The University of Minnesota athletic department recenty acknowledged its concerns about maintaining its $65 million, self-sustaining budget through the current economic crisis. As posted by the Big Ten Network, UM athletics director Joel Maturi is concerned about the pending $426 million defecit in the state’s budget this year, although the athletic department may be held…
The football coaching carousel is already in motion at several major colleges and the 2008 football season has yet to conclude. According to a recent report in USA Today, coaching changes are underway at 15 of the 119 NCAA Football Bowl Division institutions, 10 of them as a result of dismissals. Next year, more than…
The Cincinnati Enquirer recently highlighted the risk-reward venture of the costs and revenues associated with the University of Cincinnati’s (UC) expected selection to compete in a Bowl Championship Series bowl in January as the football champion of the Big East conference. While the BCS pays out $17.5 million per school competing in one of the…
On November 19, USA Today published an investigative story, “Athletes guided toward ‘beating the system.’” The article was the cover story for the 2-day special report that examined whether athletes are clustering in majors in disproportionate numbers from the student body; the extent to which athletics advisers guide athletes into ‘easier majors’ for eligibility and/or…
The Hattiesburg American reported on November 18 that University of Southern Mississippi (USM) students would be charged $180 in fees for intercollegiate athletics as part of their semester tuition bill. According to the article, the fees helped to raise $5.4 million toward the $19.3 million athletic operating budget. An additional $1 million was provided from…
By MARC ISENBERG, Sports Business Journal The rights of college athletes are under attack – and, as usual, the “amateurs” lose to the business pros. Media companies and professional leagues and athletes have all benefited from the emergence of fantasy sports, whether directly through increased revenue and licensing agreements or indirectly through a more captivated…
By JOE DRAPE and THAYER EVANS, New York Times Nearly three years ago, the billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens donated $165 million to Oklahoma State’s athletic department so it could remake its facilities into a Shangri-La for Cowboys sports, complete with an indoor practice center and new facilities for baseball, equestrian, soccer, tennis, and track…
By Steve Weiberg, USA Today
By Steve Wieberg, USA Today A faculty watchdog group sounded an alarm Tuesday over a $420,000 compensation package for a Kansas State assistant basketball coach, saying it represents a “new day” in the escalation of college coaches’ salaries. “Higher education should quickly rethink the merits of this professional athletics model,” the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics…
Knight Commission Poll Finds Americans Are Concerned About College Sports Professionalism in college sports, among topics at Washington, D.C. Summit (WASHINGTON, JAN. 30)– Americans are deeply concerned about the professionalization of college sports, according to a new poll conducted for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. Concerns about how the increasing pressure to win and…