Look Long & See Short for High School Sports Fundraising

Look Long and See Short – Time to Innovate Every Aspect of High School Sports Funding

January 7, 2010

By Kurt Bryan:

In 24 years of coaching high school and collegiate football, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing thousands of articles and news stories about the Evolution of sports and Innovative Concepts designed to help a team win more games. Regardless of the activity – football, soccer, badminton, fencing or basketball, etc., many of those features are interesting and enlightening.

However, numerous school districts throughout California and other states are wobbling on the threshold of financial ruin. High School Sports Funding has been cut or eliminated at a frightening rate like never before with no end in sight. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) that governs high school sports in CA, can act quickly and help lead the way.

California is almost $20 BILLION in debt for the 2010-11 year and a bevy of school districts have sounded the alarm as monster debt rips them to smithereens. If the state of California was an Ocean Liner in the middle of the Atlantic, the giant vessel would be listing heavily to Port, nearly capsized, the terrified passengers would be jumping and screaming overboard, and the ship’s deck would be engulfed in flames.

Thousands of female & male student-athletes have or are on the verge of losing everything regarding their high school team sport(s). District leaders and school boards in California and across the country are making cuts or completely killing the funding of their high school athletic programs.

In most cases, school districts go back to the money trough and ask their community to support a Parcel Tax or some type of Bond Measure to sustain their athletic team funding. Team fundraisers also serve to help support the teams and many high school sports programs would die without them. Another item being cut is the coaching stipend; usually a modest fee that helps to offset the cost of gasoline for the coach’s transportation during the season. Without the stipend, it puts a bit more burden on the coach and his or her family, and more importantly, it’s more difficult to find and retain assistant coaches.

BUT, as taxpayers and homeowners carry more of the burden than ever before, it’s becoming far more difficult for school districts to obtain additional money from their proposals to increase taxes or pass bond measures.
In the game of football, a coach teaches his Quarterback to, “Look Long and See Short.” This well-worn mantra instructs the QB to take the Big Play down the field if it’s wide open, otherwise dump the football to a nearby receiver and take what your team can get on that play.

Several school districts now employ a Pay to Play Fee on student-athletes, usually requiring their families to cough up $200 – 500 per kid, per sport in order to participate. If a player’s family cannot afford to pay up, hardship waivers are utilized in most cases but sometimes the kid will simply choose not to play.
If the more fortunate school districts nationwide are able to “make it” during financially brutal times, but the less fortunate ones must endure horrible cuts or eliminate sports funding altogether, what happens next?

Innovation is the answer when it comes to Saving, Sustaining and Building the financial pipeline needed to help high school athletic programs.

How Can a More Innovative Approach Help Save High School Sports Funding?

1. A couple of years ago the CIF recognized a need for high school athletic programs to hopefully increase their fundraising, and the CIF passed a bylaw allowing temporary, removable corporate ad banners to be placed near the playing fields and courts of high school athletic events.

That was a good first step by the CIF and hopefully enough schools can make use of this mechanism. With a demographically flexible model, there are businesses locally and around the nation that would enjoy seeing their company’s name in such a fashion while supporting high school sports. And, it might be quite feasible to sell portable ad banners or those triangular, foam-shaped ad blocks (like FIFA does for soccer and the World Cup), using a minimum required two-year contract for the companies wanting to advertise accordingly. Online video broadcast platforms enable companies to get major repetitive exposure to thousands or millions of viewers for their buck; if they know how to allocate their advertising dollars creatively. High school sports videos dominate the internet, and having your company logo shown repeatedly online is a good investment.

2. Right now, high school sports teams and/or the kids’ families pay the various apparel manufacturers for the uniforms and jerseys they must wear during athletic events.

However, what if those uniforms or certain parts of the uniforms were “sponsored” by companies wanting to advertise? Would Yahoo!, Rivals, MaxPreps, Scout.com, Microsoft, Google, Coca-Cola, Pepsi or Gatorade, etc., want to see their logo on the Nike game pants, Riddell helmets or Rawlings jerseys of a high school football player or the Adidas sweats of a female basketball star? The size, total number of ads and the location of the advertising logos could be easily regulated, and all advertising funds would go 100% to the school’s athletic department. It would also be a valuable tax deductible donation for the corporations wanting to participate. If you ask a student-athlete and their family, if they would rather have their child’s sports team eliminated, or have a Gatorade Logo on the Left Sleeve of their uniform…which one do you think they would choose?

Better yet, if it was your son or daughter’s sports program facing elimination, which one would you choose? When in doubt of an answer, always personalize the question and the truth will rise up through the muck.

Think about it from Nike’s perspective for example - the more athletic programs that get cut or eliminated – the further it depletes and hurts Nike’s total uniform sales and net profit.

Some grocery stores use a Scripps type of system to reward the athletic programs whose families and friends shop at their stores, an innovative example that has paid nice dividends for many schools nationwide.

3. At the Collegiate Level, the chief role of an Athletic Director has become that of a master fundraising juggernaut. If an AD cannot raise money, secure sponsorship deals and get the job done, the AD is replaced by someone more in touch with the financial demands of a collegiate athletic program.

For High Schools, the job description of an Athletic Director needs to be redefined to include a serious investment of time, focus and energy on maximizing fundraising for the entire sports program. Criteria should include exercising profitable existing fundraisers, researching other potential ideas and collaborating with the AD’s in their league or section, and the CIF at least twice a month. Currently, the head coaches of each sport fend for themselves when it comes to finding, developing and implementing fundraising.

But, if an AD takes a much more proactive role in the overall fundraising system of their entire athletic department, the odds of their own job actually being eliminated or cut is drastically reduced. The AD’s daily workload and the structure of their day could be formally redefined by the Department of Education or the powers that be, to reduce some mandatory teaching requirements in some areas, in order to enhance the AD’s time and ability to build successful fundraising systems such as the ones mentioned earlier, and others.


4. The Booster Clubs attached to high school sports programs should be recognized for doing a great job in most cases. And, at least one or two members of the Booster Club should be assigned to only working on Long Term fundraising, whereas the immediate cash influx is not the goal, but the long term contract and the secured funding of it is the mission.

5. Cut Taxes: The more money individuals and companies have, the more jobs they create and the more money they invest and spend on Feel Good projects. Lower taxes equals higher revenue and greater job creation. Always has and always will.

As a lifelong sports fan and longtime football coach, I have never seen such a dire set of circumstances facing high school sports funding than the current situation surrounding our kids right now, and in their immediate future.

As a coach, it’s my responsibility to keep up to speed and research various ways to help my players succeed on the field of play and in the classroom.

Furthermore, in addition to my current fundraising duties, it’s in the best interests of my players to help raise the funds to meet their needs now, but to also help pave the way for the athletes of the future that simply want a chance to play high school sports like the kids before them were able to do.

“Look Long and See Short,” about high school sports funding before it’s too late.