A New Wrinkle/Opinion on O'Bannon Case and a Surprising Revelation

[Bostondevil]

OK - I was unaware until recently that some schools charge extra fees from their non-scholarship students to support their athletic teams (Florida International being one of them). I do not think that an athlete who has his schooling paid for in part by his fellow students and, if he goes to a public institution, the taxpayers of that state, deserve all of the profits from the use of his or her image. I think students that are footing the bill for athletes should file their own class action suit. O'Bannon's image would be worth far less if it didnt' have UCLA on the front. For the most part, the jerseys sold by the schools aren't really sold because of the player, it's the intersection of player AND team. (We could compare sales of Curry Liberty jerseys with Curry Duke jerseys - just for fun.) The schools matter. And the regular kids who graduate from those schools with large debts should be getting some of the action.

I've been rethinking the whole college athletics thing recently now that I am actually writing tuition checks. If college athletes want to be paid for their services, and I kinda think some form of that is coming, then they should not receive scholarship money. The first thing that should come out of their paycheck is tuition.

The surprising revelation? I'm writing tuition checks to Duke for my son, currently a sophomore. He posts here! I suppose that part isn't all that surprising but he did let me know his posting name recently - that kinda is surprising.

Is this too public policy?

[sagegrouse]

OK - I was unaware until recently that some schools charge extra fees from their non-scholarship students to support their athletic teams (Florida International being one of them). I do not think that an athlete who has his schooling paid for in part by his fellow students and, if he goes to a public institution, the taxpayers of that state, deserve all of the profits from the use of his or her image.

Is this too public policy?

Fine topic, as far as I am concerned. But I was under the impression that all things labeled, "Student Activity Fees," included money for athletics, which go to pay for student tickets. I thought the practice was quite common and included almost every university. There may be another interpretation for the fees, such as paying for IM programs and athletic facilities used by students.

Someone on the Board doubtless knows the details of the situation at Duke.

sagegrouse

[sue71, esq]

I won't speak to any specific university, but having worked at several, "Student Activity Fee" is a generic term where the monies are used for various things, and not all going to one organization. Often it's split, with some going to subsidize student tickets, recreational services & facilities, student activities (such as student clubs/organizations), etc. It also goes toward (forgive me but I'm blanking on the term here) student concert board -type organizations, where a band is brought in for a concert once a semester, and things along those lines.

Every school is different in what it's called and how it's split up, but Sage was on the right track with his thoughts.

[sue71, esq]

One more thing- believe me when I say that arguments over the fees are monumental. A school may decide they need a new rec facility, but to ask for a $30 or even $15 increase in student fees to help cover costs can erupt in a war. The number of student tickets allotted for (most often) football or men's basketball depends largely in how much subsidy there is from the fees. (Yes, percentage of the venue also plays into it, as do many other factors, but $$$ talks especially when those seats could go to big donors). Your student group wants to have a function? Where does that money come from... it's allocated by university organizations, often student governments or student activity boards. Where do they get their money? Student fees.

There's more, but I don't want to bore anyone with it... feel free to PM me if you'd like.

[Jarhead]

OK - I was unaware until recently that some schools charge extra fees from their non-scholarship students to support their athletic teams (Florida International being one of them). I do not think that an athlete who has his schooling paid for in part by his fellow students and, if he goes to a public institution, the taxpayers of that state, deserve all of the profits from the use of his or her image. I think students that are footing the bill for athletes should file their own class action suit. O'Bannon's image would be worth far less if it didnt' have UCLA on the front. For the most part, the jerseys sold by the schools aren't really sold because of the player, it's the intersection of player AND team. (We could compare sales of Curry Liberty jerseys with Curry Duke jerseys - just for fun.) The schools matter. And the regular kids who graduate from those schools with large debts should be getting some of the action.

I've been rethinking the whole college athletics thing recently now that I am actually writing tuition checks. If college athletes want to be paid for their services, and I kinda think some form of that is coming, then they should not receive scholarship money. The first thing that should come out of their paycheck is tuition.

