The Springfield News-Leader published an article that discussed recent clarifications to the NCAA Financial Report Forms each NCAA-member institution files annually with the association. The clarifications were made to enhance consistency in reporting because not all universities were interpreting the agreed-upon procedures as intended. In some cases, prior interpretations of the reporting instructions caused some schools to under-report actual spending for athletics.
The article quotes Kathleen McNeely, senior vice president of administration and chief financial officer for the NCAA: “We never thought people were doing it intentionally.” said But there were “concerns that the descriptions were not clear enough. There was confusion and they knew some schools were answering questions differently.”
“The intention has always been to get an idea of the total cost of running an athletic program, whether those costs are borne directly by the athletic program or whether they’re subsidized by the institution,” McNeely said. “I think that was a point of clarity, not a change.” To investigate athletic and academic spending patterns in NCAA Division I using the data institutions report on the form, visit the Knight Commission spending database: http://spendingdatabase.knightcommission.org.
To read the full article, LINK HERE.