Despite financial woes, Rutgers football spent $450,000 on DoorDash orders in 14 months
For more than a year, Rutgers University football players enjoyed a pricey perk that few other students had access to — free DoorDash food deliveries from restaurants, convenience stores and pharmacies, paid for by the university, and ultimately by taxpayers and students.
And the costs piled up.
Football players ordered $450,000 through DoorDash from May 2021 through June of this year, according to a review of invoices and other documents obtained by NorthJersey.com.
Rutgers documents state the DoorDash service was intended to provide meals to football players to “sometimes replace” their “in-house catered to-go meals.”
But a NorthJersey.com review of 14 months of invoices — nine that listed individual orders by players — and other records related to the football team’s DoorDash usage found that:
●While Rutgers intended the service to provide players up to five meals for a total of $75 per week, some players rang up daily totals of $100 or more, some topping $200. One player placed three orders in Chicago on a single day totaling $200 after Rutgers had completed its football season.
●Orders exceeded $40,000 per month five times, with players averaging 1,500 orders per month, or 50 a day based on the nine detailed invoices.
●Players made frequent orders from restaurants in New Jersey far from the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick as well as in other states, often in or near their hometowns.
●Orders were placed to retailers that don’t provide meals — including businesses that sell pet food, housewares, and flowers and gifts.
●In one case, a player placed orders a thousand miles apart on the same day, in Florida and New York — and then continued to make orders in Florida for two more days.
The DoorDash spending was made as Rutgers athletics was coming off two consecutive years of record $73 million budget deficits while the university endured layoffs, furloughs and a hiring freeze.
The spending raises questions about the athletic department’s financial oversight of the players’ DoorDash orders, as well as equity issues for other students, said the head of the Rutgers faculty union.
Rebecca Givan, the union president, said the university had been “pleading poverty,” and was withholding pay raises and laying off adjunct faculty, and “yet there was apparently no limit on their ability to spend on the needs of the athletic program.”
Despite months of questioning from NorthJersey.com, the Rutgers athletics division did not answer many questions about the DoorDash program, including how it monitored the spending and whether it could review itemized receipts showing what the football players ordered.
A Rutgers athletics spokesman said “football transitioned many of their nutritional efforts to DoorDash” anticipating that it would be less expensive than placing large orders for the entire team.
But he did not provide any details about the expected savings.
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The spokesman initially didn’t respond when asked why the service was apparently offered only to the football team, but said on Monday that it “was made available to other teams provided that adequate funding was available in their budgets.”
He did not say whether any other team actually used the service.
By moving to DoorDash, football players were left to make their own choices and repeatedly ordered from a wide range of restaurants that included Outback Steakhouse and Red Lobster, along with fast food outlets for burgers, pizza, tacos, chicken wings, Chinese food and hot dogs.
While athletics has declined to release revenue and spending information for fiscal 2021-22, Rutgers was the only school in the Big Ten Conference to increase spending during the height of the pandemic, in fiscal 2020-21. It had the second-highest expenses in the conference that year to feed athletes at home — $4.5 million. Only Ohio State, which has nine more varsity sports than Rutgers, spent more on food for athletes, based on a review of NCAA financial reports.
A NorthJersey.com investigation earlier this year revealed extravagant credit card charges by Rutgers’ coaches and staff for meals, trips and hotels, as well as gaps in the athletics division’s oversight of the accounts. Separate from the DoorDash spending, the investigation showed hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to local restaurants, which included meals for recruits and athletes.
Beyond football, the university said two programs for educationally and economically disadvantaged students — one in Newark and the other for engineering students in New Brunswick — have also used DoorDash. The university said that while students in those programs may place orders directly, there are limits on the cost and time of day.
Documents for the engineering program show the service was used with restraint — individual orders reviewed by NorthJersey.com generally did not exceed $35.
