Jay Christiansen at TheWizardofOdds.com links a story Friday that quietly uncovers one of the main reasons for the insane expansion of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament from 64 to 96 teams. The story is about the Cal athletic department, but before you roll your eyes, read on.
(Meet the soon to be most-hated man in women’s college sports history)
Nanette Asimov of the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE reports this week that UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau made what will soon be a wildly unpopular but perfectly justified decision to demand that the Cal athletic department stop losing money.
Birgeneau also set a deadline, asking Cal’s “money-losing Department of Intercollegiate Athletics for solutions by June on getting it to solvency.”
One small problem with that idea. Getting most major university athletic departments to solvency would mean dropping virtually all the sports programs. Besides football and men’s basketball, what sport at Cal or any major school is actually solvent? With few exceptions, there aren’t any. Welcome to reality.
The vast majority of NCAA sports gush red ink, which is certainly related to why the NCAA is currently in a desperate bid for a cash infusion via the expansion of the NCAA Tournament from 64 to 96 teams.
The extra dollars raised by the expansion of the March Madness field will go to being able to continue to stage an eye-popping 87 NCAA Championships per year. That’s precisely why the NCAA Board of Directors is increasing the men’s basketball tournament field - despite what the governing body may tell the public.
Those additional monies though will not go directly to any schools, who have their own problems with massive shortfalls. Those shortfalls are precisely the reason you are now seeing rampant talk of conference expansion and possible super conferences.
The extraordinary debt incurred by second division schools in BCS conferences because of overextended athletic departments cannot be sustained. But a conference expansion means more television and bowl game revenue generated to prop up the dreg schools unable to compete on the field and at the gate. Though eventually that Ponzi scheme will run dry too.
Ironic that Cal is taking the first step of any major school in demanding financial accountability of its athletic dept., considering that the university is the flagship state school of the UC system. But with the California economy in ashes, university officials and donors understand that public subsidies for athletics are now, effectively extinct.
While some individual schools might be able to sustain lopsided athletic dept. budgets through increased student fees and donations, most can’t.
Major college sports is in much the same situation the NHL was in before its last work stoppage. The business model of the NHL was broken because there wasn’t sufficient revenues to account for large salary payouts to players. In the case of Cal, those player payouts and expenses are scholarships and the cost of operating a Pac-10 conference sports program.
Again, some schools can probably afford to lose money to eternity thanks to donors. But the NCAA, because of the monster it has created, isn’t in a position to leave any school behind. Especially the second-division BCS conference schools. The NCAA needs those schools as constant fodder to maintain the credibility of sports properties that net innumberable millions from television networks and school donors.
No one wants to see schools have to cut back on sports and athletic scholarships, but the reality is that eventually, it will happen. Meantime, by expanding the NCAA Tournament from 64 to 96 teams to cover future costs of staging a ridiculous number of yearly championships, the NCAA is killing its golden goose in what is obviously a futile bid to support what is a broken system.
From Asimov’s Chronicle Piece:
“This is meant to be a come-to-Jesus moment for athletics, in which (the department) realizes that it needs to make difficult choices to stay within a sustainable level of resources,” said law professor and panelist Christopher Kutz, chairman of UC Berkeley’s Academic Senate of tenured instructors.
What we’re witnessing with the needless March Madness expansion to 96 teams is the NCAA Tournament dying for the sins of overextended athletic departments wrought by the egos of university presidents, conference commissioners, athletic directors and well-meaning social scientists.
The suffering officially begins April 29, 2010.
8:23 pm on April 2nd, 2010
…and the reason they are overextended? Title IX. That’s the reason behind all of this.
9:03 pm on April 2nd, 2010
Congrats, Title IX. You’ve officially ruined everything.
1:52 am on April 3rd, 2010
F*** Title IX.
7:33 am on April 3rd, 2010
…the US is following California. Title iX = Obamacare.
10:24 am on April 3rd, 2010
Yeah, eff the women, why should they be allowed to play college sports? In fact, why should they be allowed to hold jobs, vote, or pretty much do anything at all?
You idiots didn’t actually read the article, or you’d understand that virtually every sport aside from men’s basketball and football lose money everywhere. So, feel free to lump in men’s crew, men’s gymnastics, track and field, swimming, water polo, hockey, etc etc etc in with all of those “Title IX losers” you’re all focusing on.
11:35 am on April 3rd, 2010
Right, except that schools aren’t required by law to maintain a men’s crew team in order to keep the ratio of male to female athletes acceptable.
12:15 pm on April 3rd, 2010
Fine. So we keep the (sometimes) positive revenue-generating sports: men’s basketball and football. We keep women’s basketball, and throw in women’s volleyball. Title IX is satisfied.
