifeskills offices are in there, facilities, game event operations. There are a lot of functions that take place, just not the highly visible activities such as basketball. It’s still used for camps, not just basketball camps. So, it still gets a lot of use.

Long-term, it would be nice if the facility, or rather that space, can be used much more effectively to meet the needs of more of our sports programs. If we had the field house, you could take care of football, lacrosse, baseball, field hockey, who knows what else ... possibly a running track and all sorts of things that would be better use of the space than it is now. University Hall is limited now because of things it doesn’t have.

Q: Is it true that University Hall has asbestos inside?

A: There is asbestos in the building. I don’t think that’s a secret.

Q: Moving on, perhaps the most controversial issue since our last annual Q&A last June has been the reseating policy of Scott Stadium. There has been great debate amongst the fan base, some seeing the need for it due to the reality of financially supporting modern-day athletics, others feeling their loyalty had been betrayed and choosing not to renew their season tickets. Looking back on it, was the reseating decision a mistake?

A: I think it’s something that we needed to do, without a doubt. The conversation I’ve had with peers around the country is that if schools haven’t done it already, then they’re talking about doing it, and will probably be doing it in the future.

Circumstances evolved to the point that this was the time frame we felt we had to do [the reseating]. I think that the issues in doing it are pretty much the same everywhere, in that many of our fans become accustomed to being in a certain seat and they see it as their seat. Change is very difficult. But in order to fully support our program to the levels that allow us to sustain success, which I think many people are pleased with, we have to be able to have different ways of generating revenues that will allow us to do that.

Q:  Elaborate on the issue of generating revenues, if you will.

A: Just as an example, a couple of things have occurred in the last few months, such as if you look at the increase in the amount of cost of utilities, they could increase 15 to 20 percent in one year. Then, the associated costs with the increase in travel. We are an enterprise that is heavily dependent upon the ability to travel with teams, with coaches in terms of recruiting, and bringing prospects to Charlottesville.

There are any number of areas where we have to look at the operational costs and the increase of operational costs in terms of doing the same things next year that we did this year. So, some of those increases in doing business — just to do the same thing, not to do more — go up 15 to 20 percent. Then you have the increases in terms of tuition. [The athletic department] is paying the true cost of scholarships at the University. We don’t get fee waives (discounts) like some schools, so when we recruit an out-of-state student-athlete, we’re paying the $38,000 of whatever that number is now, the full cost of that particular student’s education. In-state students, well, that’s $13,000 or $14,000, or whatever that number is.

Q:  So, just the scholarship bill alone continues to cost you large amounts of money, considering the vastness of your athletic program?

A: We have a high percentage of out-of-state students among our population. We have a scholarship bill of roughly, maybe $11 million. Those same scholarships next year are going to cost eight or nine percent more than that, just in order to do the same thing.

The rationale of the reseating is a reflection of the realities of how we continue to do our business and, in particular, how we are able to sustain the type of success we have in terms of graduation and competitive success.

Q: As you mentioned, change is always difficult. Was the backlash from portions of the fan base more than you anticipated?

A: I don’t think there were surprises in terms of the view of some fans that were concerned about not being able to maintain the seats that they had for a period of years. We tried to do everything possible to provide the information, to provide the options so that people could learn what they could do to retain their seats or to move to other seats that were still very good seats.

The process itself was very labor intensive. Our staff members and the VAF, and the ticket office spent a lot of time on the telephone, answering e-mails, visiting with people one-on-one, and talking about reseating during our VAF socials in order to better communicate. While there were some that still were not happy, I think people still had a feeling that they were given information, and there was a level of service there in terms of communication that they had the information they needed to make the decisions on whether to renew or not, to go to a different section or not.

Q: Unlike recent years, the football season ticket allotment has not yet been sold out. Do you know how many chose not to renew, did you take a bigger hit than expected, and what is the current count on the 2008 season ticket situation?

A: I think in the end, things went about as well as we could have possibly hoped they would in terms of the process of season ticket holders choosing their seats when their number was called. I think people were generally pleased with the way in which things were handled.

We’re approaching 35,000 sold. Similar to past years at this state when we’ve had tickets available, we’re doing some marketing of mini-packages that will continue on sale through the next four weeks. We’ve sold out of the “kickoff” package that includes the USC game. We’re still selling the “ACC” package, which includes conference games. Some time in July, we’ll sell what remains as single game tickets.

Q:  Some fans have commented that they were surprised to learn that they ended up with better seats than they previously had, rather than worse seats, which they anticipated.

A: That’s what we tried to communicate early on was that if you have questions, if you’re not certain, contact our staff and our staff can walk through all the options with you and that you shouldn’t assume it’s the worst. It wasn’t a surprise there would be a reaction. We were prepared for that. And, [backlash] is not unusual when you do something like reseating your stadium or arena. We will continue to work with those who might buy tickets from this point forward. We think we’ll have another successful season ticket campaign before it’s all said and done.

Q:  You mentioned previously that your fund-raising for the entire athletic department is ahead of pace. What are those numbers at this point and time?

A: Our fund-raising has exceeded the $16 million mark with six months remaining in our annual campaign. Last year we finished the year at $14.8 million in the annual campaign, so we’re pleased with our progress.