Monday, December 28, 1998
College sports at what cost?
Student fees pay chuck of expenses at midsized colleges
BY SCOTT MacGREGOR
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Miami University President James Garland recently told the school's board of trustees, “We have a chronic financial problem in intercollegiate athletics.”
Now budget constraints and gender-equity considerations may force administrators at the Oxford school to consider cutting as many as five sports.
Miami, however, is not the only school with financial struggles concerning athletics. Nearly every midsized college in the nation, including the five other Ohio schools in the Mid-American Conference, faces a funding challenge, though not all must consider cuts as drastic as at Miami. All six Ohio colleges in the MAC, as well as the University of Cincinnati, don't make enough money from ticket or TV revenue to cover sports budgets, so they use a portion of income from general student fees to avoid huge losses in the athletic department.
Joel Maturi
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“Very few schools at our level make money or operate in the black,” said Miami athletic director Joel Maturi. “The gap is getting greater between schools like Miami and schools in conferences like the Big Ten. At the big schools and in the big conferences, the TV revenue is substantial. The remaining Division I-A schools are always dependent upon the institution, whether that's from fees or fund raising or other ways.”
This year the six MAC schools in Ohio — Akron, Bowling Green, Kent, Miami, Ohio University and Toledo — will combine to spend about $51 million on athletics, with more than 65 percent of the money — $33.8 million — coming from student fees.
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Infographic
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Comparison of athletic funding at six Ohio MAC schools
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Students at all six colleges pay a general fee on top of tuition and room and board, ranging from a low of $187 per semester at Akron to a high of
$572 at Ohio University. Most of this money is not used for athletics. It supports a wide variety of programs, from campus health centers to student gyms to libraries to a campus bus system. But a sizeable chunk does go to sports.
At Miami, students pay $480 per semester in general fees, with 42 percent ($201) going to the athletic department. Kent students pay 25 percent ($114) of their $448 per semester fee to sports, while Akron students pay the largest percentage ($140 out of the $187 fee, or 75 percent). Ohio University does not have a specific breakdown of where its fee money goes, but the athletic program receives $7.1 million of its $8.8 million budget in subsidies from the university.
The University of Cincinnati, a member of Conference USA, makes more money off men's basketball (including ticket sales and TV and radio contracts) than MAC schools, but still needs $107 of a $370-per-semester general student fee to pay for other sports. In all, UC budgets about $3.9 million of its $13.3 million fee intake for sports.
Never-ending expenses
Student subsidies are generally used to defray the expensive travel, equipment and training costs of running an NCAA Division I sports program, along with paying for the hundreds of scholarships awarded to athletes at each college. Ohio prohibits universities from using taxpayer or tuition money for athletics, Mr. Maturi said.
And because many MAC schools don't charge students to attend sporting events, school administrators say student fees are needed to pay for sports at colleges where spending tops revenue — essentially, all the schools in the MAC. In this sense, athletics are viewed as just another extracurricular activity that needs money, just like college bands or clubs.
“Without (student fees), I don't think any school in the MAC would have an athletic program,” said Mike Rodriguez, Akron's athletic business manager.
“Mid-American Conference schools are never going to be self-supporting,” said Jerry Wolmering, an associate athletic director for financial affairs at Bowling Green. “We try to get the most we can from the private sector. Fund raising and marketing become more important. But without the students on campus, none of us would be able to have athletic programs.”
Even many larger schools in conferences such as the Big Ten — where football and men's basketball sometimes support entire athletic department budgets — must look for revenue sources other than ticket money. Ohio State, which doesn't have a student fee, claims to make enough off its sports teams — chiefly football — to actually put money back into the university. But at Illinois, students are charged $68 per semester for sports.
“When I was at Wisconsin, we had to cut five sports, and it had nothing to do with gender equity,” Mr. Maturi said. “We were $2 million in debt.”
Not all athletic money comes directly from students. All MAC colleges do take in some ticket revenue and receive money from the NCAA, school endowments and donations (about $1.5 million, for instance, last year at Miami). But according to a recent study by the Detroit News, only one MAC sports team made money last year — conference football champion Marshall, which filled its coffers with part of a $750,000 payout from the Motor City Bowl.
That Detroit News study, collected from data filed by the schools under the Equity in Disclosure Act of 1995, suggested that all 12 MAC schools lost significant amounts of money on sports last year, ranging in Ohio from about $3 million at Bowling Green to $6 million at Miami.
But administrators caution that a distinction must be made between money taken from student fees and actual losses.
“We took student fee money that was budgeted to support athletics,” said Edward Demske, a senior vice president at Miami. “We never expected that money not to be there, so it was a conscious decision. One of the purposes for which it is earmarked is for the support of intercollegiate athletics.”
The student fee money is crucial at Miami, translating to $6.2 million of the school's $8.4 million sports budget.
“I believe it's money well spent,” Mr. Maturi said. “As an educator, I believe athletics are a vital part of an education. We offer something to a campus as far as things to do and see and be a part of. Where it would be wrong is if we had an awful graduation rate and if we didn't bring in students that fit the Miami profile.”
But even with the fee money, Miami must consider cutting sports for two reasons: to come into compliance with federally required gender-equity guidelines under Title IX and to get the overall budget down.
Title IX requires colleges to spend the same percentage of money on women's athletics and have the same percentage of female student athletes — 55 percent in Miami's case — as the percentage ratio of men to women at the school (Miami is 45 percent male, 55 percent female). To comply, Miami's Athletic Policy Committee in early December recommended eliminating men's wrestling and indoor track. The board of trustees will decide the matter at its Feb. 5 meeting.
