Study outlines costs if Wichita State relaunches football

Wichita State should be prepared to spend a bunch of money if it wants to restart its football program.

According to a study from College Sports Solutions commissioned by the school and first reported by CBS Sports, approximately $75 million could be needed over five years to begin the team if it wanted to compete at college football’s top level.

The school is exploring the idea of fielding a football team again after a 20+ year hiatus. The school last had a football team in 1986 and if it launched an FBS-level program, the school wouldn’t be at that level until 2020. If it wanted to have an FCS program, the study says 2020 would be the second year at the FCS level.

The near-70 page study, viewable here, outlines Wichita State’s current spending on athletics vs. other FCS and FBS programs. The school is currently a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, which is at the FCS level of football. If Wichita State wanted to join the FBS, the Mountain West was mentioned as a conference possibility.

The school’s Cessna Stadium would need to be renovated to host a football program. The study presents three options ranging from $21-$28 million for improvements to the stadium. More than $20 million would also be needed to add a football practice facility.

Here’s where the additional expenditures would come from:

• The study also notes the median expenditures for football programs in the 2014 fiscal year. The midpoint was $3.2 million for FCS schools while FBS schools had a median spend of $16 million.

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• It also notes that the school would likely need to add women’s sports to the athletic department to comply with Title IX rules if WSU added football.

• The study said Wichita State’s athletic programs generated over $19 million in revenue in the 2015 fiscal year. That puts the school above the 75th percentile of FBS programs. Nearly $7 million of that was from the school’s men’s basketball team. The school’s athletic expenses were just over $25 million.

• It also outlines recent efforts by other schools to launch football programs. One of the schools mentioned is Georgia State, which is completing efforts to turn Turner Field, the current home of MLB’s Atlanta Braves, into a football stadium.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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