Generally speaking, I think Jon Wilner’s a savvy dude and I’m always up for a little NCAA bitch slapping, but I think this observation misses the mark.
I’m sorry, “NCAA economics require” is basically horseshit. Schools are non-profit organizations, in name at least, and providing athletics opportunities is supposed to be part of their academic mission. (Not to mention Title IX requirements.) But nobody — certainly not the NCAA — is holding a gun to anyone’s head and saying you must pay coaches and administrators responsible for non-revenue producing sports an arm and a leg. Or providing palatial facilities. That’s a choice, an idiotic one, sure, but a choice nevertheless.
If schools have chosen an unsustainable model, it’s because they’ve believed for a long time they’re immune from the backlash of wasteful spending. And if that’s unsustainable now, just wait until the day comes when they’re allowed/required to pay college athletes directly.
Get The Picture 
Reminds me of the old “I don’t have to do anything except pay taxes and die” saying. The idea that Big U athletic departments are victims of inevitable forces outside their control is just laughable. The NCAA model is only “unsustainable” to the extent that ADs have made it that way.
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Spend less on locker room boondoggles? Pay ourselves less? Get outta here! Let’s just cut some sports and frown for the cameras. What is this, some kind of charity?
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Right on
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Profit is not a 4 letter word. Loss is.
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Only about 10 of 131 schools make any profit at all on sports and that number includes revenue from donations, tv and all other revenue sources. The rest lose millions every year. For over 90% of schools, the football revenue simply cuts the losses, it doesn’t create any profit at all. The shortfall is made up with student athletic fees that some students have to borrow money to pay.
The ADs don’t care because they are getting paid and the losses don’t come out of their pockets. It is easy to spend someone else’s money.
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That idea that less than 10% of FBC schools do not have revenues that exceed expenses is an untested theory. The testimony at the O’Bannon trial was that schools are creative in labeling things as expenses. For example, many schools report “tuition costs for athletes ” as an expense which amounts to money paid to itself. The “we are all losing money” is useful in arguing against paying the players.
The 121 schools losing money don’t act as if they are losing money when they pay assistant coaches million dollars a year and build multi million dollar facilities. if they were constantly losing money they would stop spending so much.
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Random gripe:
And the facilities race isn’t limited to top-tier athletic programs, or even athletic programs!
It’s all part of a larger problem of state institutions building buildings much grander than required and passing the cost onto students mortgaging their future with student loan debt.
I love to tell the anecdote of installing HVAC in a new student fitness center at a (small DIII) state university 11 years ago. The fitness center was a remodel of an old racquetball club in close proximity to campus and student housing.
The locker rooms had custom cherry lockers and millwork. And the emergency fire escape stairwell had cherry millwork as well.
I asked the guy installing the stuff (in business for himself) what the delta was on all this stuff compared with something a more “bare bones” package, and he said probably $300,000, in his bid to the university.
We’re talking about a school with 7,100 undergrads in a small town.
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It will be unsustainable once they change scheduling and drive fans away as they have done in other regional sports.
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I’m in the wasteful spending camp but also will go one step further…I think “higher education” has lost its focus. The endowments grew so large, the cathedrals to sports so massive, that the institutions forgot their original mission statements…it’s a running joke on here, but it’s true…they ain’t doing “it” for the kids anymore.
College Football is eroding because higher education is eroding, it’s just a byproduct of administrative mismanagement and greed. Some might like the new “nationalized” version of college football, but it will be nothing like what Saturday afternoons used to be.
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When it comes to the cost of higher education it has been out of control for a long time.
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There’s no NCAA rule that requires you to hire a fool for your athletic director. Watching these schools get mugged by Jimmy Sexton repeatedly and then fire his clients three years later, watching them bid against themselves for their head coaches and now largely doing the same for their assistants, and then seeing them cry poverty is a joke. There’s no rule that says you have to have $5-10 million tied up in your head coach or $5-15 million tied up in your football coaching staff. Could some of that money be used to make sure the softball program has enough bats? Of course it could.
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GD, your first sentence is perfect. The rest of the post is very good, too.
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Yeah, that’s crap. All sorts of lower level schools manage to have sports teams, and they do it with zero “profitable entities.”
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The real winner in all of this is the NFL. They have a free dev league. Maybe someone smarter than me can figure out a way to force the NFL to kick down some cash to keep this from imploding. (searches for sarcasm font)
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I think a reasonably simple solution that would solve about 90% of the problem would be for there to be a requirement that an athlete must be admitted to the school through regular admission channels before they could receive a scholarship. Even the lowest rated academic institutions like Auburn would not sacrifice their academic reputation for winning sports programs. This would leave the NFL no choice but to create a farm system.
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Interesting thought. But much like many other public institutions (looking at you congress), I think that requirement would be rife with corruption. It would eventually turn back into a mild formality.
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i lived in Myers Hall with no GD air conditioning and survived. The house i lived in later was a complete dump. BUT SO WAS ALMOST EVERYBODY ELSE’S ! Now downtown is loaded with apartment/condos with rooftop pools, juice bars and come with brand new furniture. I got my mattress from a graduating senior and bought other furniture at the goodwill. #KidsTheseDays
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Here’s a tip, they new joints all over downtown are dumps too.
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“Sometimes I wish I was back in my crash pad days… Before I knew what cash flow meant”
Shit TB, I miss that sometimes.
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Make everything a club sport outside of football, basketball, and how ever many women’s sports are necessary to be in full, 3 prong, Title IX compliance.
Problem solved.
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I was just thinking about the Dawgs traveling to Starkville on November 12. I’ve heard how dangerous they will be with all the 5th and 6th year seniors returning.
You know what? Those same players returning sucked last year and ain’t gonna be much better this year.
The Dawgs will embarrass the Pirate at home. Might be a coming out party for some young DB’s.
TAMU is gonna suck too.
Again.
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CB, giving yourself a pat on the back for solving a problem solves one you didn’t think of. The justification for UGA AA having 501(c)(3) status is that the profits from the revenue producing sports makes it possible for a university to offer nonrevenue producing varsity sports for students.
You ended that debate and forfeited any justification for athletic departments to have tax exempt nonprofit status! You solved another one!!
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But you need facilities to recruit. In Kirby I trust.
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mg, I am not arguing for or against spending on facilities. It is. however. a spending choice. My point is that the 121 supposedly money losing schools are making enough to spend on facilities AND million dollar salaries. if they were losing money. Penury limits spending options.
By the way, my alma mater does contend its expenses exceeding revenues. No doubt it has the revenue to cover its expenses.
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The ADs are just salesmen. They are selling hope to their fanbases. Any AD who admits that it is time to get major sport costs under control in a way that would sacrifice a scintilla of future success would face an immediate and lasting drop in fan interest, recruiting and revenue that would snowball in an unrecoverable way. That program would become Vanderbilt in the span of one season. Even competent ADs are helplessly watching this train wreck with the rest of us.
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