Title IX & Profitability of College Sports (once was: Syracuse to add hockey)

[Chris '03]

Women's hockey that is... http://www.syracuse.com/articles/sports/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1180605573113600.xml&coll=1

Sorry swim teams.

[Will]

[quote The Post-Standard]The women's swim team, which consists of 13 members, receives 14 scholarships.[/quote]

Um...what?

[Ben Rocky '04]

You're quite a tease with that subject line.

[evilnaturedrobot]

Well it's a step in the right direction.  My knowledge of Title IX isn't that extensive, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't this pave the way for a mens team (atleast on Title IX)?

[ugarte]

[quote evilnaturedrobot]Well it's a step in the right direction.  My knowledge of Title IX isn't that extensive, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't this pave the way for a mens team (atleast on Title IX)?[/quote]
No. The women's hockey team will provide some institutional balance with the football team. They will start a men's hockey program right after they start a women's football team.

As for the strange women's swimming scholarship numbers, the team probably hasn't given out all of the scholarships available to it - which is kind of an indication that the program wasn't be run well in the first place.

[billhoward]

[quote ugarte][quote evilnaturedrobot]Well it's a step in the right direction.  My knowledge of Title IX isn't that extensive, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't this pave the way for a mens team (atleast on Title IX)?[/quote]
No. The women's hockey team will provide some institutional balance with the football team. They will start a men's hockey program right after they start a women's football team.

As for the strange women's swimming scholarship numbers, the team probably hasn't given out all of the scholarships available to it - which is kind of an indication that the program wasn't be run well in the first place.[/quote]
Ugarte makes an important point: Much of the Title IX balancing of mens vs. women's scholarships and sports opportunities starts off with men's football (a redundancy, I suppose) and its many scholarships, so the women's side needs a couple dozen scholarhips in sports men don't play - or can't play because the school dropped or never started that men's team. There've been suggestions that football be considered outside the boundaries of Title IX balancing. That is, forget the 36 or whatever football scholarships and have 100 every-other-sport scholarships for men and another 100 for women.

I believe wrestling has tough going also because there's no women's wrestling. Other than maybe at Duke, and come to think of it that's not a sanctioned sport.

[evilnaturedrobot]

I don't see why Syracuse would need to drop Men's swimming and add a Women's hockey team to balence the football team.  I would assume that the football scholarships where already offset by other Women's sports, it's not as if Syracuse hasn't been playing football for some time now.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

[quote evilnaturedrobot]I don't see why Syracuse would need to drop Men's swimming and add a Women's hockey team to balence the football team.  I would assume that the football scholarships where already offset by other Women's sports, it's not as if Syracuse hasn't been playing football for some time now.[/quote]

Probably want to add scholarships for football or some other existing mens' sport.

[KeithK]

IMO, Football, wrestling and any other sport that doesn't have a female equivalent shouldn't be counted in the balancing.  Likewise for any sport that didn't have a male equivalent (field hockey is the only sport that comes to mind, in the US anyway).  But then again, the fact that football is allowed 85 scholarships (yes, 85) is absolutely ridiculous.  Make the ratio of scholarships to active roster size comparable to that in other sports (e.g. 18 to 22 in hockey) and then maybe we can talk...

[evilnaturedrobot]

Don't those other men's sports have scholarship limits?  I can't imagine that Syracuse hasn't already maxed out it's scholarships in money sports like football and basketball.

[KeithK]

[quote evilnaturedrobot]Don't those other men's sports have scholarship limits?  I can't imagine that Syracuse hasn't already maxed out it's scholarships in money sports like football and basketball.[/quote]
As far as I know every D1 sport has specific scholarship limits.  Probably wouldn't be too hard to look up the sport by sport numbers if you were so inclined.

[Josh '99]

[quote billhoward]I believe wrestling has tough going also because there's no women's wrestling. Other than maybe at Duke, and come to think of it that's not a sanctioned sport.[/quote]Stop trying to be funny.  Please.

[ugarte]

[quote KeithK]IMO, Football, wrestling and any other sport that doesn't have a female equivalent shouldn't be counted in the balancing.  Likewise for any sport that didn't have a male equivalent...[/quote]
If you accept the underlying logic of Title IX (and we can agree to disagree on whether it is a good thing or the intrusive hand of a dictatorship), this is untenable. It is like saying the only thing that shouldn't matter in determining race-based discrimination is hiring practices based on race. Football so distorts and swallows every other consideration that to make an exception for it (as a logical starting point) is tantamount to saying that you don't actually care about balance to begin with.

Beyond the scholarship issues, the mere roster size of football (beyond the "active roster" is an entire regiment of players who are never going to see a down on the field that year) creates massive funding imbalances, not to mention the budgets for recruiting, coaching, medical care, etc.

[KeithK]

I don't disagree that football distorts things in it's current form.  But if the rules for football were changed such that they were in line with what applies to other sports I could be satisfied that the distortion was minimized.  Examples of needed changes might be reducing scholarships to a proportional level (maybe 30-35 scholarships for 40 some odd active players) as opposed to 85), a reasonable limit on team sizes (80+ is ridiculous) that would drive down the other costs you cite and tightening on redshirting rules to prevent stockpiling of talent.

It is (IMO) unfair in principle to punish male athletes because there is no female equivalent to football or wrestling.  But until some of the egregious excesses of college football are removed this argument has no chance of getting traction.

[BillCharlton]

Not only does football not create "massive funding imbalances," it actually produces funds at many universities. In the BCS conferences, in particular, football is the major revenue-generating sport. Many football programs in the Big 10 and SEC, for example, make a profit (after expenses) of $5 to $10 million or more per year. Consider the University of Michigan, which sells close to 110 thousand tickets seven or eight times a year at $50 or $60 per ticket (not including parking, concessions, and seat license fees).

The profits from football and men's basketball are used to fund the non-revenue-generating men's and women's sports. Only a handful of women's programs (e.g., Tennessee women's basketball) actually turn a profit. Cutting back on football funding would likely have the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of opening up more scholarships for other sports, there would be fewer net scholarships to go around.

Revenue generation is the main reason for arguing that football should be exempt from Title IX. Another reason is that women technically are not excluded from playing football. There have been a few well-publicized cases in which female place kickers played on D1 teams. For all practical purposes, of course, few female athletes could ever hope to make a roster.