SUjagTILLiDIE
Well-Known Member
A very interesting read on the TAF(tiger athletic foundation).
Hold That Bottom Line
Read story:
http://louisianalife.com/832.html?&cHash=d563046abd&tx_ttnews[backPid]=814&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=569
What?s purple and gold and cuts through red tape?
by SCOTT DYER
A few hours after the LSU Tigers wrapped up their last home win, a 27-24 victory over Ole Miss on Nov. 20, work crews began to demolish the western upper deck of Tiger Stadium.
The Tiger Athletic Foundation (TAF), the fundraising arm of the Louisiana State University Athletic Department, is overseeing the $60 million replacement of the 25-year-old upper deck and plans to have it finished in time for the football team?s Sept. 3 home opener against North Texas State.
LSU Athletic Director Skip Bertman says the massive project, with a 10-month time frame, is a great example of how much faster and more efficiently the TAF can complete construction projects than the university itself.
As a private nonprofit foundation, the TAF isn?t subject to the bureaucratic red tape that surrounds and sometimes engulfs state projects. By contrast, the university must follow state bidding regulations and go through the state?s cumbersome capital outlay process, which requires approval by the Louisiana Legislature.
?The TAF can move faster than we can,? Bertman says. ?When they bid something out, they?re not subject to the rules that the university is. So, for instance, if they bid something out, after they bid it, they can come back and negotiate this or that and even rebid. And that makes them more efficient.?
The TAF began in 1978 as the Varsity Club, a fundraising organization for the athletic department. It was reorganized into its current incarnation in 1987 but only funded its first construction project in 2000 ? the east-side expansion of Tiger Stadium. Bertman has no official role in the TAF, but as athletic director, he approves all its projects, along with the campus chancellor, the LSU system president and the LSU Board of Supervisors.
According to Bertman, LSU is the only major college football powerhouse in the Southeastern Conference ? and possibly in the entire nation ? that has to contend with a state law limiting the role of its athletic foundation, a law that restricts the amount of money funneled into the TAF through football ticket sales.
Most of the revenues that the TAF uses for construction projects like the ongoing Tiger Stadium face lift come from surcharges imposed on the sale of LSU football tickets.
Fans who buy their tickets through the TAF pay a donation or surcharge of at least $50 a seat for the privilege of buying season tickets.
But Louisiana law limits the number of tickets that may include a surcharge paid to fundraising groups such as the Tiger Athletic Foundation to 12 percent of a stadium?s capacity, plus whatever new seats that they add in expansions.
The TAF added the 11,600-seat east upper deck in 2000, which included 70 luxury boxes that rent from $24,000 to $48,000 per season. Under the law, the TAF may receive a surcharge on those seats created in the east-side expansion, plus 9,500 or 12 percent of the 80,000 seats that existed in Tiger Stadium before the east-side addition.
Bertman tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Louisiana Legislature to pull the plug on the 12 percent law for the TAF in 2002. When that failed, the school began requiring fans to make donations to the LSU Athletic Department.
?We were trying to raise the 12 percent to about 47 percent of the seats, with the money going to the TAF, and then they [the foundation] could do whatever I wanted them to do,? Bertman says. ?Like if I wanted a new baseball field, the TAF could get an architect next Tuesday and begin immediately.?
Among those legislators who opposed Bertman?s efforts to modify the 12 percent limit on TAF tickets was state Sen. Jay Dardenne, a Republican from south Baton Rouge.
?The Tiger Athletic Foundation has done a tremendous job as a fundraising arm of the university, but there?s no question that there?s the potential for abuse. I don?t think it would ever happen with the TAF, but there is that potential when you have in essence public-works projects being done in the private sector,? Dardenne says.
He adds that he understands that most other SEC universities depend upon foundations like the TAF, but said he wasn?t ready to give the TAF any more power to start projects outside conventional state channels.
Because of the limitations placed on the TAF, Bertman says he?s having to construct a new LSU baseball stadium through those channels.
Even though the university has enough money to build the $23 million baseball stadium, it will take until 2008 to complete that project because of all the red tape in the state construction process. ?If the TAF was doing the new baseball stadium, it wouldn?t take nearly that long,? Bertman says.
In the meantime, the Tiger baseball team will continue to play its home games in 67-year-old Alex Box Stadium, which has no suites, no locker room for visiting teams, no TV or radio booths and no covered batting cages, as most SEC ballparks do.
?Alex Box has tremendous sentimental value, of course, but our fans and our athletes deserve a better facility,? says Bertman, who coached LSU to five national championships in baseball before he retired and became LSU athletic director.
Bertman notes that most of the baseball stadium?s 7,760 seats are located in metal bleachers that were gradually added as LSU baseball grew in popularity. The original grandstand at Alex Box Stadium seats only 2,500.
LSU is the only school in the Southeastern Conference that hasn?t built a new baseball stadium in the past 20 years.
?Some people look at what?s going on at LSU and say, ?Well, we won in 1958 without these things.? The truth is that nobody had these things. And starting about 1985, we started to fall way behind other schools,? Bertman says.
While college baseball will always have a special place in his heart, Bertman says LSU?s football program is key to the success of the overall athletic program. ?What makes any program successful is first-class football ? football is the engine that pulls the train.
?Money generated by the football program helps not only to build new facilities for all LSU sports, but also keeps LSU?s athletic program self-sufficient,? Bertman says.
He adds that the TAF is an important reason why LSU
doesn?t rely on student fees or state dollars to cover even basic athletic-program expenses, such as tuition, books, room and board for student athletes.
?Everything [funding those expenses] is ticket sales, corporate sponsors and private donations,? Bertman says. ?Not all schools can do that, but many do in the SEC, like Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina.?
