Must Read!

[50's PONY]

Athletic spending grows as academic funds dry up
By MaryJo Sylwester and Tom Witosky, USA TODAY
As colleges at all levels of the NCAA's top competitive division struggle through lean times for their overall campus budgets, many of their athletic departments are not feeling a similar squeeze.

The hiring of basketball coach Rick Pitino, with Francisco Garcia, was one reason the Louisville athletic department needed the university's financial support.
By Chuck Burton, AP

Average athletic budgets rose at a pace more than double the increases in average university spending at Division I schools between 1995 and 2001, according to an analysis by USA TODAY and The Des Moines Register of the most recently available NCAA and U.S. Department of Education data.

Spending on Division I intercollegiate athletics has increased on average about 25%, while university spending has increased on average 10%, after inflation.

Increases in basic costs such as scholarships and travel have had an impact. But the escalating costs of college sports also are fueled by universities' desires to reap the benefits of a winning season, which can boost attendance and TV ratings, maintain alumni support and lift student and even regional morale.

Small and midsize schools are particularly squeezed, unable to generate big-time funds like major schools but still facing student, alumni and community pressure to win.

Athletics-generated revenue aren't keeping pace with costs. Only about 40 schools claim their athletic departments are self-sufficient. To compensate for deficits, most athletic departments are increasingly relying on money from their schools — money that otherwise could be used for academics or other enterprises. Student bodies also are helping pay the tab, sometimes without knowing it. About 60% of all Division I schools rely on student fees to help the athletic department. These fees generally range from $50 to $1,000 a year for full-time students. In return, students get free admission to games.

These developments have deepened the tension between athletics and academics on many campuses. Most states have had several consecutive years of double-digit cuts in higher education funding, which have forced schools to cut jobs, increase class sizes and raise tuition.

For example, at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., some faculty members felt that the 1% cut in the athletic department's budget last year seemed small compared with the campuswide cuts imposed to absorb a 30% drop in state funding.

"If a university is under duress financially, I think everyone ought to share in the pain, and as far as I can tell, that's not the case," says Terry Meyers, a William & Mary English professor. "Essentially, the athletic people are getting a free ride."

School officials there and elsewhere counter that athletic programs have done their share of cost-cutting and that athletics benefit everyone on campus. Athletics directors are left with conflicting demands: integrate their programs into their schools' educational missions but independently generate the revenue that will enable them to have competitive teams.

While the most recent publicly available data USA TODAY analyzed are nearly three years old, NCAA financial consultant Daniel Fulks says the trend of rising athletic spending has not changed.

Schools weigh costs, benefits

For most schools, the decision to maintain — or even grow — athletic programs is unquestioned because of the perceived benefits to the campus as a whole.

"Education and athletics are linked in this country. That's the way our society is organized," says David Larimore, an education professor and former athletics director at Tennessee Tech. "It projects an image, and people come to expect that if a school has a major sports franchise, they also have a major institution attached. So if you want to become invisible, downgrade (athletics) or get out of it."

Among the Division I-A schools, those playing big-time football, a primary interest is establishing, or enhancing, chances of reaching a Bowl Championship Series game or advancing far in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. That, for example, can mean trying to hire or retain a brand-name coach at millions a year. In Division I-A, the average head football coach's base salary — now at $388,600 — increased 83%, after inflation, between 1998 and 2002.

These figures don't include money tied to shoe, apparel or TV deals — money often guaranteed by athletic departments.

The University of Louisville hired Rick Pitino in 2001 with a six-year, $12.4 million contract, hoping he would restore the men's basketball team to its former glory. Meanwhile, the athletic department also had to pay about $2.5 million in the subsequent three years to Pitino's predecessor, Denny Crum.

For nearly 20 years, Louisville had been paying for its athletic programs entirely with sports revenue and contributions. But about the time of Pitino's hiring, the school also built a football venue with a corporate name, Papa John's Stadium, added several women's sports to improve gender equity and paid rising insurance, travel and scholarship costs.

Suddenly, the athletic program was in debt. A series of cost-cutting measures, ticket price increases and new corporate sponsorships wouldn't be enough to keep the program at a competitive level.

"If you want to grow, you're going to have to find ways to do it," athletics director Tom Jurich says. "My vision when I started six years ago was to grow this program to be something special ... one of the biggest I-A programs in the country — and not just in basketball."

The university agreed to begin supporting the athletic department. A gradual tuition increase that started this year, plus other university funds, will supply about $3 million annually to the $31.9 million athletic budget.

Jurich: "We all need to be under one umbrella. Because when we take the field, our uniforms say University of Louisville. They don't say Louisville Incorporated."

Louisville's competitive aspirations are far from unique. Since the 1994-95 school year, 12 schools that had been playing Division I-AA football moved to the more expensive I-A, where bowl games and national TV attention beckon.

