With the cancellation of the fall football season, a huge hole opened in the University of Montana athletic department budget, and so department officials have begun a fundraising campaign to address the problem.

Athletic Director Kent Haslam provided details.

“We know we don't have fall sports and that's our primary driver of revenue through ticket sales at football games and priority seating donations that go into that, and we know that's canceled and that certainly puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to revenue generation,” said Haslam. “So we decided to appeal to Griz Nation and ask them to step up and support us and do it in a variety of ways, through donating back your ticket payments that you made, or just making an outright gift that supports our student athletes’ scholarships.”

Haslam said judging from the first day’s efforts, the campaign is off to a good start.

“It went really well,” he said. “Monday was day one and we had a good response,” he said. “We're approaching $100,000 raised, and that's just through the campaign and we've also had a number of people decide to donate that ticket payment back. We decided we're planning for spring football and it was just easier to treat the 2020 now canceled football season in the fall is a completely separate event. So, either allowing people to get a refund to defer that payment to the 2021 football season or to donate it back. We've had good response on people donating.”

We're approaching $100,000 raised, and that's just through the campaign and we've also had a number of people decide to donate that ticket payment back.

Haslam provided details on how to donate to the scholarship campaign.

“Up With Montana.com is our fundraising site and that's our general fundraising site.” he said. “We use that for the Grizzly Scholarship Association other activities that we do and right there at Up with Montana dot com you will find a link to our Get Together campaign and folks can make a gift there. It's 100 percent tax deductible and will go directly to student athletes scholarships.”

 

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