The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics’ new report centers mainly on a variety of recommendations intended to close the gap between academics and athletics. But the report, “Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values, and the Future of College Sports,” also includes several compelling graphics that illustrate the divide.
One that caught my attention appears in the first few pages of the report. It charts, from 2005 to 2008, median spending per athlete alongside median academic spending per student. Athletics spending during that time period increased by 38 percent, to $84,446; spending on academics increased by 20 percent, to $13,349. Take a look:
The report includes another chart worth a peek that compares academic and athletics spending among the 11 conferences in Division I-A. Not surprisingly, the Southeastern Conference tops the list for sports spending: In 2008, the conference’s member universities spent a median of $144,592 per athlete, nearly 11 times more than what those institutions spent per student ($13,410). Even the last conference on the list—the Mid-American Conference—still spent four times more per athlete ($48,139) than it did per student ($12,032).
13 Responses to Athletics vs. Academic Spending
dmaratto - June 17, 2010 at 9:59 pm
This is a thundering disgrace
busyslinky - June 18, 2010 at 4:09 am
What are the sources for this funding? Also what are the revenues (tuition/gate receipts/etc.) from each student?
honore - June 18, 2010 at 8:58 am
And this is a surprise to?It is no secret that American society is in a rapid state of decline overall, and this is VERY obvious in the context of science and technology standings on the world stage. NOW, ask yourself how many times you hear on/in any mass media about athletes, athletic competitions (at all levels) and THEN ask yourself how much you hear about academic achievement/research or student achievement? Quick…the answer re. the latter is really simple…NEVER!(the only exception is a 15 second blurb on the evening news about a national spelling bee winner) who we never hear about again.In our local news, EVERY, EVERY, EVERY night there is a blow-by-blow update about the latest ass pimple that cropped up that day on a campus/regional/national athlete. On our campuses DESPITE the purported mission to elevate humanity, encourage intellectual/academic accomplishment, transmit culture and preserve the basic tenets of civilization, just look at the monuments built (often by private donation or not) to athletics, while libraries go unfunded and academic funding is regarded as a thankless and inconvenient drudge at the highest levels of administration.When was the last time your favorite episode of (fill-in-the-blank) was interrupted by a promotional ad for scholarships, college admissions, academic programs? And THEN ask yourself how many ads for many buns of steel, 10-pack abs, 200lb weight loss, total body plastic surgery make-overs you can recall.Most of American H/E is completely compromised by the unquenchable thirst for athletics and sadly it responds by focusing much time and money to constantly satisfying the cultural obsession with athletics/sports. THEN ask, when that much attention was paid to our young scholars, scholarships for the needy, increasing access for more students at ALL levels. The answer is indeed a sad one.These numbers are indeed a disgrace. But they only speak of a society obsessed with narcissism, cultural myopia and HUGE doses of arrogance and ignorance about the rest of the planet and the sports/athletic complex is only a temporary delusion for a society that has stopped caring about its place in the world or the well-being of its citizens.Our schools are merely responding to market demands and that market responds faster to the snap of a jock strap and the flurry of pom-poms, but not so much to those students who have to quit school because they can’t afford their books or the bus pass to get to campus…Madison, WIGo Bucky!!!Brad? go get another job.
pajohns1 - June 18, 2010 at 9:39 am
The amount spent on athletes vs. students would be even more out of whack I suspect if the spending on athletes was broken down by sport. What do you want to bet that football players get more than basketball players and both are in the stratosphere compared to the cross country and golf teams?
dank48 - June 18, 2010 at 10:20 am
Panem et ludi.
3rdtyrant - June 18, 2010 at 10:25 am
Galling, but not really a surprise, right? Brilliant allusion, dank48.
murph1813 - June 18, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Don’t they just reprint this same about article about every five years?
jamesmadison - June 18, 2010 at 1:15 pm
On the other hand, I would bet any Roman gladiator or Greek olympian was treated both physically and financially better than Socrates?
11159995 - June 18, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Well, remember, Socrates had been a soldier, so probably got a military pension!8′s mention of gladiators makes me think, in reference to 3′s comments, that Rome went downhill when its citizens became enamored of gladitorial entertainment. College sports seems to be our form of gladitorial entertainment. Does our civilization await the same fate?
dmaratto - June 18, 2010 at 5:13 pm
America already = the fall of Rome
bjmathis - June 18, 2010 at 5:53 pm
I appreciate busyslinky’s comment. It is not as if funding for athletics and funding for academics are competing against one another. In fact I would argue that having a large successful athletic program in many ways help schools (note I am not suggesting that all schools do this). After an institution experiences a conference or national championship, the number of student applicants expand noticeably. This allows for universities to be more selective in their incoming class. Other scholarly articles have found correlations between athletics and alumni donor generosity. Not just donations to athletics (an obvious increase there) but to general funds as well.So why get upset that the athletic program generates far more revenue per student athlete than academics, and as a consequence spends more too? Mind you, please be skeptical of this graph. Note the blue line is “Athletics spending per athlete” versus the red line which is “Academic spending per student” Of course it is going to be an even greater looking gap because the student athlete population is significantly smaller than the non-student athlete population.
rickinchina09 - June 19, 2010 at 1:34 pm
It isn’t often that another poster says nearly everything I wanted to say but honore has done just that. S/he is firing on all cyclinders, as they say. We have lost or are in the processing of losing the original purpose for creating land grant public universities.As a UW Madison alumnus, I can only shake my head at the change in priorities at my own institution. Football and basketball were lackluster when I attended several decades ago. And while it was a disappointment, it was the nice sort, like rooting for the Cubs. The non-draw sports managed to hold their own despite continual poor showings on the gridiron and court.It is an affront not only to student scholars but student athletes for run-of-the-mill jocks to be so well subsidized. In these times of rising tuition and fee costs, it is also oligarchic.
geppy - June 21, 2010 at 7:22 pm
An interesting, well-researched book, “The game of life: college sports and educational values” by James Lawrence Shulman & William G. Bowen gives fresh perspective (by authors who are self-admitted sports fans, not sports bashers) on the whole college sports issue. For me, one key point that this book made in its analysis: sports DO NOT generate huge amounts of revenue for schools. Many schools have to pool the TV income from their games and are locked into an “arms race” for sports. U Michigan has actually lost money even when its football team won, for example.