'Food and snacks'
Meanwhile, football players spent thousands of dollars ordering not only from restaurants but from CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Wawa and 7-Eleven, with some individual orders exceeding $100. There were more than 70 orders from pharmacies between July and December. In May alone, 10 athletes made 14 orders from pharmacies totaling more than $700.
Athletics said such chains “serve food and snacks, and are permissible vendors for use on DoorDash.”
“DoorDash also allows meals to be delivered to our student athletes so that they are not forced to go out to restaurants. This helps with COVID prevention,” university documents say.
While the DoorDash program was intended to provide players with meals, there have also been delivery orders from PetSmart, which sells pet food and supplies; Bed Bath & Beyond, which specializes in housewares; and The Flower and Gift Boutique.
NorthJersey.com found that at least five athletes made a dozen orders from those stores for a total of more than $560 over several months.
When asked about those orders, an athletics spokesman said in an email that “there were three student-athletes who made limited purchases of non-food items, which was outside the constraints of the program, and those have been addressed in the manner required by the NCAA.” The division did not elaborate.
The Rutgers athletics spokesman said that athletes received $75 weekly DoorDash allotments to cover the equivalent of five $15 meals, but they could spend as much as $40 a day in certain circumstances, such as when they were in quarantine.
Yet the documents showed many instances of players ordering more than $100 or $200 in a day. There were hundreds of individual orders for at least $50, including many that were more than $100 and one for $250 in South Jersey, far from the Rutgers New Brunswick campus.
$250 from Crab Du Jour Xpress
Of the 14 months of DoorDash invoices obtained by NorthJersey.com, nine included detailed accounts of team spending, including the name of the restaurant or business ordered from, the date of the delivery, the cost, and the email of the team member placing the order. The email addresses include the initials of the players.
Among the larger individual orders were:
●$250 from a Crab Du Jour Xpress in Pennsauken in May 2021
●$152 from a Charlie Brown’s Steakhouse in Union County in May 2021
●$120 from Hook & Reel restaurant in Elmwood Park in July 2021
●$139 from a CVS in May 2021, one of several orders of more than $100 from a pharmacy
●$119 from J’s Wong Restaurant in Brooklyn during the Thanksgiving weekend last year
●$105 at Mannino’s Family Restaurant in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, just before training camp last August.
And some of the larger totals involving multiple orders in one day by a single player were:
●$205 by a player who placed orders in one day of $136 from Asian Garden, $33 from the Sushi Room, $18 from the Skylark Diner in Edison and $17 from a Smoothie King.
●$204 one day last May, when a player placed an $88 DoorDash order from a Walgreens and a $68 order from Panico’s Restaurant in New Brunswick, as well as smaller purchases at the Omega Diner and Café in North Brunswick and a Wawa convenience store.
●$202 by a player who ordered $110 from a Wawa convenience store, $56 from Outback Steakhouse and $36 from Rita’s Italian Ice on the same day. The same player placed an order for $55 from Wawa the next day, records show.
The lack of details in the documents makes it difficult to determine if the players were placing orders just for themselves or for more than one person, especially when large deliveries were from restaurants in another state or in their hometowns.
Athletics said the program was meant to provide five meals per week at $15 apiece. Unused funds were wiped clean at the end of the week. The athletics spokesman said there were no limits on individual transactions.
He said athletes could use DoorDash for larger amounts in certain circumstances — up to $40 a day “when meals were not available and student-athletes were required to participate in team activities or were in quarantine.” Unlike the usual weekly allotment, these “per diem” funds could be accumulated over a longer period if not used, the athletics spokesman said in an email.
Questions of student equity
Most Rutgers students didn’t have the luxury to order takeout at the university’s expense when they were quarantined or when some dining locations on campus were closed last year because of the COVID pandemic. The Daily Targum, the university’s student newspaper, reported in a fall 2021 article that some students found it difficult to get food at the time, walking 15 minutes or more to the dining services that were still open, sometimes in bad weather.
“I would want to understand if there is appropriate equity between sports in terms of spending,” said Givan, the faculty union president, adding that she also wants “to understand what issues might arise on the basis of gender disparities.”
