"That’s the cost of doing business in this league."
November 23, 2015 7:30 PM Subscribe
Playing in the Red: College athletic departments are taking in more money than ever – and spending it just as fast — a Washington Post report on how perennial NCAA powerhouses and aspiring contenders alike are using student fees to pay for exploding athletic department budgets.
Big-time college sports departments are making more money than ever before, thanks to skyrocketing television contracts, endorsement and licensing deals, and big-spending donors. But many departments also are losing more money than ever, as athletic directors choose to outspend rising income to compete in an arms race that is costing many of the nation's largest publicly funded universities and students millions of dollars. Rich departments such as Auburn have built lavish facilities, invented dozens of new administrative positions and bought new jets, while poorer departments such as Rutgers have taken millions in mandatory fees from students and siphoned money away from academic budgets to try to keep up.
[...]
"College sports is big business, and it's a very poorly run big business," said David Ridpath, a business professor at Ohio University and board member for the Drake Group, a nonprofit advocating for an overhaul of commercialized college sports.
"It's frustrating to see universities, especially public ones, pleading poverty . . . and it is morally wrong for schools bringing in millions extra on athletics to continue to charge students and academics to support programs that, with a little bit of fiscal sense, could turn profits or at least break even."
[...]
Some purchases, Benedict acknowledged, were optional, like two new twin-engine jets: a six-seat 2008 Cessna Citation CJ2+ ($6.4 million) and a seven-seat 2009 Cessna Citation CJ3 ($7.8 million), each bearing a blue and orange "AU" insignia on its tail.
The jets are used primarily by coaches to criss-cross the country meeting with recruits, contributing to Auburn's recruiting costs nearly doubling in a decade, from $1.6 million to $2.7 million.
"If you want to be in recruiting at this level, private planes are utilized," said Benedict, who pointed out most of Auburn's competitors also own jets.
The Oregon Ducks are No. 1 — in athletic department revenue
Explains what seemed like the most obvious outlier (Nike & capex).
posted by exit at 7:46 PM on November 23, 2015
Explains what seemed like the most obvious outlier (Nike & capex).
posted by exit at 7:46 PM on November 23, 2015
Yeah, Phil Knight has been personally bankrolling Oregon's athletic department for years now, both via direct donations and Nike sponsorship.
posted by Etrigan at 7:49 PM on November 23, 2015
posted by Etrigan at 7:49 PM on November 23, 2015
bought new jetsBOUGHT NEW JETS?!?
"If you want to be in recruiting at this level, private planes are utilized," said Benedict, who pointed out most of Auburn's competitors also own jets.
Fuck this country. Just... I'm.... What... Fuck it all.
posted by Talez at 7:50 PM on November 23, 2015 [30 favorites]
Related article, about which schools get most of their athletic funding from students.
posted by jeather at 7:58 PM on November 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by jeather at 7:58 PM on November 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
Kids crushed under a mountain of student loans so the athletic department can have a new jet.
posted by humanfont at 8:02 PM on November 23, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 8:02 PM on November 23, 2015 [16 favorites]
bought new jets
And to think, the philosophy department only has a couple of old Cessnas to ferry job candidates around in.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:05 PM on November 23, 2015 [15 favorites]
And to think, the philosophy department only has a couple of old Cessnas to ferry job candidates around in.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:05 PM on November 23, 2015 [15 favorites]
This is obscene. Absolutely, unrelentingly, revoltingly obscene.And don't forget that every single American with a cable subscription is kicking in anywhere from $60-$220 dollars a year in mandatory fees to the rapacious football monster.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:21 PM on November 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:21 PM on November 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
I always take these 'our athletic departments are unprofitable' stories with a grain of salt.
A large organization like a university can make any individual piece look as profitable or as unprofitable as it wants to. A couple of hypothetical examples:
posted by Hatashran at 8:21 PM on November 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
A large organization like a university can make any individual piece look as profitable or as unprofitable as it wants to. A couple of hypothetical examples:
- Students may pay a $400 activity fee that covers access to the student gym, a weekly movie at the student union, and the right to buy two $10 tickets to each football game. How much of that is football revenue and how much is student union revenue? As much as you want it to be.
- The university bookstore sells a lot of sweatshirts with the university logo and a picture of a football on them. Is that football revenue or bookstore revenue?
posted by Hatashran at 8:21 PM on November 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
Kids crushed under a mountain of student loans so the athletic department can have a new jet.
In addition to the defunding of public education by state legislatures and the non-stop construction of newer, bigger, and better buildings. There are a lot of skewed priorities at most major universities, of which athletics budgets are only one part. Successful and swanky athletics departments, shiny new buildings, major research grants, high profile professorial and leadership hires, and splashy rankings keep the money coming. And money is what the folks at the top are really concerned with.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:39 PM on November 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
In addition to the defunding of public education by state legislatures and the non-stop construction of newer, bigger, and better buildings. There are a lot of skewed priorities at most major universities, of which athletics budgets are only one part. Successful and swanky athletics departments, shiny new buildings, major research grants, high profile professorial and leadership hires, and splashy rankings keep the money coming. And money is what the folks at the top are really concerned with.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:39 PM on November 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
I really appreciated the fact that my alma mater (Sonoma State University) had no football program.
posted by ericales at 8:53 PM on November 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by ericales at 8:53 PM on November 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
I've been a college football and basketball fan for most of my life. When I started following sports I was eight. Sure, there was money involved, a pretty fair bit, but it didn't scale anywhere near what it's become now. Things evolved over the years. I'm starting to wonder when it's all going to come crashing down. Some schools are going to decide they aren't going to keep up with the Joneses anymore. It will have to happen because it's just not sustainable. Also, the concussion issue is going to remake the sports scene over the next 2-3 decades. Football, the big revenue sport, is going to start losing fans and players over the years as parents decide they don't want their kids playing football. It's already happening. I just wonder how far it's going to go before sanity finally steps in and a lot of schools decide "we're not going to keep spending like this."
