Prove the Profitability of College Sports
Greater transparency in athletic budgets is needed for an informed discussion.
A recent study by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics reveals something not at all surprising: Colleges and universities spend a lot on sports.
A spending race among schools shortchanges the academic mission. If there is to be any hope of staunching the flow of cash from classrooms to fields, there first must be transparency in spending.
Boosters typically claim that, though schools spend a lot on athletics, they get it back. Tickets, donations, merchandizing and television deals bring in a surplus that supports academics.
It is a good line, but the Knight Commission found few schools deliver on it. Instead, money tends to go the other way. Most schools use institutional funds and tap students with additional fees to balance their sports budgets.
During the last couple of decades, spending on sports skyrocketed. Coaches’ salaries, large support staffs, stadiums and scholarships all drive up costs. Yet during the same period, spending on academics remained flat.
In 2008, the median school in a football conference spent $13,349 per student on education and $84,446 per athlete on sports. In the Atlantic Coast Conference, which includes Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, things are even more skewed — $15,911 and $105,805 respectively or 6.6 times as much spent per athlete than per student.
Athletics have a historic and cultural place in higher education. They open doors for some students and foster a sense of campus community. Things have simply gotten out of whack.
The Knight Commission proposes a number of steps to restore balance, and the most prescient is greater transparency. If schools claim that sports more than pay for themselves, they should prove it. They already gather detailed information about their athletic spending, but they mostly keep it secret.
If the public and alumni knew how much schools spend on teams and saw a detailed accounting of the resulting revenue, they could fairly judge whether the investment was worth it.
Recent Comments
University Presidents and Boards of Visitors have sold their souls to athletic departments. See the recent breakup of the Big 12 and assumption of their teams by the Pac 10 and Big 10. The Knight Commission has highlighted a student / athlete disparity little known to most folks but, frankly, less cared about by most fans. Who cares whether kids learn anything, just get us to the Bowl on time. The Presidents have little to cheer about in their concessions to prima donna faculty on tenure and “publish or perish”.