Virginia Tech is moving forward with a strategic plan to spend more money on its football program.
The trick now: finding the money.
“It’s a big ask for the institution, a big ask for our students, but a reasonable one given where those fees are starting from, and certainly a big ask of our donors and philanthropic support,” said Simon Allen, the chief financial officer at Virginia Tech, ahead of a 13-1 vote by the school’s Board of Visitors on Tuesday approve $229 million in additional planned investment in athletics over the next four years.
The money is supposed to come from increased donor support – $120 million in increased donor support, to be precise – with the rest coming from “campus subsidies,” most notably, an increase in student fees, which was the reason for the lone no vote, from board member Nancy Dye, a Glenn Youngkin appointee whose bio page on the Virginia Tech website refers to her as “an advocate for access to and affordability of higher education for Virginia students.”
ICYMI
Student fees, under the plan approved on Tuesday, will increase $100 per year in fiscal years 2027, 2028 and 2029, accounting for $21.3 million of the total increase in planned additional athletics investment, or 9.3 percent.
By the 2029 fiscal year, student fees would be providing more than $25 million of the projected $212.1 million athletics budget at Virginia Tech, roughly 11.8 percent.
Overall institutional support to athletics would hit the 20 percent maximum allowed under state law by fiscal year 2029, according to Amy Sebring, the chief operating officer at Virginia Tech.
You can consider those budget line items fixed, because the school is going to do what the school is going to do, and the kids have no choice but to pay the student fees, now that the Board of Visitors has had its say.
The BOV can’t necessarily just wave a magic wand to make $120 million in new donations to appear from the thin air.
That figure, $30 million per year, would require Tech to double its current level of annual athletics donations.
Good luck with that.
“It has never been clearer that the future of Hokie Athletics will depend on the institutional commitment to compete, in partnership with our alumni and supporters. Today, we are stepping up to compete, and we ask our loyal fans and generous donors to step forward with us,” Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said today.
The reporting on this move has focused on school leaders hyping how this $229 million plan will get Virginia Tech Athletics into the upper echelon of big spenders in the ACC, but missing from the armchair analyses is that this assumption based on the almost certainly flawed assumption that Tech’s peers will just stand pat as Tech moves forward with its plans to infuse cash into its operations.
The first indication to that being the case here is when you consider that what’s going on at Virginia Tech is a clear and direct response to the money people at the University of Virginia throwing money at the UVA Football program in the offseason.
ICYMI
- Did the UVA Football money people really give Tony Elliott $30M to build a roster?
- Carla Williams: ‘Conference realignment’ putting pressure on UVA Football
A group of UVA Athletics donors raised in the area of $35 million to go toward an NIL and House settlement budget for the 2025 roster, with strong early returns – Tony Elliott was 11-23 in his first three seasons as the head coach, but his team is currently sitting at 4-1 and ranked in the AP Top 25 after an upset win over #8 Florida State last week.
Elliott was hired in December 2021 as Virginia Tech was bringing Brent Pry on as its new football coach; Pry was fired earlier this month after an 0-3 start that included back-to-back blowout home losses to Vanderbilt and ODU.
Virginia Tech is forever trying to recapture the magic of the late 1990s-through-early 2010s era that saw the football program compete for a national title in 1999 and record double-digit wins in 11 of 13 seasons, with six national Top 10 finishes.
Since that run ended in 2011, Tech Football has posted a 91-80 record, with five losing seasons and four others that finished with 7-6 records.
To that point, here’s another quote from Sands from today’s BOV meeting:
“Virginia Tech is at a historic juncture in the history of Hokie Athletics. The tumblers at the institution, conference and national levels are all aligned. Today’s action unlocks the door to future success,” Sands said.
That’s one way this ends up.
Another, more likely, way things go from here: a couple of years from now, Virginia Tech is left behind when UVA, UNC, Clemson and Florida State break up the ACC as we know it today, and this money is money down the drain.
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Chris Graham