I'm still a college sports fan but I have to admit that these days it's really become something of a guilty pleasure. Take a look at the NFL fans who talk about quitting it like if it were a drug. I can relate.
posted by azpenguin at 8:53 PM on November 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm still a college sports fan but I have to admit that these days it's really become something of a guilty pleasure. Take a look at the NFL fans who talk about quitting it like if it were a drug. I can relate.
posted by azpenguin at 8:53 PM on November 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's a really interesting topic to me, as a fan of one college football team and employee of another major university. These teams are massive economic engines in their own right, generating millions of dollars for the university and the community in which they are centered. I would guess that advancement (gifts and donations) is probably the fastest growing role at universities increasingly strapped for cash from state funding, and the football and basketball teams are key for alumni engagement and donations. The players do receive some benefit from playing (scholarships, stipends, and valuable alumni networks, as well as the opportunity to audition for the NFL), albeit well below the fair market value of what their labor generates for the university.
There have to be ways of reforming the system to make it more equitable for the students and the athletes, but I don't think damning the whole edifice is the right way to go about it. There is over a century of tradition in college football and athletics as a whole; college football has been around nearly as long as most major public universities in the United States. And I think the majority of student bodies and the athletes would fight to keep it that way.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:54 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
There have to be ways of reforming the system to make it more equitable for the students and the athletes, but I don't think damning the whole edifice is the right way to go about it. There is over a century of tradition in college football and athletics as a whole; college football has been around nearly as long as most major public universities in the United States. And I think the majority of student bodies and the athletes would fight to keep it that way.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:54 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
My school recently hired a new head coach(*) to the tune of about $3m/yr. For me it seemed like the perfect opportunity to start scaling back in preparation for the upcoming decline of football as truth about long term brain injuries becomes undeniable but it obviously didn't work out that way. For me, it's just further proof that the existing higher ed system in the US is morally bankrupt and needs to be replaced ASAP.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:05 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:05 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
And to think, the philosophy department only has a couple of old Cessnas to ferry job candidates around in.
Hey! Those student-athletes are getting world-class educations.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:06 PM on November 23, 2015
Hey! Those student-athletes are getting world-class educations.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:06 PM on November 23, 2015
They're trying to convince teenagers to work for 4 years for free in an incredibly dangerous occupation. Of course it's easier to do so if you can fly them around in aa snazzy private jet.
posted by miyabo at 9:25 PM on November 23, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 9:25 PM on November 23, 2015 [12 favorites]
Schools using their budgets to argue against paying student-athletes salaries is kind of superfluous, in my opinion. There's a quick and simple answer to the "paying athletes"issue that would require nothing from the universities: allow the athletes to make money themselves. EA Sports doesn't make NCAA Football or Basketball games any more because they're not allowed to pay the players; it would be simple to just allow them to pay the players to use their likenesses. Similarly, Johnny Manziel, then QB at Texas A&M, got into hot water for selling his autograph; why? It's ridiculous that these players can't make their own money on the side signing their name. And there is always the undercurrent of powerful boosters slipping stacks of cash to players under the table...why stop them? If consenting adults want to give another adult cash for playing a game at their preferred school, win/win?! I think that a lot of this is about control, which, of course, leads back to money eventually...
posted by roquetuen at 10:02 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by roquetuen at 10:02 PM on November 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's deeply uncomfortable that many of these athletes are failing to get good educations; it makes the whole situation hollow.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:27 PM on November 23, 2015
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:27 PM on November 23, 2015
Nuke, orbit.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:18 PM on November 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 11:18 PM on November 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
I mean the thing I want to say is that eventually universities come to become the sort of thing that's best at doing whatever gets them money. if they get money from alums and other donors primarily because of the football team, the university will gradually over time become more and more like a football team and less and less like a university. If they get their money from real estate, they'll gradually become a real estate firm. If they get their money by spinning off tech startups, they'll gradually become more and more like a very large tech incubator. If they get their money from capital gains off their whopping huge endowments, they'll gradually become more and more like a private investment company.
This is probably too schematic/simplistic a way to look at it. In a lot of ways pride in quality education and research in and of itself even influences the administrative class. Of course, in a lot of ways it clearly doesn't influence the administrative class, since if they cared all that much about education, most classes would still be taught by tenured professors rather than by underpaid adjuncts, and most work in labs wouldn't end up getting done by underpaid postdocs.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:36 AM on November 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
This is probably too schematic/simplistic a way to look at it. In a lot of ways pride in quality education and research in and of itself even influences the administrative class. Of course, in a lot of ways it clearly doesn't influence the administrative class, since if they cared all that much about education, most classes would still be taught by tenured professors rather than by underpaid adjuncts, and most work in labs wouldn't end up getting done by underpaid postdocs.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:36 AM on November 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
They're trying to convince teenagers to work for 4 years for free in an incredibly dangerous occupation. Of course it's easier to do so if you can fly them around in aa snazzy private jet.
