By Amara Grautski
Incoming Student Government Association (SGA) president Rob Ranley said he plans to improve funding for club sports during his upcoming term, which begins in July.
Club sports are currently given $100,000 a year, with one half going into a general pool and the other half being split among 40 club teams. Ranley said he hopes to increase this funding, and change the way it’s used.
“The general feedback that I got was that the majority of the clubs had to do the majority of their own fundraising,” Ranley said. “[They] had to pay high dues just to participate in their sport.”
These dues are used to pay for facilities, transportation and registration and are costly, said Tim McIvor, a middler who plays for the club tennis team.
“[Dues are] usually anywhere from $150 to $250 – and that’s [per] semester,” McIvor said, of the club tennis fee.
McIvor said dues for club tennis are high because each court the team uses costs close to $22 an hour. However, not all club sports teams require dues to be paid.
“It turns out to be like $7,000 a year just paying for courts,” he said.
Dues for the club men’s lacrosse team are even higher, at $500 a person, said senior Brian Schatz, president of the club. The team, which usually has around 35 to 40 members, can raise around $20,000 through dues, he said, but that doesn’t cover the team’s budget.
“Our budget per year is anywhere between $75,000 and $85,000,” Schatz said.
He said it’s hard for some teammates to pay the $500, and even harder to raise an additional $500 to cover the costs spent traveling.
Schatz suggested that clubs with greater budgets be allocated more funding as a way to improve the club sports system.
“We have one of the highest budgets, but we get just the same amount as any other club sport that only needs around $1,000,” he said.
Unless changes are made, Schatz said he won’t rely on university funding to help the club lacrosse team.
“I made our budget for the team, and I didn’t even take into account what the school gave us, just because it’s just so small compared to what we look at,” he said.
The club men’s ultimate frisbee team isn’t relying on university funding either, said senior co-captain David Picard. Picard said the team raised $4,500 to travel to Las Vegas by working at Gillette Stadium.
“It’s not incredibly tough labor or anything, but it’s less than convenient,” he said.
Picard, like members of many club teams, would like more funding, but overall, he said, the team realizes the university can’t give a lot of money to the teams.
“We understand where club sports is coming from and we kind of have just gone through it enough that we kind of just play around it,” he said.
