Money talks at VCU Athletics

In the upcoming days, VCU will be covered on ESPN2 when it plays Bradley University. The university hopes that will turn into more fans – and donors.

“The more success VCU athletics has, the more connections will be made. with the success of the team, the profile of the coverage goes up,” said Scott Secules, senior associate athletic director for external affairs, in an e-mail.

Secules hopes someone will read about the Rams in the media and decide to come down to campus to watch a game.

Andrew Hartley, assistant athletic director for development and ticketing, said, “ticket sales, annual giving dollars, student fees and sponsorships” are the main ways to make money at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.

Hartley also said it’s a gradual process to get people to be donors. Just because a basketball team is successful, people will not open their checkbooks.

VCU does not specifically profit from having televised coverage. ESPN has rights to the broadcast of Saturday’s game. The Colonial Athletic Association negotiates a TV package for the entire conference, and the conference distributes and splits the revenue between teams in the conference.

“Those TV revenues would be a part of that distribution. Again, at games, we make revenues from ticket sales and concession sales and eventually, donated dollars,” Secules said.

Donations are spread out across all sports. Donations are often used for scholarships, staff salaries and travel expenses for all sports teams.

Local business owners are also reaping the benefits of high basketball attendance.

“When those games get out about 9:30 to 9:45 p.m., we get a lot of business. It helps out our dinner, unlike before when we just had a lot of business in the morning,” said Gray Carson, assistant manager of Qdoba Mexican Grill located below Ramz Hall on West Broad Street.

Tom Cabble, owner of nearby Tropical Smoothie Caf