Oh, the jets aren't for the kids. Christ, no. That would be improper, letting the amateur student-athletes ride in a plane.
(Being 100% serious here. No recruit would get to ride in one of those. Massive violation of the rules. They are purely for the coaches.)
posted by Etrigan at 1:19 AM on November 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
Oh, the jets aren't for the kids. Christ, no. That would be improper, letting the amateur student-athletes ride in a plane.
(Being 100% serious here. No recruit would get to ride in one of those. Massive violation of the rules. They are purely for the coaches.)
posted by Etrigan at 1:19 AM on November 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
UC Davis was one of the first schools where students voted to pay for athletics. I was a student there at the time. First, in the early nineties it was to save athletics altogether. State budget cuts left them in the lurch. It had a sunset clause in it, assuming that future budgets would reinstate the cut funds when the economy improved, or the students would have the vote again.
A few years later, another vote came up to expand the athletic department under the aegis of expanding sports for title IX, and improving athletic facilities for the students. It also conveniently got rid of the prior sunset clause. Plus the fees were allowed to gradually increase over time to cover mortgages and bond issuance.
All this time, UCD was a division II school. So along comes a push for division I status, and another vote. Each time the excuse is that it is only a little more money, never mind that students are already paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year.
posted by Badgermann at 4:42 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
A few years later, another vote came up to expand the athletic department under the aegis of expanding sports for title IX, and improving athletic facilities for the students. It also conveniently got rid of the prior sunset clause. Plus the fees were allowed to gradually increase over time to cover mortgages and bond issuance.
All this time, UCD was a division II school. So along comes a push for division I status, and another vote. Each time the excuse is that it is only a little more money, never mind that students are already paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year.
posted by Badgermann at 4:42 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
An 'unprofitable' athletic department is basically money laundering, Hatashran. There are commonly restriction that force state money and/or student tuition to go primarily for academics and bureaucracy. As you'd expect, university presidents', etc. squeeze all the personal profit they can from that bureaucracy, but that makes profit taking hard. Student fees can be spent on an athletic departments that, even if they lose money, generates unrestricted money the president, senior coach, etc. can spend on graft projects.
Just do your university education in Europe people. It's vastly cheaper and you'll gain a lifetime of experiences.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:22 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Just do your university education in Europe people. It's vastly cheaper and you'll gain a lifetime of experiences.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:22 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Badgermann: "All this time, UCD was a division II school. So along comes a push for division I status, and another vote."
This is the part that makes me crazy. Like, two of the directional state universities in Illinois are determined to make the jump to Division I (or rather, to the big-money part of Division I), and there are ALREADY two Division I public universities in Illinois (U of I and ISU) and THAT IS PLENTY. Play in Division II and like it, directional state! You are never going to make enough money to justify the expense, and neither taxpayers nor students should be paying money for this!
I get that a lot of these schools are trying to replicate the money and recruitment success that comes with a big-money program, but they are going about it in DUMB WAYS. Football is hella crowded. Basketball is easier to make your mark, but it's hard to stay at the top because there are so many competitive programs. Schools that became national academic powerhouses on the backs of their football programs -- like Notre Dame -- are the exception, and it's probably not replicable today. Notre Dame's football success got them national media attention from the 1920s to the 1950s and enabled them to recruit talented Catholic students nationwide, who were quota'ed out of the Ivies, instead of only recruiting locally. (The costs of the academic side of the school were paid for by the patent on synthetic rubber, which is an important but forgotten part of that story.) Football absolutely drove the ability to recruit national academic talent, and drives alumni donations, but this also required a small football landscape, in the era before big-money TV contracts, and quotas keeping talented students out of top schools.
A local mediocre, regional college near me is determined to rise to national prominence, and they're doing it in all the stupidest ways possible -- they want to build a law school (primarily because it's hella easier than building a med school). They're trying to become a consistent Division I basketball powerhouse by pouring ridiculous amounts of money into it, which they're doing okay at and have made the NCAA tourney a few times, but the consistent part is a problem. Tuition hovers around $40,000 a year for a third-tier school with no national profile that's pouring money into athletics. (The state high school tournament more consistently sells out the same stadium than their team does for home games.) Becoming just really really good at a couple academic subjects has been decided too expensive, uncertain, and hard, with too long a timeline. It's easier to excel at sports than thinking. Neighboring Eureka College, small and poor, has gotten more national press and made more national headway with their "Eureka idea" of holding tuition costs low, and now routinely show up on "best value" education lists and are getting high-quality students who can't AFFORD other colleges.
