Bombshell Investigation: Exposing the $1,000,000+ Student Government Productions Grift
This article is the second in a multi-part series exposing grifting within “The System,” the century-old political machine consisting of Greek houses, Florida Blue Key, and the communities that have dominated politics at the University of Florida.
Previously, the uf_politics seriousposting team revealed a serious financial conflict of interest within ACCENT Speakers Bureau and Greater Talent Network involving Florida Blue Key, ACCENT’s “ownership” by the fraternities AEPi/TEP, and the ACCENT chair position. The relationship between these entities have profited Greater Talent Network in the hundreds of thousands (and likely millions) in student tuition funds while masking nepotistic corruption behind the scenes.
Nevertheless, we did not find any direct financial connection between Florida Blue Key and Greater Talent Network. With Student Government Productions, however, the grift has been an open secret for years. Even worse, the scale of the grift is quantifiably larger: over a million dollars of student tuition funds directly poured into Florida Blue Key’s bank account.
Student Government Productions: A Theta Chi Legacy Position
Student Government Productions (SGP) is the best funded student government agency. The 2022–23 Activity and Service Fee Budget allocates $825,000 to SGP in FY22–23. Officially, their duty is to “provide a diverse array of music and entertainment to the student body at a free, or reduced cost.” Unofficially, they are owned by a single fraternity, Theta Chi.
“Legacy positions” refer to the ownership of student government agencies by a particular Greek house. These deals are worked out in The System, the political machine that has controlled UF politics for over a century. Much like ACCENT Speakers is owned by AEPi, SGP is owned by Theta Chi. Various articles cover the nepotistic relationship between Theta Chi and SGP such as The Gainesville Sun in 2010 and The Alligator in 2014.
The real grift with SGP, however, lay in its relationship to Gator Growl.
The Gator Growl Grift
Gator Growl, the culmination of Homecoming Week, is the largest student-led pep rally in the country. Since 1924, Florida Blue Key has been responsible for organizing Homecoming events, including Gator Growl. Gator Growl routinely brings large artists to perform, such as Snoop Dog in 2017, Flo Rida in 2022, and Jason Derulo in 2023. The Gator Growl grift, however, comes into play when examining the source of the funding for artists: Student Government Productions.
In 2011, Gator Growl was in crisis. Attendance had been steadily dropping; from 60,000 in 2002 to 26,000 in 2011. To raise interest, Gator Growl began bringing expensive musicians to campus. However, there was one problem: money.
FBK’s solution? Student tuition.
A 2011 Alligator article describes how tuition dollars began to be used to subsidize Gator Growl:
Gator Growl producer Aaron Heger said Gator Growl staff decided to bring a music act back to the pep rally after a 1,500-student survey indicated that 90 percent of students wanted a music act. There was no music act in 2010, which Heger said was partly a result of expenses…That’s when SGP stepped in and offered to sponsor the band to help with costs and advertise SGP to the Student Body, Heger said.
Since 2011, Student Government Productions (controlled by Florida Blue Key as a legacy position) has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars every year bringing artists to Gator Growl, a FBK-run event. The money spent by SGP on Gator Growl artists is a black box, shielded from any public scrutiny. When attempting to public record request contracts related to Gator Growl artists, UF responds “You need to reach out to the President of Florida Blue Key…Florida Blue Key handles Gator Growl & Homecoming, not Student Government.”
The only source for the money spent by SGP on Gator Growl artists are statements by FBK. However, in recent years, they’ve simply refused to disclose the amount of student tuition dollars they’ve spent on artists.
Even before SGP began to subsidize Gator Growl in 2011, UF Student Government intervened to pour money into directly subsidizing Gator Growl tickets. In 2005, SG spent $140,000 to subsidize tickets after lagging attendance. In the two years before that, SG spent $80,000 and $200,000.
Quantifying the Grift
Through SGP (or SG directly), Florida Blue Key’s Gator Growl receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition money every year. After receiving this subsidy, the revenue from Gator Growl is retained by FBK. Based on incomplete records (either due to a lack of reporting or FBK refusing to provide records), SGP/SG has spent at least $1,395,000 subsidizing FBK’s Gator Growl since 2003.
