JOR 221 Project 3
Multi-Media Reporting
URI Club Sports: Funding Concerns
By Kelsey Maloney
KINGSTON – The 15 club sports teams at the University of Rhode Island get a limited budget from the university when it comes to funding their sport unlike the regular varsity program. The club sports program is also partially funded through membership dues, fundraising events, alumni gifts and corporate contributions. For some of the 500 student-athletes, it can be a struggle to come up with the expensive dues at the beginning of the season and the fundraising can interfere with school.
“Dues are a big thing because it’s not easy coming up with 24,000 dollars,” said Matthew DaSilva, member of the URI club hockey team. “A lot of kids try to have jobs, which can be hard to work with school, a job and hockey all during the same season.”
Many athletes expressed concern when discussing some of their fundraising events because some are not as successful as others. For the club lacrosse team, the amount of money they raise from their fundraisers effects how many games and tournaments the team can participate in.
Photo credit by Matthew DaSilva
“If we had more money from the school we’d have a longer season and that would attract more players to the team,” said Brian Gara, member of the URI club lacrosse team.
The program gets approximately 3,030 dollars from student senate which is then split up among each sport.
In an interview with Chris Daigle, coordinator of club sports at URI, he explains how there is not much the university can do about this issue and club sport athletes know what kind of money they are going to need before signing up to participate.
"Its a tough situation for club sport athletes to be in because they are not fully funded," said Daigle. "They do have to do fundraising and its unfortunatly just the nature of the beast."
Daigle said it is an issue but he believes if all of the sports work together and support one another than it diminishes some of the problem.