If I were an athletic director determined to compete in Division I, I'd be pouring my money into VOLLEYBALL, which is up and coming as a broadcast sport, has very strong high-school teams and high-profile high-school tournaments, has an Olympic level that people enjoy watching, and is ripe for a school to dominate that sport as it starts rising in broadcast profile. Or else track-and-field, which is relatively inexpensive to run and comes with solid shoe-company corporate sponsorships to defray those minimal costs, and Oregon has shown it's still possible to pull your entire athletic department along behind track being awesome. It's also a nerd-sport for high school brainiacs who also like athletics. Men's soccer is another possibility (women's is already hugely dominated by a handful of schools). Some schools are trying lacrosse as an "emerging sport" they can hope to dominate, but I don't think the HS feeder system is strong enough, and I think it's too concussiony to be real popular with parents.
The trick is to get in on the ground floor of a sport that's emerging into a frequently-televised sport. Breaking into the established TV sports (football, basketball) just costs too damn much and there's way too much competition. Breaking in to volleyball or soccer, otoh, is relatively low-cost right now and not a lot of people are competing in that space. I'd gamble on that investment now and cross my fingers for the TV revenue to follow in 10 or 20 years.
(I worked on a student newspaper at a huge sports school, I have thought about NCAA rules, conference alignments, and division jumping a LOT.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:44 AM on November 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
This is the part that makes me crazy. Like, two of the directional state universities in Illinois are determined to make the jump to Division I (or rather, to the big-money part of Division I), and there are ALREADY two Division I public universities in Illinois (U of I and ISU) and THAT IS PLENTY. Play in Division II and like it, directional state! You are never going to make enough money to justify the expense, and neither taxpayers nor students should be paying money for this!
I get that a lot of these schools are trying to replicate the money and recruitment success that comes with a big-money program, but they are going about it in DUMB WAYS. Football is hella crowded. Basketball is easier to make your mark, but it's hard to stay at the top because there are so many competitive programs. Schools that became national academic powerhouses on the backs of their football programs -- like Notre Dame -- are the exception, and it's probably not replicable today. Notre Dame's football success got them national media attention from the 1920s to the 1950s and enabled them to recruit talented Catholic students nationwide, who were quota'ed out of the Ivies, instead of only recruiting locally. (The costs of the academic side of the school were paid for by the patent on synthetic rubber, which is an important but forgotten part of that story.) Football absolutely drove the ability to recruit national academic talent, and drives alumni donations, but this also required a small football landscape, in the era before big-money TV contracts, and quotas keeping talented students out of top schools.
A local mediocre, regional college near me is determined to rise to national prominence, and they're doing it in all the stupidest ways possible -- they want to build a law school (primarily because it's hella easier than building a med school). They're trying to become a consistent Division I basketball powerhouse by pouring ridiculous amounts of money into it, which they're doing okay at and have made the NCAA tourney a few times, but the consistent part is a problem. Tuition hovers around $40,000 a year for a third-tier school with no national profile that's pouring money into athletics. (The state high school tournament more consistently sells out the same stadium than their team does for home games.) Becoming just really really good at a couple academic subjects has been decided too expensive, uncertain, and hard, with too long a timeline. It's easier to excel at sports than thinking. Neighboring Eureka College, small and poor, has gotten more national press and made more national headway with their "Eureka idea" of holding tuition costs low, and now routinely show up on "best value" education lists and are getting high-quality students who can't AFFORD other colleges.
If I were an athletic director determined to compete in Division I, I'd be pouring my money into VOLLEYBALL, which is up and coming as a broadcast sport, has very strong high-school teams and high-profile high-school tournaments, has an Olympic level that people enjoy watching, and is ripe for a school to dominate that sport as it starts rising in broadcast profile. Or else track-and-field, which is relatively inexpensive to run and comes with solid shoe-company corporate sponsorships to defray those minimal costs, and Oregon has shown it's still possible to pull your entire athletic department along behind track being awesome. It's also a nerd-sport for high school brainiacs who also like athletics. Men's soccer is another possibility (women's is already hugely dominated by a handful of schools). Some schools are trying lacrosse as an "emerging sport" they can hope to dominate, but I don't think the HS feeder system is strong enough, and I think it's too concussiony to be real popular with parents.
The trick is to get in on the ground floor of a sport that's emerging into a frequently-televised sport. Breaking into the established TV sports (football, basketball) just costs too damn much and there's way too much competition. Breaking in to volleyball or soccer, otoh, is relatively low-cost right now and not a lot of people are competing in that space. I'd gamble on that investment now and cross my fingers for the TV revenue to follow in 10 or 20 years.
(I worked on a student newspaper at a huge sports school, I have thought about NCAA rules, conference alignments, and division jumping a LOT.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:44 AM on November 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
The trick is to get in on the ground floor of a sport that's emerging into a frequently-televised sport.
Which there hasn't been one of since the 1980s. Football and men's basketball are the two revenue sports, with a few very localized and personality-driven exceptions in women's basketball. Chasing the Next Big Thing is as quixotic as trying to become a New Power in football.
posted by Etrigan at 6:00 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Which there hasn't been one of since the 1980s. Football and men's basketball are the two revenue sports, with a few very localized and personality-driven exceptions in women's basketball. Chasing the Next Big Thing is as quixotic as trying to become a New Power in football.
posted by Etrigan at 6:00 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
8 years ago, the US military academy (Army) refused to disclose its football coach's salary.
Last year the Army football coach made $1.5 million.
