The Nicholls State football team rescheduled its opening game of the season against Oregon State and consequently regained a $400,000 check for the athletic program.
    The game was postponed in hopes of rescheduling the game for Dec. 1, but there was a possibility that the game would never happen barring a playoff berth by the Colonels or the Beavers reaching the Pac-12 Championship Game. Still, athletic director Rob Bernardi worked tediously in rescheduling the matchup and on Dec. 1, the Colonels will play the Beavers, and more importantly, will receive $400,000 to play them.
    “That was $400,000 that we budgeted into our budget as revenue, so certainly we would be missing that money,” Bernardi said. “That, unfortunately, would have had a devastating effect on the budget.”
    Bernardi further explained by saying, “As tight as the budget is, not getting that revenue would be a problem.”
    Nicholls’ athletic program has a total budget of roughly $6.5 million, and that is with the $400,000 included from the Oregon State game. Nicholls and other FCS schools alike schedule FBS opponents, such as Oregon State, to not only bring some recognition to the program but also bring some added revenue.  And now that this game will be taking place, athletics dodged a money-binding situation, according to Bernardi.
    “Well, we did budget that game guarantee as revenue,” Bernardi said. “I had some initial conversations with the people from Oregon State, who have been accommodating and understanding.”
    Though the Colonels were playing in Oregon on Sept. 1, they still had to reschedule the game due to travel complications, among other details. Due to the unpredictability of the storm, 80 percent of the football players were evacuated, with some going as far as Atlanta, Ga. Bernardi said trying to get them back in town while road closures were going on made it too difficult.
    Now that the game is postponed until Dec. 1, it will have no effect on the budget whatsoever. Budgets run on a physical year from July 1 to June 30, and as long as they get the check within that time frame, it will all be the same.
    Even though Bernardi and the athletics department were already counting on that revenue, they most likely would not have received the check immediately following the game anyway.
    “In terms of game guarantee, you don’t always play the game and get that check.  Sometimes you don’t get that check until months later after the game,” Bernadi said.
    As athletic director of Nicholls State, Bernardi has been faced with this situation five times before. In the past 11 years, Bernardi and the Colonels have had to cancel five games due to hurricanes.
    Since 2003, the Colonels have canceled games with New Mexico State, Utah State, Bowie State, Texas A&M University-Kingsville and now Oregon State. The most recent of these came in 2008 when the Colonels had to cancel back-to-back games against New Mexico State and Bowie State because of Hurricane Gustav. All of the games that Nicholls had to postpone or cancel because of hurricanes since 2003 were never made up.
    So this marks the first time that Bernardi and the Colonels have been able to reschedule a contest. Bernardi said that the Beavers are motivated by ticket sales and looking at it from a perspective of gaining a win. Because the Colonels are an FCS school and the Beavers are an FBS school, Nicholls will serve as large underdogs, and with another win for Oregon State, it could make them eligible for a bowl game.
      In light of everything that’s happened, the university did gain some valuable recognition through this whole scenario. ESPN’s flagship shows College Football Live and SportsCenter followed the storm intently and because Nicholls was playing against an FBS opponent, the team was talked about on both shows.
    Bernardi said if it was not for athletics, no one on the West Coast or nation-wide would have ever heard of Nicholls State or known where it was.
    Nicholls is one of the top FCS schools to generate a profit through its athletic programs, rather than relying solely on the university. In fact, the university gives less than three percent of its budget to athletics. The athletics program receives $1 million from student fees, $2.3 million from university general funds and the rest is self-generated.
    “We self-generate close to 40 percent. If you look at most FCS institutions, they generate between 19 and 23 percent of their budgets, and we generate 39 percent of our budget,” Bernardi said. “I think while we do receive assistance from the university, in terms of self-generating, we are far ahead of most schools across the country at our level.”
    The Associated Athletic Director of External Affairs at Nicholls State, Brandon Ruttley, provided further statistics to backup Bernardi’s assessment.
    “That percentage is 15 percent more than the FCS national average which is 25 percent,” Ruttley said. “Because of the budget cuts we have been asked to step up our fundraising initiatives in a variety of ways.”
    This is why schools such as Nicholls schedule opponents at a higher level with more resources.
    This is the very reason why Nicholls has scheduled to play Oregon next year in the first game of the season. The department has yet to officially announce the game, but Bernardi confirmed that both schools have reached an agreement to play one another. In that game, the Colonels will fly to Oregon and play against the Ducks, and they will receive a compensation of $450,000 to do so.
    “It’s something that we have to do to sustain ourselves,” Bernardi said.