USD Men's Basketball 1996-1997

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IHI WOMIN'S GAMI

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By Debbie Becker

ew Perkins is a good businessman. He has to be. As the athletic director at the University of Connecticut, he's constantly looking for ways to fund his university's sports teams at a time most schools face severe budget cuts. One not-so-obvious place Perkins has looked

is to hi s women's basketball team. The 1995 national champi– onship program did not disappoint him. The UConn women are expected to ge nerate half a million dollars this season . "We look at women's basketball as a revenue source for us," said Perkins. "We are sold out for every game. We have people making donations to the women's program. We are taking two games thi s yea r to the 14,000-seat Civic Center. "We made a conscious dec ision to commit to women's bas– ke,tball. We are always looking for revenue sources. We made the dec ision it was the women and it worked." At a time of heated di scussion about gender equity and long– awaited enforcement of Title IX, federal legislation barring sexual discrimination of female athletes, funding women's sports is no longer just the ri ght thing to do. Done properly, it can be a savvy economi c move. Top Divi sion I programs like Connecticut, Tennessee and Texas are finding it possible to ge nerate revenue from their women's teams. Connecticut is in the uniqu e position of hav– ing a three-year, $2.28 million deal with Connecticut Public TV. CPTV will show 51 regu lar-season Huskies games as well as 12 Geno Auriemma coac hes shows. Connecticut's games are also aired on the 50,000-watt WTIC radio station , which can be picked up as far away as the Midwest. All thi s means proj ec ted revenue of more than $1.2 million. UConn's budget is $480,000, which makes for a nice profit for the athletic program. These are numbers most Division I football and men's bas– ketball programs wish they could claim. According to the Women's Sports Foundation, at about 80 percent of all NCAA member institutions football does not pay for women's sports or even itself. Among the supposedly lucra– tive bi g-time football programs in Division I-A, 33 percent are running defi c it programs averaging $ 1 million losses annually.