Balancing the books
Thursday in Indianapolis, the university presidents who make up the NCAA's Board of Directors are expected to do something deep down they know they shouldn't: extend the college football season from 11 to 12 games.
The impetus for the extra game is solely and completely to make money (an average of $1.5 million per school). There is no other reason for it, which runs in direct contrast with the mission of the NCAA. But with schools overwhelmed by their outrageous athletic largesse, expect situational ethics to be applied.
Besides, it is not like student-athletes have a way to voice a protest.
All you need to know about the state of college athletics can be found by following the money, or waste thereof. For example, let's follow it all the way to Charlottesville, Va.
In 2001, the University of Virginia was snookered into giving men's basketball coach Pete Gillen federal judge-like job security with a 10-year, $11 million contract. By 2005, the marriage was over and the school bought out the deal for $2 million.
After whiffing on a number of top candidates, Virginia hired DePaul's Dave Leitao at nearly $1 million per year for five years. But to do so they had to pay DePaul a fee which has been reported to be between $1.5 million and $3 million. (UVA media relations director Rich Murray wouldn't clarify Wednesday, so let's split the difference and go with $2.25 million.)
Meaning Virginia, which hasn't won an ACC championship since 1976, will spend about $5.2 million on head basketball coaches this year.
We repeat: $5.2 million on basketball coaches.
How is this necessary?
In 2006, the school is opening an opulent $130 million basketball arena, even though the old University Hall was perfectly suitable. The new place will seat 15,000 even though Charlottesville has just 39,000 residents and UVA hoops averaged 7,617 fans last year.
State politicians declined to provide a single dime of public money, leaving UVA to raise the funding itself.
Of course, getting that $130 million together hasn't been easy. Murray says $88 million has been raised thus far. Luxury box and premium seating revenue is expected to help, but that requires an open arena and a winning team.
The school won't say as much, but if another $42 million isn't found by next year, it will be forced to meet construction costs with a loan that will cost millions more in debt service.
All of this bumbling, stumbling management, multi-million dollar mistakes and mega-debt exposure would get you fired in the private sector, but not in college athletics, where spending like the Hilton sisters is the norm.
But even here the millions add up, and someone has to pay the piper, which is why the NCAA is willing to turn its back on its core mission and squeeze the student-athletes for every last penny.
Whether it is more games and more bowls, mid-week television deals, conference championship football games and basketball tournaments, or increased travel in overexpanded leagues, the players are stuck making up for the suits' mistakes.
Athletic directors make terrible businessmen, because few have ever been in business. They have deplorable track records of hiring and firing coaches, where politics and perception rule, because few have ever coached.
And when it comes to negotiating contracts, the AD almost always gets bamboozled by the coach's more cunning agent.
It's not just Virginia, which is no better or worse than most. It is nearly everyone.
East Carolina is currently paying three head football coaches. Tennessee is paying three basketball coaches, including Jerry Green who was fired even though he led the school to the NCAA tournament in each of his four seasons.
Meanwhile, facility construction has become an ego-driven game of luxurious million-dollar locker rooms, Fortune 500-caliber coaching offices and ornate lobbies – all in the name of competitiveness.
The reason Virginia built the new stadium is because the University of Maryland already had. The reason Maryland did is because Ohio State (which has spent $300 million recently on facilities) already had. And so on.
Which brings us to the 12th game, the most blatant example of educators trying to balance their books on the backs of their students. One more Saturday means one more big check to cover one more big mistake.
Naturally, when the proposed change came to an NCAA subcommittee earlier this month, these ethical and educational issues weighed so heavily on the members that not a single word of debate was heard before near-unanimous passage.
So now it goes to the presidents, the self-proclaimed moral compass of the NCAA, who are expected to ignore missed study time and misplaced priorities to help fund a broken system of excess.
And then they'll wonder why some kid takes a handout from a booster.
