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Pat Kilkenny envisions the University of Oregon becoming the first. When he announced the restoration of baseball beginning in 2009, the UO athletic director said he hoped to turn baseball into a revenue-producing sport in seven years. “We consider the first two years as throwaways, with a five-year horizon beyond that,” Kilkenny says. “But I made that comment before we hired George Horton (as coach). I kind of feel (that) with George here, it might go a little bit faster.” If Kilkenny’s ambition reaches fruition, it would be a remarkable achievement. Not even the top national baseball programs show a net profit at year’s end. Louisiana State comes closest, nearly breaking even for the 2006-07 fiscal year with $1,854,575 in operating expenses and $1,847,080 in gross revenue. But the Tigers averaged 7,329 in paid attendance for 35 games at Alex Box Stadium last season. Arkansas, Mississippi State and Texas are other national powers that draw big crowds but ended the 2007 season in the red. Seven of the nine Pac-10 schools currently playing baseball provided budgetary numbers by request from the Portland Tribune. Southern Cal and Stanford, both private institutions, declined to release figures. Each arrived at its totals in different ways, but Oregon State showed the highest revenue ($500,000) last season. That’s compared to expenditures of $1.3 million. Oregon’s planned stadium — at a cost of $12 million to $15 million — will seat 5,000 after the second phase of construction is completed, probably no earlier than 2010. Oregon State’s Goss Stadium — with a $6 million expansion-renovation project this year — has a capacity of about 3,000, though that figure can grow with temporary seating. In winning their second straight national title last season, the Beavers drew an average of 2,005 fans per home game. Kilkenny thinks the Ducks can beat that and also top the Class A Eugene Emeralds’ average of 3,551 fans last season. “(The Emeralds are) a commercial endeavor,” he says. “You would like to think we can do better than that with a college team.” Kilkenny puts much of the UO program’s revenue-producing potential on fundraising, marketing and multipurpose use of the new baseball facility. “The minor-league baseball (financial) model is one-third advertising, one-third tickets and one-third concessions,” Kilkenny says. “I’d like to think we’ll have an opportunity to follow something that looks a bit like that.” The Oregon AD’s goal is to raise $20 million over the next seven years. Earlier this month, Oregon announced an agreement with IMG College for multimedia marketing rights worth $67.14 million over the next 10 years. IMG will help secure stadium naming-right sponsorship for $5 million. “If (IMG officials) don’t, they have effectively agreed to buy (naming rights) themselves at $2.5 million,” Kilkenny says. “That puts us north of $9 million in gifts and pledges.” Oregon has what Kilkenny calls “a collaboration” with the Emeralds, who will share the stadium with the Ducks by 2010. “That will prop up our revenues significantly over our peer group,” Kilkenny says. A state-of-the-art scoreboard and sky suites “will allow us to generate (revenue streams through) advertising and premium seating,” he says. Central to Kilkenny’s plan is a Moshofsky Center-style pavilion adjacent to the field. “It would allow people to be within the park, buy food and beverages and create an environment that’s exclusive to baseball,” Kilkenny says. “Baseball is a pastime. Fans want to watch the game, but they also want to hang out with friends.” Pavilion could fill a void Kilkenny says the pavilion could be an opportunity for 365-days-a-year revenue, because it could host parties and weddings and football game-day functions. “With each of (the football functions), there is something in the $200,000 profit range,” he says. “That would provide somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million before we even start selling tickets. There aren’t a lot of things to do in Eugene. It seems like there is a void we could fill there. “But you have to be really good at executing. You have to provide quality food and a nice experience.” And in Oregon, you have to overcome the often wet spring weather. “That’s definitely one of our challenges,” Kilkenny says. “That’s part of the reason we like the pavilion concept. And if we have weather issues, we’ll be able to play on (the FieldTurf) surface.” There’s a caveat to Kilkenny’s optimism. “We need to compete at the highest level,” he says. “Hopefully our hiring of Coach Horton speaks volumes about our level of commitment there.” Horton’s annual base salary, including a Nike contract and media responsibilities, is $400,000, plus $285,000 in incentives. Pitching coach Andrew Checketts — an ex-OSU pitcher — will make $120,000. In his 14th season at OSU, coach Pat Casey will make $261,500 in base salary and media commitments, with the opportunity for $99,000 more in incentives. Assistant coaches Marty Lees and Pat Bailey have total packages worth $110,000 each, plus bonuses. Championship wins sure help Finishing in the black in baseball “would be tough at Oregon State,” OSU Athletic Director Bob De Carolis says. “The money we’re making off increased ticket sales is going to 1) the coach’s salary, which has drastically gone up, and rightly so, and 2) expansion costs. “It would be difficult to make a profit primarily because you don’t have enough home games. If you were to do a separate (Beaver Athletic Student Fund donation drive) for baseball like we do for football and basketball, then you might be able to get to that. But you also have to keep the product quality high.” Oregon State baseball gear sells tenfold from what it did four years ago, but the program doesn’t benefit much from it, though the school’s licensing revenue agreement was renegotiated upward this year. “Until this year, we were making only $100,000 for all our (athletic) programs,” De Carolis says. “We grossed more than $800,000 (from apparel sales) last year, but most of that went to the university advancement office.” A Casey-spearheaded drive raised $4.5 million in donations for the stadium improvements. The other $1.5 million will come from an increase in ticket prices over the next four to six years. Casey — who has gathered about $7 million in baseball-dedicated donations since the Beavers’ first College World Series appearance in 2005 — says if you consider that fundraising as revenue, Oregon State baseball is a moneymaker. The school has benefited from the good publicity of consecutive national titles, Casey points out. Perhaps it even has influenced donors to the school’s first comprehensive capital campaign, a $625 million fundraising effort. “You would think people giving money to the capital campaign might look at our national championships and say, ‘There are good things happening there,’ ” Casey says. Beaver coach sees potential Casey believes the OSU baseball program could be profitable with proper marketing. “An athletic program is larger than just the game itself and the players and coaches on game day,” Casey says. “It’s about boosters, fundraising, development of players and student-athletes, engaging people in your state and having a following. “We have been fortunate to have some success the past three years. Our booster base and support is phenomenal, and hopefully that will be there in the future as well. It’s the greatest recognition our school has ever had on the national stage. Now is a wonderful time to capitalize on the momentum we have and get even more people involved.” That might mean having an Oregon firm underwrite an annual four-team tournament at Portland’s PGE Park. A regional television package that would offer more games to fans. A more lucrative cut of apparel sales. Kilkenny thinks it can be done at Oregon. If Duck baseball pulls off a net profit in the next few years, you can say he told you so.
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