“Organizations that do not continually reevaluate their goals and their effectiveness in meeting those goals will eventually become obsolete. Critical analysis of college athletics is particularly important because a fundamental purpose of higher education is to encourage critical thinking by challenging pre-existing assumptions in an effort to seek truth. Therefore, the college athletic community should not fear, resist, or ignore such scrutiny; rather, it should welcome the chance to rethink its purpose. Those who criticize college athletics should not be dismissed as simply destructive....”
--John Gerdy, The Successful College Athletic Program[1]
San Jose State University is at a crossroads. President Caret has departed. San Jose State faces perhaps the most severe budget crisis in its history. It will absorb more than $10 million in real cuts during AY 2003/04, with more cuts very likely the following year. Student fees have increased more than 40% in the past year. At times like these, universities are required to focus on their core mission – educating their students – and to cut the frills. To do anything else would be a betrayal of both our students and the taxpayers of California.
At the same time, the Division of Athletics at SJSU is in serious crisis. In 2002, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) adopted new rules for universities that wish to retain their Division I-A status. Most of these rules relate to football, and the football program at SJSU currently meets almost none of them. In order to meet these new requirements, the Division of Athletics (DIA) has embarked on an ambitious – and expensive – campaign. The Division intends to increase its budget by $2 million a year by 2005.
Although the DIA claims that it will attempt to raise this money by increasing fundraising and other sources of revenue, these revenues have not been materializing as predicted. As a result, the Division’s share of the university’s general fund budget is increasing. In 2001-02, the Division took 2.4% of the university budget. In 2002-03, that figure rose to 2.5%. In 2003-04, it will rise yet again. In fact, 2003-04, while every other division of the university suffered a general fund budget cut of 5.66%, the Division of Athletics was the only division of the university whose general fund budget was not cut.[2] Furthermore, this decision was made without consulting with the Academic Senate’s Budget Advisory Committee.
We believe that this represents a seriously skewed sense of priorities. The primary mission of a university is educating its students. Extracurricular activities are important but cannot be allowed to detract from teaching and learning. At a time when classes are being cut, and faculty are being let go or not replaced, we need to seriously question the enormous financial burden created by Division I-A football.
The decision to shield athletics from cuts makes a mockery of the idea that budget decisions should be based on rational planning or articulated university priorities. Indeed, this decision fails to fulfill any of the six budget priorities adopted by the Academic Senate in Fall 2002. This increase comes at the worst possible time. It is an increase that is taken directly from other, instructional needs. This is money that could be used to educate our students.
There is one simple reason why the Athletics budget must grow so dramatically.
Football.
SJSU is a NCAA Division I-A school with a Division I-A football team. In 2002, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) adopted new rules for universities that wished to retain their Division I-A status. Many of these new rules are explained later in this white paper. The administration – with absolutely no faculty or student input or consultation -- has decided that maintaining Division I-A football is essential to the future of the university, and it has therefore launched a massive, ambitious, and very expensive expansion of the football program to meet all of these requirements. According to the DIA’s own master plan, “Sources of this money will include fund-raising, ticket sales, sponsorships, endowments and student fees” (Bell 2002, 4). It is significant to note that this sentence specifically does not preclude the use of additional general fund dollars to help the Department reach its goal.
Because of the drive to save football, there is no realistic prospect that Athletics will reduce its share of the general fund budget, and in fact, it is rising and there are extremely compelling reason to believe that its share of the general fund budget will continue to rise. Therefore, because we believe Division I-A football is a very, very low priority for our students, we recommend that the administration disband the football program after the 2003 season and begin planning to depart Division I-A.
This is a critical time. Although he was a supporter of the university’s drive to retain Division I-A football, President Caret did more or less limit the general fund athletics contribution to 2.4% of the university budget. Although this was significantly higher than the 1% recommended by the Academic Senate in 1993, it did represent at least a modest restraint on the growth of athletics spending. However, President Caret has now left the university, and there is no guarantee that his successor will feel similarly compelled to restrain athletics spending. To the contrary, the Board of Trustees appointed Dr. Joe Crowley to be interim president following Caret’s departure. Dr. Crowley retired with a reputation for honesty and effectiveness after serving as University of Nevada Reno president for 28 years. His first few months on campus have been well received, and we welcome him to the university.
