Courtesy Photo / University of Texas at San Antonio
More than 70% of students voted against a proposed athletic fee increase at the University of Texas at San Antonio this week.
However, students at the University of Texas at San Antonio apparently don't care about what that doorstep looks like after overwhelmingly rejecting a proposed student athletics fee increase during voting this week.
Despite heavy lobbying from UTSA's athletic department and Roadrunner head football coach Jeff Traylor, 70% of the 5,898 students who voted shot down the proposal that would have increased the university's athletic fee by $1.50 per credit hour each year for five years beginning in Spring 2024, according to a press release.
With the current athletic fee of $20 per credit hour, the increase would have raised the total student athletic fee to $660 annually by the 2027-28 school year for full-time students, bringing in an estimated additional $5 million annually for the school's athletic program.
In an email sent to supporters of the amendment that was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, UTSA's Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Lisa Campos said that the result was "not what we had hoped for," but added that "it is our job to build and maintain a strong athletics program and we are committed to maximizing all revenue sources to meet the needs of our rapidly rising athletics program."
UTSA's athletics department received 37% of its total revenue from student fees last year, according to data from the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics database. What's more, UTSA's athletics fee hasn't been raised since 2007 — before the launch of the school's football program.Email to UTSA Supoorters minutes after the announcement of the student referendum vote pic.twitter.com/gdpGtYR1zj
— JJ Perez (@theJJPerez) October 27, 2023
The two-time Conference USA Champion Roadrunners accepted an initiation to join the American Athletic Conference at the end of the last season and are now competing against more established and monied programs, including Tulane and Southern Methodist University.
In a video posted on X by UTSA Insiders reporter JJ Perez, Coach Traylor reiterated that the fee increase was important to keep UTSA football competitive.
"In order for us to be competitive in the AAC, we are going to need that [fee increase]," Coach Traylor said in a video statement to students and fans posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, earlier this week.UTSA students will vote this week on whether or not to increase the athletics fees for the school. Head Coach Jeff Traylor talks about why he thinks it’s important for the athletic department pic.twitter.com/J8H8jBd27s
— JJ Perez (@theJJPerez) October 23, 2023
Despite the setback, in her email, Campos said that the athletics department will focus on selling season tickets and raising more contributions to the Roadrunner Athletic Fund to make up for the revenue shortfall.
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