We all know the place Rutgers’ share of the Massive Ten’s large TV deal can be going.
The soccer crew at Rutgers College racked up over $450,000 value of DoorDash deliveries from Might 2021 to June 2022 — regardless of the Rutgers athletic division operating at a $73 million deficit over 2020 and 2021, in line with a Bergen Report assessment of monetary data from the college’s athletics Division.
The college responded to the investigation’s findings and stated athletes had been permitted to make use of the supply service as a result of quarantine laws within the NCAA’s COVID Q&A information.
“Our establishment was permitted to make use of DoorDash based mostly on this steering to permit establishments to supply boxed meals supply companies or food-related reward playing cards to a student-athlete who was required to stay at residence, return residence or who was in any other case unable to entry campus as a result of COVID,” Rutgers Athletics stated in a press release.
“Lots of our student-athletes come from economically challenged backgrounds and along with how troublesome it was to fulfill their dietary wants with COVID, this was one of the best ways to look out for our student-athletes’ welfare. We continued to make use of DoorDash till June 2022 to supply to-go meal choices to student-athletes in situations when a permissible meal was not in any other case obtainable or supplied.
“DoorDash was used as an alternative choice to institutional meals when student-athletes had been in quarantine or taking part in crew actions comparable to rehab, observe and competitors, and meals was not supplied within the facility.”
Rutgers stated the DoorDash supply program was not solely restricted to its soccer crew, however obtainable to many student-athletes on campus.
The monetary assessment additionally discovered that athletes had positioned DoorDash deliveries from comfort shops and pharmacies — with some orders coming 1000’s of miles away from the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick, close to athletes’ hometowns.
“In a single case, a participant positioned orders a thousand miles aside on the identical day, in Florida and New York — after which continued to make orders in Florida for 2 extra days,” the Bergen Report discovered.
“Over 14 months there have been roughly 19,745 orders for student-athletes at a mean month-to-month transaction price of $22.88,” Rutgers Athletics stated. “There have been three student-athletes who made restricted purchases of non-food objects, which was outdoors the constraints of this system, and people have been addressed within the method required by the NCAA.”
The DoorDash program reportedly was set as much as present $75 per week, with that quantity uploaded one week at a time. On the conclusion of every week, unused funds had been cleared and there have been no particular person transaction limits.
In late June, Rutgers switched to GrubHub as its supply service, citing decrease prices. GrubHub can be restricted to delivering meals and drinks solely.
Rutgers went 5-8 final season, dropping 38-10 to Wake Forest within the TaxSlayer Bowl.
