Barely a year after opening its doors in its new Wichita home, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame once again is in financial trouble.

Without an influx of state money, says Executive Director Ted Hayes, the hall may be forced to close its doors.

This is not a new story for the sports hall, which was established by the Kansas Legislature as part of the state’s centennial celebration in 1961. Although the sports museum apparently seemed like a good idea at the time, it wasn’t good enough that lawmakers saw fit to establish permanent funding for it. After stints in Topeka and in the basement of Lawrence’s Watkins Community Museum, the sports hall moved to Abilene in the early 1990s.

Grouped with larger attractions such as the Eisenhower Museum, the hall was able to keep its head above water until 2002. A last-ditch attempt to fund the museum by adding a surcharge onto tickets for selected high school and college football and basketball games failed in the Kansas Legislature that year, and hall officials said they had no choice but to close.

A major donor and the city of Wichita came to the rescue. Wichita paid $1.7 million to buy and renovate a building in the city’s historic Old Town district, and hotel owner John Q. Hammons donated $800,000 to get the hall back on its feet. However, despite charging admission of $7 for adults and $6 for students and seniors and renting the facility for special events, the new hall is struggling financially. The hall reopened in November 2005 and already is facing possible closure.

Hayes said the state should recognize the hall as the state entity it is and pony up $500,000 a year toward its $1 million annual operating budget. By way of comparison, the state’s annual contribution to the operation of all 17 historical sites overseen by the Kansas State Historical Society is about $855,000.

The sports hall has interesting exhibits but perhaps not interesting enough to sustain an operation with a million-dollar budget. It also has significant competition from such entities as the Booth Family Hall of Athletics located at Allen Fieldhouse.

It seems to be time for the hall and the state to rethink the hall’s role. The state’s sports history is worth preserving, but a free-standing hall of fame may not be the best option. If the hall can’t be sustained through private income and donations, it might be better to turn the exhibits over to the state historical society, which could be in charge of their preservation and display. It’s unlikely that the historical society could keep the artifacts on permanent display, but occasional limited showings might draw as many visitors as the current hall.

It’s too bad that the state can’t fund every worthy project in the state, but it’s hard to justify spending state money to shore up the struggling Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.