Springfield Business Journal_2021-03-29

SPORTS & BUSINESS Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Christine Temple discusses college sports with athletic directors Corey Bray of Drury Univer- sity, Dennis McDonald of Evangel University and Kyle Moats of Missouri State University. Christine Temple: The COVID-19 pan- demic caused a dramatic shift in univer- sity athletics, events and attendance. How have you have managed to keep operations going? Corey Bray: Well, that is a number that I don’t want to tally up. It’s too depressing. Between lost ticket sales and reduced sponsorship dollars from partnerships, suite sales, concession sales – all those kinds of things – it has been basically non- existent this year because our conference that we are in did not allow spectators for indoor sports, and basketball is a big driver of that revenue for us at Drury. Dennis McDonald: It’s certainly been a different year. We did allow spectators for our events. We actually in the beginning said no spectators, but as we got closer to some of our events, the change in the (Centers for Disease Control and Preven- tion) recommendations were happening at the same time, so we did allow spectators at a very limited number and we did not allow visiting team spectators. That was a conference decision. Kyle Moats: We were certainly similar. We were able to have fans at 30% of what nor- mal capacity is. We were able to have all of our suites. Our concessions drastically reduced. We did gain some monies, but we certainly weren’t where we were in the past. We felt very fortunate that we were the only ones in the conference that were allowed to have fans. That was an advan- tage not only competitively, but also from a revenue perspective, that Springfield and southwest Missouri were very different from the other states that we competed. Temple: Of course, it’s not a number you want to think about, but what was the impact overall on your programs’ total budgets? I imagine that was felt univer- sitywide. Bray: We had universitywide budget re- ductions, I am sure just like many other schools around the country, so that was about a 10% reduction right off the top. The lion’s share, so 0% in ticket sales, that is a six-figure number of what we normally sell. We had a couple of suites in O’Reilly [Family Event Center] that were very generous and turned their suite fee into a donation. We got a third of that total that we would normally get. We need to have continued conversations with our corporate partners on that front of what we have been able to activate this year and what we can do with those agreements, but that is going to be less than 50% for sure of what we normally get. Those are pretty big numbers. McDonald: For us, I think that you just base it upon what our attendance is that we allowed. We were probably about 50% on attendance allowed for football games, probably about 30% what we were allowed at basketball games. Prior to hear- ing the first word about COVID, we had already planned to start charging for our broadcast, for football and for basketball, and we did that and that actually helped balance out some of the losses as far as spectators were concerned. Unlike Drury and MSU, our normal spectator crowds are not at that same level, so we wouldn’t lose a tremendous amount there. We also, from a conference requirement, had a de- crease in number of actual competitions, and so we didn’t have travel for, let’s say, two football games. It’s a $6,000-$7,000 expense that we would have not had to spend this year. Moats: We are still trying to figure it out. We know that we are down in ticket sales and seat assessments 70%. We also lost last year when we didn’t have the men’s basketball NCAA tournament, which is going on right now. Our revenue buckets … really been affected. Sponsorshipwise, we are able to hold, thus far. Most everything is being pushed to the spring. We are going to be able to make up those games that we technically lost in the fall, and for our sponsors we are going to be able to make good here in the spring. We have 17 sports going on in the spring. That is not normal, and that is hard for us to be able to put those events on. But from a revenue perspective, we will probably be whole. Finding stars Temple: Another change came to recruiting as parents and students aren’t traveling like they used to. What does the modern day of recruiting student-athletes look like? Moats: We have a dead period all the way until May 31. It has been very difficult because you can’t get on campus and our guys can’t go off campus to recruit. It has been more of a virtual setting, more phone calls and virtual, which again, in the end, may not be a bad situation. There is some cost-cutting measures there. Parents can still contact us, can still send video. There are some pockets of the country that can do that; other pockets can’t. I think what the NCAA did, at least for us, is just said we can’t allow Springfield, Missouri, to do it and Buffalo, New York, not to be able to do it. So, they just put a dead period in. Bray: There was a similar situation in Divi- sion II early on in the pandemic. But then we have a different government structure, and we made the decision to open up recruiting last summer. We have been hav- ing perspective students on campus here at Drury, through our admissions office, since last summer. It is a different campus visit environment as you have mentioned. We have smaller campus tour sizes. We have been able to go off campus to evaluate and contact prospective student- athletes, when Division I has not been able to do that. McDonald: For the (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) level, it is completely different. We have year-round recruiting. At the times during the year when we could not have people on cam- pus, it was done mostly through Zoom and texting and calls. The tryout process might be a little bit different because there is a period of time where ordinarily we might have an individual come in and try out, and we could actually have members of the team that they may be seeking to be a part of. This year we were limited on that on different times of the year. Our budgets are very limited. If I have a soccer coach that is recruiting someone internationally, they are not exactly getting on a plane and flying and sitting on a chair in their living room. That type of recruiting is exactly the same as it has always been. We do recruit a lot locally. Temple: What about recruiting at the coach- ing level? Bray: Our legendary men’s basketball coach, Steve Hesser, just announced his retire- ment after 17 years of service to Drury and that was a big deal on our campus and big deal within the community for Drury, so, I am in the throes right now of trying to find the next leader of our head men’s bas- ketball program and so we are doing some stuff via Zoom to start off with interviews. [Editor’s note: Chris Foster was named head basketball coach on March 24, 5 days after this interview.] Fortunately, things have gotten better in Springfield, where I can bring some candidates on campus for some in-person interviews. I have done some other head coach searches earlier in the year, which I wasn’t able to do that – I did everything via Zoom and I couldn’t see them face to face until they arrived on campus for their first day, which was very strange. McDonald: We don’t have any spots right now that I’m aware of that are coming open, but I’ve been in administration for a lot of years and I’ve said that exact same thing and five minutes later I found out about an opening. Moats: We certainly had a little bit more Zoom than we traditionally had, but when it came down to the finalists coming to campus, we invited them to come to campus … and they did. The Zoom part of it was more prevalent in the process than probably I’ve ever done before, which was a good thing. It will be something we keep doing moving forward. Temple: College of the Ozarks announced recently that they are severing ties with the NAIA. What do your agreements look like, what are the things you consider in an association and are you looking at any GEOFF PICKLE 10 · SBJ.NET MARCH 29 -APRIL 4, 2021