Hold That Bottom Line
Read story:
http://louisianalife.com/832.html?&cHash=d563046abd&tx_ttnews[backPid]=814&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=569
What?s purple and gold and cuts through red tape?
by SCOTT DYER
A few hours after the LSU Tigers wrapped up their last home win, a 27-24 victory over Ole Miss on Nov. 20, work crews began to demolish the western upper deck of Tiger Stadium.
The Tiger Athletic Foundation (TAF), the fundraising arm of the Louisiana State University Athletic Department, is overseeing the $60 million replacement of the 25-year-old upper deck and plans to have it finished in time for the football team?s Sept. 3 home opener against North Texas State.
LSU Athletic Director Skip Bertman says the massive project, with a 10-month time frame, is a great example of how much faster and more efficiently the TAF can complete construction projects than the university itself.
As a private nonprofit foundation, the TAF isn?t subject to the bureaucratic red tape that surrounds and sometimes engulfs state projects. By contrast, the university must follow state bidding regulations and go through the state?s cumbersome capital outlay process, which requires approval by the Louisiana Legislature.
?The TAF can move faster than we can,? Bertman says. ?When they bid something out, they?re not subject to the rules that the university is. So, for instance, if they bid something out, after they bid it, they can come back and negotiate this or that and even rebid. And that makes them more efficient.?
The TAF began in 1978 as the Varsity Club, a fundraising organization for the athletic department. It was reorganized into its current incarnation in 1987 but only funded its first construction project in 2000 ? the east-side expansion of Tiger Stadium. Bertman has no official role in the TAF, but as athletic director, he approves all its projects, along with the campus chancellor, the LSU system president and the LSU Board of Supervisors.
According to Bertman, LSU is the only major college football powerhouse in the Southeastern Conference ? and possibly in the entire nation ? that has to contend with a state law limiting the role of its athletic foundation, a law that restricts the amount of money funneled into the TAF through football ticket sales.
Most of the revenues that the TAF uses for construction projects like the ongoing Tiger Stadium face lift come from surcharges imposed on the sale of LSU football tickets.
Fans who buy their tickets through the TAF pay a donation or surcharge of at least $50 a seat for the privilege of buying season tickets.
But Louisiana law limits the number of tickets that may include a surcharge paid to fundraising groups such as the Tiger Athletic Foundation to 12 percent of a stadium?s capacity, plus whatever new seats that they add in expansions.
The TAF added the 11,600-seat east upper deck in 2000, which included 70 luxury boxes that rent from $24,000 to $48,000 per season. Under the law, the TAF may receive a surcharge on those seats created in the east-side expansion, plus 9,500 or 12 percent of the 80,000 seats that existed in Tiger Stadium before the east-side addition.
Bertman tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Louisiana Legislature to pull the plug on the 12 percent law for the TAF in 2002. When that failed, the school began requiring fans to make donations to the LSU Athletic Department.
?We were trying to raise the 12 percent to about 47 percent of the seats, with the money going to the TAF, and then they [the foundation] could do whatever I wanted them to do,? Bertman says. ?Like if I wanted a new baseball field, the TAF could get an architect next Tuesday and begin immediately.?
Among those legislators who opposed Bertman?s efforts to modify the 12 percent limit on TAF tickets was state Sen. Jay Dardenne, a Republican from south Baton Rouge.
?The Tiger Athletic Foundation has done a tremendous job as a fundraising arm of the university, but there?s no question that there?s the potential for abuse. I don?t think it would ever happen with the TAF, but there is that potential when you have in essence public-works projects being done in the private sector,? Dardenne says.
He adds that he understands that most other SEC universities depend upon foundations like the TAF, but said he wasn?t ready to give the TAF any more power to start projects outside conventional state channels.
Because of the limitations placed on the TAF, Bertman says he?s having to construct a new LSU baseball stadium through those channels.
Even though the university has enough money to build the $23 million baseball stadium, it will take until 2008 to complete that project because of all the red tape in the state construction process. ?If the TAF was doing the new baseball stadium, it wouldn?t take nearly that long,? Bertman says.
In the meantime, the Tiger baseball team will continue to play its home games in 67-year-old Alex Box Stadium, which has no suites, no locker room for visiting teams, no TV or radio booths and no covered batting cages, as most SEC ballparks do.
?Alex Box has tremendous sentimental value, of course, but our fans and our athletes deserve a better facility,? says Bertman, who coached LSU to five national championships in baseball before he retired and became LSU athletic director.
Bertman notes that most of the baseball stadium?s 7,760 seats are located in metal bleachers that were gradually added as LSU baseball grew in popularity. The original grandstand at Alex Box Stadium seats only 2,500.
LSU is the only school in the Southeastern Conference that hasn?t built a new baseball stadium in the past 20 years.
?Some people look at what?s going on at LSU and say, ?Well, we won in 1958 without these things.? The truth is that nobody had these things. And starting about 1985, we started to fall way behind other schools,? Bertman says.
While college baseball will always have a special place in his heart, Bertman says LSU?s football program is key to the success of the overall athletic program. ?What makes any program successful is first-class football ? football is the engine that pulls the train.
?Money generated by the football program helps not only to build new facilities for all LSU sports, but also keeps LSU?s athletic program self-sufficient,? Bertman says.
He adds that the TAF is an important reason why LSU
doesn?t rely on student fees or state dollars to cover even basic athletic-program expenses, such as tuition, books, room and board for student athletes.
?Everything [funding those expenses] is ticket sales, corporate sponsors and private donations,? Bertman says. ?Not all schools can do that, but many do in the SEC, like Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina.?
