After playoff, what’s left to reform in big-time college sports?
Charles T. Clotfelter is a professor of public policy, economics and law at Duke University.
He is the author of “Big-Time Sports in American Universities.” This opinion column by Clotfelter runs on the Monday education page in the AJC.
By Charles T. Clotfelter
This week, a panel of university presidents dealt with one of college sports’ festering problems by approving a four-team playoff for football.
For years, critics, including President Obama, have been calling for this kind of playoff, which is so popular in pro sports and the NCAA’s own March Madness.
As someone who has spent the last five years researching the business and ethics of big-time college sports, this change may be welcome, but it still leaves a handful of unresolved problems with college athletics. By my count, there are five big ones.
First, a playoff does nothing to address the unsustainable economics of big-time college sports. The specter that haunts every athletic director and university budget chief is a continuing arms race in spending. Head coaches now earn several multiples of what university presidents or state governors make, and there is no end to spending on facilities.
Second, there’s the exploitation of revenue athletes. Not only do college athletes have few of the procedural rights available to citizens in the criminal justice system, they are the only group of producers in big-time college sports who do not enjoy the fruits of commercial success. Economic studies show that every draft-quality college athlete generates far more in revenues than the cost of a scholarship – half a million dollars in football and more than twice that in basketball. Economists have several uncomplimentary words to describe the market structure that has grown up around big-time college sports. One of them is “cartel.”
Third, the current system is built on abuse of universities’ nonprofit status. You won’t hear this very often on talk radio or ESPN, but around the halls of Congress, the occasional brave legislator will contrast the baldly commercial nature of today’s big-time enterprises with the reasons that Congress originally granted generous tax breaks to universities and other nonprofit organizations.
Fourth, there is the steady stream of rules violations, crime and scandal. Long before Penn State, these scandals have featured all sorts of bad acting, from impermissible phone calls to phantom courses to payments under the table.
Fifth, and perhaps most important, the current system too often sacrifices educational principles. Not only grumpy faculty, but also outspoken college presidents, national blue ribbon commissions and a host of reformers for a century have complained that commercialized spectator sports divert attention and resources from the educational aims of universities. Indeed, there seems no end to the ways that universities can compromise the principles stated in their mission statements for the sake of athletic success, which is not to deny that good arguments can be made for some of these successes.
What reform can fix these remaining problems?
Would beefed-up NCAA enforcement efforts do that? Will paying the players solve them? How about more stringent graduation requirements for teams to be eligible to play in postseason tournaments? Persuading Congress to exempt college sports from anti-trust laws so the NCAA could more effectively regulate competition? Requiring universities to issue detailed annual reports on athletic spending, academic exceptions, and graduation rates?
These are among the reforms proposed in just the last year. Any close inspection of them alongside the list of problems will make clear that, while some fixes might address some problems, there is no silver bullet out there.
Based on my own reading of this nation’s century-long love affair with big-time college sports and a record of reform efforts with an almost unblemished record of failure, I am not optimistic that universities or Congress have the resolve to fix these five problems. The passion for athletic success and the winner-take-all character of the competition shackle most efforts to improve the situation.
Short of a court ruling against the NCAA or a widespread scandal, it’s unlikely that reform will happen.
Still, the optimist in me hopes a few forward-looking universities might try to build support for some system-wide changes that reduce the compromises with academic principles while preserving most of the infectious excitement of college competition. We just might yet see some surprising results. After all, few thought a playoff system would ever decide who is the champion of college football.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
40 comments Add your comment
Hillbilly D
July 1st, 2012
8:15 pm
In my opinion, what they really need to do is drop the student/athlete charade and pay the players. When it comes to Division 1 football and basketball, everybody is getting well except the players.
The true solution would be for football and basketball to maintain it’s own minor league system, like baseball does. Of course, that isn’t going to happen. The schools make big money and the NFL and NBA save big money by maintaining the status quo. Like most everything else in life, it’s all about money and the college players have no leverage.
Fred ™
July 1st, 2012
9:28 pm
You nailed it brother Hillbilly Deluxe. The Universities are pimping these kids for every dime they can if is some kid gets a free Big Mac he has committed a “violation.”
And here I thought prostitution was illegal in every state except for Nevada, so why are they pimping these kids?
