The United States Senate Commerce Committee release on its July 8 hearing on college sports cited the Knight Commission’s call for greater financial transparency to improve the accountability in college sports. The release noted the following:
“For Chairman Rockefeller and other critics of the NCAA, another major concern has been the NCAA’s opaqueness when it comes to disclosing its finances. Currently, the NCAA does not disclose full financial information about its member schools’ athletic programs.
“At the same time, colleges and universities are spending increasingly more on coaches’ salaries, facilities, and other related non-academic expenses with little accountability. Consequently, it is difficult to determine whether member schools are using their resources in a manner that is, in fact, academically beneficial to student-athletes and the student body at large.
“The Knight Commission has repeatedly called for full disclosure of member institutions’ athletic finances, though accountability remains elusive. Further, the Knight Commission has urged the NCAA to instead make publicly available and accessible the full Revenues and Expenses of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Programs Report, which are standardized reports already used by the NCAA. The NCAA has said that any decision to make the report publicly available would be dependent on the approval of its member schools.