Questions for those who know.

[Old Skier]

Never posted before, have to follow the Buffs online. Am now living in Austria.
Before I get blasted for asking the following questions understand I was at one time a corporate CFO and curiosity has gotten the best of me. I am in no way comfortable with the way the program is headed or the precipitous decline occurring over the course of the last X number of years.

Questions: (Sorry for the formatting)
1. What was the $ cost of the Barnett firing and subsequent contractual buyout? And has the obligation been fulfilled or is a balance still outstanding?
2. What was the $ cost of the Squalkins firing and the subsequent contractual buyout? What is the balance due Squalkins and when will it be fulfilled?
3. What was the $ cost of the exiting the Big 12?
4. In light of the cost of the Big 12 exit what was the operating short fall of the football/basketball programs for the academic year 2011?
5. Where did the funding come from for all of the above referenced line items?
6. I assume funds were borrowed from some quasi University related entity, if so when does the debt mature?
7. References have been made to Embree having a relatively small buyout, does anyone really know the amount and per tenant details?

My reason for asking is simple, if the deficit is as significant as it appears it will be cold day in hell before the powers that be make the kind of change many here are advocating. Believe me I am not thrilled with the situation, but it appears we are stuck between a rock and a hard place until any outstanding obligations are retired. That of course assumes the obligations are close to what they may be.

 

[tante]

Never posted before, have to follow the Buffs online. Am now living in Austria.
Before I get blasted for asking the following questions understand I was at one time a corporate CFO and curiosity has gotten the best of me. I am in no way comfortable with the way the program is headed or the precipitous decline occurring over the course of the last X number of years.

Questions: (Sorry for the formatting)
1. What was the $ cost of the Barnett firing and subsequent contractual buyout? And has the obligation been fulfilled or is a balance still outstanding?
2. What was the $ cost of the Squalkins firing and the subsequent contractual buyout? What is the balance due Squalkins and when will it be fulfilled?
3. What was the $ cost of the exiting the Big 12?
4. In light of the cost of the Big 12 exit what was the operating short fall of the football/basketball programs for the academic year 2011?
5. Where did the funding come from for all of the above referenced line items?
6. I assume funds were borrowed from some quasi University related entity, if so when does the debt mature?
7. References have been made to Embree having a relatively small buyout, does anyone really know the amount and per tenant details?

My reason for asking is simple, if the deficit is as significant as it appears it will be cold day in hell before the powers that be make the kind of change many here are advocating. Believe me I am not thrilled with the situation, but it appears we are stuck between a rock and a hard place until any outstanding obligations are retired. That of course assumes the obligations are close to what they may be.

1. 4 million fulfilled
2. Hawk hiring 700k boy out from Boise $3 buyout at firing. Fulfilled
3. 10 million exit fees plus millions in lost revenue. Over 10 million
4. Over 10 million
5. Some was operating capital other was a bridge loan from the school
6. Dont know
7.I believe around $750k

You can find all the details you need in under 15 minutes using Google.

 

[Lt.Col.FrankSlade]

1. Barnett received $3 million when he was terminated in December, 2005. I have no idea what the structure of that settlement was, but I would assume that it has been paid by now, although I have occasionally heard differently.

2. Hawkins received $2 million when he was terminated in the fall of 2010. Again, I have no idea what the structure of that settlement was. I would assume Colorado is still paying on that early termination fee.

3. Colorado paid $6.86 million to the Big 12 to exit the conference.

4. (Don't know and can't quickly find..)

5. All the funding came from within the athletic department / donations / etc.

6. I do not believe any funds have been borrowed since they built the new seats / club suites at Folsom (I think that was mid-2000's timeframe.)

7. According to the Colorado Daily (CU newspaper) Embree's contract includes language for early termination. If Embree would have been fired in 2011, CU would have owed Embree $750,000. If terminated in 2012, CU will owe Embree $500,000. If terminated in 2013, CU will owe Embree $250,000. If terminated in 2014 or 2015, CU owes Embree nothing.

 

[Alfred91]

Jesus. Looking at the buyout language in Embree's contract, it's almost like they expected him to suck.

 

[Junction]

Jesus. Looking at the buyout language in Embree's contract, it's almost like they expected him to suck.

That tends to give some support, at least in my mind, to the idea that Bohn may not have been driving the bus in the decision to hire Embree. Where he probably did have some control was in negotiating the terms of the contract. As an AD, if somebody is going to force you to hire somebody you may not be totally sold on, the first thing you would want to do is make sure that getting rid of him would be as easy as possible...