Lee
July 1st, 2012
9:40 pm
Very simple solution, require EVERY student athlete to apply and get accepted into the college of their choice just like every other STUDENT who walks through the door. No exceptions. And shut down the back door transfers like UGA does by sending academically ineligible recruits to Hargrave [sp] Academy for a year and then letting them transfer in.
Then, when these room temperature IQ recruits cannot get into a college, professional sports will be forced to come up with a minor league solution.
Never happen though. Too much money already passing hands for any meaningful reforms.
Lee
July 1st, 2012
9:42 pm
BTW, I occasionally get up to Rome to see the Rome Braves baseball team. Great venue. Professional level quality of play. A fraction of the cost of going to Turner Field.
Good ole Boys at the Gold Dome
July 1st, 2012
9:44 pm
Right on Hillbilly.Pay the student/athlete amount that would help with other expenses.Maybe 1000.00 a semester.Also make the atheltic budgets/programs pay a pecent of collected revenue each year to the education fund of each university or college.Let’s say 10%. At UGA that would around 8 million since their collected revenue this year was arond 80 million.
Reforming NCAA Football
July 1st, 2012
10:52 pm
1) Eliminate the one-year renewable scholarship limit, and guarantee
a four year scholarship to players seeking to obtain a degree that
extends beyond their college athletic eligibility.
2) Allow players to work during their academic breaks just like students
who have earned academic scholarships are allowed to work other jobs
and paid internships.
3) Require college football teams to play more top tier teams out of their conference
and on the road (University of Georgia has done a good job, but Alabama
has only recently started to do this).
University Diaries » “[T]here seems no end to the ways that universities can compromise the principles stated in their mission statements for the sake of athletic success…”
July 1st, 2012
10:59 pm
[...] Or, more often, for the sake of athletic failure. Strange. [...]
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
July 2nd, 2012
2:17 am
College athletic scholarships: Sure.
What percentage of HS athletes who sign grants-in-aid to participate in intercollegiate athletics have the academic credentials to gain admission to their respective colleges, much less to earn scholarships to matriculate at these institutions of higher learning?
Reforming NCAA Football
July 2nd, 2012
3:40 am
Respectfully @ Dr. Craig Spinks
I don’t know how accurate the numbers are for the three universities
below, but the graduation rates for the universities are posted below.
The graduation rates represent the entire undergraduate student body
of each university. I believe many of the athletes would be able to
meet the numbers posted below given six years.
By Allen Grove, About.com Guide (2011)
University of Georgia
Graduation Rates:
4-Year Graduation Rate: 49%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 79%
University of Alabama (Football Champions)
Graduation Rates:
4-Year Graduation Rate: 38%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 66%
University of Kentucky (Basketball Champions)
Graduation Rate
4-Year Graduation Rate: 33%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 58%
sheepdawg
July 2nd, 2012
5:59 am
eliminate recruiting, eliminate special considerations for admissions. only true student athletes allowed to compete in NCAA events of any type. eliminate athletic associations, coaches should make no more than typical professors. set up semi-pro league for all the non qualifiers and stop trying to call them college athletes and allowing them to “attend” college- what a joke, especially in the SEC
Lee
July 2nd, 2012
6:15 am
Graduation rates for athletes:
http://stanford.scout.com/2/1066657.html
Lets just say some do a better job than others. Some of these programs need to be shut down. ….and this is with tutors and graduate assistants stuck to their hip like glue.
dcb
July 2nd, 2012
6:50 am
Great article – and correctly, I think, summarizes the current state of athletics in the “big” schools – NCAA schools at least. One factor that could be addressed immediately, however, is college boards of trustees giving instructions to its presidents to first accept, and then pass along the message to their “ivory tower” faculty to suck it up and get with the program. This issue of athletics now the tail that’s wagging the dog and not within the purpose of the institution is now old hat. Accept it guys. Liberal academia types have credibility issues themselves and as they are already living in a world all to themselves, new technologies will replace them even more so than it has already.
jd
July 2nd, 2012
7:45 am
Return sports to intramurals — sell the infrastructure for football/basketball to the professional leagues — you go to college to get a degree — not to be a sports fan
Cosby
July 2nd, 2012
8:02 am
The NCAA is semi pro make no bones about it. There is nothing about education, students etc., in College Football. this is a farce. time to call it what it is, take any relation to student out of it, have the Teams / Atheletic Associations rent the logo and facilities from the schools, pay the players and call it professional. Samr could go for basketball and Baseball is on the move.
