The University of Nevada is asking for an additional $10 million in state funding as the school seeks to invest in additional scholarships in women's sports, while also keeping pace with UNLV's level of state funding.
According to Nevada Sportsnet, the Nevada Board of Regents will hold a special meeting Thursday at UNLV with that additional financial request scheduled to be discussed.
Meanwhile, UNLV is asking for an additional $5 million for the same period.
In the most recent fiscal year, Nevada got $5.78 million in state funding to UNLV's $8.39 million, a disparity that has been justified due to the schools' differing square footage being maintained.
Nevada president Brian Sandoval said that formula needs updating.
"For athletics, we're requesting two critical investments totaling $5 million annually," Sandoval told the Regents in March. "The funding formula for O&M for athletics facilities has remained the same for decades since 2008. It need to be updated to reflect the accuracy of our space on our campus. We're way behind. When we provide the accurate amount of square-footage space, we think it will reflect better and the state could fund that and we wouldn't have to subsidize that in our current budget."
Nevada and UNLV have roughly the same number of student-athletes with both schools sponsoring 17 varsity sports.
Sandoval has argued that the new realities of collegiate athletics makes the increase in funding a necessity.
"In the wake of the House vs. NCAA settlement, college athletics has entered a new financial era defined by roster caps, deregulated scholarship limits and direct benefit payments to student-athletes," Sandoval said. "Among the most significant changes are the new scholarship parameters adopted by the NCAA. Under the previous model, Nevada was permitted to provide 236 total scholarships to our student-athletes. Under this new framework, that number increases to 402. So an additional $2.5 million annually would allow us to fund these new scholarships and directly expanding access and opportunity to our student-athletes, but particularly our student-athletes in the Olympic and women's programs."
Sandoval's goal has been to get Nevada to the MW median in public-money support.
"We've gone from 'pathetic' with the amount of money we've provided as an institution to the athletic department to the middle of the Mountain West," Sandoval told the Regents. "When I got here, our women's team facilities, their nutrition, all the resources they get was embarrassing. It was frankly embarrassing. And there had to be an investment. It was the right thing to do making sure our women's student-athletes had the resources they needed."
