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

[ithacat]

I believe SU's been in compliance for years. It's dropped men's gymnastics and wrestling, and has added women's soccer, lacrosse, and softball.

Now they drop men's swimming, while swapping hockey for swimming on the women's side. Without the men's action, that's a net loss of 4 scholarships. Factor in the men's scholarships and you get to a net gain of 7 for the women. Now, if they just add women's fencing and gymnastics...

A couple of quotes from an article in the Daily Orange (from last fall) on adding hockey:

"If we added a men's sport, we'd have to get rid of a men's sport," said Michael Wasylenko, chairman of [SU's] Athletic Policy Board. "And that's probably not a good idea."

"Adding one and one doesn't get us toward our goal," Wasylenko said. "Adding three and one? We could."

http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2006/09/12/Sports/Title.Ix.Sidebar.Mens.Hockey.Not.Impossible-2267114.shtml

One other interesting note from the Syracuse.com article is the part about 35-50 million for a new pool. With football down, I can see SU wanting to save some money. On the other hand, if SU's going to spend 35-50 million on a new facility...soft water or hard? Miami's new arena cost them 35 million. That would leave 15 million to start up the hockey programs. I love swimming as much as the next hockey fan, but, sorry, I like where this is going.

Just saw this little bit...http://blog.collegehockeynews.com/?p=132

Correction: Friday's Daily Orange mentions that SU did need to add another sport for compliance reasons. It also mentions that AD Gross said last fall that women's golf may be a possible addition.
http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2007/05/10/Sports/Syracuse.To.Cut.Swimming.And.Diving.Teams-2910847.shtml

[Robb]

[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]

Not necessarily.  Title IX reads "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."  That's not section 2, paragraph 7 - that's the whole thing.

In 1979, the Ed Dept. issued a policy statment suggesting 3 ways in which an institution could show compliance:

1. Have a ratio of male/female athletes equal to the general student body
2. Show continual progress toward that ratio
3. Show that you're fully accomodating the desires of both genders

Not too many schools can claim #1, because of football.  Not too many schools are going to stand up in court and argue that "our women just don't want to play sports," so that rules out #3.  Therefore, most schools go through door #2.  Unfortunately, it's all about the ratio.  Anything that moves the ratio in the right direction Title-IX-proofs you for at least a few years, whether that's adding women's sports or dropping men's.  Until the ratio is fully equal to the student body, all men's sports are at risk (well, not football, obviously!), because they have to show continual progress - where cutting a men's team every few years is defined as progress.

Of course, adding new, equal opportunities for men and women also generally moves schools toward the correct ratio (5/7 is closer to .500 than 4/6), but that's the expensive option.  And 5/7 doesn't solve the problem, because you still have to show continual improvement from there.

Realistically, therefore, the only way for a school to get away with adding a men's team is to achieve the correct ratio first, by cutting other men's teams or adding every women's sport they can think of.  Aside: If you have a daughter, get her involved in crew - colleges are adding it like crazy, and the team sizes are increasing, too.  In the mid-80's, only about 25 D-1 NCAA schools offered it, and there were ~35 women per team.  Now 86 offer it, and there are nearly 60 women per team.  This is because crew is relatively cheap (only takes a few coaches + volunteers) and opens up a lot of slots for women.

So, no, I don't necessarily see this as "paving the way" for a men's team, unless this move brings Syracuse all the way to the correct ratio of male/female athletes.

[ugarte]

[quote BillCharlton]

Not only does football not create "massive funding imbalances," it actually produces funds at many universities. [/quote]
"Many" is an interesting word. Rutgers won 10 games and a bowl last year and hemorrhaged money like a dotcom run by a CEO with a heroin addiction. Most schools lose money on football, and lose a lot. Football may be a revenue-generating sport, but rarely is it a profit generating sport.

The standard excuses about why football should be exempt rely on schools that are essentially semi-pro. Michigan's profits do not justify Ball State's exemption.

[Josh '99]

Wow, that was probably the most incisive and cogent analysis of anything I've ever read on this board.

(Maybe except for Hillel's lacrosse season preview.)

[KeithK]

There are people who will argue until they're blue in the face that big time college football almost never makes money when you consider all of the institutional support for it (including capital expenditures and facilities).  I'm not sure I believe them - I find it hard to believe that the better Big Ten or SEC schools don't rake in the profit from their football programs.  But whatever.

I also find it very hard to believe that Michigan or Nebraska or Alabama wouldn stop making money if they reduced scholarships they way I suggested earlier.  You'd have to thyink that this would lower the level of play so far that the many fans of these teams stop going to games, buying merchandise, etc. Wouldn't happen IMO.

Such a change could happen over time if a school unilaterally changed it's policies and became non-competitive as a result (see Ivy League).  But not if everyone were on a level playing field.

[Robb]

[quote KeithK]There are people who will argue until they're blue in the face that big time college football almost never makes money when you consider all of the institutional support for it (including capital expenditures and facilities).  I'm not sure I believe them - I find it hard to believe that the better Big Ten or SEC schools don't rake in the profit from their football programs.  But whatever.[/quote]

Including the schools themselves.  I mean, can you imagine a U president standing up and saying, "look, we made $20M off our football team last year, but we're going to raise ticket prices anyway!"?  No - far better for them to use some creative accounting practices to show that the team is barely breaking even (or better yet, showing a small loss) so that they have excuses for continually increasing the revenue (and hidden profits) of the program, while maintaining the facade of amateurism.