A Conservative Voice
July 2nd, 2012
8:43 am
@Maureen – After playoff, what’s left to reform in big-time college sports?
What’s left????What’s left, you say??????? How ’bout getting rid of all the “Recruiting of THUGS that do not belong in a college setting, i. e., UGA’s Crowell, who’s now in jail on weapons charges that he tried to blame on his “Momma”" What’s left, you say????????? And you know what, cheating in high school sports with private schools and the public high school in NG recruiting of athletes has been going on for years. Winning at all costs has taken over (except at that charter school in DeKalb County) where PC and losing are synonymous. But, the Number One Problem is the recruitment of non-student THUG athletes…….the culture needs to be changed…….
northern neighbor
July 2nd, 2012
8:45 am
I agree with Hillbilly D. The baseball model works very well, and college baseball is doing very well. I think it would work very well for basketball and football.
Yankee Prof
July 2nd, 2012
9:06 am
University System of Georgia faculty and staff have not received cost of living or merity pay raises in five years now. Yet, Georgia State University got itself a football team.
I’d say if anything needs to be reformed it’s priorities.
Mrnumbersman
July 2nd, 2012
9:09 am
If we want to get back to the true purpose of colleges then eliminate inter-collegiate athletics. Then you don’t have the scandals, overpaid coaches, exorbitant facilities, and the list goes on. Make athletics stand on its own. At every level, from high school to the professional ranks, athletics is supported by the tax payer. There are exceptions of course. But the vast majority receives tax revenues for various things.
Just eliminate it and let it stand on its own two feet. How many 100,000 seat stadiums would exist in cities today if you had nothing but club sports? How many 20,000 seat arenas would there be if they weren’t subsidized by the colleges?
There is no reform. There are always going to be college sports and there will be a ton of problems. The college system, in my opinion, is about to embark down a road that will only get worse with the payment of athletes. It is corrupt now. How much more will it become?
Another View
July 2nd, 2012
9:14 am
Sports and education are a toxic mix. Too bad there is no will or desire to end the noxious relationship.
BuckeyeInGa
July 2nd, 2012
9:41 am
@Mrnumbersman
I agree there isn’t any reform. I don’t see how the system will get more corrupt now if the players are paid.
Shar
July 2nd, 2012
10:02 am
I agree with almost everything that Dr. Clotfelter writes, except two items. First, his estimation of revenue per draftable athlete as a measure of their worth to the university is misleading. In the top revenue sports, football and basketball, those athletes cannot play without teammates. Regardless of how much attention the star player attracts, he or she is helpless without a team.
The larger disagreement is his contention that there is no silver bullet. There is. It is federal financial support in the form of tax exemption status of the schools’ athletic program and in terms of the institutions’ qualification for federal student financial aid. That is a nuclear option that I would like to see invoked against schools that have allowed their revenue sports to bully aside their academic mission. If schools had to pay property taxes on their facilities (which they all should, as regular students cannot use them and they are used in pursuit of making money), if donors could not deduct their “contributions” (which they should not be able to, as they are giving the money for personal gain in terms of access and seats), if staff salaries were not counted against the bottom line of a tax-exempt entity but had to be justified as a business expense, some of the worst offenders would be forced to haul on the reins of these runaway programs. If they did not, the universities could face the prospect of being declared ineligible for Pell grants, for research grants, as well as other forms of student aid, thus drying up their pool of applicants within the space of a single year and forcing faculty to go elsewhere in order to receive the research grants that sustain the majority of them.
In the name of boosterism we have permitted a system to develop that has warped the educational mission of the schools to such a degree that it is arguable whether they deserve public support any longer. Yanking that support would bring the whole thing to a dead stop and force a long overdue re-evaluation not only of the role of athletics in college but the arms race in higher education spending as a whole.
T-Square
July 2nd, 2012
10:09 am
Yankee Prof – While I would generally agree, I would point out that athletic budgets and academic budgets aren’t related in college sports. So the money used to start up the football programs at Georgia State and Kennesaw State wouldn’t do the staff at the school any good even if they didn’t start up the programs.
