South Carolina’s latest investment in women’s basketball: a six-figure Paris game trip

Dawn Staley exited the ballroom at the HiIton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa with plenty on her mind.

She’d shared her frustration about scheduling within the 2023 NCAA Tournament with college sports’ governing body and the Southeastern Conference. She explained how incoming transfers Te-hina Paopao and Sakima Walker could help the Gamecocks weather the departures of all five starters from this year’s Final Four squad.

But sandwiched in between all of those thoughts were a few words on a matchup that’s still five months out — the season opener against Notre Dame. In Paris.

“We can’t not do it,” Staley said at last week’s SEC spring meetings of how the game came together. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip for us both educationally and athletically. I think it’s great. It’s gonna be great for our fans. It’s gonna be great for our team. It’s gonna be great for women’s basketball.”

The landmark matchup between the Gamecocks and Fighting Irish slated for Nov. 6 ought to carry weight. Standalone matchups like this are increasingly common in the women’s game. Take Wednesday’s announcement that Charlotte will host 2023 women’s basketball Final Four participants Iowa and Virginia Tech for a game this winter as further proof.

Staley, too, noted that the impact of pairing two of the most recognizable Black female head coaches in the game in her and Notre Dame’s Niele Ivey in a place like Paris gives the contest major importance.

More locally, the trip to Paris is another significant investment in women’s basketball by South Carolina — which will pay Complete Sports Management Inc., a California-based sports marketing and event agency that helped facilitate the matchup — $150,000 as part of the school’s contractual obligation to the game, according to a document obtained by The State.

The contract doesn’t say what the $150,000 directly covers beyond going “toward the event.” However, it enumerates a handful of responsibilities CSM agrees to as part of the deal. Those include:

▪ Coordinating “all travel arrangements for the travel party” of up to 40 people, but also says “airfare for the travel party shall not be included and shall be at the sole cost of the school.”

▪ Providing “reasonable hotel accommodations” for USC’s traveling party, including 15 standard double rooms and two suites for four nights;

▪ Arranging for three lunches, two dinners and other local entertainment options, including a river cruise and VIP tickets to the famous Louvre Museum;

▪ Providing a local ambassador to be with the team.

“The brand that we have — maybe I’m biased — but maybe we were a little bit earlier than a lot of other schools in (on) women’s basketball,” Tanner told The State last week. “But I think that it has picked up across the country. The coverage and the viewership numbers indicate that. And you’ve got to give Dawn a lot of credit for that, because she was sort of at the forefront not only with her team success, but with her leadership and willingness to be out front.”

The “forefront” Tanner alluded to has seen South Carolina continue to make large-scale investments in women’s basketball in recent years. Staley’s historic contract extension, signed in 2021, is part of that, as it made her the SEC’s highest-paid coach at over $3.3 million this year.

USC also spent more than $9.5 million on women’s basketball during the 2022 fiscal year against an athletic department whose operating expenses were just under $145 million, according NCAA financial records obtained by The State. By comparison, 2022 national champion LSU spent less money ($8.3 million) on women’s basketball than South Carolina against a significantly bigger athletic department budget ($192.8 million).

South Carolina has also spent an average of $829,196 on travel for its women’s basketball program since 2010. That number, too, has climbed significantly since Staley has elevated the Gamecocks product. During the 2009-10 season — Staley’s second year at USC — the university spent $469,936 on women’s basketball travel. That number climbed to nearly $1.8 million in 2021-22.

That said, the Paris trip is a financial outlier. While Tanner said the USC-Notre Dame matchup costs “a little bit more than a nonconference game,” the school’s travel expenses are aren’t spelled out in most game contracts. For example, in South Carolina’s recent home-and-home series with Connecticut, Maryland and Stanford, no money is exchanged in those kinds of games unless a team cancels plans to play.

The closest comparison to the Paris trip in recent memory is perhaps the 2021 Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis — an event also put on by CSM and won by South Carolina over UConn. That tournament was slotted to cost USC at least $70,000 and included lodging for players and staff members, while the university handled transportation to and from the tournament, according to the event contract.

“I think (CSM CEO) Lea Miller-Tuly felt like we were a team that could draw, and I do think she was wanted to give us that experience,” Staley said. “And then to bring in Niele and Notre Dame. I think it’s certainly fitting we’re both Under Armour schools. We’re two black women that have programs on the rise. And we’ve got players who want to be (play internationally). Here’s an opportunity for them to do that.”

The caveat to financing the trip to Paris is the money will not come directly from the athletic department’s annual budget that was finalized long ago. Instead, as Tanner explained, the funds will come through what USC categorizes as an “enhancement fund” — an auxiliary fund generally supported by boosters who pay for things outside of what’s specified in annual budgets.

More specifically, South Carolina boosters are usually able to donate to athletics through three avenues: a donation to athletics at-large; to a certain project; or earmarked for a certain sport. Money designated for a certain sport — often football and men’s and women’s basketball — goes into that program’s respective enhancement fund, which is then used for such things as projects, trips or costs that fall outside the budget.

“We’ve done this for a number of years,” Tanner said. “You have your budget for your program. Things that pop up that you didn’t budget, but you want them — how do you get them? They’re not in your budget. Well, you have an enhancement fund that’s generated from people that love your sport that earmark dollars that are in a fund. ... So you can actually do some things that (Staley) didn’t plan for, if the dollars are there. Certainly she has the dollars to take that trip.”

International tours have become increasingly popular over the past decade in college basketball. Even football teams have taken similar trips during recent offseasons. (Michigan’s football program’s trip to Rome in 2017 cost between $750,000 and $800,000 and was covered by an anonymous booster, per the Detroit News).

Staley and South Carolina will now have their turn in just a few short months.

Even with the extra financial commitment, consider the opportunity well worth the price of travel.