Newly appointed athletic director Pat Kilkenny has discovered that there are a couple of similarities between his new job and his former one.
Kilkenny, who spent 32 years in the insurance business before leaving it last August, met with the students enrolled in the Sports Business 455 class Tuesday to discuss the business of running a major athletic department.
He said both jobs are relationship-oriented and deal with management. But mostly, he said, his new sports gig is an entirely different world.
“You have to be sensitive with everything you say and do,” Kilkenny said. “I’m not very good at it but I’m getting better.”
Kilkenny’s transition goes from insurance deals to dealing with people who sign checks worth thousands of dollars to watch football and basketball games. Kilkenny is no stranger to big bucks, but since officially stepping in on April 1, he has had to learn the ropes of a new position.
“It seems like you don’t finish anything,” Kilkenny said jokingly. “It’s like getting on a treadmill. I don’t understand how guys like (former Athletic Director) Bill Moos did it for 12 years. It requires a lot of energy.”
Kilkenny and senior associate AD for compliance Gary Gray talked to the class in the Lillis Business Complex about the business of running a major athletic department. Topics raised and posed by students included tentative costs for a new basketball arena, the economics of hosting the 2008 Olympic Trials and the challenges associated with non-revenue sports.
Kilkenny, who’s in charge of 18 teams, 180 employees, a $41 million budget and around 60 coaches, said his role with Oregon is to take the athletic department from self-sustaining to self-supporting. He’s acquired a program whose revenue stream matches its expenses, making it one of only 17 schools that Kilkenny said actually pay their own bills. Perpetuating that claim entails capitalizing on the department’s big money sports: Football and men’s basketball. Gray said 85 percent of the department’s revenue comes from football, with the rest coming from men’s basketball. The department, Gray said, has spent $10 million on sports other than football and men’s basketball and has only made $1 million from them.
“Were in the red there,” Gray said.
“At the end of the day, we have to raise money from people to get this thing firing on all cylinders,” Kilkenny said.
He’s on track. Kilkenny just received a $1 million dollar donation Monday from a donor who had matched that amount earlier with a donation to the business school.
Money will be needed to convert an out-of-business and seemingly deserted Williams’ Bakery that now rests on East 13th, near Franklin Blvd., into a state-of-the-art basketball arena. Kilkenny said a model is in progress.
Kilkenny estimated that the maximum amount for a new arena could be $180 million. He placed a range of about $100 million to $180 million on the project, with about $25 million to $40 million worth of leverage.
Kilkenny added that Mac Court may be demolished or stay intact, possibly as an occasional practice facility and as a constant Oregon landmark.
Though the basketball arena is expected to be a major revenue-generator for the department, Kilkenny said the 2008 Olympic Trials will not draw in profits from the use of Hayward Field.
“It’s been modestly priced, as in 0,” Kilkenny said.
He said there’s been an $8 million “capital call” for the Olympic Trials, slated for the summer of 2008. Kilkenny said he expects there to be around 18 hours of television coverage of the meet and a great deal of attention from the media. Gray said that the venue couldn’t be more perfect for the Trials.
“Hayward Field is the Yankee Stadium or the Wrigley Field of track,” Gray said.
Between all the money and big decisions, Kilkenny is keeping a sense of humor about his new job.
“I’ve agreed to take charge for a couple years,” Kilkenny said. “I don’t charge much so they might keep me for a while.”