The surprising revelation? I'm writing tuition checks to Duke for my son, currently a sophomore. He posts here! I suppose that part isn't all that surprising but he did let me know his posting name recently - that kinda is surprising. Is this too public policy?

Your post confuses me somewhat. I cannot tell for sure what side you are taking on this issue. I think I understand, and at the same time I wonder why your post needs to be in a separate thread. It is right in the middle of a topic in another thread that is still pretty active in the EK forum. I'll leave that to the moderators though.

Can you please explain how tuition from non athletes paid for any of the tuition scholarships granted to student athletes. As far as I know, Duke athletic scholarship funds come from endowed scholarships, restricted donations from alumni and friends of the University, and earnings of DUAA. I have heard that Coach K is among those creating endowed athletic scholarships at Duke.

By the way, regarding your "Surprising Revelation" the list of DBR forum posters has included two of my sons. I gotcha there.

[77devil]

By the way, regarding your "Surprising Revelation" the list of DBR forum posters has included two of my sons. I gotcha there.

And my son and daughter-I suspect there are more than a few of these revelations that are not surprising at all.

[Bostondevil]

It was the Wall Street Journal's Grid of Shame. Perhaps I misinterpreted what they said. I'll admit I didn't research it any further, but what I thought they said was that Florida International funded their athletics on the backs of non-scholarship students - $18 million of their $25 million in revenue. Here's the link. Am I wrong?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...507233498.html

But my main point is that if we're going to pay athletes, they shouldn't get scholarships too. And if we're going to start holding money in trust for them based on jersey sales, again, gotta pay the school back first. If they are employees then they shouldn't be taking classroom space from kids who are there to study. If they are students who expect to be paid, well, all right, but then we shouldn't be paying them on top of paying for them, tuition comes out of what we pay them.

[Jarhead]

It was the Wall Street Journal's Grid of Shame. Perhaps I misinterpreted what they said. I'll admit I didn't research it any further, but what I thought they said was that Florida International funded their athletics on the backs of non-scholarship students - $18 million of their $25 million in revenue. Here's the link. Am I wrong?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...507233498.html

But my main point is that if we're going to pay athletes, they shouldn't get scholarships too. And if we're going to start holding money in trust for them based on jersey sales, again, gotta pay the school back first. If they are employees then they shouldn't be taking classroom space from kids who are there to study. If they are students who expect to be paid, well, all right, but then we shouldn't be paying them on top of paying for them, tuition comes out of what we pay them.

The WSJ link is not about paying athletes. Its about a comparison of College football teams on the basis of their APR (academic progress rate, perhaps) and their on field performance. The measurements seem arbitrary and subjective. Credibility seems lacking, but placement of the teams in the chart does ring true in some cases. Think of it as akin to preseason football polls, but if you think it supports your line of thought then maybe you should go back and examine it again.

[cf-62]

It was the Wall Street Journal's Grid of Shame. Perhaps I misinterpreted what they said. I'll admit I didn't research it any further, but what I thought they said was that Florida International funded their athletics on the backs of non-scholarship students - $18 million of their $25 million in revenue. Here's the link. Am I wrong?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...507233498.html

But my main point is that if we're going to pay athletes, they shouldn't get scholarships too. And if we're going to start holding money in trust for them based on jersey sales, again, gotta pay the school back first. If they are employees then they shouldn't be taking classroom space from kids who are there to study. If they are students who expect to be paid, well, all right, but then we shouldn't be paying them on top of paying for them, tuition comes out of what we pay them.

You're missing the bigger picture BD.

"If they get paid, then they shouldn't get scholarships."

A) They do get paid - in the form of scholarships.

