I didn't say anything about multi million SPORTS budgets. I said budgets. Believe it or not schools exist to provide more than just sports. I already said that I think the NWC is a good league, but to think you can tout ticket sales and 50/50's and just get a school to drop everything else and come to you is a pipe dream.
It's about travel and competition that teams leave leagues, money comes up but it is secondary.
I can't speak for any of the other teams mentioned, but FL isn't leaving the SCAL. They want a consistant football only home like Anna has.
This is a sports forum.....and we are talking about sports funding! The NWC also provides some of the top academic schools in the state. I think you are confused on how budgets work, so I will speak for Crestview in relation to sports since this is my wheelhouse. I have a good knowledge base of these facts:
Each school is given a stipend by the state for each kid in their school district. The smaller the school, the less the amount of money that Ohio provides. If you have a child in your school district that open enrolls elsewhere, the money that the original school receives has to be paid out to the open enrolled school.
Now. Down to brass facts. Crestview pays for their facilities (sports and otherwise) and coach's salaries via their general fund. The general fund is made up of two things. First, it is made up of state funding, and secondly, ours is made up of a 1% tax levy. We also have secondary funding from windmills in the Northern part of our district. This generates upwards of 800K per year for the school district. Most school districts don't have this in their general fund.
As for sports, each program is given a discretionary spending amount, BASED ON TICKET SALES. This is done at most schools. Season ticket holders don't really help the cause with schools such as Fort Loramie because those are one time funds received and often less than booth sales. Back to Crestview. The sports teams are on a four year rotation with sports uniforms. If uniforms are needed sooner, then there has to be money in the athletic director's coffers for the uniforms. Outside of that, discretionary spend money (typically in the 1500 - 5000 dollar range per year BASED ON TICKET SALES) is all the coaches have. The way our sports teams offset other costs is via fundraising and the Knight Pride Club. Fundraisers such as spaghetti dinners, Kids Night Out, cookouts, etc can all bring in a few thousand at a time. The Knight Pride Club is an independent parent formed entity that sells memberships, does raffels, sells t-shirts, etc. for the sports programs. A coach needs to go before their board to ask for donated money to help their program.
Bottom line is that ticket sales and 50/50 drive the funding for each sport and this is common place at all small schools. We all have our forms of fundraising, but money isn't split equally between programs. Typically the schools athletic budget is very very small but ticket sales help tremendously.
As for my pipe dream of FL.....the NWC will land whatever it needs to land to keep rolling. Fort Loramie probably offers less as far as diversity in sports as alot of schools mentioned on this board. Leipsic, Patrick Henry, etc offer more diversity. But, if Fort Loramie wants to join as a full member, I'm sure our board would accept.