Student Assembly

Organization: Athletics & Physical Education
Date: October 29th, 2012

The Appropriations Committee felt that Athletics and Physical Education serves an important role on Cornell University’s campus, particularly in developing a sense of pride and school spirit. However, members of the committee did have recommendations on how the current allocation could be spent more efficiently.

One concern committee members voiced was that Athletics is not spending money on the most effective advertising forums. Specifically, the committee believes advertisements on Cayuga Radio are not reaching a high quantity of students and that these funds could be redirected towards giveaways or other campaigns. Additionally, committee members encourage Athletics to focus more on online advertising and feel that either pages or ads on Facebook could be productive marketing options.

The committee looked very favorably on Athletics & Physical Education collaborating with the students sports marketing group. Multiple committee members believed that there was room to increase this partnership and pass on more responsibility to this group, particularly in managing a new online media campaign.

Appropriations Committee members also approved of the promotions and campaign that Athletics continues to utilize, but would like to see the attendance figures attributable to these events versus games without promotions to gauge the efficiency of these expenditures. While committee members did not feel the giveaways were ineffective per say, they still recommend that Athletics & Physical Education explore alternative campaigns. Examples that were mentioned both during Q&A and discussion which members thought would be great to explore were promotions contingent on Cornell teams winning, more options involving food, and furthering partnerships with corporate sponsors.

In regards to the Big Red Sports Pass, committee members strongly supported finding a way to collaborate between BRSP events and hockey events to attempt to combine the fan bases between the two. The committee also felt that a stronger emphasis should be placed on measuring attendance at all BRSP events.

Finally, the committee felt that some sort of rationale should be provided next year for the $7 funding amount for the Big Red Sports Pass. While a specific calculation was not requested, members of the committee did want to see some combination of attendance figures and operating costs.

Respectfully submitted,

Roneal Desai ‘13
Vice President of Finance
Student Assembly