[billhoward]

Ugarte may be right. A few teams, not all the 41 major colleges, "rake in" the money. For every Notre Dame or USC, there's also

Ball State
Buffalo
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Fresno State
University of Nevada, Reno
University of Akron
University of Toledo
Temple
Utah State
Virginia Poly
... etcetera (of the 41 NCAA bowl eligible teams)

I love to watch highest level college football or hoops. But I think of it as semi-pro, semi-gladiator sport. Some of the guys will go on to do well in life, and some just got used by the coaches and colleges. OTOH when you saw Cornell, Duke, Hopkins, and Delaware face off, it was sport at the highest level, played by people who have a life and are going places in their lives. If they practice twice as hard, lived in athletic dorms, had a GPA 1.0 points lower, and played lacrosse at a higher level, would it really be any more exciting that what we saw?

For what we saw this past weekend we should be thrilled that Cornell plays college sports the way it should be played. Duke, too, and Hopkins, and Delaware.

[billhoward]

A message like Robb's has no place on a sports bulletin board. It's logical, reasoned, and worst of all, appears to be based on verifying and then citing facts.

[BillCharlton]

I downloaded data on NCAA Division I-A football programs from the Office of Postsecondary Education (part of the Federal Department of Education) website that contradict Ugarte's assertions. These data are compiled from annual reports that all Division I-A schools (except for the Naval Academy and Air Force Academy) are required to submit to the Department of Education.

The table below shows the number and percentage of profitable institutions for the 2004-2005 season. Information that is more recent is not available in easily downloadable form, but I doubt that the numbers have changed significantly in the last two years.

Total Profitable   70   59.8%
Total Breakeven   7   6.0%
Total Unprofitable   40   34.2%
       
   Total Institutions   117   
       
BCS Profitable   56   86.2%
BCS Breakeven   1   1.5%
BCS Unprofitable   8   12.3%
       
   Total BCS   65   
       
Non-BCS Profitable   15   28.8%
Non-BCS Breakeven   5   9.6%
Non-BCS Unprofitable   32   61.5%
       
   Total Non-BCS   52   

At the bottom of the post is a pdf I made showing the profitability by school.

Most schools do not lose money on football. Most schools generate a profit, sometimes a huge profit. Forty-three of the schools made more than $5 million. For a BCS school, in fact, it is hard not to make a profit. It is much harder for non-BCS schools to make money, but approximately 38 percent were profitable or broke even. These data also show that the Ball States, Western Michgans, and Florida Atlantics of the world do lose large sums of money. Maybe such schools should seriously consider dropping football or moving down to a lower level of competition. If you cannot even generate $1 million in revenue, as with Ball State, you probably have no place in Division 1-A football. Harvard and Yale generated twice that much revenue.

[ugarte]

[quote BillCharlton]I downloaded data on NCAA Division I-A football programs from the Office of Postsecondary Education (part of the Federal Department of Education) website that contradict Ugarte's assertions. [/quote]
Thanks for this. For the record, I was going off of my memory from when I studied this stuff closely - which would have been back in 1993. I imagine there are a lot more revenue sources and the real implementation of Title IX has curbed some of the worst excesses. I also wonder how much profit is required before you can say that the football program is "paying for" the non-revenue sports at the school. I imagine that many (if not most) of the football-profitable schools are still operating at considerable losses - though the schools with profitable basketball programs probably are.

Finally, I had no particular knowledge about Ball State's program. That they happen to be lose more money than Enron was a very strange coincidence.

[Scersk '97]

[quote ithacat]On the other hand, if SU's going to spend 35-50 million on a new facility...soft water or hard?[/quote]

I would hope that they'd make it a soft-water facility, because, you know, it's tough to get clean in hard water and Syracuse, well, is a "hard-water town."

[Ben Rocky '04]

Where do the Ivy schools fall, in terms of profitability, compared to the D1A schools?

[BillCharlton]

In revenue generation, the Ivies are at a disadvantage compared to D1 schools because, among other reasons, they attract small crowds at modest ticket prices and they do not have lucrative television and radio contracts. On the other hand, their expenses are low because they do not give athletic scholarships, they do not travel long distances, and they do not pay their coaches much. Attached is a pdf showing profitability by school.

One thing to keep in mind with these numbers is that schools may count as revenue contributions from alumni and others, institutional support, State or other government support, student activity fees, and any other revenues attributable to intercollegiate athletic activities. In other words, schools such as Harvard and Brown use funds from these sources to make athletics "revenue neutral," which is why they show a profit of zero. The other schools do not practice revenue neutral budgeting. This does not mean, however, that they do not include "general athletic" revenues in their football revenue.

[The Rancor]

[quote Scersk '97][quote ithacat]On the other hand, if SU's going to spend 35-50 million on a new facility...soft water or hard?[/quote]

I would hope that they'd make it a soft-water facility, because, you know, it's tough to get clean in hard water and Syracuse, well, is a "hard-water town."[/quote]

ZEST!!

[Josh '99]

[quote BillCharlton]Attached is a pdf showing profitability by school.[/quote]I find that really odd.  Princeton, Penn, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth and Yale all have athletics revenue between $1.56M and $1.98M; Cornell is at $634K and Columbia at $560K.  Is that big gap between Cornell/Columbia and the range the other schools are in because all the other schools use the kind of accounting that you talked about, or do Cornell and Columbia take in significantly less money for some other reason?