Blog Archives: May 2009

[Ashlen]

This is an archive of blog entries I published to the old Other Side Sports blog during May 2009.

[Ashlen]

Trying to understand APR Punishments
05/13/2009

Last week, the NCAA released their latest APR score reports for
Division I teams. Although many teams were punished through losses
of scholarships and warnings, this is the first year that teams were
banned from postseason play for deficient APR scores. Jacksonville
State has been banned from this year's FCS football playoffs and the
University of Tennessee Chattanooga and Centenary have been banned
from this year's Division I men's basketball tournament.

Although the APR is a simple calculation by itself, the NCAA grants
bonus points and special waivers to schools who may not have the
resources to score acceptable APR scores. Bonus points can be added
if athletes are brought back to the school and graduate. Waivers are
granted to schools that, for example, cannot build academic support
centers for athletics. This clearly makes APR punishments just as
qualitative as it is quantitative.

The graduation rate breakdown for the three most severely punished
schools is interesting. Based on 2008 NCAA graduation rate data, the
4-class (last four years averaged) federal graduation for all male
Jacksonville State students is 29%. The 4-class federal graduation
rate for JSU football is 51% and the 4-class GSR for football is 49%
(JSU likely had JUCO transfers). At Chattanooga, the graduation rate
for all male students is 38%. In basketball, it is 23% with a 34%
GSR. Finally, Centenary has a graduation rate of 49% for all male
students and 46% for male basketball players with a 82% GSR.

Interestingly, the football team graduation rate at JSU is
significantly higher than the graduation rate for the male general
student body. At Centenary, there is only a small difference between
the men's basketball team and the male student body. Despite this
and the fact that JSU and Centenary are schools with small
endowments, neither of them were able to score waivers like HBCUs and
other colleges were able to do.

Let's turn our attention to the bigger schools. There are many
schools I could analyze, but let's focus on two. The University of
Texas at Austin and Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge
received no APR infractions of any kind thanks to the strength of
their APR scores, but their graduation rates are terrible in many
sports. The 4-year federal graduation rate for UT-Austin football
players is 40% (50% GSR) and their men's basketball graduation rate
is 33% (31% GSR). This compares to a 72% graduation rate for all
male students at UT-Austin. LSU has a 55% graduation rate for all
male students, but only a 37% rate (54% GSR) for football and 33%
(40% GSR) for men's basketball. That said, all these teams had APR
scores above the 925 cutoff.

How could this be? The slow graduation rate metrics may not reflect
improvements (or decreases in the case of JSU and Centenary) as
compared to the almost instantaneous APR. This could certainly be
true with the rapid growth of academic support centers at big
schools, but there is a lot of reason to think that those academic
support centers are just moving athletes towards graduation without
providing improvement in education. Perhaps the big schools are now
motivated to bring back old non-graduate athletes and graduate them
(while giving these students scholarships that don't count against
the limit for current players) in order to gain APR bonus points.
There are positives and negatives to this. Perhaps the big schools
have found a way to use creative accounting.

Does anyone have any ideas or explanations regarding how the NCAA
awards waivers and why there is a discrepancy between graduation
rates and APR scores?

[Ashlen]

The Knight Commission Discusses Tax-exempt Status
05/13/2009

The tax-exempt status of college sports has been put back into the
spotlight thanks to a Knight Commission panel. To summarize the Inside Higher Ed
summary of the discussion, John Colombo, tax law professor at the University of
Illinois College of Law, finds that removing tax-exempt status from
college sports would be difficult because of all the other activities
colleges do. Adding additional taxes on sports profit may be an
option, but Colombo seems to imply that colleges would just use
creative accounting to eliminate taxable profit. Instead, Colombo
suggests that Congress could mandate that profits from revenue sports
be used to pay for non-revenue sports since many schools already
justify revenue sports that way. Colombo also suggests Congress sets
expenditure limits. Robert Zemsky, founding director of the Learning
Alliance for Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania,
believes that 40 or so top spending institutions set the tone for the
rest of college sports and that controlling those 40 might set a more
positive tone.

