Teams
Forum List
Toggle sidebar

2025 Athletics Update

I

IcSyU

Well-Known Member
Nov 27, 2007
28,277
6,911
113
January 1, 2025

Dear Cyclone Fans,

We hope you had a safe holiday season and were able to share it with family and friends.

Before we begin preparing for the new year and beyond, it is important to reflect on 2024 and remind ourselves how fortunate we have been to experience the excitement and success of Cyclone Athletics.

From our football team’s most successful season ever, capped by a thrilling 42-41 victory in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, to both our basketball programs being nationally ranked, our wrestling team’s return to national prominence, our men’s cross country team finishing as national runner-up for the second time in three years, and two of our student-athletes earning national individual championships, as well as our student-athletes continuing to excel in the classroom and the community, it is a wonderful time to be a Cyclone.

None of these successes would be possible without the tremendous support from our generous and loyal alums, donors, ticket holders and fans. Your support of our program has truly been the backbone of our success. On behalf of our student-athletes, coaches, and staff, I say thank you.

As we look ahead to 2025, we are in the midst of the most transformational period in intercollegiate athletics history. From the impact of conference realignment, changes to the college football playoff system, the transfer portal, and revenue sharing with student-athletes, the financial realities facing athletics departments have never been more daunting.

The financial pressure facing our athletics program is no different. The annual cost to fund our athletics department will increase by over 20% in 2025 (approximately $20M) due to sharing revenues with our student-athletes, securing Coach Campbell and Coach Otzelberger to long-term contracts, and changes to Big 12 Conference and College Football Playoff revenue distributions.

The good news is we have spent the past several months working closely with Dr. Wintersteen and her leadership team to develop strategies, all focused on creating a financial pathway forward for our athletics program. She believes it is critically important to Iowa State University for the athletics program to continue to compete at the highest level. However, in order do that, we must be willing to make difficult, and in some cases unpopular, decisions.

The purpose of this letter is to share several decisions we are making to help address the $20M increase in our department’s expenditures. Although none of us like price increases, we must make these changes. We have prided ourselves on not asking you for what we can get, but rather asking you for what we need. That philosophy has served our department, and fan base, extremely well throughout the years, and we believe that these changes are no different.
  1. We are raising the annual Cyclone Club giving levels by 20%, starting with the 2025 drive year. You will receive your renewal notice in February from the Cyclone Club.
  2. We will begin adding state sales tax on all ticket sales beginning in the Fall 2025 (currently we pay the state sale tax out of the ticket price). Adding state sales tax to all ticket sales will allow us to better align financially with those Big 12 institutions that are tax exempt in their respective states, or institutions that are already adding sales tax (K-State) or are in the process of adding sales tax (Iowa).
  3. We are increasing the price of women’s basketball season tickets from $199 to $249 to reflect demand and help fund the costs of sharing revenues with our women’s basketball student-athletes.
In addition, we are continuing to explore other opportunities to increase revenues and/or reduce expenses, including asking our coaches and department heads to reduce their respective annual operating budgets by 10%.

We could not have picked a better time for our athletics program to be faced with these financial challenges. Attendance at our athletic events is at an all-time high, we have secured our most prominent coaches to long-term contracts, and the Big 12 Conference remains committed to identifying and pursuing new revenue opportunities for the membership.

We are also excited about the progress being made on CyTown and look forward to ground being broken on the first buildings this spring. Although CyTown’s direct revenues are earmarked for enhancements in and around the Iowa State Center, the indirect revenues associated with having additional conferences, concerts, and other events in CyTown will help our athletics program.

In closing, I want to thank you once again. We would not be enjoying these successes without your continued loyal generosity.

I hope you have a wonderful 2025. Happy New Year!

Go Cyclones!
 
  • Like
  • Informative
  • Winner
Reactions: NATEizKING, Letterkenny, NWICY and 10 others
Bader

Bader

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Jul 25, 2007
7,569
4,658
113
Ankeny
How long ago was the 50% bump? Maybe it wasn’t across the board, Gold went from 1k to 1500
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Help Support Us

Become a patron
Top Bottom