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Report calls for financial reform

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by Matt Fredmonsky

Reporter

Athletics spending at public universities continues to outpace academic spending — so much so a national report released this summer calls sharply for financial reform.

But it can be difficult to reverse a trend with years of momentum behind it.

At many universities, institutional spending on high-profile sports is growing at double or triple the pace of spending on academics, according to the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. Last month, the commission released its report, “Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values, and the Future of College Sports,” highlighting the growing expenses associated with university athletics.

The trend is based on the “unfounded yet persistent belief that devoting more dollars to sports programs leads to greater athletic success, and thus to greater revenues,” according to the commission.

Kent State University Athletic Director Joel Nielsen compared the competitive drive to build ever-costlier facilities, grow coaching staffs and raise their salaries to the nuclear arms race of the 1960s.

“In a lot of ways, our business is driven by success,” Nielsen said.

To be competitive, one university may spend millions of dollars to build a new football stadium or hire a new coach. 

A division rival may see those expenses and spend millions on renovating its stadium or practice facilities in an effort to stay competitive.

MAC schools are spending about four times as much on athletes compared with spending per full-time student. In the MAC at least, spending on athletics does not necessarily lead to championships.

This year, the University of Akron is leading its Ohio MAC competitors by spending 5 percent of the total university budget on athletics. Bowling Green State University is in second of the Ohio schools at 4.1 percent. KSU ranks third with athletics spending at 3.5 percent of the total budget.

Miami University ranks fourth of the Ohio MAC schools on spending, with its athletics budget about 3 percent of the university’s $639 million budget. 

Ohio University ranks fifth with athletics spending representing about 2.8 percent of the total budget and Toledo is last of the Ohio schools, spending 1.9 percent of its budget on sports.

The chase for the 2009-10 Reese and Jacoby Cups illustrates the point. 

The cups are awarded to the MAC school that accumulates the most men’s and women’s championships of the 12 schools in the conference.

KSU claimed both cups for the 2009-10 season. Akron finished mid-pack at fourth in the men’s and fifth in the women’s cup chase. Bowling Green ranked dead last at 12 in the men’s chase and in the 11th spot for the women’s cup.

Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity at Ohio University, said universities clearly have positive spill-over effects from athletics. But he’s not convinced those positive effects remain for universities whose teams have consistently poor records.

“I think the notion that we need to continue to subsidize athletics to maintain a university’s prestige is one of the biggest myths going around,” he said.

Vedder suggests perhaps the only way to bring athletics spending back in line with academics is for division schools to agree to spend less as a group.

“Maybe that’s what we need in sports as well is a disarmament conference,” Vedder said. “I think people would still be as loyal to Kent State and the University of Akron or Ohio University.”

For Nielsen, scaling back would be a difficult task.

Spending less on athletics would be tough for any school or division to be the first to tackle. Many schools such as KSU and Akron compare their programs and facilities to schools like Ohio State University and Michigan State University to see how they measure up.

“Would we be competitive when we went outside our conference?” Nielsen said.

For it to work, Nielsen believes a scaling back of athletics spending would have to start at the top with schools in the Big Ten and Pacific-10 before smaller schools like KSU followed suit. Such a movement would have to start with big divisions sponsoring legislation to limit spending with the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

“You would need to see the drive from that level,” he said. “It does get the attention of everyone in the business when you see the PAC-10 sponsor that kind of legislation.”

The Knight Commission used the last nine pages of its 22-page report to lay out specifics for universities to follow in order to rein in athletics spending.

The commission’s three primary reform goals are:

• Requiring greater transparency, including better measures to compare athletics spending to academic spending.

• Rewarding practices universities implement to make academic values a priority.

• Treating college athletes as students first and foremost — not as professional athletes.

The report has been well received by some university officials.

But Carol Cartwright, president of Bowling Green and a member of the Knight Commission, conceded that universities are in charge of their own budgets.

“While we face many of the pressures of our peers with ‘big-time’ athletic programs, the universities that make up the (MAC) have done a better job than many in controlling spending on intercollegiate athletics,” she said. “At the end of the day we are individual institutions. We have to make our own decisions about what is in our own university’s best interest.”

E-mail: stowsports@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-686-3913