University stakeholders’ priorities concerning athletic budget allocations: An application of the contingent budget choice technique

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to illustrate the applicability of the contingent budget choice technique and to examine stakeholders’ priorities concerning athletic budget allocations in athletic programs. Data were drawn from 416 constituents from an NCAA Division I institution, and the respondents were asked to allocate an incremental budget of $1 million across seven athletic program areas. The results indicated that respondents were fairly well informed of the athletic budget and that their choices of budget allocations were consistent with each stakeholders’ perceived benefits and costs regarding specific groups when stakeholders were identified based on their role-primacy, gender, and preferred benefits. Overall, the study suggests that internal stakeholders used both need and equity-based budget distributions. However, given the marginal willingness of tradeoff and the coefficient of variation values indicated that need-based distribution might be more prioritized by the (non-athletic) internal stakeholders.