North Carolina looking for sign

RALEIGH, N.C. - The rising cost of running a 28-sport athletics program has North Carolina looking at defying years of tradition.

The school's two highest-profile sports venues have remained largely ad-free for years while promotions cluttered the arenas of competitors. But officials said Friday that allowing "limited and tasteful" advertising could keep the athletics program - the Atlantic Coast Conference's largest with an annual budget of around $40 million - from stumbling over its own heavy feet.

"If we want to maintain the program that we've had both from the competitive standpoint and from not having to eliminate sports or cut scholarships, then this is a step we absolutely must take," said Steve Kirschner, UNC's associate athletic director.

"I think our fans will be more likely to adapt to some signage than they are willing to see our program step back in success."

On Thursday, the university's board of trustees unanimously approved a plan to explore the sale of some signs and advertising at Kenan Stadium - home to the football team - and the Smith Center, home to the men's basketball team. The board would have to approve any sign proposal.

That could help the athletics department pay for more than 400 athletics scholarships a year, which Kirschner said have nearly doubled in the past five years.

Those scholarships cost about $7.3 million in the 2003-04 school year, athletic director Dick Baddour said Friday. That figure is expected reach about $8 million in 2004-05, he said.

The Educational Foundation, the school's private funding arm for athletics, usually pays for the scholarships. Last year, it could not cover the cost, before donors raised more money and the athletic department agreed to cover the rest.

That's a tough task for a department that is also dealing with rising costs of facility improvements, coaching salaries and academic support for athletes, Baddour said.

Next year, the athletics department estimates a $600,000 shortfall, Baddour said.

University officials said Friday that they would prefer not to sell permanent advertising in Kenan Stadium or the Smith Center.

Allowing the signs "would be a dramatic cultural change for the university and one that would pain all of us to take," said Richard "Stick" Williams, head of the university's board of trustees. "We like being one of the few universities without that kind of presence in the arena."

"I think maybe I'll look at it to say we did everything we could to maintain this broad-based program," Baddour said. "I like that thought a whole lot more than to look up there and see nothing and think 'We had to eliminate a sport.' "