College Sports v. Television's Seductive Promise
How the Money Chase is undermining the Legitimacy of Intercollegiate Athletics
Higher education no longer enjoys unrestrained public support in the United States. As late as 2015, nearly 60 percent of Americans had a strongly positive view of higher education in the US, while only 9 percent had a very negative view. The latest Gallup poll numbers tell a different story.
Solid support for colleges and universities has fallen to only 37 percent in 2023 according to Gallup. Heavily negative opinions have risen to 22 percent. Although the decline in public confidence is sharpest among Republicans, the fall in support is reflected in nearly all demographic and political groups.
A recent issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine attempted to explain the problems facing American higher education. There were articles addressing the growing skepticism about the economic value of a college degree, about the potential decline in racial diversity and the absence of income diversity, about the growing gender gap in college enrollments, and about the challenges facing public university presidents in a time of intense political turmoil.
Not mentioned in the Times issue is the extraordinary growth in budgets for intercollegiate athletics, especially football and basketball at the NCAA Division I level. Commercial television’s decision to use college sports as a major lure for viewers is the primary driver of this disturbing trend.
Intercollegiate athletics have always been a legitimate part of the American college experience. But there also have always been concerns about abuses that undermine the apparent benefits.
In 1989, when the Knight Foundation initiated an exhaustive study of intercollegiate athletics under the direction of two American university icons, William Friday, former president of UNC and Father Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame, the balance between academics and athletics seemed okay. The recommendations from that study focused on improving the prospects for student athletes to earn degrees and on insisting that college presidents and chancellors exercise greater control over intercollegiate athletics and reduce expenditures. For a brief while the NCAA Presidents Commission sought to implement reforms in line with those recommendations, raising academic standards for student athletes, limiting the number of contests and practices and restraining expenses. I was privileged to serve on the commission for three years in the early 1990s as a representative of Division II member institutions.
But the promise of television dollars has proved too seductive. And it is not just the financial gain, but the appeal of national exposure is irresistible. The money chase has led otherwise responsible academic institutions to engage in actions that mock their stated mission. Student athletes used to be well integrated into the total student body, but today’s demands for athletic excellence have made it nearly impossible for players in major sports to participate in normal student life. Practice time, travel time and the television schedule outweigh academic and extracurricular activities. Some institutions even allow coaches to recruit players who have no intention of being graduates---not even sophomores.
Intercollegiate athletic budgets at major universities have ballooned. Ohio State led the nation in 2022, spending $225.7 million. The Big Ten school had total revenue of $251.6 million. The University of Texas, now in the Southeastern Conference, was second with $225.2 million in expenses and $239.3 million in revenue.
But it is not just the size of total budgets that is mind-boggling. The portion of the budgets going to coaches is inconsistent with the academic mission. Top salary for football coaches in 2022 went to Alabama coach Nick Saban, nearly $11 million. The next five were all $9 million and up. Dabo Swinney at Clemson and Kirby Smart at Georgia barely trailed Saban, but both have greater job security. Buying out Saban would cost Alabama only $43,200,000, while to dismiss Swinney, Clemson would have to pay him $64,000,000. Getting rid of Smart would be the most expensive discharge fee---a tidy $103,104,167.
Basketball coaches are cheaper, except for Kentucky’s John Calipari. Calipari was paid $8.5 million in 2022, but salaries for the next five highest paid basketball coaches ranged from only $5 million to $6 million.
The buyouts are not wild estimates. The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics reported in October 2022 that institutions in the Power 5 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC 12 and SEC) paid out over the 2012-2021 decade $530 million in severance to football coaches and assistants alone. In early September 2023, the Knight Commission issued projections of future spending based on current trends which assert that by 2032 salaries paid to football coaches and their assistants will exceed scholarships and medical expenses for all student athletics in all sports at their respective institutions.
