ASU Athletic Director Gene Smith made the ultimate in unselfish business decisions four months ago.
Fox Sports Net came to Smith and offered him $240,000 to move the start time of Saturday's football match-up against Iowa to 1 p.m. from 7 p.m. Smith declined the offer, citing too many fans have complained over the years of early-season games in the afternoon being too hot.
Keep in mind this is the same Smith who inherited an athletic department debt of more than $3 million when he was hired for the job in 2001. Over the last three years, he has trimmed his department's budget while trying not to take away from the experiences of athletes and fans. Still, athletics is more than $1 million in the red and could have wiped out a quarter of that by simply switching the game time.
Now both ASU and Iowa are undefeated and less than 7,000 tickets remain for the game, as ASU may have its first sold-out football game since 1998 when Notre Dame came to Tempe. Everything fell into place as best as Smith could hope for. Fans may be happy and Smith made a startlingly selfless decision, but we disagree with him.
The athletic department has slowly crawled out of debt due to Smith's smooth cost cutting. But while he has staved off the sharks so far, the department cannot continue to endure the slow bleeding.
Smith told The State Press in March, "We need to get to a point where we're providing a few more services to our sports programs. We need to get to a point where we're operating in the black."
The road to operating in the black will not get any easier with the loss of revenue from hosting the Fiesta Bowl. So wiping out a quarter of the budget deficit in one day at the cost of fans being a little warm seems like a worthwhile venture to us.
ASU head coach Dirk Koetter liked the idea of switching the game time too, as 86 million viewers would have seen the game on television in the afternoon as oppose to a measly 1.8 million in the evening. The recognition would undoubtedly help recruiting.
Prior to the team's season-opener against the University of Texas-El Paso, senior quarterback Andrew Walter said he hoped the weather would be as hot as possible because "it can only help us."
Still, ASU President Michael Crow stood by Smith's decision.
"You don't build a fan base holding games at 105 degrees; you hold it in 95 degrees in the shade," he said. "Our team will make it filling seats, not getting on TV."
Maybe so, but 60,000 fans with $240,000 still seems more palatable than 70,000 fans with squat for extra cash.
But do you know what the worst part of the situation is? UA accepted the afternoon time slot for its game against Wisconsin. And now they are spending our money.
