College sports lack fiscal sanity

The evolution or diminution of college sports continues in this country. Last week Myles Brand, president of the NCAA, continued his push to bring sports back under the higher education umbrella.

Brand said the astronomically escalating spending on college sports was “distorting the mission of higher education.” There are many who today say what has college sports got to do with education, it’s just a big business that happens to be on a college campus.

Therein lies the battle.

As I travel around the country announcing college football, I am flabbergasted and usually appalled at the cathedral structures on football-factory campuses that are the football centers. They include weight rooms that would put a pro team to shame, coaches’ offices you could rent as condos and a zillion meeting rooms with every electronic gadget.

All are built to grab the eye of recruits. Every upgrade at college A means colleges B through Z are screaming, “We’ve got to catch up. How can we compete?”

You win, you’re on TV. “On TV” means millions of dollars paid. Now you need to win some more.

An enormous percentage of that cash flow ends up in coaches’ pockets. The salaries of many college football and basketball coaches are beyond ludicrous.

I spoke with one coach in the Midwest this year who had a new deal that paid a base salary of $700,000. That was just the beginning. He got half of the college’s deal with Nike. That came to $1.3 million.

The contract was loaded with incentives for winning this championship or that bowl and there were hundreds of thousands of dollars in guaranteed “outside” income from the likes of radio and TV shows and endorsements.

In 2002, Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz signed a five-year deal for $510,000 base pay, making him the highest-paid university employee. An additional $910,000 was guaranteed from outside sources.

All of this is for what? Study after study has shown, in the words of a 1984 Notre Dame report, “no meaningful effect” of winning on academic donations. Win or lose in sports, universities get their alumni dollars.

Brand noted the “mistaken belief” that there is a connection between athletic achievement and money spent on athletic programs. There isn’t.

Neither is there a correlation between winning and making money in college sports.

In 1999, 37 of 104 Division I schools lost an average of 1 million dollars on their football programs. Meanwhile, the stories of corruption within college programs rage unabated, this week it being the Maurice Clarett allegations of payoffs he received while playing football at Ohio State.

Everybody goes, “of course.”

Brand is waging a come-from-behind battle. The horse long ago left the barn and it is wild. He says, “The battle must be waged by each university and its president, who ultimately is the one held accountable.”

It’s too late for just that. The NCAA, which is the universities, must jointly act to cap expenses on facilities, coaches, and related athletic expenses, as part of NCAA limits.

Finally, do not pay college athletes. If they are that good let them go form their own leagues and be professional. They can’t, of course. Without good old U on the front of the jersey, the name on the back is worthless, until they make the pros.

That is the chance college gives them as part of attending the university and part of the university is what college sports is and should remain.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.