However, we doubt that it’s coincidental that Dr. Crowley is also one of the nation’s leading authorities on intercollegiate athletics and is one of only two university presidents to ever chair the NCAA. According to the Mercury News, “Athletic Director Chuck Bell got the man he wanted” (Wilner 2003). By appointing Dr. Crowley, the Chancellor seems to be sending a strong signal that he places a high priority on retaining football at SJSU. Indeed, SJSU faculty should be worried that football may be the main thing that motivates the Chancellor and his allies on the Board. Football boosters are already making their views known behind the scenes. The time for action is now. The SJSU faculty cannot be silent and allow the Board of Trustees to appoint a president whose main task is the preservation of football, while allowing the intellectual and academic life of the community to wither.
We fully recognize that dropping Division I-A football would be monumental. The SJSU football program has a storied history (see Walsh 2003). The SJSU Division I-A football program has produced several nationally known football heroes, such as Jeff Garcia, quarterback for the San Francisco 49s. SJSU has also produced two Super Bowl winning coaches, Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil. As discussed below, we fully recognize that the football team does on occasion provide a sense of community that helps bind the campus. It also inspires many generous alumni to donate to the university, and we are grateful for the financial support shown to the university by its friends. We also believe that, under the right circumstances, participation in intercollegiate athletics can provide many benefits for the student-athletes who participate in them. We respect our football players and the coaches and administrators who mentor and support them.
This is not a recommendation we make lightly. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the negative consequences of Division I-A football at SJSU outweigh the benefits. This white paper outlines the reasoning behind our recommendation.
Football and the University Budget
“We’ve [athletics] always had budget challenges and we will continue to have those. If you have a budget five times ours, you will have budget challenges. It never ends in athletics any more than it does in academics. Every time you get to a certain level, you need more.”
--SJSU President Robert Caret, August 23, 2002[3]
Any discussion of football must begin with considering the role of money. Simply put, one of the main reasons universities support football is in order to generate revenue. The administration makes two main arguments in regard to football. First, they claim that football pays for itself. Second, they claim that football revenues permit our other, less visible teams to continue to exist. In this section of the white paper, we will demonstrate that these claims are false. We will also examine the five specific sources of football revenue to explain why the Division’s reliance on taxpayer dollars is growing rather than diminishing.
Does Football Pay for Itself?
First, it must be noted that the Division of Athletics does not generally release detailed budget information. Thus, it is often difficult to refute any budgetary claims made by the Division. However, as part of the NCAA self-study that the Division underwent in 2002-03, it was required to release fairly detailed budgets. All figures mentioned in this section are derived from these budget reports. However, even these figures must be viewed with suspicion because, as demonstrated later in this paper, it is undisputable fact that the Division is willing to present misleading data when it serves their interests to do so. In addition, these figures only include items that are included as part of the Athletics Budget. The university incurs additional expenses directly related to Athletics that are not included in the Athletics budget. For example, the budget for the Office of the NCAA Director of Compliance, an office that exists exclusively to monitor the DIA, is not included in the DIA’s budget. This item, by itself, is in excess of $100,000.
With those caveats, let us examine the DIA claim that football pays for itself. On the surface, this would appear to be true. For example, in its 2001-02 budget report required by the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, the Division claims that football generated $3 million in revenue while racking up only $2.9 million in expenses, leaving a $100,000 surplus. However, this miracle is only achieved through creative accounting.
Specifically, the Division of Athletics excludes from the football budget several major items that clearly should be attributed wholly or partially to football. For example, in 2000-01, the following costs were not attributed to football:
- Marketing/Broadcasting – To our knowledge, football is the only sport that is regularly broadcast, either on TV or radio. It also appears to be the only team that receives any significant marketing (although basketball does receive some marketing support as well). As a result, the vast majority of this $240,000 expenditure should be rightly attributed to football, but the DIA counts it separately.
- Ticket Office – The DIA only sells tickets for 3 sports – football, basketball and baseball, and despite the low attendance at football games, it sells more football tickets than tickets to other sports. Thus, at least a significant portion of this $141,000 expenditure should be attributed to football.
- Silicon Valley Bowl – The Silicon Valley Bowl (which, as discussed later in this white paper, has been a total failure) is a football game. However, the DIA decided not to include its $251,000 budget in the football budget.