 

[tante]

I was looking at an outdated article on hawk but this says 4 million for Barnett

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25689476/detail.html

 

[tante]

Wow I always thought we had the same exit fee as Nebraska but they paid $9.2 and we paid under $7

Nebraska, which will leave for the Big Ten on June 30, 2011, agreed Tuesday that it will forfeit $9.255 million in conference revenue distribution. The penalty will be reduced by $500,000 if the Cornhuskers are one of two Big 12 football teams to reach a BCS game. The agreement must be approved by the Nebraska Board of Regents.

Colorado's Board of Regents approved terms of the school's departure for the new Pac-12 after the 2010-11 season, joining fellow newcomer Utah.

"I think that's what we wanted, Colorado wanted and the Pac-10 wanted," Beebe said.

The Buffaloes will forego $6.863 million in conference revenue distribution. With Colorado's exit date now confirmed, the Big 12 can avoid an awkward scheduling format with 11 teams for 2011-12.

 

[rosstr]

That tends to give some support, at least in my mind, to the idea that Bohn may not have been driving the bus in the decision to hire Embree. Where he probably did have some control was in negotiating the terms of the contract. As an AD, if somebody is going to force you to hire somebody you may not be totally sold on, the first thing you would want to do is make sure that getting rid of him would be as easy as possible...

Shows us how little bargaining power Embree really had, and correspondingly how inadequate his credentials really were. The University can fire him and not even blink ... unfortunately our leaders are lousy.

 

[MiamiBuffs]

Never posted before, have to follow the Buffs online. Am now living in Austria.
Before I get blasted for asking the following questions understand I was at one time a corporate CFO and curiosity has gotten the best of me. I am in no way comfortable with the way the program is headed or the precipitous decline occurring over the course of the last X number of years.

Questions: (Sorry for the formatting)
1. What was the $ cost of the Barnett firing and subsequent contractual buyout? And has the obligation been fulfilled or is a balance still outstanding?
2. What was the $ cost of the Squalkins firing and the subsequent contractual buyout? What is the balance due Squalkins and when will it be fulfilled?
3. What was the $ cost of the exiting the Big 12?
4. In light of the cost of the Big 12 exit what was the operating short fall of the football/basketball programs for the academic year 2011?
5. Where did the funding come from for all of the above referenced line items?
6. I assume funds were borrowed from some quasi University related entity, if so when does the debt mature?
7. References have been made to Embree having a relatively small buyout, does anyone really know the amount and per tenant details?

My reason for asking is simple, if the deficit is as significant as it appears it will be cold day in hell before the powers that be make the kind of change many here are advocating. Believe me I am not thrilled with the situation, but it appears we are stuck between a rock and a hard place until any outstanding obligations are retired. That of course assumes the obligations are close to what they may be.

Allegedly the 2004 stadium expansion is till in debt and the AD is still borrowing to balance its budget against those costs.

Allegedly.

The $42 million expansion of the stadium in 2003 involved the addition of 41 luxury boxes and 1,863 club seats, which were expected to bring in enough money to pay for the project in the long run.

But the athletics department has periodically required bailouts from the university ever since.

In 2006, after one faculty leader referred to the project as a “stadium monstrosity,” and after CU Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman ripped the campus publicly for being more beholden to athletics issues than its academic mission, the university agreed to provide the athletics department an additional$3.5 million to balance its budget. According to reports, a portion of that was dedicated to the stadium expansion bonds, in part because only about 35 percent of the club seats had been sold that year.

The Camera has subsequently reported that the amount the campus loaned the department in 2006 was $8 million, reflecting the amount it had to pay to former coach Gary Barnett in the financial settlement related to his departure following the scandal.

In addition, according to Camera reports this past spring, the campus and president’s office loaned the athletics department a total of $10 million to help cover expenses associated with moving to the Pac-12 Conference in 2011, not including a related $6 million from those two entities that doesn’t need to be repaid.

http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-9551-cu-conducts-survey-o.html

Reading the above suggests that a financial hole remains at the AD and that's probably tying the ADs hands on many things.

 

[GoBeers]

The flipside to your question is how quickly does the TV money escalate. I've seen TV money will be around $15 million for 2012. That's far below the yearly average and has to include some first year costs. It's also before receiving a cent from the P12 Network. I haven't seen anything on how quickly that escalates and how much is the first year(s) being docked to help with startup costs for the P12 network (rumored to be $70-100 million). Depending on the circumstances, it could see several jumps very soon to much a much larger number of $$$ (20-25mil?) in just a couple years from now, then of course the more gradual yearly increases until 2023. So even if CU is having a hard time paying a few items of debt this year, it won't in a year or two. Some schools like AZ, UW, UCLA were financially OK to start with and have upgraded staff with money they have. Schools like WSU have upgraded with future money that is coming in. Embree's buyout might be small, but when the money starts flowing it if he's not producing it may be an even better time to grab a high $$ coach instead of basing that hire on a few more years of more constricted budgets.