"If they're employees, then they shouldn't take up classroom space"

B) If they're employees, it's not intercollegiate sports anymore

But let me truly blow your mind. In the current world of athletic scholarships, a certain set of schools (Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, etc.) provide an extremely more valuable scholarship (talking about money only, not the intrinsic value of a degree from a Top 10 school). If the rules of amateurism are eliminated, and basketball & football players are paid a share of revenue, but have to pay their tuition themselves, the world flips on its head. From a financial perspective, you would be a fool to choose one of these schools instead of a UCLA or Texas. I mean, even if you lived in the bay, there's NO FREAKING WAY you choose Stanford over Cal. You'll pocket ~$100K to $200K extra cash during your time on campus.

If the pundits get what they want (the redefinition of amateurism, and revenue sharing with the kids - "the schools are already paying them under the table anyway, so let's legalize it"), no private school will be able to maintain a legitimate athletic program. (That may be okay - a different debate for a different time), Duke athletics as we know it would cease to exist within 5 years (goal of national championships across the board).

The requests of the kids doing the APU thing are reasonable - full cost scholarships, small cost-of-college stipend, 4-yr scholarship guarantees, and full medical coverage for injuries. But simply "giving in" because every day, another school is implicated in Pay for Play, is ridiculous.

Finally, a word about the "free market" value of these players. There are superstars that emerge (i.e., Johnny Football), but to say that the PLAYERS created the industry is a serious misnomer. IF that were true, there would be an alternative league for 18-22 year olds that has nothing to do with colleges, and we would see that league on TV. It's not a question of "nobody can pay for it." There's ALWAYS money for legitimate markets. The truth is that the TV contracts -- and the revenues -- are tied to COLLEGES, not players.

[sue71, esq]

It was the Wall Street Journal's Grid of Shame. Perhaps I misinterpreted what they said. I'll admit I didn't research it any further, but what I thought they said was that Florida International funded their athletics on the backs of non-scholarship students - $18 million of their $25 million in revenue. Here's the link. Am I wrong?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...507233498.html

But my main point is that if we're going to pay athletes, they shouldn't get scholarships too. And if we're going to start holding money in trust for them based on jersey sales, again, gotta pay the school back first. If they are employees then they shouldn't be taking classroom space from kids who are there to study. If they are students who expect to be paid, well, all right, but then we shouldn't be paying them on top of paying for them, tuition comes out of what we pay them.

That seems wrong on many levels, but let's look at numbers. What are your son's student fees? Looking at FIU, they claim 50k students in the fall of 2012, so let's use that number. Their fees (per student per credit hour per semester) are as follows:

Athletic Fee $8.49
Women Title IX $.30
Athletic Football $7.31

Athletic Fee $10.00 (no idea why there's a second athletic fee, but there is but it's per semester)

Assuming all 50k students pay these fees, that's $16.10/credit hour x 12* credit hours x 50k students x 2 semesters = $19,320,000/year + $1,000,000/year for the second athletic fee (50k stu x $10/semester x 2 semesters) for a grand total of $20,320,000. I guess $18 million can easily be taken out of there to subsidize athletics, so I guess I'm wrong, but it seems seriously out of whack to me.

Per student, per credit hour, it's a small amount (at most 7% of a given student's tuition), so it may not even be noticed.

But I can assure you athletics had to battle to get these fees approved. When I was at one school, they wanted to build a new rec center. Everything had been approved and contracted and was about a year away from demolition on the old to build the new... but that pesky student fee increase was holding things up because the student orgs didn't approve it or wanted less than was being requested by rec sports. Ugh bureaucracy.

And to the point that scholarships are endowed... yes, this is true that *some* scholarships are endowed at many schools, but for the most part (unless you're Stanford where all athletic schollys are endowed), that's why athletic fundraising exists at universities.


* I guessed at an average of 12 credit hours per student, since the 50k isn't specified as full time or part time, nor a grad to ug ratio.