During the same period, the number of schools in Division I — which has the popular and lucrative men's basketball tournament but requires more spending on athletics — has increased by 24.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi relaunched an athletic program in 1998 that had been defunct for more than 25 years and gained Division I standing in July 2002. It gradually has grown to 14 teams but does not have football.

The bulk of the funding came from student fees, and the remainder of the $3.4 million annual athletic budget came from ticket sales, money raised through the bookstore and vending machines, and state money from tuition revenue bonds, money typically used for academic facilities. Upset faculty members and student government leaders were appeased somewhat last year when the athletic department stopped using money that would otherwise be spent on academics.

"Overall, the process has been somewhat painful for the faculty in that we want to be a well-rounded university, but at the same time there are finite resources," says Johnston Brendel, speaker of the faculty senate and associate professor of counseling. "It's what you see on any campus. Faculty members believe 100% should be spent on academics."

Faculty members speak out

Faculty members are among the most vocal critics of using university funds or student fees to pay for athletics. Several national groups, composed primarily of faculty, have met in recent months to consider recommendations for reforming aspects of intercollegiate athletics — including finances.

B. David Ridpath, an executive board member of the Drake Group, an association of current and former athletics officials and academics, says the problem of rising athletic costs in the midst of a university budget crisis has reached a point "that some kind of reform is going to happen."

"The message we are sending is that we accept a watered-down educational institution at the expense of having an essentially professionalized college sports," says Ridpath, director of judicial programs at Marshall University.

NCAA President Myles Brand held a meeting last month between several athletics directors and members of another faculty group, the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics. According to several people who attended, the meeting did not yield specific results but it revealed more agreement than dissent on topics such as finances, governance, commercialization and academic integrity.

"I don't think the issues are any different for any of the groups," Mississippi State athletics director Larry Templeton says. "How we attack those issues and the importance of those issues are different."

Several participants agreed that financing and commercialization are at the heart of many of the problems the coalition wants to address. They also appear to be the most difficult issues to solve.

"On one hand, we're telling athletic directors we don't want them to cost (the academic side) so much money, but at the same time we're telling them not to accept too much commercial money," says Joel Cohen, a University of Maryland math professor and a coalition member. "I admit it's a mixed message."

Students pony up

A widely used alternative or supplement to funding from university coffers or commercial sources is a student athletic fee.

At Division I schools, about 20% of athletic funding on average comes from students. About 60% of Division I schools in 2001 reported using some money from fees for athletics. That is down from 70% in 1995, according to NCAA data, but Fulks says that percentage may have increased again in the last two years as dozens of schools have added the fee.

The highest student athletic fees tend to be at smaller schools, such as William & Mary, where the athletic program can't generate big-time money. William & Mary fields 23 teams (the Division I average is about 15), with a philosophy that athletics are an extension of a student's educational experience.

"If we were competing (with big programs), we'd have revenues that come with big-time athletics, but because we don't we're put in a much more difficult fiscal position," says Bill Walker, associate vice president for public affairs.

The school pays 52% of its athletic costs with an annual $916 student fee. The rest comes from donations, ticket sales and a small amount of NCAA revenue. Virginia prohibits the use of state appropriations for athletics. The state's higher education authority has asked the school to reduce its dependence on student fees to 50%, down from 60% four years ago.

The student fee has generated controversy on campus this year. Meyers, the English professor, launched a campaign to convince the school to make the athletic fee more apparent. The fee is not itemized on bills or in the course catalog but is on the school's Web site.

Sam Jones, the university's vice president of finance, says the school does not want to itemize the expense on bills because it would have to list 18 other fees.

"I think if parents and students knew they were paying $916 per year to essentially support football and men's and women's basketball, they would be startled," Meyers says. "There's something insidious in this because athletic folks can depend on a steady, secret source of funding."

***

Tom Witosky reports for The Des Moines Register and MaryJo Sylwester for USA TODAY.

[Dooby]

Great quote

"Education and athletics are linked in this country. That's the way our society is organized," says David Larimore, an education professor and former athletics director at Tennessee Tech. "It projects an image, and people come to expect that if a school has a major sports franchise, they also have a major institution attached. So if you want to become invisible, downgrade (athletics) or get out of it."

[EastStang]

William & Mary has an athletic foundation (which the article didn't mention) which helped keep the AD cuts down while the College got raped. The fact is that Virginia had a huge deficit and they needed to make cuts. The Governor in his infinite wisdom instead of trying to reduce ridiculous expenditures cut education, transportation, and then said we needed to raise taxes. The business groups got on board and said yea, you need to raise income taxes because our education and transportation need the money. One aspect that may grow out of this is that UVa. and William & Mary are considering whether to go private.