In addition, there are many other items in the Athletics Budget that, in all likelihood, are devoted primarily to football. For example, the football team is the only team that is permitted to use the stadium for practices, and thus expenses for maintenance and upkeep of the stadium should be attributed in large part to the football program. In addition, expenditures by the Director’s Office were $898,000. The Director and his immediate subordinates do administer all of our sports, but it would simply not be credible to deny that football consumes far more of their time and effort than any other sport. For example, the administration travels with the team to every away football game and attends every home football game. They simply do not do this for any other team. Thus, the lion’s share of this budget can fairly be attributed to football. The same is true for several other items in the DIA budget (weight room, equipment, training, etc.).
In summary, then, the claim that football pays for itself only holds up by maximizing the appearance of football revenues and minimizing the appearance of football costs. At a minimum, we call for an open, independent audit that fairly pro-rates expenses by team. The DIA primarily justifies the football program in terms of the indirect benefits that it brings to the university. It is only fair, then, that we understand and acknowledge the indirect costs of that program as well.
For the sake of argument, however, even if we assume that football currently pays for itself, it almost certainly will no longer be true if SJSU continues in its drive to maintain football. Indeed, the Department of Athletics ran a $700,000 deficit in 2003/04, which the university administration – to its great credit – refused to cover. There are several football-related reasons for this deficit.
For example, the football program currently balances its budget by playing in several “body bag” games each year. “Body bag” games are away games in which SJSU plays a big-name opponent for a substantial payday (usually around $500,000 per game). As a result, in the 2002 season, the Spartans played only four home games. According to new NCAA rules, universities must now play a minimum of five home games each year, meaning that SJSU will have to play in one fewer body bag game each year than it did in 2002. This will mean an automatic loss of approximately $500,000 to the football budget, severely harming its ability to remain self-sufficient. In addition, the new NCAA rules will also require the football team to increase the number of scholarships given to players. This is an additional cost the program will have to absorb.
It would be an interesting exercise to compare general fund expenditures for athletics on all 23 CSU campuses. Amazingly, however, according to Lori Erdman in the Chancellor’s office, the CSU simply does not collect this data! This is an outrage, considering the CSU administration keeps close tabs on most other parts of the university, and in fact justified the CMS program partially in terms of better financial management.
However, some data are available that suggest SJSU would be much better off in the long run without a Division I-A football program. We have obtained a copy of the 1999-2000 Internal Budget for Cal State Long Beach. Cal State Long Beach is very similar to SJSU – it’s an urban campus serving a diverse population of students. They serve more students than SJSU [in 1999/2000, the enrollment target for CSULB was 21,325, while SJSU’s enrollment target was 19,595 (CSU 2000)]. Despite the fact that CSULB has more students than SJSU, they spend far less of the university’s general fund dollars on athletics than SJSU does. During the 1999/2000 Academic year, CSULB spent $2.8 million of its general fund dollars on athletics. During that same year, SJSU spent $5.5 million of its general fund dollars on athletics. This means that SJSU spent $282 of general fund money on athletics per FTES, while CSULB spent a mere $131 per FTES on athletics. If SJSU reduced athletics spending to the level of CSULB, the university would save more than $2.5 million per year.
If SJSU were to drop its football program, it would be required to leave the Western Athletics Conference (WAC). This has the potential to reduce expenses. If SJSU were to join (for example) the Big West Conference, more of its intercollegiate athletic contests would be confined to a smaller geographic area, and would not require teams to make costly trips to places such as Louisiana, Hawaii, and Boise, Idaho. In addition, it is possible that more local rivalries would emerge, generating additional interest in the remaining sports. Although athletics boosters would clearly see this move as a reduction in stature, it by itself would not be radical. It would instead merely represent a return to the recent past.
The DIA’s master plan acknowledges President Caret’s 2.4% cap on university support for athletics (Bell 2002, 3), but does not specifically foreclose the possibility of raising it in the future. Regardless, any assurances regarding the athletics budget must be viewed in the context of recent history at SJSU. In the 1970s and 80s, “[t]hough unknown to the general faculty who presumed to be the major part of shared governance, university funds had been redirected for years from academic programs to top off athletics” (Walsh 2003, 81). For years, the Division ran a deficit, and as recently as 1998, President Caret stated that there was an athletics shortfall of $400,000 (Walsh 2003, 82-83). Although the Division offers assurances that it will not increase its share of the university general fund budget, we believe that the administration’s commitment to football is so public that if saving football requires athletics deficits, the administration will choose to run deficits, further harming our students. This would be intolerable during the most massive budget crisis to face the state and the university.