[Bostondevil]

That seems wrong on many levels, but let's look at numbers. What are your son's student fees? Looking at FIU, they claim 50k students in the fall of 2012, so let's use that number. Their fees (per student per credit hour per semester) are as follows:

Athletic Fee $8.49
Women Title IX $.30
Athletic Football $7.31

Athletic Fee $10.00 (no idea why there's a second athletic fee, but there is but it's per semester)

Assuming all 50k students pay these fees, that's $16.10/credit hour x 12* credit hours x 50k students x 2 semesters = $19,320,000/year + $1,000,000/year for the second athletic fee (50k stu x $10/semester x 2 semesters) for a grand total of $20,320,000. I guess $18 million can easily be taken out of there to subsidize athletics, so I guess I'm wrong, but it seems seriously out of whack to me.

Per student, per credit hour, it's a small amount (at most 7% of a given student's tuition), so it may not even be noticed.

But I can assure you athletics had to battle to get these fees approved. When I was at one school, they wanted to build a new rec center. Everything had been approved and contracted and was about a year away from demolition on the old to build the new... but that pesky student fee increase was holding things up because the student orgs didn't approve it or wanted less than was being requested by rec sports. Ugh bureaucracy.

And to the point that scholarships are endowed... yes, this is true that *some* scholarships are endowed at many schools, but for the most part (unless you're Stanford where all athletic schollys are endowed), that's why athletic fundraising exists at universities.


* I guessed at an average of 12 credit hours per student, since the 50k isn't specified as full time or part time, nor a grad to ug ratio.

Thanks, Sue. I feel better about that part of it now. It doesn't seem quite so unreasonable.

Still - and it's taken me this long in my life to get here - but the moral mess that is college athletics has started to bother me. I'm not entirely sure what I would like to see happen. But the system is broken in many more ways than in how we compensate players in the revenue generating sports. The majority of merit based scholarship money goes to athletes (all athletes, not just those in revenue generating sports). Should it? I mean really, should it? Playing sports at the varsity level is basically a full time job. They do not have as much time to devote to studies. I'm still going to watch Duke Basketball and cheer for the team and I'll be very sorry to see it go away. I'm a hypocrite. I think there is too much money given to too many people who aren't in college to study, or at least that isn't their primary focus. But as to Ed O'Bannon, the case to me just isn't that simple. Does he own his image? Yes. Does UCLA own his jersey? I kinda think yes. I would support a ruling stating that university should use jersey sales for scholarships or to keep student fees as low as possible.

[Jarhead]

Thanks, Sue. I feel better about that part of it now. It doesn't seem quite so unreasonable.

Still - and it's taken me this long in my life to get here - but the moral mess that is college athletics has started to bother me. I'm not entirely sure what I would like to see happen. But the system is broken in many more ways than in how we compensate players in the revenue generating sports. The majority of merit based scholarship money goes to athletes (all athletes, not just those in revenue generating sports). Should it? I mean really, should it? Playing sports at the varsity level is basically a full time job. They do not have as much time to devote to studies. I'm still going to watch Duke Basketball and cheer for the team and I'll be very sorry to see it go away. I'm a hypocrite. I think there is too much money given to too many people who aren't in college to study, or at least that isn't their primary focus. But as to Ed O'Bannon, the case to me just isn't that simple. Does he own his image? Yes. Does UCLA own his jersey? I kinda think yes. I would support a ruling stating that university should use jersey sales for scholarships or to keep student fees as low as possible.

You have totally lost me. Did you really mean to say that merit based scholarship money goes mostly to athletes? Where did you find that bit of information? I'd like to see it myself. Can you provide any kind of link that substantiates these claims? You sure missed on the grid of shame thing.

[JNort]

Ok so I went to school and my school was paid for with scholarship money just like athletes are. However I still had to pay a car payment, insurance, and gas which is not much different than most athletes. The difference between me and the athletes is I did not have practice and team meetings that took up my days so I could get an on campus job that paid minimum wage at 20 hours a week to cover what I had to pay plus extra spending money for dates and having fun with friends when weekends rolled around. Just pay all athletes minimum wage for time spent in practice,working out and at team meetings. That way they do not get special treatment compared to the other students and they now have the money they need plus spending money.

