This year our budget has gone up with the help of the sports gambling tax we have now in Louisiana.  However, we are still toward the bottom and from what I can gather the Texas schools continue to outpace and lap us.  Currently, our budget doesn’t pay nearly for everything we need thus I have to fundraise for.  All our sports must fundraise for operating their program as the state budget doesn’t cover it completely.  Operations include team travel (hotel, buses, and food).  Sport programs must fundraise for a lot of their recruiting (both going to see recruits and bringing recruits in for official visits). 

All revenue share/NIL dollars we spend have to be privately raised.  This year we have committed $700,000 to football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball for revenue share/NIL (Football has $350,000).  Football needs to be around $800,000-$1M annually to be in the Top 1/3 of the conference.  AD's goal for next year is to double it to $700,000.  If we can get there, we will be close.  But again, this is all privately raised and the reason we are doing the musical festival and house raffle.

Realistically, we need to double our current football operations budget (we have increased it by $250,000 in the last two years).  This would put us in the Top 1/3 of the SLC. These dollars would be used for uniforms, equipment, team travel, nutrition, etc.  Nutrition and eating healthy pregame and the day before are huge expenses that we really need help with.  We are making some sacrifices in other areas to provide this but we desperately need help in this area. 

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Facility wise we are currently working on a plan to renovate the football locker room, team meeting room and the hallway that connects them.  This would cost roughly $2M.  We are in need of a covered indoor practice facility as well.  This will cost us $10M.  Our hope is that we can get some donor help with these two projects and then go to the state to match it.  Goal is to get the donation commitments this Fall and get the state to pass it in the spring.  We shall see if we can get that done. 

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Technically, we only have Revenue Share.  Revenue Share is what you can pay through the University’s Athletic Budget.  There is a cap of $20.5M that can be spent on Revenue Share for the institution.  NIL is a 3rd party organization that fundraises and pays the student-athletes themselves.  NSU doesn’t have a 3rd party because we aren’t anywhere near the $20.5M cap.  In our case, the University pays the student-athletes who receive revenue share but the Athletic dept has to reimburse the University for every dollar.