WSJ: Appalachian State to get cut of record FBS payout

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Appalachian State to get cut of record FBS payout

Money could help new cost of attendance funding

Tommy Bowman/Winston-Salem Journal

Appalachian State will get part of a payout for bowl games, even though it wasn’t eligible to play in a bowl game last season.

The NCAA released a report Tuesday that $505.9 million from 39 postseason FBS games was generated to go to conferences and schools. It’s the largest payout ever, with a total increase of nearly $200 million from the previous season.

The Sun Belt Conference, which had three teams in bowl games last season, gets a part of that. John McElwain, an associate commissioner for the Sun Belt, said the total amount related to bowl revenue that it will get to distribute to its members won’t be known until May.

The league’s portion after reimbursement to the Sun Belt’s three bowl teams – Louisiana-Lafayette, Arkansas State and South Alabama – to help cover some bowl-related expenses will be divided among Sun Belt members.

Appalachian, along with Georgia Southern, was completing transition to the FBS last season and was in its first year in the Sun Belt but, according to prior agreement, will get a half share of what the league’s other members get of the football distribution, McElwain said.

Both Appalachian and Georgia Southern will be fully eligible for bowl consideration beginning with the 2015 season, and will get a full share of the league’s portion then.

Karl Benson, the Sun Belt Conference’s commissioner, said that additional bowl revenue money is coming at a good time, given the challenge of added expense to athletic programs in regard to the issue of full cost of attendance, a measure passed in January at the NCAA convention that will allow programs to supplement athletes’ scholarships with stipends.

The cost of attendance addition came as result of autonomy gained by “Power 5” conferences, and athletic programs can now offer athletes not just tuition, room, board and books, as has been the case, but can cover other costs, such as academic-related supplies, transportation and miscellaneous expenses that would have fallen outside traditional athletic-scholarship coverage.

How much cost that will add for each athlete is to be determined, but estimates have commonly ranged from $2,000 to $4,000 annually per athlete.

Some schools with budgets less than those of power conference members are facing the issue of funding full cost of attendance in order to keep pace with programs whose budgets will fund full cost of attendance.

Mike Flynn, assistant athletic director and sports information director at Appalachian, said that the cost of attendance issue is being studied closely but that it’s too early to say exactly what will happen.

“Like all Division I schools, we’re looking very closely at what we’ll do in terms of cost of attendance,” Flynn said. “While we’re studying it right now, we don’t know exactly what we’ll do for 2015-16 until we get further along in the budget process.”

Appalachian’s athletic budget for 2015-16 will likely be in place by July 1.

“I think everybody is going through the same thing we are right now, which is you want to do what you can for your student-athletes, and you want to remain competitive, but you have to do it within the budget framework,” Flynn said.

tbowman@wsjournal.com
(336) 727-7321