If you actually join the army, the absolute most you can make at the highest ranks is right at $250,000 ~ 1/6th of the football coach. The president of the US is getting paid a quarter of what our Army's football coach makes in a 4 wins, 8 losses year.
posted by zyxwvut at 6:24 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Last year the Army football coach made $1.5 million.
If you actually join the army, the absolute most you can make at the highest ranks is right at $250,000 ~ 1/6th of the football coach. The president of the US is getting paid a quarter of what our Army's football coach makes in a 4 wins, 8 losses year.
posted by zyxwvut at 6:24 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's the Navy coach. The Army coach "only" makes half that.
posted by Etrigan at 6:38 AM on November 24, 2015
posted by Etrigan at 6:38 AM on November 24, 2015
most classes would still be taught by tenured professors rather than by underpaid adjuncts, and most work in labs wouldn't end up getting done by underpaid postdocs.
There's a lot of commonality between student athletes and grad students/adjuncts/postdocs. All are willing to work for far below market rates for the extremely unlikely and distant possibility of a reward at the end. Universities have plenty of young people, and young people have dreams...that can be exploited.
posted by miyabo at 6:43 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's a lot of commonality between student athletes and grad students/adjuncts/postdocs. All are willing to work for far below market rates for the extremely unlikely and distant possibility of a reward at the end. Universities have plenty of young people, and young people have dreams...that can be exploited.
posted by miyabo at 6:43 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Thanks for pointing that out, Etrigan. Too many links open at once...
posted by zyxwvut at 6:56 AM on November 24, 2015
posted by zyxwvut at 6:56 AM on November 24, 2015
Etrigan: "Chasing the Next Big Thing is as quixotic as trying to become a New Power in football."
But cheaper! And a much different recruiting pool. The handful of women's soccer powerhouses are able to recruit from among a fairly large pool (national high school girl's soccer players) and take their pick of talented athletes with strong academic skills (as well as international gets because American colleges can pay tuition for athletes). Similarly, volleyball teams are able to recruit from a national high school program that's pretty universal, and can pick and choose their student-athletes. Football and basketball prospects, otoh, are heavily recruited and hard to get.
Investing in an up-and-coming sport (ideally with a lot of scholarship spots, ideally team-focused rather than individual, since those pull in more alumni donations long-term and don't have to compete against private club players) has a payoff NOW in recruiting well-rounded, academically-talented students who are ALSO standout athletes, and you can pay their full freight. You can make yourself into the school where every volleyball standout in America wants to go, and that's good for the school. It's niche, but it helps with recruiting and donations and campus life and, done right, academics. You're going to get to advertise your Olympic medalists in your brochures. (Some of them will compete at the Olympics while still enrolled at your college!) It also MAY pay off down the road when ESPN14 becomes the all-volleyball channel and pays you for the privilege of televising your games. Recruiting football and basketball students, OTOH, has very little present payoff, because you have to invest so much money to compete for recruitment against top programs, and then you have to take the students you can get regardless of their desirability as students beyond their athletic skills, and there no possible way you're going to break into the top 25 without spending literally billions over a couple of decades at least. Plus there's no Olympic football, and college students don't compete for USA Basketball -- that's basically exclusively NBA players.
(Baseball is a bad investment as a money sport because they have their own pro farm league which fouls up college recruitment, even though you actually get fairly solid ticket sales for college baseball. Television is oversaturated with baseball because of the number of games per season, and when they want to go outside the major leagues, they go to the minor leagues of teams they already have contracts with, not colleges. College golf and gymnastics have similar problems -- people who want to go pro or compete internationally come out of the semi-pro circuit, not colleges. Also college gymnasts are mostly already retired from pro competition, but that's a slightly different issue.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:06 AM on November 24, 2015
But cheaper! And a much different recruiting pool. The handful of women's soccer powerhouses are able to recruit from among a fairly large pool (national high school girl's soccer players) and take their pick of talented athletes with strong academic skills (as well as international gets because American colleges can pay tuition for athletes). Similarly, volleyball teams are able to recruit from a national high school program that's pretty universal, and can pick and choose their student-athletes. Football and basketball prospects, otoh, are heavily recruited and hard to get.
Investing in an up-and-coming sport (ideally with a lot of scholarship spots, ideally team-focused rather than individual, since those pull in more alumni donations long-term and don't have to compete against private club players) has a payoff NOW in recruiting well-rounded, academically-talented students who are ALSO standout athletes, and you can pay their full freight. You can make yourself into the school where every volleyball standout in America wants to go, and that's good for the school. It's niche, but it helps with recruiting and donations and campus life and, done right, academics. You're going to get to advertise your Olympic medalists in your brochures. (Some of them will compete at the Olympics while still enrolled at your college!) It also MAY pay off down the road when ESPN14 becomes the all-volleyball channel and pays you for the privilege of televising your games. Recruiting football and basketball students, OTOH, has very little present payoff, because you have to invest so much money to compete for recruitment against top programs, and then you have to take the students you can get regardless of their desirability as students beyond their athletic skills, and there no possible way you're going to break into the top 25 without spending literally billions over a couple of decades at least. Plus there's no Olympic football, and college students don't compete for USA Basketball -- that's basically exclusively NBA players.