As Colombo suggests, it is probably useless to implement any new
policies if the schools will not follow the spirit of the law.
Expenditure limits are an interesting idea, but schools would
probably justify coaching salaries by stating that the money comes
from private sources. Either way, it may not be constitutional to
set such limits.

[Ashlen]

Quinnipiac rigged rosters to satisfy Title IX requirements
05/14/2009
 
The Connecticut Post (via Inside Higher Ed) reported this week that coaches in the Quinnipiac athletic department would manipulate the rosters of male sports by dropping athletes off the roster right before the Title IX reporting date and then adding the dropped athletes back to the roster after the reporting date.  The Quinnipiac AD, Jack McDonald, admits to the practice, but denies that this policy was systematic policy:

“The issue was first made public Monday, when Sparks testified that some coaches dropped male players from squads before their seasons began to make Title IX reports to the U.S. Department of Education appear more gender balanced. The coaches would reinstate the dropped players days later, Sparks testified. She did not specify which teams were involved.

McDonald said the university did set goals for the size of each team in an effort to get the proportions of men and women in the athletic department more in line with the proportions of the school's general population. But he said the administration did not condone the practice of dropping and adding players to meet those goals.

"Nobody told coaches that, 'This is how you get around it [the rules], guys,'" he said. McDonald said the issue has been addressed. “

This isn’t the most creative athletic department manipulation that I’ve heard of, but I am guessing that it probably a common occurrence.

[Ashlen]

Sonny Vaccaro on high school athletes going professional
05/14/2009 
 
Marlen Garcia of USA Today published an interesting interview with Sonny Vaccaro, the famed shoe company representative, high school basketball player advisor, and high school basketball tournament organizer that helped escalate the professionalization of college sports.  Vaccaro blames the defection of Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler to professional European teams on bad NCAA and NBA policies.  There is nothing new with that, but he put an interesting twist on why basketball players are viewed differently than other athletes:

“The disgust this movement has generated bothers Vaccaro because he thinks it has traces of prejudice. Gymnasts, golfers and tennis players, among others, forgo traditional schooling to train full time at a young age without raising eyebrows. "They're white," Vaccaro says.”

Paul Hewitt, head of the Black Coaches Administrators, takes a different view:

“Paul Hewitt, Georgia Tech men's basketball coach and president of the Black Coaches Administrators, has a different view: "The reality is if you're a tennis player or golfer, your family has a safety net."

Hewitt declined to comment on Vaccaro but expressed concern that young African Americans are getting a bad message: "It scares me that the message we're sending to African-African youth is don't worry about your college education."’

Certainly there is a difference between tennis players and basketball players aside from race.  As Hewitt points out, there are class differences between the sports. Also, there is the  team vs. individual sport aspect.  Of course, maybe the public does not care what small sport athletes do as compared to the decisions of top basketball players.  Would the public be as outraged about minor athletes skipping educational opportunities for sport if they got equal publicity?

[Ashlen]

Tennessee football’s new recruit
05/14/2009

Daniel Hood, a University of Tennessee (Knoxville) football recruit, has stirred up controversy.  I will let Michael Rosenberg of FOX Sports summarize the situation:

Hood is a highly regarded defensive end/tight end prospect who just signed with Lane Kiffin and Tennessee. When Hood was 13, a juvenile court found that he helped rape his 14-year-old cousin.

There you go. Two sentences, summing him up. Enough for you to draw a conclusion.

But wait. We should probably mention that he was 13 then and is 19 now. And that former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer — no prude when it came to off-field misconduct by his players — stopped recruiting him. And that the victim wrote a letter of support for Hood.

According to court records obtained by The Associated Press, Hood and another teenager were charged in 2003 with assaulting a 14-year-old girl. According to the AP, the victim's legs and wrists were tied and her eyes and mouth were covered with duct tape before she was raped at the home of Hood's father.

Court records also said the other teen, Robert Sanico, then 17, took a toilet plunger and penetrated the victim with the handle, which had been covered with cellophane. Sanico pleaded guilty in adult court to charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape and is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

In juvenile court, Hood was found delinquent and ordered into a rehabilitation program. He was in state custody when he enrolled at Knoxville Catholic High School.