Subsidies for FBK’s Gator Growl from Student Tuition Funds (Incomplete)
- Gator Growl 2021: FBK/SGP refused to disclose
- Gator Growl 2018: FBK/SGP refused to disclose
- Gator Growl 2017: $180,000 from SGP
- Gator Growl 2016: $230,000 from SGP
- Gator Growl 2015: $160,000 from SGP
- Gator Growl 2014: $210,000 from SGP
- Gator Growl 2011: $71,000 from SGP
- Gator Growl 2005: $140,000 from SG
- Gator Growl 2004: $80,000 from SG
- Gator Growl 2003: $200,000 from SG
- Total: $1,271,000
Meanwhile, according to their tax records, FBK routinely makes hundreds of thousands in revenue from Homecoming/Gator Growl every year.
Revenue, Expenses, Profit from Homecoming/Gator Growl According to FBK Tax Records
Fiscal Year Ending June, FBK Revenue, FBK Expenses, FBK Profit
2022, $575,545, $456,795, $118,750
2021, $46,373, $30,660, $15,713
2020, $384,557, $487,834, -$103,277
2019, $532,991, $549,235, -$16,244
2018, $574,748, $550,141, $24,607
2017, $594,152, $586,697, $7,455
Astonishingly, even with hundreds of thousands of student tuition dollars pouring into Gator Growl, FBK still struggles to make a net profit. In two of the last six years, FBK lost money on Gator Growl/Homecoming. The decline of Gator Growl, as stated before, has been decades-long. From 2002 to 2022, attendance sharply dropped from 60,000 to 7,000. Controversies over which comedians and artists to bring has been a long-standing argument between students and alumni. The result has been a steady decline in influence as FBK itself loses relevance in state politics.
In the Bradshaw Papers, numerous FBK insiders discuss financial mismanagement. The result of FBK’s sloppy finances is the growth of tapping classes to raise more funds. As tapping classes grow, the prestige of FBK diminishes as more money is thrown into the Gator Growl money pit.
“[Florida Blue Key has] really gone downhill in the past several years. They have let a lot of people in, Homecoming and Gator Growl are losing money hand over first…It’s got harder to run so no-one really wants to be in charge anymore” (86).
Conclusion
In the course of our investigation, the uf_politics seriousposting team has documented at least $1,271,000 in student tuition funds being shoveled directly into Florida Blue Key through Gator Growl subsidies. The subsidies come in the form of Student Government Productions paying hundreds of thousands of dollars every year for Gator Growl artists. This money, all funded by student tuition, is unaccountable to any public scrutiny. Public record requests cannot illuminate the contracts SGP signs to bring Gator Growl artists. The only source on the amount of money being spent is FBK itself which has, in recent years, declined to disclose the amount of student tuition dollars it is spending.
When the grift is too tiring to perform through SGP, FBK simply takes tuition-funded subsidies directly from Student Government like when it received a $140,000 Gator Growl ticket subsidy in 2005. With these tuition-funded subsidies, FBK retains the revenue from Gator Growl for itself. Any attempt to threaten this grift is immediately shut down by the System, who vetoed a bill this past summer that would have cut ACCENT/SGP’s budget by 16% and transferred over $250,000 to student organization funding.
Yet, even with over one million tuition dollars subsidizing Gator Growl in the last twenty years, FBK’s mismanagement has resulted in a steady decline in Growl’s attendance and revenue. Over one million-dollars in student tuition funds are spent bailing out an organization that can’t even run its own event competently.
The System is a grift, yes, but it is a dying grift. The desperate attempts of the System to retain its control over student government this fall — rebranding into Vision Party, gerrymandering, and pulling defectors — are the last gasps of a dying century-old political machine. One way or another, the System will collapse from the weight of its own corruption.
Update 1: The 2011 figure has been updated. SGP only funded $71,000 of the $195,000 paid to 2011 Gator Growl artists. The revised total is $1,271,000.
The next part of this series will expose the grift of student government salaries.