(Baseball is a bad investment as a money sport because they have their own pro farm league which fouls up college recruitment, even though you actually get fairly solid ticket sales for college baseball. Television is oversaturated with baseball because of the number of games per season, and when they want to go outside the major leagues, they go to the minor leagues of teams they already have contracts with, not colleges. College golf and gymnastics have similar problems -- people who want to go pro or compete internationally come out of the semi-pro circuit, not colleges. Also college gymnasts are mostly already retired from pro competition, but that's a slightly different issue.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:06 AM on November 24, 2015
I see your points about recruiting from a niche market, but this part:
It also MAY pay off down the road when ESPN14 becomes the all-volleyball channel and pays you for the privilege of televising your games.
is what I was talking about. The chances of volleyball ever consistently making money for a school are virtually nil. A school has a significantly better chance of becoming the next Boise State -- i.e., invest heavily in your football program and eventually make money at it -- than it does of elevating some other sport into profitability, because the former exists.
posted by Etrigan at 7:15 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
It also MAY pay off down the road when ESPN14 becomes the all-volleyball channel and pays you for the privilege of televising your games.
is what I was talking about. The chances of volleyball ever consistently making money for a school are virtually nil. A school has a significantly better chance of becoming the next Boise State -- i.e., invest heavily in your football program and eventually make money at it -- than it does of elevating some other sport into profitability, because the former exists.
posted by Etrigan at 7:15 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Actually the alumni contributions angle exists mostly to steal alumni contributions from academic departments that the president, coaches, etc. cannot touch and pump them into pots more vulnerable to graft.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:50 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 7:50 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
These teams are massive economic engines in their own right, generating millions of dollars for the university
Money that goes right back into supporting the program, per the article, so no, 'the university' isn't seeing that much benefit from it.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:09 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Money that goes right back into supporting the program, per the article, so no, 'the university' isn't seeing that much benefit from it.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:09 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I went to a woman's university, which obviously didn't have a football program. My son will be college age in just a few years. While all his fathers family wants him to go to alumni schools that have massive football programs, I've been quietly planting the idea that my alma mater (which does admit boys ) and European universities make a lot more sense both fiscally and educationally.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:22 AM on November 24, 2015
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:22 AM on November 24, 2015
The huge schools spend a lot on athletics, but they're such massive organizations that it doesn't really make a dent. One of the schools I went to spends roughly $100M on athletics, and roughly breaks even... on a budget of more than $3.5 billion. Yes that's abhorrent, but there's another $3.4 billion of non-athletics-related stuff going on.
It's the smaller, poorer schools that are wasting huge portions of their time and money that we should be worrying about. Many of the SEC schools and smaller midwest schools spend over 10% of their budget on sports.
posted by miyabo at 10:09 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's the smaller, poorer schools that are wasting huge portions of their time and money that we should be worrying about. Many of the SEC schools and smaller midwest schools spend over 10% of their budget on sports.
posted by miyabo at 10:09 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
feckless fecal fear mongering: "Money that goes right back into supporting the program, per the article, so no, 'the university' isn't seeing that much benefit from it."
So there are three ways universities realize monetary gains from big sports programs. The first and simplest is the money earned by the athletic department. For the very top programs with the most lucrative TV contracts, yes, athletic department earnings pour back into the rest of the university. Notre Dame football, for example, costs about $33 million a year and earns $80 million a year. Revenue from other spots contributes around $10 million (they all cost more than they earn, tho), and a team apparel deal contributes another $10 million, giving us a nice round number of $100 million a year in athletic department revenue. Athletics in their entirety cost about $75 million to run each year (aka, an amount wholly funded by the football program profits), which leaves $25 million that pours over into general university funding (most of which at present funds academic scholarships, but it's unrestricted funding so it could fund faculty salaries or whatever). This is the ultimate trophy that a lot of schools are pursuing, the ability to use sports money to fund a top-tier sports program AND pour profit over into the university.
The second way that sports produce money for college is that colleges with sports programs see a lot more alumni donations to the general fund and to other non-sports programs. Your college art museum will get more alumni support if you have an athletic program. This is largely because college sports have the effect of creating a "tribe" on campus that students feel strongly connected to (you can do this other ways -- religion works pretty well -- but sports is by far the most effective way to create a long-term affiliation) and students who feel strongly connected to their college community as a whole (rather than just their friends from the dorm, or their colleagues from their major or extracurrics) are far more likely to donate, and far more likely to remain active in alumni associations that do things like help new graduates find jobs. A further benefit to big-time TV sports is that while your fandom of college volleyball may fade the longer you're away from campus, football and basketball remind you every year of your collegiate tribal identity reinforced through sports. This is good for donations. So building a low-key sports program -- even at a community college -- will often pay off in the form of alumni donations and support. Building a big-name sports program that's well-known pays off more ... if you can get there.
Third, sports provides knock-on monetary benefits -- college towns get major, major, major tourism dollars for sports contests, even when they're lower-tier (my state's latest 10-year renegotiation of locations for the various high school sports championships was ugggggly politics because cities can get really a lot of tourism dollars out of a simple, small high-school tournament). Big-name sports that fill stadia are bonanzas for local merchants. Another benefit is the value of the school's associated trademarks, revenue from which does go into the general fund, not athletics. A lot of people want to buy UT T-shirts and Duke hats and Oregon shorts, and not because of their academic prowess -- it's sports fan apparel. Michigan earned $6 million last year in revenue from trademark licensing, which is fairly typical for big football schools with popular brands, and -- again -- that money goes into the general fund, not athletics.
