Arizona Daily Star: Bill has come due in NCAA sports

[Plebe]

Greg Hansen: The bill has come due on out-of-control spending in the NCAA

The coronavirus has exposed colleges' skyrocketing salaries.

tucson.com

"Today, in what is sure to become the Great Depression of college athletics, a lot of people are wondering how salaries of college coaches and administrators became so warped in what seems like no time at all. How did college sports go from a mid ’90s platform of “cost containment” to an era of private jets, paying $250,000 for a search firm to help identify and hire a head coach, and football programs spending between $60,000 to $100,000 a year to stay in local hotels the night before games with round-trip police escorts for their luxury buses?"​

Women's basketball and UConn are included in the discussion.

 

[JellyBean]

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

 

[veryolddog]

This is a very interesting article. Good thinking. Winning has become the goal. And winning has its rewards both financially and in self esteem. It will be interesting how they can reconcile the two issues.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

This is a very interesting article. Good thinking. Winning has become the goal. And winning has its rewards both financially and in self esteem. It will be interesting how they can reconcile the two issues.

I also enjoyed the article, the Star is our local paper, and Hansen our local crotchety sports columnist.

Typically, if he can find a way to dis the University of Arizona (as it is) he will find it, but he reveres the past glories of the school.

The article is doubtless accurate, but I think things need to play out a bit more to see how much belt tightening occurs. In a later thread, one can see that Stanford is indeed belt-tightening, by eliminating sports. Schools like Arizona are not really so bloated on sports, per se, but if anything what they spend on them. And in the cosmic sense, UArizona is actually known to be stingy.

 

[Razman43]

It is indeed just the beginning. Stanford cut 11 sports today, all non revenue for sure, from an already large stable of 36 varsity sports. They are keeping 25 that they believe keeps them competitive and in compliance. Many more schools will be certain to follow suit this summer

 

[kingdobbs]

I have to say, this isn’t the way I imagined the big money bubble bursting. My money was honestly on the networks refusing to pay billions more each cycle when advertising and subscriber revenue increases aren’t keeping pace.

I mean, I’m all for the end of this antiquated and elitist system no matter how it happens, I just didn’t think this was how.

 

[hoopsfan22]

Schools should demand some form of subsidization from the NFL and NBA if they want schools to continue providing free minor leagues.

 

[Steelerone]

Schools should demand some form of subsidization from the NFL and NBA if they want schools to continue providing free minor leagues.

Not a bad idea Hoopsfan. Unless push came to shove I'm not sure it will happen. When it comes down to the core problem it's television money and in order for something to go out it has to come in first. I think there is going to be some type of overhaul in the way networks spend their money and I'm not sure it's going to be done in a way that both pro and college teams will appreciate. We used to say "It's a new day." Now we mean it.

 

[kingdobbs]

Not a bad idea Hoopsfan. Unless push came to shove I'm not sure it will happen. When it comes down to the core problem it's television money and in order for something to go out it has to come in first. I think there is going to be some type of overhaul in the way networks spend their money and I'm not sure it's going to be done in a way that both pro and college teams will appreciate. We used to say "It's a new day." Now we mean it.

Not for nothing, but there’s a model to follow in this that has been doing things for about a decade in college hockey, the organization College Hockey Inc, though their goal has been more to promote NCAA varsity as an equally valid path to the pros as Canadian major juniors more so than to specifically subsidize the schools involved (while I think their support was influential in the decisions of Penn State and Arizona State to elevate hockey to varsity, and I reckon in the currently COVID-halted plans of Illinois and Navy to do the same, I also don’t find much to say in support that said support was in any way instrumental, that is, I can’t say the decisions wouldn’t have happened in its absence).

So maybe it wouldn’t translate perfectly to a subsidy partnership, but it gives a model to follow.