Even without Title IX problems, Miami must grapple with an athletic budget projected to run an $893,000 annual deficit even if wrestling and indoor track are eliminated. And Mr. Maturi says that of the Red-
Hawks' 22 sports, only five — football, men's basketball, women's basketball, men's ice hockey and women's volleyball — are using the maximum number of scholarships allowed by the NCAA.
“All the other teams don't have the dollars they need for recruiting, scholarships and other expenses,” Mr. Maturi said. “Many of our programs are operating at a significant disadvantage, although not compared to other MAC schools. We have a financial issue whether we have Title IX problems or not.”
Consequently, various proposals that may be considered by the administration and Faculty Senate would eliminate in door track, wrestling, soccer and two of three from a group of swimming, tennis and golf, Mr. Maturi said.
Some on campus are advocating cutting the popular men's ice hockey team, though there has never been a formal proposal to get rid of it. Mr. Maturi says the hockey budget is roughly equal to that of four minor sports such as tennis and golf.
Any more cuts would be recommended to the president in January, Mr. Maturi said, and then debated at the trustee meeting Feb. 5.
“It depends who you talk to,” Mr. Maturi said of which programs are most likely to be chopped. “I would hope we wouldn't have to cut anything, but the fact is it costs money. I'd rather have fewer programs that are successful than more that aren't. If it were easy, it would have been done already.”
None of the other MAC schools in Ohio is considering program cuts, so why is Miami? One reason is that its fan base and ticket revenue are limited by its number of sports (22, when others compete in 18) and the small population of Oxford (18,700) compared with cities such as Toledo (317,600) or Akron (216,900).
Bowl snub emblematic
Low attendance, especially in football and men's basketball, can be a huge financial drain because those are the “revenue-producing” sports, although Miami probably still would need the student fee to survive even with optimal turnout.
The RedHawk football team went 10-1 this year, yet ranked 100th of 112 Division I-A schools in attendance and was outdrawn by the woeful 2-9 Cincinnati Bearcats (76th) by an average of 9,000 fans per game.
That small fan following also hurt Miami's chances at a bowl game. Despite their best season in 21 years, the RedHawks were not invited to a bowl — thereby missing out on a large paycheck — mainly because they lack a substantial fan base.
“I think that's a reality, and we all know it,” Mr. Maturi said. “We need to do a better job of selling tickets, marketing and getting sponsorships. But is it enough to solve our total financial woes? No.”
As a conference, the MAC had the lowest attendance of the 10 Division I-A conferences at 16,763 fans per game, slightly above Miami's average of 15,130.
To fee or not to fee
If student fees are an indelible fact of college life, the question then becomes: What benefit do students receive for subsidizing a Division I sports program? There appears to be the requisite amount of student grumbling about fees, in much the same way adults grumble about taxes, but there doesn't seem to be an outcry.
“Why do all these schools have college athletics?” Ohio athletic director Tom Boeh said. “If you find the answer to that, you'll find the answer to why students benefit from it. If intercollegiate athletics weren't valuable, many of us probably wouldn't have them. ... People want you to win, but they don't want to pay.”
Buy why should students, who already pay escalating tuition costs, be forced to cough up another few hundred dollars so their schools can field sports teams? Are sports a vital part of the education process?
“We've never really surveyed the students about it, but I think they support the athletic program,” said Mike Brugg-
man, Miami's student body vice president. “Athletics are a part of student life, and we feel students recognize the value of the contributions athletes make to the campus. We don't have to pay for any sporting events, so it's a fair trade-off.”
“I don't really mind,” said Kent student Heather Summers. “I think it's a good thing. What (athletes) learn, they can apply to their future. It's just one aspect of the school.”
One Bowling Green alumnus doesn't mind the fee, but said the fact that so much goes to athletics wasn't well-known.
“I didn't know how much of a percentage went to sports,” said Chad Perry, a 1995 Bowling Green graduate who now works with a Christian youth ministry in Chicago. “It was something we just paid. Students get in free to games, so I just thought the part that went to athletics paid for our tickets.
“When you're writing the checks to pay back student loans, that's a big fee ($392 per semester). But sports are a big part of the college experience, and I'm glad I went to a school that had sports. Even though it wasn't top of the line, it's still good for the school.”
If enough students were opposed to the fee, they could always petition the university.
“I'm sure we have students who complain about it,” said Mr. Demske, the Miami senior vice president, “and we've talked about ideas, but we've never had a formal recommendation (to eliminate it).”
And even with $8 million to $9 million athletic department budgets, sports still account for only about 3 percent of these schools' annual operating budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“For the average student, if they are a part of it (by going to games), it's certainly beneficial,” said Toledo athletic director Pete Liske, “but probably what it does more is represent the institution, especially for the community and the alums. It keeps people in connection with the university, and that provides a pretty critical P.R. function for all institutions. Even though it doesn't directly benefit the students, it does benefit them indirectly.”
Taking it a step further, Ohio's Mr. Boeh says the public universities that are tops across the board in athletics are often among the best academically as well, citing programs such as Michigan, Stanford, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
“In athletics and academics, you want to compete at the highest level, and they go hand-in-hand,” Mr. Boeh said.
There's also the idea that colleges are just a microcosm of a society that has placed sports near the top of its most revered institutions. “There isn't an education section in a newspaper as long as a sports section,” Mr. Demske said. “Our society has placed a value on athletics. We're a part of society, so we're a reflection of that.”
College athletic departments do try to raise their own money, but that's easier at some schools than at others.
At Toledo, for instance, about half of the $9.6 athletic budget comes from corporate and alumni donations and sponsorships, which can be found more easily in a city the size of Toledo than in smaller towns such as Oxford and Athens.
But student fees are here to stay.
“Fund raising and sponsorships have to be one avenue,” said Kent assistant athletic director Randy Messinger, “but I don't think in the forseeable future we can get away from using student fee money to pay for athletics. It brings in too great a percentage of revenue.”
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