There's a lot of money in college athletics and a lot of ways that universities benefit. This isn't just "Americans are meatheads" or "colleges overvalue athletics at the expense of academics." It is way too easy for colleges to get "captured" by their athletic departments and make terrible funding decisions as a result that do advantage athletics at the expense of academics, and too many colleges are being totally stupid about developing their athletic programs in the hopes of future academic returns that they have no real clear plan for realizing. ("1. Football 2. ????? 3. PROFIT! 4. ... I don't know, spend it on research or something? Is that what scientists do? Research?") But there are very real monetary benefits to universities with well-run athletic programs, and very LARGE monetary benefits to universities with well-run, big-money programs, and you have to understand these financial incentives and how they are very real pressures on university administrations, especially public university administrators looking at ever-falling state support.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:54 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
So there are three ways universities realize monetary gains from big sports programs. The first and simplest is the money earned by the athletic department. For the very top programs with the most lucrative TV contracts, yes, athletic department earnings pour back into the rest of the university. Notre Dame football, for example, costs about $33 million a year and earns $80 million a year. Revenue from other spots contributes around $10 million (they all cost more than they earn, tho), and a team apparel deal contributes another $10 million, giving us a nice round number of $100 million a year in athletic department revenue. Athletics in their entirety cost about $75 million to run each year (aka, an amount wholly funded by the football program profits), which leaves $25 million that pours over into general university funding (most of which at present funds academic scholarships, but it's unrestricted funding so it could fund faculty salaries or whatever). This is the ultimate trophy that a lot of schools are pursuing, the ability to use sports money to fund a top-tier sports program AND pour profit over into the university.
The second way that sports produce money for college is that colleges with sports programs see a lot more alumni donations to the general fund and to other non-sports programs. Your college art museum will get more alumni support if you have an athletic program. This is largely because college sports have the effect of creating a "tribe" on campus that students feel strongly connected to (you can do this other ways -- religion works pretty well -- but sports is by far the most effective way to create a long-term affiliation) and students who feel strongly connected to their college community as a whole (rather than just their friends from the dorm, or their colleagues from their major or extracurrics) are far more likely to donate, and far more likely to remain active in alumni associations that do things like help new graduates find jobs. A further benefit to big-time TV sports is that while your fandom of college volleyball may fade the longer you're away from campus, football and basketball remind you every year of your collegiate tribal identity reinforced through sports. This is good for donations. So building a low-key sports program -- even at a community college -- will often pay off in the form of alumni donations and support. Building a big-name sports program that's well-known pays off more ... if you can get there.
Third, sports provides knock-on monetary benefits -- college towns get major, major, major tourism dollars for sports contests, even when they're lower-tier (my state's latest 10-year renegotiation of locations for the various high school sports championships was ugggggly politics because cities can get really a lot of tourism dollars out of a simple, small high-school tournament). Big-name sports that fill stadia are bonanzas for local merchants. Another benefit is the value of the school's associated trademarks, revenue from which does go into the general fund, not athletics. A lot of people want to buy UT T-shirts and Duke hats and Oregon shorts, and not because of their academic prowess -- it's sports fan apparel. Michigan earned $6 million last year in revenue from trademark licensing, which is fairly typical for big football schools with popular brands, and -- again -- that money goes into the general fund, not athletics.
There's a lot of money in college athletics and a lot of ways that universities benefit. This isn't just "Americans are meatheads" or "colleges overvalue athletics at the expense of academics." It is way too easy for colleges to get "captured" by their athletic departments and make terrible funding decisions as a result that do advantage athletics at the expense of academics, and too many colleges are being totally stupid about developing their athletic programs in the hopes of future academic returns that they have no real clear plan for realizing. ("1. Football 2. ????? 3. PROFIT! 4. ... I don't know, spend it on research or something? Is that what scientists do? Research?") But there are very real monetary benefits to universities with well-run athletic programs, and very LARGE monetary benefits to universities with well-run, big-money programs, and you have to understand these financial incentives and how they are very real pressures on university administrations, especially public university administrators looking at ever-falling state support.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:54 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
If these programs all make so much money, why does this article exist?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:09 AM on November 24, 2015
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:09 AM on November 24, 2015
If these programs all make so much money, why does this article exist?
They don't all make money. Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of Div I-A schools consistently do, which is a couple dozen. And some of those top 15-20 percent make a lot of money (Texas athletics routinely sees profits over $50M). These are the big names anyone with a passing familiarity with football knows: Notre Dame, Michigan, Alabama, USC.
Then there's the second tier, which are capable of making a profit, depending on how they do year-to-year, and roughly break even decade-to-decade. The number in this tier is going up because of huge network deals (Big Ten Network, SEC/ESPN, Longhorn Network), and this is where most of these "aspiring" schools like Rutgers (realistically) want to get. This is mostly schools in the same conferences as the top-tier ones but without the long-term success: Illinois, South Carolina, Arizona, Baylor.