Now 19 years old and not yet in college, Hood is about to become a running, weightlifting referendum on what we expect from college sports. And he will become a symbol, right or wrong, of the Lane Kiffin era at Tennessee. Six months and zero games old, it is already one of the most controversial reigns in recent Southeastern Conference history.

Rosenberg also accurately summarized how people will react to this story:

You can reasonably argue that Daniel Hood symbolizes everything that is wrong with college sports — a criminal who does not deserve a scholarship to represent a state university. Or you can reasonably argue that he symbolizes everything that is right with college sports — a kid who made the mistake of anybody's lifetime at age 13, and doesn't want that mistake to define his life.

How you view Daniel Hood is directly related to how you view college sports. There are those who think contemporary college sports are corporate entertainment, an affront to higher education. And there are those who believe sports still play a positive role in college life bringing people together, giving them a sense of community, providing memories for a lifetime. There are those who think a good, principled college coach can be a wonderful ambassador for a university. And there are those who are appalled by the multimillion-dollar salaries for coaches while players are herded through the system like cattle.

This is an interesting situation.  Hood may be a good football player, but one has to wonder how supportive the Tennessee campus community of Hood.  There is no doubt that there are some University of Tennessee students and parents that would be appalled by Tennessee’s openness to bring Hood on campus.  Even if Hood is a model student, the university will certainly suffer from negative publicity.  If Hood repeats his offenses, the university will be vilified.  Is it worth the risk?  Perhaps Hood deserves a second chance, but would a regular student with the same record be equally welcomed?  I have my doubts about that.

[Ashlen]

The Useless Ethics Committee
05/15/2009

ESPN.com's Andy Katz has a new report on the latest meeting of an ethics committee headed up by the NCAA and the National Association of Basketball Coaches.  The hot topic for this ethics summit was to discuss the relationship coaches have with parents, high school coaches, and especially player agents and handlers.  Of course, this is a major issue right now in men’s basketball with the O.J. Mayo scandal at USC where Mayo’s handler was accused of being paid off by the USC basketball coach and the UConn allegations which also involves questionable activity involving player handlers. 

The issue of how to handle outsiders is an important point, but the committee response to these issues is absolutely hilarious.  Here are some comments from Katz’ article:

"Beilein said the hope is that if all coaches are obligated to watch an officiating/rules video in the fall and take yearly compliance tests, they should essentially be forced to hear out the ethics committee's charge. How they accomplish that -- through e-mail, mailings or a video -- is still to be determined. Having a human resources-driven workplace policy video might be an example with actors playing the role of coach, player, agent and parent in a "what-would-you-do type of scenario."

"Everyone sometimes thinks they're on an island, but we want them to see how to deal with it the right way, and if you do that, you can still win every year," Beilein said. "We all have unique problems in different conferences."

The NCAA is big on the "Don't Bet On It" posters that line college campuses discouraging gambling. But maybe they also should post signs warning coaches about ethics issues that they would see when they walk into a high school, junior college or AAU-sanctioned event. Campus signage also could be directed at runners and agents saying, "Don't talk to my players." Coaches tend to be afraid of backlash if they speak up, but if the ethics committee wants to have teeth, it must go on the offensive without the fear of offending."

Did Mr. Beilein really suggest that a human-resources-driven workplace policy video would help this situation?  I seriously hope Mr. Beilein made that statement as a joke.  I also have my doubts, very strong doubts, that a “Don’t talk to my players” poster will deter agents. 

I believe that most of the coaches are aware of the rules.  The coaches that break the rules, or the spirit of the rules, are ones trying to fulfill the mission handed to them by college and athletic department administrators.  Of course, that is the nature of competitive sports.  Perhaps the best way of eliminating anti-amateur agents is to eliminate the recruiting stage altogether by letting organizations that specifically deal with amateur athletes run the show without the need to recruit to individual competitive organizations and let the athletes that want to be professionals go the professional route without organized interference.  Of course, that notion would probably be laughed at by college sports administrators just as much as I laugh at the idea of a “human-resources-driven” video solving the ills of men’s basketball!         

[Ashlen]

How will USC be punished IF they are punished?
05/18/2009

With all the publicity Southern California has been getting lately with the pay-for-play scandals involving former football star Reggie Bush and former basketball star O.J. Mayo, many sportswriters have questioned what USC’s fate will be.  Yesterday, two newspaper writers opined on what they felt the NCAA Infractions Committee will do to USC.

