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Big Ten sports earn unevenly
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by Cynthia Martens
Friday, September 17, 2004
This article is the second in a series examining intercollegiate athletics using Big Ten EADA reports. These reports were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
In Wisconsin, the past two years have brought on a 37.5 percent tuition increase. If Gov. Jim Doyle passes the Board of Regents’ plan for the new biennium, that cost will again rise — this time by 4.3 percent.
With such a hefty price tag on higher education, some are looking for areas to cut costs.
Former Regent Nino Amato, whose suggestion of a tuition freeze in Wisconsin did not sit well with his colleagues, said in an interview that the state legislature should call for an audit of the athletic department and “get a sense of prioritization.”
“The last time it was done it was an embarrassment to the university,” he said.
Amato referred to the athletic department as one of the University of Wisconsin’s “sacred cows,” and suggested the UW system needs a common accounting system to make expenses more transparent.
An analysis of the reports of seven Big Ten schools, including UW, shows Big Ten men’s football, basketball and ice hockey all rake in big money for the universities. All other sports, however, lose money.
Of the UW moneymakers, men’s football earned $527 per UW undergraduate in 2002, according to Wisconsin’s report. Men’s basketball and ice hockey earned $265 and $77 respectively.
Each football player earned the UW $128,000 that year. Each basketball player brought in $528,000 and each hockey player $77,000. The athletic department then uses profits from moneymaking sports to cover losses from other sports.
Based on Wisconsin’s report, all other intercollegiate sports lost UW a total of approximately $9 million, or $313 per undergraduate. The greatest loss came from women’s basketball at $1.4 million. Women’s ice hockey and women’s rowing lost almost $1 million each.
It cost UW over $90,000 per player to field the women’s basketball team. Women’s ice hockey, tennis, volleyball and men’s swimming and diving each cost the UW $30,000 per player.
Pollard said men’s football, basketball and ice hockey do not keep all the money their teams earn.
“It’s run as a department, not as a sport,” he said. “Those three are the catalysts. Only a couple of sports nationwide make money, but we see it as offering opportunity.”
It appears Big Ten conference rules force UW to shell out large amounts of money for money-losing sports. Pollard said for UW to participate in Division I athletics and the Big Ten Conference it must offer a certain number of varsity sports.
Melanie Stinton Newby, UW vice chancellor, said in an e-mail athletic departments would be unlikely to drop women’s sports and unprofitable men’s sports in favor of less costly intramural sports.
“An athletic department may drop sports for whatever reason it sees fit, but it is still required to meet one of the gender equity tests under Title IX,” she said.
Pollard confirmed Title IX requires varsity women’s sports.
Amato said while Title IX’s intent was excellent, some hard questions are in order.
Asked if athletic department revenues could help support UW, Pollard said there was no rule against it.
“In theory, we could make a donation to other departments,” he said. “That’s just how it operates. A large part of our revenue comes from donations and fundraising. The business school could make a donation to the Union, but it doesn’t usually work that way.”
Anonymous (September 17, 2004 @ 8:51am):
I find it interesting how this article lists several women's teams as losing money, but only mentions one men's team that's losing money. I find it to be a thinly veiled attack on Title IX.
If it's the budget we're concerned about, should the University only have departments that make money (via donations or grants)? Should we drop majors that don't have a lot of wealthy alumni?
Brian Pujanauski (September 18, 2004 @ 7:33am):
While I agree with the statement above about not listing as many men's sports as women's in terms of losing money, I think the point was the list included the sports that lost the most. Most of the men's sports do not take in much money (excluding the Big Three), but they also do not have nearly the budgets of a sport like women's basketball.
We must ask ourselves what we are getting with our millions of dollars in sports budgets. Why must students subsidize the training of elite athletes when that money could be recycled into the general budget to meet losses from the state? Non-revenue sports (both men's and women's)could be eliminated, and part of that money could go to fund intermural sports which would benefit a much larger student population, with the rest going to a general university fund for academics or for scholarships for needy students.
With the Title IX argument, it seems that having more opportunities to actually play the sports would be worth more than the knowledge that someone out there with your chromosomal makeup is playing a sport. We need to use our limited budgets to benefit a larger population rather than focusing an immense amount of resources on a few elite athletes.
Anonymous (September 19, 2004 @ 8:24pm):
This is a silly discussion. The athletic department fully funds itself. No money comes from the students. They have no claim to any money generated by any teams.
If the students cut their alcohol budget by half, they would have no problem funding their own educations.
Anonymous (September 20, 2004 @ 6:06pm):
The point isn't whether the athletic dept. funds itself, but the best way to use the funds it generates. It's about opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of the women's basketball team is $1.4 million. That is money that could be going to other uses that is spent on that program.
A second note is that while the UW athletic dept. is able to fund itself, there are not all that many schools that can boast that claim. Athletics as a whole in this country needs to be addressed.