Everyone under these two tiers has athletic programs, because the vast majority of colleges have always had athletic programs and very few people want to kill the idea of college athletics entirely (especially at these schools, where 99.999 percent of the student-athletes really won't ever make a dime playing sports). Those departments all lose money, because the money they make is a rounding error ($2 for tickets to Podunk College's big rivalry game against Eastern Wherever State! $12 for a T-shirt!). A lot of those schools are fine with it; some aspire to be in the big leagues.
posted by Etrigan at 11:20 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
They don't all make money. Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of Div I-A schools consistently do, which is a couple dozen. And some of those top 15-20 percent make a lot of money (Texas athletics routinely sees profits over $50M). These are the big names anyone with a passing familiarity with football knows: Notre Dame, Michigan, Alabama, USC.
Then there's the second tier, which are capable of making a profit, depending on how they do year-to-year, and roughly break even decade-to-decade. The number in this tier is going up because of huge network deals (Big Ten Network, SEC/ESPN, Longhorn Network), and this is where most of these "aspiring" schools like Rutgers (realistically) want to get. This is mostly schools in the same conferences as the top-tier ones but without the long-term success: Illinois, South Carolina, Arizona, Baylor.
Everyone under these two tiers has athletic programs, because the vast majority of colleges have always had athletic programs and very few people want to kill the idea of college athletics entirely (especially at these schools, where 99.999 percent of the student-athletes really won't ever make a dime playing sports). Those departments all lose money, because the money they make is a rounding error ($2 for tickets to Podunk College's big rivalry game against Eastern Wherever State! $12 for a T-shirt!). A lot of those schools are fine with it; some aspire to be in the big leagues.
posted by Etrigan at 11:20 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
So there are three ways universities realize monetary gains from big sports programs.
Fourth: applications go up with major-sport success, and much of that increase is typically from out-of-state students who will pay more.
posted by Etrigan at 11:22 AM on November 24, 2015
Fourth: applications go up with major-sport success, and much of that increase is typically from out-of-state students who will pay more.
posted by Etrigan at 11:22 AM on November 24, 2015
feckless fecal fear mongering: "If these programs all make so much money, why does this article exist?"
I shall repeat myself: "there are very real monetary benefits to universities with well-run athletic programs, and very LARGE monetary benefits to universities with well-run, big-money programs, and you have to understand these financial incentives and how they are very real pressures on university administrations, especially public university administrators looking at ever-falling state support."
As this has been an ongoing conversation in the thread, I didn't think I needed to reiterate my earlier points about STUPID programs making STUPID financial decisions, which is what this article is about. But you seemed unaware of the ways universities benefit, financially and otherwise, from sports programs, and why it is therefore a rational decision for administrators to pursue money via college sports. Way, way too many of them proceed to do so in highly irrational ways chasing speculative big-money payouts at the expense of students, taxpayers, or the athletes themselves.
They whole point is that they don't ALL make that much money -- but enough of them do that a lot of schools have jumped on the bandwagon hoping to get to that top tier in football or basketball. Virtually all of them will fail, but the handful of success stories will continue to incentivize the chase, especially when there's no hope of increasing federal or state support in most cases right now. Where else are they supposed to pursue funding?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:03 PM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I shall repeat myself: "there are very real monetary benefits to universities with well-run athletic programs, and very LARGE monetary benefits to universities with well-run, big-money programs, and you have to understand these financial incentives and how they are very real pressures on university administrations, especially public university administrators looking at ever-falling state support."
As this has been an ongoing conversation in the thread, I didn't think I needed to reiterate my earlier points about STUPID programs making STUPID financial decisions, which is what this article is about. But you seemed unaware of the ways universities benefit, financially and otherwise, from sports programs, and why it is therefore a rational decision for administrators to pursue money via college sports. Way, way too many of them proceed to do so in highly irrational ways chasing speculative big-money payouts at the expense of students, taxpayers, or the athletes themselves.
They whole point is that they don't ALL make that much money -- but enough of them do that a lot of schools have jumped on the bandwagon hoping to get to that top tier in football or basketball. Virtually all of them will fail, but the handful of success stories will continue to incentivize the chase, especially when there's no hope of increasing federal or state support in most cases right now. Where else are they supposed to pursue funding?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:03 PM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Football, the big revenue sport, is going to start losing fans and players over the years as parents decide they don't want their kids playing football.
One can only hope. But I suspect that the people who stand to earn money from the sport will cheerfully prey on economically disadvantaged families for a few more decades. The promise of a higher education is a very cheap trinket to dangle in front of parents and children who wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise.
posted by sobell at 12:55 PM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
One can only hope. But I suspect that the people who stand to earn money from the sport will cheerfully prey on economically disadvantaged families for a few more decades. The promise of a higher education is a very cheap trinket to dangle in front of parents and children who wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise.
posted by sobell at 12:55 PM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
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This case was notable to me, for this alone:
"According to documents obtained by Swimming World, the University of California-Davis was not telling the truth when it announced in 2010 that the men’s swimming and diving program would be among four programs cut from the athletic department due to budget tightening. What really happened was that the money that would have been used to pay for those coaches and operate the sports was siphoned to other teams. Even more shocking was that the athletic department did not cut back on expenses, but continued to give sports more money to spend."
posted by yueliang at 7:36 PM on November 23, 2015 [5 favorites]