Ron Higgins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal and Joe Rexrode of the Lansing State Journal both opined that the NCAA does not come down hard on big school violators.  Higgins particularly took a pessimistic view comparing what happens to big school cheaters to small school cheaters, Higgins uses the example of South Alabama men’s tennis, where the big schools get off easy for big infractions and the small schools take major hits for minor infractions.  Rexrode believes that the NCAA punishes small schools in order to make it look like it is still an organization holding up amateur athletic ideals, but that the USC infractions are so serious that action needs to be taken.  Although neither writer mentioned it, the old Jerry Tarkanian quote involving the NCAA being so mad at Kentucky that they put Cleveland State on probation would be fit in this discussion. 

It seems unlikely that USC will get off free in this situation with all the publicity and strong evidence surrounding the two allegations.  Still, it is also unlikely that any serious penalties, like a reduction in TV appearances, will be used against USC even if the situation warrants it.  But as Higgins asks, why do small programs get big penalties while the big schools get hit with a wet noodle if they get punished at all?

As a 2006 New York Times article discussing the same allegations against Reggie Bush points out, the NCAA does not have subpoena power.  I am sure the major actors USC and other big programs know this and are counseled by top lawyers to try to cover things up and paint as pretty of a picture as possible.  Even if the small Infractions Committee tries hard to uncover dirty deeds, they may not have the power to do that unless the evidence is so obvious as it may be in this case.  The small schools, on the other hand, may not have the same level of legal advice and may feel pressured to tell the Infractions Committee the truth.

But as the NYT article also points out anecdotally, the major infractions doled out by the NCAA since the very late 1980’s has not been successful in deterring on the field success.  Chad McEvoy found this in a scientific study of major infractions in the major sports between 1988 and 2000.  With this in mind, perhaps USC should not fear punishment.  I doubt any of the punishment options the NCAA has on the table will change the mindset at USC. 

[Ashlen]

Should the Bowls pay more to the teams?
05/20/2009 

Dave Curtis of The Sporting News published a five point list of reforms that could take place in FBS football in order to save schools money.  Four of the suggestions seem pretty straightforward, but I have to question Curtis' second suggestion.

2. Minimum $1 million bowl payouts. So the bowls say they help college football and mean a lot to the fabric of the game. Put up or shut up time, guys. No school should lose money on a bowl trip, even one across a country or an ocean. These games need to fund travel for players, coaches, bands and cheerleaders; anything short of the magic million figure, and the game gets decertified. Take some of that local economy profit and push it back to the folks responsible for creating it.

There are at least a couple of problems with this suggestion.  First, schools manage to lose money even when they win the BCS National Championship.  Increasing bowl payouts, much of which will be distributed throughout conference membership, is not going to make a dent.  If anything, it might just encourage colleges to waste more money sending non-essential people to the bowl games.  This should also be a cautionary point for anyone thinking a playoff would be a huge economic booster for athletic programs because it is very well possible that those losses would just be multiplied over multiple games. 

Secondly, there is a large amount of research suggesting that bowl games (and even the Super Bowl) are money losers for the local economy.  If anything, perhaps the schools should have to re-pay the losses the local economy incur and “push it back to the folks responsible for creating it.” 

[Ashlen]

The CBO on taxing (or not) college sports
05/20/2009

The Congressional Budget Office released a report this week looking at whether it would be beneficial for Congress to further look at taxing aspects of college athletics.  The report looked at budget reports that the Indianapolis Star collected through FOIA a couple years back.  Here’s how the CBO summarized their findings:

- Athletic departments in NCAA Division I schools derive a considerably larger share of their revenue from commercial activities than do other parts of the universities.

- In the case of Division IA schools (a subset of schools in Division I that meet NCAA requirements for football programs), 60 percent to 80 percent of athletic departments’ revenue comes from activities that can be described as commercial. That proportion is seven to eight times that for the rest of the schools’ activities and programs, suggesting that their sports programs may have crossed the line from educational to commercial endeavors. Revenue from commercial activities accounts for a much smaller share of athletic department revenue (20 percent to 30 percent) for schools in the rest of Division I.

