Not sure if that's still the case, but a few years ago the WSFCS supported their athletic programs with yearly contributions. I also heard earlier this year about the WS schools getting in-county split gates for non-conference games (which explains the scheduling for Atkins, Walkertown, etc.). The schools in Surry aren't afforded that luxury and are largely self sufficient - the systems pay for coaching salaries and help in smaller ways, but just don't have the resources to annually drop $10-20k into each school's athletic budget. There were less than 20 fans from Atkins at the football game v. ES this year. Imagine how much the gate would have been for an ES/E.Wilkes matchup this year had they both met in conference season while both undefeated...or how much bigger the crowd for the Starmount game would have been if it were a conference game later in the season. The desire to move away from a conference with Atkins and WS Prep is purely financial.
2017-2021 new conferences posted
- Thread starter bareman
- Start date
I will guarantee you that no school in WSFCS is getting $10,000 to $20,000 dollars dropped in to their budget this year and especially several years ago. Atkins game was rescheduled 3 times and finally played on a Monday night. I doubt you had much of a crowd either. Monday night games are never attended as a Friday game is.
Never specifically said WSFCS was dropping $20k into athletic budgets this year, although I can see where my post might seem confusing. I used the $20k as a point of reference from your previous post regarding the Atkins's and Prep's of the world getting an easy bump in budget by splitting a non-conference gate with West Forsyth, Reagan, etc. The Surry schools simply don't have that option for recouping bad gates. You're in a better position than most of us to know the logistics of how much the WSFCS system is helping each school, but I'm pretty sure they were definitely helping each school out in previous years.
That could be a form of helping in WSFCS grand scheme of things. Would you like to split gates with in Surry county?
One last thing, it is a big system but they greatly depend on football gates as much as MA and Surry County.
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I'm not sure how splitting gates within Surry County would go over. On the positive side, you would have a partial gate every year rather than every other year. Unfortunately though, the gates would be no where near as big the split an Atkins, Prep, or Walkertown would take from splitting with West Forsyth, Reagan, East Forsyth, etc.