A federal law, Title IX, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions that receive federal funding. It provides equal opportunities for women in college athletics. Documents show athletics signed a contract with DoorDash in April 2021 —and a document seeking a waiver for having to go out to bid on that contract mentions only the football team.
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Athletics said the DoorDash service was used during the summer of 2020 “at the height of the COVID pandemic” because of “concerns about nutrition and food options” for athletes. The division would not say whether it had a contract with the service in 2020 or explain the discrepancy in the dates.
The service continued long after the height of the pandemic had passed.
Rutgers athletics initially said that DoorDash was being used “for instances when student-athletes are required to remain on campus for activities (practice, rehab, etc.) but a meal is not provided.”
In a subsequent email, a spokesman said the service “has continued as a substitute for per-diem when student-athletes are participating in team activities such as rehab, practice and competition, and when food is not provided in the facility.”
But many DoorDash orders were placed all over New Jersey in towns far from Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus, and in — or near — football players’ hometowns. They included orders from the Rock N' Roll Sushi & Noodle Bar in Teaneck for $74, Applebee's in Clifton for $38, Ridgewood Hot Bagels for $25, Shake Shack in Parsippany for $104, The Committed Pig in Morristown for $57, and Rudy's Ristorante and Pizzeria in Closter for $61.
And there were many DoorDash orders placed to businesses outside of New Jersey during periods when the football team wasn’t on the road, and at times when players were likely to have been home or away from campus — including businesses in Illinois, New Mexico, Connecticut, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Maryland and Michigan.
After NorthJersey.com asked about some of those orders, athletics said on Monday that DoorDash could be used by an athlete “who was required to remain at home, return home, or who was otherwise unable to access campus due to COVID.”
Yet documents show some football players making orders from restaurants in or near their homes multiple times over several months.
DoorDashing after the Gator Bowl
Some players made almost two dozen DoorDash orders for a combined $750 over several days after the team played in the Gator Bowl in Florida on New Year’s Eve. Rutgers did not explain why those players remained in Florida and used DoorDash after the game.
One player placed DoorDash orders in Florida every day from Jan. 1 through Jan. 4.
On Jan. 2, the same day he placed an order in Florida, the player also placed an order for $80 from TGI Fridays in Westbury, New York, even though based on subsequent orders he would not leave Florida for another two days.
Another player ordered from two Florida restaurants on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 and went on to place orders from several Chicago restaurants on Jan. 2 and Jan. 3 totaling $272.
There was a $71 order from Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria in Chicago on Jan. 2.
And the next day there was a $54 order from a Chipotle in Chicago, a $44 order from a Dunkin' in the city, and another $103 from New Line Tavern, also in Chicago.
'Worrying lack of oversight'
A June invoice for the football team for nearly $17,000 indicates the DoorDash service has been deactivated. Athletics said it is no longer using the service and began using Grubhub in late June.
A Rutgers spokeswoman said there is a new university-wide agreement with Grubhub that has not yet been rolled out. That service will be limited to food and beverages, and Grubhub will “provide reminders” of those restrictions.
“We are still developing the framework for controls and oversight,” the Rutgers spokeswoman said.
Givan said the athletics division’s apparent lack of oversight of the DoorDash orders “is of great concern.” She noted that some areas of the university have “no oversight” while others have “excessive oversight,” such as the Camden campus where she said faculty members “have to struggle through piles of paperwork to acquire items that are essential for their teaching.”
“I don’t blame the athletes — they’re basically doing a very hard job and not being totally compensated for their labor while their coaches make a lot of money and the university finds ways to profit,” she said. “But I think the whole thing demonstrates the very, very worrying lack of oversight when it comes to spending.”
Abbott Koloff and Jean Rimbach are investigative reporters for NorthJersey.com. Email: rimbach@northjersey.com; koloff@northjersey.com. Twitter: @jeanrimbach; @abbottkoloff