- Nonetheless, removing the major tax preferences currently available to university athletic departments would be unlikely to significantly alter the nature of those programs or garner much tax revenue even if the sports programs were classified, for tax purposes, as engaging in unrelated commercial activity. As long as athletic departments remained a part of the larger nonprofit or public university, schools would have considerable opportunity to shift revenue, costs, or both between their taxed and untaxed sectors, rendering efforts to tax that unrelated income largely ineffective. Changing the tax treatment of income from certain sources, such as corporate sponsorships or royalties from sales of branded merchandise, would be more likely to affect only the most commercial teams; it would also create less opportunity for shifting revenue or costs.

The last point is similar to a point I discussed yesterday on the OSS forum.  Although athletic department officials, the media, the public, researchers, and reformers make statements regarding the profitability or non-profitability for college athletics, the reality is that athletic budget reports are so arbitrary that it is very difficult to make meaningful conclusions about the profitability of college sports.  On the other hand, this does support John Colombo’s call for a better reporting measure.  We will have to see how this report sways the way Congress, particularly Sen. Charles Grassley, views the non-profit status of big-time college athletics.   

[Ashlen]

Double-A Zone blogger defends non-profit status
05/22/2009

Marta Lawrence, a blogger at the NCAA Double-A Zone, defended questions brought up in this week’s CBO report questioning the non-profit status of college sports.  (I commented on the report earlier this week.)

Lawrence offers a few reasons why college sports uphold the educational mission of higher education:

"What the CBO fails to acknowledge, however, is that NCA A student-athletes graduate at a higher rate than their non-athlete peers. In addition, athletics enhances a student-athlete's college experience by instilling life-lessons like sportsmanship, teamwork and time management, which will better prepare them for life after college. And, let's not forget that athletics provide for $1.5 billion in annual scholarships to student-athletes that might not otherwise afford an education."

…

"Although many factors impact the number of applicants for any given year, there is often a correlation between increased attention for athletics and an increase in applicants.

Applications to Northwestern University, for example, increased 20 percent between 1995 and 1996, following a surprise win over Notre Dame's football team. A 2008 study by a professor of applied economics at Virginia Tech concluded that universities making it to the Sweet 16 in the men's basketball tournament see an average 3 percent boost in applications the following year. The National Champions tend to see a 7 or 8 percent boost."

Yes, it is true that athletes graduate at a higher rate than non-athletes in schools with athletics.  However, those gains are not present in the DI revenue sports that often taint things for all sports.  Also, it must be considered that athletes get considerable more academic support, some of which may not be legitimate academic tutoring, at the big DI schools that the CBO report focuses on.  Yes, athletes do have major time challenges, but they (at least the ones in the federal graduation rate reports) also receive scholarships that regular students may not receive in addition to the access to private academic support centers. 

On a related note, research does indicates that athletic participation can lead to learning life lessons.  However, the research also indicates that it is not a given.  The environment that the athletes are in must positively support the desired attributes in order for it to be learned.  If schools cheat academically, illegally pay players, deemphasize academic work, or teach on-the-field cheating, it is possible that athletes would receive negative life lessons. 

And, yes, the Pope and Pope study does indicate that athletic success can improve quantity and quality of applicants, but only for the best of the best schools on the field.  The top 20 may see gains, but what about the other 300 plus schools in Division I that spend big amounts of money and never make the Sweet 16 in men’s basketball or top 25 in FBS football?  Also, there is no guarantee of long term admission gains through athletics. 

There is nothing inaccurate about Lawrence’s claims.  It is true that athletics can support the academic mission of a university.  However, it is much easier for athletics to not support the mission than it is for it to support the mission when such a heavy emphasis is put on winning.  Also, perhaps there would be greater admission and life lesson attainment if the money spent on varsity sports (which Lawrence admits loses money) was spent on admissions recruiting, academic scholarships, participatory club/intramural sports, or any number of alternative ideas.       

Of course, all of this ignores the commercial and professional aspects of big-time college athletics that was the centerpiece of the CBO's report.     

