According to the CGA’s annual budget, a large percentage of their funding was given to the sports department this past school year. The extent of BU sports’ spending has upset some students, while others find it necessitous.  

      The community activities budget for Bloomsburg University states that in the 2016-17 school year, the sports department received 36.4% of the entire annual budget. This large cut equates to $886,280 of the allotted $2,434,835.

     This figure doubles nearly every other distribution to the recipients of the community activities budget. The other recipients of the community activities budget and their allocations are listed as such:

Music – 4.30%
Music (non-dept.) Gospel Choir & Marching Band – 1.09%
Association Operations – 21.51%
Program Board – 7.64%
University Related Activities /Orgs – 7.65%
Sports Clubs & Rec – 7.13%
Media – 3.36%
Art/Performance – 8.22%
All other Student Organizations – 0.87%
Committed Reserve – 1.83%

     The Association Operations budget is the only other allocation with double digits, coming in at 21.51%, or $523,750, of the budget.

     However, the community activities funding is not all that it takes to keep the sports department running. According to the university’s sports webpage, game-day expenses are listed as $803,174 alone. As such, the department receives other financing besides the money given to them by CGA.

     When Shawn Hale, an electronics engineering major at BU, saw the amount of money that the sports department received from the activities budget, he was upset. He felt that if the sports department gets support from alumni and local businesses, then it should not need that much money from the university’s budget.

      “What’s the point of the football announcer spitting off all those commercials if it’s not getting them money”, Hale questioned. He felt that the money should be spent in other places, such as the concert fund to get more high profile artists that will, “actually show up”.

     In contrast to Hale, Latasha Reid, a Psychology major and former track star, felt that the sports department needs more funding. She said that Bloomsburg’s sports teams are the only things that put the university, “on the map,” and in order to win, they need funding. “Sports equipment doesn’t grow on trees and neither does sports news coverage,” she stated.

     There are 244 male and 183 female student athletes, giving a total of 427 students who are directly affected by the University’s budget distribution. This is a small fraction of the 9,658 students that attend BU. Therefore, the $886,280 given to the sports department affected only approximately 4.4% of the student population.