 

[hoopsfan22]

Not for nothing, but there’s a model to follow in this that has been doing things for about a decade in college hockey, the organization College Hockey Inc, though their goal has been more to promote NCAA varsity as an equally valid path to the pros as Canadian major juniors more so than to specifically subsidize the schools involved (while I think their support was influential in the decisions of Penn State and Arizona State to elevate hockey to varsity, and I reckon in the currently COVID-halted plans of Illinois and Navy to do the same, I also don’t find much to say in support that said support was in any way instrumental, that is, I can’t say the decisions wouldn’t have happened in its absence).

So maybe it wouldn’t translate perfectly to a subsidy partnership, but it gives a model to follow.

I thought Penn State did it because they had a T. Boone Pickens type come in and drop $100 million on a new hockey arena? When someone else is bankrolling you, it's easy to make those leaps.

 

[UcMiami]

It seems to me we are seeing every week a new college football team closing down after their 'soft' reopening. UNC just had a cluster of 37 staff and athletes that closed work-outs, and now Ivy league has cancelled all fall sports.

Not sure how any school can justify flying around the country to play games in the current climate. Hopefully we drop down again from our current 50,000 cases per day, but I'm not sure how that will happen. I was feeling pretty good about CT and specifically Storrs until an all day 4th party 3 doors down this past weekend.

The fixed costs at Universities for facilities and athletic staff are huge and the revenue, TV and otherwise, is not going to be what was in the budget. And the states are not going to be in position to cover any short fall.

Edit: Ohio State just paused all athletics activity as well: The pause affects men’s and women’s basketball, field hockey, football, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball.

 

[Monte]

Schools should demand some form of subsidization from the NFL and NBA if they want schools to continue providing free minor leagues.

I am not a fan of the NFL+ the NBA. Unless they straighten themselves out, they will be losing money fast. If what I hear is true, there will be protests,and political moves by the players and some owners which will drive thousands and thousands of fans away. Sports was always a place where fans could go to get away from the foolishness of the screwed up world, composed mostly of people who don't know a football from a basketball, and now, these fools threaten to take away the sports we love.

 

[kingdobbs]

I thought Penn State did it because they had a T. Boone Pickens type come in and drop $100 million on a new hockey arena? When someone else is bankrolling you, it's easy to make those leaps.

That was really the main driver, to be sure.

Like I said, not instrumental. But influential.

 

[hoopsfan22]

I am not a fan of the NFL+ the NBA. Unless they straighten themselves out, they will be losing money fast. If what I hear is true, there will be protests,and political moves by the players and some owners which will drive thousands and thousands of fans away. Sports was always a place where fans could go to get away from the foolishness of the screwed up world, composed mostly of people who don't know a football from a basketball, and now, these fools threaten to take away the sports we love.

I think you're being a bit dramatic here. No one's threatening to take away sports you love except for maybe Covid-19.

 

[Monte]

I think you're being a bit dramatic here. No one's threatening to take away sports you love except for maybe Covid-19.

I guess I meant: take away the way sports WERE(just a game, not a place to express one's feelings).

 

[msf22b]

I guess I meant: take away the way sports WERE(just a game, not a place to express one's feelings).

In today's society, that would work if sports were performed by robots.
These athletes, many of color are (rightly or wrongly) making use of their
(deserved) prominence to forward the mini-revolution we find ourselves in.

One can admire that Maya separated the two parts of her existence.
Other's, equally worthy, choose not to.

It's not ye olde days; the world is crowding in.

 

[Monte]

In today's society, that would work if sports were performed by robots.
These athletes, many of color are (rightly or wrongly) making use of their
(deserved) prominence to forward the mini-revolution we find ourselves in.

One can admire that Maya separated the two parts of her existence.
Other's, equally worthy, choose not to.

It's not ye olde days; the world is crowding in.

That's right; pretty soon there will be about 500 fans at a game.

 

[kingdobbs]

I guess I meant: take away the way sports WERE(just a game, not a place to express one's feelings).

Right. Because sports were NEVER political until just now.

 

[kingdobbs]

 

[kingdobbs]

Ooops, where did all those pictures come from? Probably some alternate dimension where politics and sports have always intermixed, and certainly not this dimension.

 

[Monte]