Prof
July 2nd, 2012
10:23 am
@ Yankee Prof, July 2nd, 9:06 am. “University System of Georgia faculty and staff have not received cost of living or merity pay raises in five years now. Yet, Georgia State University got itself a football team.”
GSU’s football team has been paid for by student fees (after the students voted to support starting such a team), the private GSU Foundation, and private donors. It hasn’t come out of the regular GSU budget.
Good Mother
July 2nd, 2012
10:49 am
Hillbilly is right “The true solution would be for football and basketball to maintain it’s own minor league system, like baseball does.”
What is preventing this from happening?
Surely all those college football coaches would go to the minor leagues because they wouldn’t have to dodge the rules and play the charade. It would be much easier to organize and maintain. Minor league football coaches could still rake in the cash, players would be paid and the school could focus on what really matters — academics.
Jefferson
July 2nd, 2012
11:34 am
No use watching the games, just wait till the college super bowl. Like pro sports and college basketball, the regular season will be dead.
Solutions
July 2nd, 2012
12:04 pm
The concept of a scholar-athlete is a good one, but the scholar part has been greatly reduced in recent decades. Perhaps we should require a 3.0 gpa or higher of football and basketball player to be eligible to compete, to increase the emphasis on the scholar part of scholar-athlete. Of course the big money in higher education today is not just from athletics, as long as big money flows from federal grants, student loans, and gifts the whole scholar part of higher education is diminished. Each student now has a dollar sign associated with his status, and the professors (more likely grad assistants or adjunct instructors) are compelled to lower grading and testing standards to keep the dollars flowing. As I have said before, everything the Federal government touches with their bid dollars is degraded and diminished, but the costs keep going up. That is what inflation is all about, we are seeing it first in education and health care.
William Casey
July 2nd, 2012
12:14 pm
GOOD MOTHER, you and I often agree on the problems related to the clash of academics and athletics in schools. I support college athletics, believing that college football and basketball add much to the college experience, both for participants and spectators. Like it or not, college athletics is very popular in America.
The greatest problem I see is that college sports have become de facto “minor leagues” for the pros and this leads to complicated money issues. I propose TWO basic reforms which I believe would work toward returning college athletics to the true student/athlete concept:
(1) Establish a “national clearinghouse academic eligibility” (NCAE) organization whose sole purpose would be to certify that a high school student is qualified to be a real college student. No college recruiters would be allowed to contact a high school player until he was certified. This organization would have to be independent of the NCAA, Conferences and schools, all of whom have a financial interest in keeping things as they are. Guys who weren’t certified would have the option of going pro straight out of high school. Pro teams would expand their rosters to include “practice players,” guys who were in effect getting extended try-outs. Crowell would probably have never been associated with UGA, to the benefit of both.
(2) Establish a hard and fast rule that no college coach could be paid more than the college president. I’m all for coaches being rewarded for excellence but coaching salaries have truely gotten out of hand. Drives lots of the cheating.
carlosgvv
July 2nd, 2012
1:17 pm
College football has long been owned by Big Money. Don’t look for this to change.
Shar
July 2nd, 2012
1:23 pm
The NFL and the NBA will do anything to avoid changing the status quo. They are getting a massive free ride from the public, and they know it.
@William Casey, I like the idea of a national clearing house, but I would extend it through college. If a player cannot pass a national test along the lines of an AP in his or her chosen area of study, they cannot play the next year. If a coach cannot graduate his or her players, that coach becomes decertified to coach at the college level. And if a coach recruits players who either cannot pass legitimate tests or who cannot stay out of jail, that coach must repay the scholarship dollars wasted on that student through docked salary.
Coaches have only one goal now – winning. That should be superceded by graduating successful students. If they don’t like that priority, they should be coaching in the professional leagues.
