June 5, 2000

Berkeley, CA - Cal Athletic Department officials announced this week that its recently completed CyBear Auction, the school's first-ever online auction, raised $183,602. The auction, which ran from May 7-18 in association with online giant Yahoo!, sold 226 items, ranging from a round of golf with Golden Bear quarterback Kyle Boller to a deluxe Super Bowl package in Tampa Bay.

The auction revenue not only sets a record for a Yahoo! charity auction, but more than doubles the largest total ever raised in a charity auction on the Internet by Yahoo! The event marked the first time a college athletic department has ever gone online to put together a full-fledged auction of this magnitude, and it drew significant national attention. Publications such as Sports Illustrated, Street & Smith's, Sports Business Journal and Wall Street Journal Interactive, as well as many Bay Area newspapers, all featured the Cal auction.

"This auction has been a remarkable success story for our athletic department," said Athletic Director John Kasser. "We're the first school in the country to put something like this together on the Internet, utilizing the newest technology. I applaud our staff, a great volunteer group we were able to assemble and our entire Cal family for making this a tremendous event."

The auction was co-chaired by Bear Backers Bryan Cameron and John Holroyd, and there were nearly two dozen volunteers who devoted enormous time and energy to the project. Staff members Gloria Nevarez and Karen Kohn also played a key role in the auction process.

The financial returns will be distributed among operating budgets among all 27 of Cal's intercollegiate sports. Donors of auction items were able to designate a specific sport they wished the revenue to be allocated for, and the money raised from that specific item was split evenly between the designated sport and the general Cal athletic scholarship fund.

"It's no secret we face some harsh financial challenges in maintaining a broad-based athletic program, and this is one of the unique ways we're always searching for to create new revenue streams," said Kasser.

Cal tapped into its large reservoir of alumni and friends of the department to gather an intriguing array of auction items.

While many bidders chose to compete for an item in the traditional method by placing higher bids than the previous bidder, hoping that they would ultimately be successful, others decided to "buy out" the item and take it off the board.

There were 47 items that were won by bidders who decided to pay the higher "buy out" price and not risk being outbid. Among those items that were claimed in that fashion was a framed photograph of "The Play," signed by Kevin Moen, Gary Tyrell and photographer Robert Stinnett. Also sold for the "buy out" price were a football program from the first game ever played in Memorial Stadium in 1923 and a spot in the radio booth for announcing a series along with Joe Starkey on KGO Radio.

There were many items that sold for several thousand dollars. A pair of Don Hatfield paintings sold for $14,000, tickets to the 2001 Super Bowl and passes to Leigh Steinberg's exclusive pre-game parties went for $6,410, a day fishing with Dusty Baker went for $2,010, six luxury box seats and pre-game field access for the Oakland Raiders game vs. the Denver Broncos went for $2,270, and a halftime scrimmage at a Cal basketball game went for $1,501.

One of the benefits of hosting the auction online was to blur the usual geographic limitations. A pair of Kansas City Chiefs tickets in Arrowhead Stadium donated by Tony Gonzalez was bought by a man in Fort Yates, N.D., tickets to the Green Bay Packers opening game were purchased by a woman in Columbus, Ga., passes to a NASCAR race in Atlanta were won by a bidder in Vinton, Ind., and a round of golf with Ryan Longwell was bought by a man from Warren, Mich.

"We found that our Bear Backer group continued to be the core group that supported this auction effort, but we were also able to tap into an online community without any direct connections to Cal," said Kevin Reneau, the associate athletic director who helped organize the auction. "The whole process has been a great learning experience. I think the results speak for themselves."

Cal officials are developing a long-term strategy for future auctions. "We'd like to continue the momentum we established with this effort, but we also need to balance the manpower effort it takes to manage an auction of this magnitude and also respect the generosity of those who donated items," said Reneau. "Ideally, we'd like to have a few items up for bid on a monthly or bi-monthly basis and then do a larger auction at some point in the future."