[Ashlen]

The Economics of High School Athletic Associations
05/27/2009
 
Patrick Dorsey of ESPNRISE.com published an interesting article last week discussing the economics of high school sports at the state level.  Even with the explosive growth of coverage and interest in high school/prep sports in the last few years, state athletic associations are struggling to stay in the black even with new revenue streams.  The article discusses issues such as the economic impact of cable television broadcast rights, corporate sponsorships, merchandising, and facility rental agreements.   Based on this article, it is not hard to imagine that the increasing visibility of high school sports has led to an increase in the cost of organizing high school sports. 

[Ashlen]

California's Community College Sports in Jeopardy
05/28/2009

Those following the news will know that California is suffering from significant budget issues right now.  One proposal Gov. Schwarzenegger has offered is to list P.E. courses at community colleges as non-credit courses.  This would cutoff a significant funding source that California’s community colleges use to fund varsity sports.   Victor Garcia of the Visalia Times-Delta explains the situation:

Proposed state budget cuts may result in the elimination of intercollegiate sports competition at California community colleges.

College of the Sequoias President Bill Scroggins said Tuesday that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislative Analyst's Office have proposed classifying physical education courses as noncredit courses.

The proposal is another drastic move to close the state's current $21 billion deficit.

Colleges are paid less for noncredit courses $2,745 per full-time student versus $4,565 per full-time student for credit courses.

So the proposal would amount to a 40-percent reduction in funding, said Scott Lay, Community College League of California president.

"It would almost result in the complete elimination of community college athletics, which would also have ramifications at Division I schools and four-year institutions, which rely heavily on two-year-'college transfers," Lay said. "Many of their athletes come from community colleges."

I’m sure that the Division I schools will survive, but there are some positives and negatives to this situation.  The loss of P.E. credits could mean that California students will lose an opportunity to learn about keeping fit, but on the other hand, one has to wonder how much benefit the students are gaining from these P.E. classes.  Obviously, the elimination of varsity teams will take away the opportunity to compete for many, but I’m sure Californians have bigger things to worry about than community college sports. 

[Ashlen]

Those Charitable Bowl Games
05/28/2009

In interesting twist occurred in Congress’ study of the BCS.  Derrick Fox, the Alamo Bowl executive director that provided written testimony on behalf of all bowl games, made a statement that bowl games give millions of dollars to local charities each year.  Dan Wetzel and Josh Peter of Yahoo Sports, investigated those claims:

A congressman said he plans to investigate testimony from Alamo Bowl executive director Derrick Fox at this month’s Bowl Championship Series subcommittee hearing after learning that Fox might have exaggerated by millions of dollars the amount bowl games donate to local charities.Fox, while representing all 34 bowl games during his appearance on Capitol Hill on May 1, claimed in his argument against a playoff that “almost all the postseason bowl games are put on by charitable groups” and “local charities receive tens of millions of dollars every year.”In fact, 10 bowl games are privately owned and one is run by a branch of a local government. The remaining 23 games enjoy tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, but combined to give just $3.2 million to local charities on $186.3 million in revenue according to their most recent federal tax records and interviews with individual bowl executives.

Texas Rep. Joe Barton, one of the leading critics of the BCS, responded to this investigation:

“That doesn’t seem like something that’s really geared toward giving to charity, does it?” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) after being presented with Yahoo! Sports’ findings.“It’s perjury if it’s knowingly said,” Barton said of the sworn testimony, which he called “misleading.” “It’s also contempt of Congress. You’ve got to give [him] some sort of due process, but ultimately the remedy is to hold [him] in contempt of Congress on the House floor or send it to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution of perjury under oath.”

Fox offers a response to Yahoo Sports:

Fox, in a written response to a question, said “in kind” donations, mostly giving unused game tickets to groups, should be considered even if it doesn’t match with his testimony of “dollars” given.Also, bowl games do not list giveaway tickets or many other “in kind” donations on tax forms because they are considered lost revenue, according to Bruce Bernstien, an accountant for the Cotton Bowl.Ticket donations can also lead to fuzzy math.The Motor City Bowl, for instance, lists a team payout of $750,000. However, for its 2008 game, Florida Atlantic agreed to accept 16,666 game tickets in lieu of money. When it returned approximately $600,000 worth of the tickets, Motor City Bowl owner Ken Hoffman said he turned them over to local organizations, although he couldn’t say whether they were used. He said he did not claim it on his taxes. According to media reports, 65,000-seat Ford Field in Detroit was at slightly more than half of capacity for the game.

