Who Needs $ from a Div. IA College Football Playoff?

·         The Chronicle of Higher Education   9-3-99             Heisman Trophy

Financially troubled Downtown Athletic Club in New York, which sponsors the annual award for the top performer in college football, had filed for bankruptcy protection this year and was bought by a bank in June.

·         USA Today   9-8-00              College bowls dip into pubic funds

As college football teams across the nation settle into the competition for bids to bowl games, the people who stage those games are settling into a competition for funds that goes beyond finding corporate sponsors.
Eleven of this season's 25 postseason games are drawing state or municipal subsidies totaling nearly $4.5 million, numbers that will grow if many in the industry have their way.  The Orange Bowl in Miami, which expects to have increased expenses this season because it is hosting the national championship game, obtained a $400,000 grant from the sale of specialty license plates.  Officials of eight other bowls - four in Florida, two in Texas, one each in Alabama and Michigan - say they expect to petition legislators for future funding.
In Louisiana, Sugar and Independence Bowl officials intend to ask the Legislature to restore annual subsidies of $1 million and $250,000 respectively, that were eliminated amid state belt-tightening.
"We're talking about games that generate anywhere from $25 million to well over $100 million of economic impact," Orange Bowl executive director Keith Trible says.  "It's money well spent."
Not everyone agrees.
"Taxpayer subsidies for sports stadiums, teams or even individual events are a total waste," says Pete Sepps of the Virginia based National Taxpayers Union.  "If the venture in question holds such a great profit potential, then public funding is superfluous."
The money is provided in a variety of ways:  tourism authorities (more than $100,000 for the Aloha Bowl in Honolulu); convention and visitors bureaus ($150,000 for the Alamo in San Antonio); cuts from local hotel taxes ($700,000 for the Holiday in San Diego and $350,000 for the Gator in Jacksonville, Fla.); and rental-car taxes (up to $1.7million for the Sun in El Paso).
In Las Vegas, the city's Convention and Visitors Authority is a title sponsor of the Las Vegas Bowl contributing $350,000-$400,000 a year.
"Necessary isn't the right word," Rick Baker, executive director of Dallas' Cotton Bowl, says of a prospective subsidy.  "But it would certainly be helpful."

·         8-29-00         Washington 
Knight Commission asks: Have conditions in college sports gotten better, or Worse? "Expenses of athletic programs are increasing rapidly, said Mr. Isch, the NCAA's Vice President for finance and information services. According to a report to be released this fall, expenses are up 70%, salaries and benefits for administrators and coaches are up 47 percent, and capital costs have increased 260 percent. Only 25% of Division I institutions received more money from outside sources like ticket sales and television contracts than they spent on their sports programs."

·         Increased revenue is a very important issue to universities.  Approximately 75% or more of Intercollegiate Athletics revenue is derived from football, which is the financial catalyst that will generate a department’s budget supporting other men’s and women’s sports.  Considering that 60% of athletic departments currently operate at a loss and 86% of universities are not in compliance with Title IX, today’s fiscal pressures have forced many schools to make tough decisions such as to cut funding for many secondary programs like wrestling, tennis, golf, or soccer.  With increased revenue, the real winners would again be the student-athletes.  Not only would more scholarships be available for the total of all sports, but also better academic and athletic facilities.

·         7-28-00

The 2000-01 season will be the last for Washington men’s and women’s swim teams, Athletic Director Barbara Hedges said Thursday.

·         USA TODAY  8-11-2000            Catch ‘em if you can

FSU has been in the ACC for eight years, and it has won or shared the conference title eight times.  N.C. State is pouring money into its program in an attempt to compete.  The school is about to start a $102 million renovation that will move the football offices and practice facilities to a new complex at its stadium.

·         Yahoo! Sports  8-12-2000  Enshrinees say college football must do more for  athletes

“When a coach goes and recruits in a little town in Georgia or wherever, he sees the way these kids live,” said Bill Kilmer, a single-wing tailback at UCLA who led the nation in total offense in 1960.  “And then their mother gets sick or something happens and they can’t give them enough money to get home on a plane trip or a bus ride, and when he does, the NCAA puts him on a two or three-year ban.  I think it’s horrible.”

With the millions of dollars the NCAA takes in on bowl games and television contracts, it should give some of it to football players, Kilmer said.

·         The NCAA News     10-12-1998       

The NCAA recently offered a cash settlement of $44 million to plaintiffs in the restricted-earnings coaches lawsuit.  “Our offer of $44 million is more than fair,” NCAA President Cedric W. Dempsey said.  “It certainly exceeds actual damages and is nearly double the jury’s figure.”  The jury in the damages phase of the trial awarded about $22.3 million in damages, which were trebled under antitrust law.

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