There have been complaints that student athletes are treated as little more than slave labor. Their scholarships come with severe restrictions which sometimes seem almost inhuman, and their alleged reward, a college education, is being diminished by the demands of their sport. But the proposed solutions undermine further the relationship between an institution’s education mission and its intercollegiate athletic program.
Consider the campaign to develop programs that help student athletes to benefit from their Name, Image and Likeness. More than thirty states have passed legislation to allow student athletes this opportunity which had long been taboo. Already many private organizations, called “collectives,” are seeking to help student athletes at a specific institution take advantage of their NIL. The only NCAA rules for such organizations---they cannot be formally tied to the institution and opportunities offered student athletes cannot simply be “pay-for-play.” Student athletes have to perform some service for the money they receive.
Two problems are apparent. Just how different will this be from the old system where institutions were unable to control which and how student athletes were rewarded by boosters? And will not most of the opportunities flow to team stars? Alabama’s coach Saban declared last year that quarterback Bryce Young received a six figure income from his NIL activity.
Then there is the Transfer Portal. This initiative was ostensibly designed to “empower student athletes,” by allowing them if dissatisfied, to seek another stage on which to perfect their skills. The enticement of a possible better opportunity has proven enormous. This is having a negative impact especially on second and third tier programs that sometimes ferret out a diamond in the rough or develop one from scratch. Thousands of student athletes are taking advantage of the portal, some of them apparently encouraged by the promise of help from a friendly collective. Institutional loyalty, that old standby that once motivated student athletes is no longer relevant.
Some student athletes are not impressed by either NIL collectives or the transfer portal. They see unionization as their path to fairness. An early effort by Northwestern football players fizzled under a Republican National Labor Relations Board. There is now a new sheriff in town and the men’s basketball team at Dartmouth is likely to get a very different response. Are colleges and universities prepared to handle the new relationship?
So far, the most obvious response to these challenges from major colleges and universities has been to engage in a wild restructuring of the Power 5 conferences. Sports leagues once joined together because of geography or shared education mission. Now they are organized to maximize television eyeballs. The dollar figures tossed around are extraordinary although seldom accompanied by cost estimates, either financial or educational. According to NCAA financial data, very few programs even claim to break even financially. Most are subsidized by student fees, institutional support and tax deductible contributions.
The exaggerated windfalls projected have an adverse effect on efforts to increase or even maintain state funding. According to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), state FTE funding for postsecondary institutions declined 6.4 percent between 2001 and 2022. Legislatures in North and South Carolina slashed funding even more: 13.2 percent in North Carolina (NC) and a whopping 18.6 percent in South Carolina (SC). SC funds its public postsecondary institutions at about 70 percent of the national level, $7,150.
Calling off the intercollegiate athletic arms race is apparently a nonstarter for big time programs. They will muddle through, but sadly, there are many second and third tier institutions trying to stay in the game without the necessary resources. In the Carolinas alone, in addition to the four major programs which appear to remain reasonably solvent, there are fifteen public campuses participating in Division I sports. Of these fifteen, only two generate enough revenue outside of student fees and institutional support to fund half the cost of their intercollegiate athletics. For the rest, students carry the burden, sometimes as much as $1,000 per year. Is that a legitimate cost of their education?
In this post I focused on intercollegiate athletic programs at public institutions. Intercollegiate athletic budgets at private colleges and universities are not as accessible as is the case with public institutions, but there is little reason to suspect that financial issues are much different. And certainly, the impact of NILs, the transfer portal and unionization will be the same.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/508352/americans-confidence-higher-education-down-sharply.aspx
https://www.nytimes.com/issue/magazine/2023/09/08/the-91023-issue
https://shef.sheeo.org/report-2/?report_page=state-funding-and-enrollment#financial-aid-share
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/18/sports/views-of-sport-its-time-to-give-college-players-a-cut.html
https://www.knightcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Updated_KCIAFBHCBuyoutData_2023.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/sports/ncaabasketball/union-dartmouth-basketball.html
https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-found-18-profitable-211-money-losing-ncaa-public-scott-hirko-ph-d-