Wetzel and Peter also discuss the impact of bowl games on the local economy:

In further touting the benefits of the current system, Swofford noted bowl games “aim to generate economic benefits for their host regions by attracting visitors who will come and stay several days.”Fox went on to cite to the subcommittee the “2007 Valero Alamo Bowl Economic & Fiscal Impact Analysis,” which detailed spending by out-of-town fans at hotels and restaurants.Yahoo! Sports reviewed the Alamo Bowl study, which stated that local fans are far less valuable because they would’ve spent their entertainment dollar elsewhere in the city or region – at a restaurant across town before a movie rather than one near the stadium before the game, for example.“… [M]ost spending by local residents is considered to be displaced spending and is not counted as part of economic impact,” the Alamo Bowl study states. “[The local fan] is … providing zero economic impact.”Yet it is local fans that bowl games are increasingly turning to in order to anchor ticket sales and stabilize bowl revenue, even at the expense of tourism dollars.More than a third of last season’s bowl games (12 of 34) featured a local school – eight were from the host city or a short drive from it and four others came from within a two-hour drive.“I think bowls’ business models have changed,” said Gary Stokan, president of Atlanta’s Chick-fil-A Bowl, which last year included hometown Georgia Tech. “When we all originally started, bowls were created to really develop economic impact. That’s still our goal. But with the contracted payouts you have now, you’ve got to weigh that, balance the economic-impact figure with attendance.”This might be smart business for the bowls and a positive to cash-strapped fans who want to see their favorite team play, Barton said. It just doesn’t jibe with what Fox and Swofford testified.“It calls into question their interest in helping the local economy, which is what they claimed,” Barton said.

There is nothing shocking about the bowl games overestimating their impact on their local communities.  The Super Bowl, Olympics, and other major events have done it for years.  Either way, the Yahoo Sports analysis of Fox’ statement is very interesting and detailed.  I doubt that it will lead to anything, but it does add fuel to the fire of how irrelevant bowl games are.

[Ashlen]

Kentucky Basketball Gone Wild
05/28/2009

There has been a lot of news concerning the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team this week.  Here are some of the issues:

1.  UK hired a new head coach, John Calipari, in late March.  However, the NCAA informed Calipari’s former team, the University of Memphis, of possible major violations on January 16th.  The possible violations include fraudulent SAT scores for a player and the payment of an associate of a player.  Of course, there are questions if Calipari left Memphis to avoid possible punishment and there are also questions about how much Kentucky knew about the allegations.  Based on some of Kentucky’s past violations, perhaps the ability to provide fraudulent SAT scores is a job requirement for the head coaching position at UK instead of being a detriment.   

2.  UK’s former coach, Billy Gillispie, is suing UK for at least $6 million that he believes the university owes him based on a contract.  However, UK claims to be surprised about the allegations.  There is some question whether Gillispie ever had a binding contract at UK.

3.  John Wall, one of the highest ranked high school seniors, has chosen to attend Calipari’s program at UK.  UK recruited Wall even though they knew that Wall was cited for breaking and entering an empty house.  Wall pleaded guilty to the charges and will serve community service.  Still, one has to wonder if this is the kind of publicity that UK wants to have and if this is the kind of student they want to have on the campus. 

4.  The presence of Wall and other top recruits that Calipari has brought to UK has led to a situation where UK has more players than available scholarships.  Some players that were on the team before will have their scholarships revoked.   David Climer of The Tennessean questions the ethics of one year renewable scholarships for athletes:

When a high school senior pledges his or her allegiance to a college program, that school should live up to its end of the bargain — for four years. A new coach should be given time to let the roster regenerate without fear of repercussions.

That's fine — in theory. In reality, it's a matter of what have you done for me lately.

For the player, there must be immediate production.

For the coach, there must be immediate success.

Too often, there is no common ground.
   
I think Climer has described the situation pretty well.