Follow up on CSU Fresno $$$ trouble...

[Southland]

Following up on the CSU Fresno story I posted a month ago...

To refresh: CSU Fresno has a 700K deficit for athletics and still owes $1.3M on their arena. They recently cut two sports to drop to the Division 1A football status required minimum 16 varsity sports. CSU Fresno has told the Valley Soccer Federation it must raise $2.1M by January 15 to keep soccer and swimming. The VSF had 4 months to raise $680K to save soccer/swimming for this year... only raised $540K, but the school gave the sports a reprieve given they meet the January 15 fundraising requirement.

Over the weekend, sports programs in the CSU and UC systems got some bad news, as a result of our lovely budget shortfall here in the "Golden" State...

"The community colleges were asked to reduce $285 million from their budget, and the CSU and UC systems would have sustained total reductions of $400 million and $450 million, respectively." --LA Times AP Report

I'd say it's pretty safe to say the State isn't going to help Fresno with its budget shortfall in athletics... it would be very interesting to see the new Division 1A status rules kill a strong non-BCS program.

How does this effect SMU? Who knows... but this little talked about budget story ought to become pretty significant in the re-alignment talks come January.