Misty Fyed
July 2nd, 2012
1:31 pm
College Football isn’t owned by Big Money…It is Big Money. It brings big money to universities. This article, which brings up some great points, makes it sounds like universities are victims. Any one of them can fix the problem with the stroke of a pen. Cancel the program. Pay the coach a professor’s salary. Refuse television. Whatever. Universities are addicted to the attention and money a winning athletic program brings.
bu2
July 2nd, 2012
1:45 pm
As Misty Fred points out, college football brings in money. A lot of schools are starting programs. Why if it loses money? Because it connects alumni to the school and brings in money indirectly. Because it drives up enrollment and applications. Its effectively advertising. And football helps fund the other sports at most schools. At a few of the biggest schools, the athletic program sends money to the academic side.
PapaSmurf
July 2nd, 2012
3:04 pm
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – level the playing field. As an alumnus of the one of the schools in the Top 10 list below, I have long advocated that schools that play by the rules should be allowed to continue to do so, and those that use their athletes as slaves and discard them when they’re through should have their programs shut down. Establish a semi-pro league for those who have no interest in actually going to college, and let the college programs actually field teams of student-athletes.
Top 10 Football Grad Rates: FBS
Notre Dame 96%
Duke 95%
Northwestern 95%
Rice 93%
Navy 92%
Boston College 90%
Vanderbilt 89%
Rutgers 88%
Stanford 86%
Air Force 86%
Bottom 10 Football Grad Rates: FBS
San Jose St. 42%
Oklahoma 44%
South Florida 46%
Hawaii 46%
Florida International 46%
Arizona 48%
Texas 49%
Georgia Tech 49%
Houston 51%
Eastern Michigan 51%
C Jae of EAV
July 2nd, 2012
3:30 pm
@Reforming NCAA Football – Your opening point is one of the many dirty secrets of how the NCAA operate. The 1 -year renewable scholarship allows schools to physically exploit athletes and cast them aside the moment they can’t get extract anymore from them. The term “student-athlete” was coined by the NCAA in an attempt to thwart legal action.
“The Cartel” by Taylor Branch is long essay turned into a short book that really break down the sham that is NCAA. I have not looked at college sports the same since I read it.
C Jae of EAV
July 2nd, 2012
3:39 pm
@William Casey – The term “student-athlete” was coined by the NCAA in an attempt to thwart legal action taken by exploited athletes. The concept of the “student-athlete in major college sports (Basketball & Football in particular) is a sham and everyone involved knows it. What’s funny is that even now you have the professional leagues constantly rewriting their rules that virtually force athletes into being exploited by the NCAA for minimum periods of time before they are even allowed to plow their trade. Enough of the hyprocracy.
William Casey
July 2nd, 2012
3:53 pm
@C Jae: I agree. However, when I was at GT in the ’60’s, the football players WERE “student-athletes.” They weren’t all rocket scientists but they were true student-athletes. High level football & basketball as well.
Yankee Prof
July 3rd, 2012
8:37 am
@T Square and Prof: I hear you and you are correct. I’m familiar with the “different pots” issue of budgeting. Color me disturbed by the juxtaposition.
Prof
July 3rd, 2012
9:20 am
@ Yankee Prof. When GSU was deciding whether or not to start its football team–even though it wouldn’t come out of the academic budget– most of the faculty thought as you do. It was an administration decision for, I think, pretty much the reasons that bu2 gave yesterday at 1:45 pm.
catlady
July 3rd, 2012
7:48 pm
OOPS, I misread the title. I thought it said, After PAYOFF,…
Good Mother
July 3rd, 2012
8:31 pm
Good ole boys at GA Dome wants us to pay student athletes 1000 a semester.
I had to laugh when i read that. “student” athletes already get MORE THAN 1000 a semester. They get it illegally.
It’s an arms race as the writer says. We have to take the sport of football out of the education field in order to protect the players and their families and the rest of the students who aren’t “athletes.”
Kids as young as 13 are preyed upon by illegal scum bags. They make a deal with the parents to pay them now for a possible income later when the kid makes the pros. Parents are willing to pimp out their sons for cash now.
It’s a wicked, dangerous, stupid arrangement.
Get the kids out of this mess and keep the mess away from education. Every team needs a minor league. Get one now and get out of the real business of colleges and high schools — to educate.
Cassie
July 6th, 2012
8:49 am
I am so grateful and glad to see all these comments stating that the NBA and the NFL need to create their own minor leagues and get the —- out of universities. “Big sports” are degrading and corrupting our educational institutions, it is time they got out of education.