EVERY OTHER SPORT IS A MONEY LOSER. You really want to bitch about women’s basketball and women’s volleyball? Actually, I would suspect some programs make money on those sports… I’d be willing to bet UCONN makes more money on it’s women’s basketball program than it’s men’s.
The argument that Title IX is “killing college sports” just doesn’t hold water, but it’s unsurprising it is the first thing brought up. The fact of the matter is we are in a recession and a lot more than college sports is being impacted. But don’t let that get in the way of some good ‘ol misogyny.
12:30 pm on April 3rd, 2010
Actually, no. Title IX would not be satisfied with that arrangement. Proportionality is based on the student population as a whole. So for the average university it would take women’s volleyball and basketball just to offset football, which as mentioned in most cases doesn’t actually require funding.
There are two quick and easy alterations to the law that would make implementation of Title IX much fairer.
1. Base the proportional opportunities on money spent, not participation. If a university’s football and men’s basketball teams (or their women’s basketball team for that matter) can support themselves with no additional school funding, then that sport isn’t counted.
That way you still have opportunities for girls, but you aren’t punishing non-revenue male sports because football teams happen to have large rosters.
2. Count cheerleading on the female side. Cheerleading is, by far, the biggest sport by participation for girls in this country, yet those numbers are not currently counted in the totals for female athletics participants.
1:18 pm on April 3rd, 2010
snd_dsgnr, you’re making sound arguments, some of which I am sympathetic and to and can agree with.
Do you honestly believe the current issue described in the article is because of Title IX? Do you feel that if we just got rid of all women’s sports, that athletic departments around the country would somehow all go into the black? Because I don’t. I firmly believe athletic departments around the country are suffering and would still be in the red without a single woman’s sport on the ledger.
While I agree talking about Title IX is important, I think it’s a red herring to this issue, and a commonly picked upon point. There are plenty of revenue-losing men’s teams, in fact, many football programs lose revenue.
The real issue is whether sports deserve to be subsidized at a university level, like most other departments. I say YES but I feel the Title IX bitching is distracting from the real question.
1:34 pm on April 3rd, 2010
No I don’t think that Title IX is the only problem, nor do I think that all women’s sports should be eliminated.
I do think that there have been unintended consequences of Title IX that are contributing to the problem, and as I sort of implied in my last post I don’t think those would be that hard to fix.
There should be a middle ground on the issue, but debates tend to break down into one extreme or the other. Either it’s someone saying that women’s sports should just go away, or it’s someone that takes any criticism of Title IX as an attack on all of women’s sports.
You mentioned football programs that lose revenue, in that instance the funding that the university has to make up the difference on should be counted. Individual universities should decide on how much they’re willing to spend on their athletic departments, and division of that money should be what Title IX enforcement is concerned with.
Additionally, I think it’s only fair that if a school makes an honest effort to field a women’s team in a sport but doesn’t find enough interest from the student body to fill the spots then they shouldn’t have to cut a men’s team just to make the numbers work.
The money that would have gone to fielding a team for the women should be made available the following season in case interest changes, but male student athletes that do want to participate in a sport shouldn’t be prohibited because the university couldn’t find enough females to make an equal ratio.
1:49 pm on April 3rd, 2010
Sorry about that, browser put your name in that box for some reason. IE sucks.
3:25 pm on April 3rd, 2010
Brooks… you do this quite often: you make claims where there to support a conclusion that isnt supported by the information that you present.
YOU state that “Jay Christiansen at TheWizardofOdds.com links a story Friday that quietly uncovers one of the main reasons for the insane expansion of the NCAA men basketball tournament from 64 to 96 teams.” Where does Christiansen link the expansion of the BB tourney to Asimov’s athletic department red-ink frustration? HE DOESNT but you state he does. Is this another case of you trying to create a story? If not, where is this obvious Wizardofodds.com connection? Neither link mentions the BB tourney expansion…. so did you forget something in your writeup or are you making up the linkage of these stories to the BB expansion?
10:05 pm on April 4th, 2010
Could this decision cost Allison Stokke her scholarship?
11:15 pm on April 4th, 2010
BET: Thank you. Came in to say similar.
8:53 am on April 5th, 2010
The smarter, much quicker fix would be to cut the maximum number of football scholarships back 10%… it spread the talent more evenly, and allow middle tier schools to save a little money. Big schools can use the money to, say, send their players to class, maybe?
12:41 pm on April 5th, 2010
The correct answer is - repeal Title IX.
Granted taking the logical route isn’t always the easiest path. You still have to get past the government, politicians, leaches, and all the colorful wackos out there if handout land.
1:12 am on April 9th, 2010
YouShouldAllBeAshamed,
Damn, I think I was married to you once. Do you ever stop bitching?