In its 2010 report, Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values and the Future of College Sports, the Knight Commission called for greater financial transparency in college sports and specifically, for NCAA financial reports to be made public. A House bill introduced on July 14 would make this recommendation a federal law. USA TODAY reports that Rep. David Price (D-NC) and Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) introduced the Standardization of Collegiate Oversight of Revenues and Expenditures (SCORE) Act, which would require public and private institutions to report college athletics revenue and expense data. The bill also includes reporting requirements for the NCAA, conferences, bowl games and the new College Football Playoff.
Rep. Price told USA TODAY Sports: “…it’s important now to open the books on the financing of college athletics…The larger context now is all the rising concern over the cost of college in general and a pretty large set of questions within that has to do with what part athletics plays in this — to what extent the athletic budgets are part of a larger phenomenon or a larger problem. And then it’s pretty clear also that reform is in the air. … There’s a lot of discussion about various aspects of university athletics. I’m not taking all that on here. What I am doing is trying to figure out what kind of information base is it desirable for the public to have that will offer a basis for sound judgment, for sound analysis and will offer a kind of resource for whatever reform proposals people may make down the road.”
The Knight Commission’s NCAA Division I Athletic and Academic Spending Database (spendingdatabase.knightcommission.org) furthered the Commission’s goal of improving financial transparency in college sports.
Read more on the House bill here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2014/07/14/house-bill-ncaa-financial-reporting-ncaa-college-football-playoff/12647335/