So if they are maxing out the 70%, it would take $7.9 million to get to 55% of a $52.7 million AD budget?
And if the Endowment is $116.7 million, this could be interesting...
Most all endowments at Colleges and Universities are restricted for stated purposes (and an endowment does not allow the spending of the original corpus only the income earned on it). it is rare that a even a modest portion of endowment income is unrestricted.
Boards often go through getting legal opinions on the boundaries on how they can spend endowment income and especially the amounts that accumulate beyond a traditional spending rate - as such,
I seriously doubt very little of JMU endowment income can be allocated toward solving their athletic income PROBLEM.
To me the problems are the same for JMU as the other 50-100 new entrants to FBS or FBS wannabes
the top 60 schools (top 5 conferences in football) have a near monopoly on the football revenues to operate quality FBall programs and for many top flight athletic programs
Everyone else is fighting for crumbs and their success rate will likely be less than 5- 10% and usually those will have some big Daddy WarBucks subsidizing all those losses
Having read a few of the consulting reports that examined moving to FBS status it is suffice to say lots of tortured reasoning is used like quality of student life, increased alumni engagement and giving etc
The last twenty+ years have made me proud that our Presidents, (Ackell, Trani, and Rao) have resisted the temptations to add football at VCU as they periodically arise (just think about ODU every time you get the urge)
Go Rams - Go Bones