Last week The Mass Media published a story written by Dustin Dopirak of the Daily Collegian from Penn State University addressing the issue of student athlete exploitation by the NCAA. The article spoke about student athletic programs making big money for some of the schools and the NCAA, an official non-profit organization with ironically high profits.
As a sports fan and writer I was personally surprised by some of the numbers produced in this article. It is not that I am unaware of the amount of money brought in by big football and basketball teams, especially considering the fact that the newest sport utility vehicle and Coke products sponsor seemingly every collegiate game watched on TV. As a member of the media, I know that advertising is not cheap and major networks will pay top dollar for the rights to broadcast big NCAA games.
In his article, Doporak noted that, “CBS signed a 14-year contract with the NCAA, paying it a total of $6 billion. The $370 million the NCAA received from CBS during the fiscal year ending in 2003 made up 87.6 percent of its total revenue.” Not a lot of money for 14 years? Perhaps if that price tag was for the entire season, but this contract covers only the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
What really struck me was the discussion about the high revenues and the lack of distribution among the athletes, who, let’s face it, bring in those revenues. The NCAA claims it doesn’t want to open athletes up to commercial exploitation, but it sounds like the NCAA doesn’t want to lose their tight grip on student cash cows.
Does the NCAA really need the reported infrastructure, which costs them annually $5.4 million in salaries, benefits, and entertainment expenses? According to the official NCAA website, the national office employs about 350 professionals; only 24 of those employees deal with educational services. Compare that number to the 35 employees dealing with “Championships” or the 53 employees of “Membership Services.” There are also 33 employees who focus on either “Promotions and Events,” “Brand Management,” Branding and Communications,” or “Finance.” The NCAA clearly states on its website that the “NCAA Corporate Champions and Corporate Partners are dedicated to excellence and are committed to developing marketing and promotional activities surrounding NCAA championships.” This of course explains why there are more people working on marketing, finance, promotions, brand management and championships than on educational services.
There are a variety of other positions held at this office which, to be fair, do not include job descriptions, but I am curious as why some of these other jobs exist. Why not help provide student athletes with benefits and security in the event their sports careers end in college? Even under education positions at the NCAA you will find a subheading called The Hall of Champions (HOC). Under this heading, positions range from director of the HOC, the assistant director of special events, associate director of sales and marketing, associate director of group sales, and assistant director of special projects for the HOC. With the exception of job titles such as associate director of education programs and associate director of Stay in Bounds, which most likely exist solely to keep GPAs high enough for eligibility (after all, no play no pay), the majority of positions are not for the students’ benefit.
Do not be confused with my stance as I am 100 percent for workers’ benefits and secure jobs. What I am against is a so-called non-profit organization raking in hundreds of millions of dollars and not redistributing that revenue back to the people who actually earn it. Sound a little too radical? Redistribution? How about this: the NCAA should stop scabbing off of student athletes. I understand that for the NCAA to exist there must be some sort of revenue, but let’s put this into perspective. At $370 million a year from CBS, 18,500 students could attend a college costing $20,000 a year. That could cover 1,233 teams estimating that each teach has 15 players on it. Remember now, we’re just talking about basketball tournament money with modest estimates; the new contract with CBS will bring in over $420 million a year.
Some more food for thought. In the past 23 years NCAA total revenue has increased 8,000 percent. The NCAA’s $1.7 billion television contract is bigger than any sports league deal with any network, the NCAA has it’s own Leerjet, marketing division, and real estate subsidiary, and it pays no state and federal taxes as it is a non-profit organization (Kansas City Star, 10/05/97). The NCAA executive director, however, says that he doesn’t “see that we [the NCAA] are money hungry.”
Next week we’ll talk more about the NCAA and its apparent fleecing of student athletes, as well as UMass Boston and where our Division III athletes fit into this matrix of revenue and spending. We will also address the NCAA’s responses to these claims, as they are not new accusations. Responses by readers are encouraged and can be sent to [email protected].