I think most people don't realize the money for a college kid is actually a very big problem because lots of you (public in general) could receive money from your parents or maybe you did not have to pay for your own vehicle or cell phone at 18. I on the other hand could not get financial help from my family because they just could not afford to help and many of these guys are the same way. Paying minimum wage should make it easier to cover all the sports as well and not just the big ones and also would have the benefit of guys being more dedicated to practice and obeying team rules because they will be getting paid by the time spent working with the team.

[-jk]

I've posted this before, so if you've heard me, sorry.

Any effort to tease meaningful analysis from any reported numbers is doomed.

Schools report what they want to report. Their athletic programs have a lot of overlap between varsity, club/IM, and PE.

How does Duke report on the golf course? Is it a team facility and costs go against the team? A hotel facility that generates income? Do greens fees from the hotel go to the team? Does the team pay a fee to use the course? Duke has a lot of latitude in how this one small item gets reported. There are a lot of "small items".

Does the hospital claim expenses for the track as a sports medicine facility? How about sports medicine as a department? Athletics or hospital? Similar examples abound, and different schools report numbers to suit their needs, too. (Does anyone really think Louisville earns more than Kentucky in hoops? Even with the Yum!? Really?)

Activity fees, too. Where do they get recorded on the balance sheet? Pretty much every "varsity" facility has alternative uses, with a very few counter-examples (K center; sports dorms). You can trust a school's mission and leadership. Or not. But all of them have finances way too commingled to get anything from their reports.

And yes, schools have financial issues. About the only number that might be clean is the payout for a conference tv package. Otherwise, it's all slight of hand, smoke and mirrors, or whichever simile for "um, vague" you want to come up with. And that's an old story...

-jk

[Jarhead]

I've posted this before, so if you've heard me, sorry.

Any effort to tease meaningful analysis from any reported numbers is doomed.

Schools report what they want to report. Their athletic programs have a lot of overlap between varsity, club/IM, and PE.

How does Duke report on the golf course? Is it a team facility and costs go against the team? A hotel facility that generates income? Do greens fees from the hotel go to the team? Does the team pay a fee to use the course? Duke has a lot of latitude in how this one small item gets reported. There are a lot of "small items".

Does the hospital claim expenses for the track as a sports medicine facility? How about sports medicine as a department? Athletics or hospital? Similar examples abound, and different schools report numbers to suit their needs, too. (Does anyone really think Louisville earns more than Kentucky in hoops? Even with the Yum!? Really?)

Activity fees, too. Where do they get recorded on the balance sheet? Pretty much every "varsity" facility has alternative uses, with a very few counter-examples (K center; sports dorms). You can trust a school's mission and leadership. Or not. But all of them have finances way too commingled to get anything from their reports.

And yes, schools have financial issues. About the only number that might be clean is the payout for a conference tv package. Otherwise, it's all slight of hand, smoke and mirrors, or whichever simile for "um, vague" you want to come up with. And that's an old story...

-jk

Even so, non-profit educational institutions have Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that must be observed. Anything else is cooking the books.

[Jarhead]

Ok so I went to school and my school was paid for with scholarship money just like athletes are. However I still had to pay a car payment, insurance, and gas which is not much different than most athletes. The difference between me and the athletes is I did not have practice and team meetings that took up my days so I could get an on campus job that paid minimum wage at 20 hours a week to cover what I had to pay plus extra spending money for dates and having fun with friends when weekends rolled around. Just pay all athletes minimum wage for time spent in practice,working out and at team meetings. That way they do not get special treatment compared to the other students and they now have the money they need plus spending money.

I think most people don't realize the money for a college kid is actually a very big problem because lots of you (public in general) could receive money from your parents or maybe you did not have to pay for your own vehicle or cell phone at 18. I on the other hand could not get financial help from my family because they just could not afford to help and many of these guys are the same way. Paying minimum wage should make it easier to cover all the sports as well and not just the big ones and also would have the benefit of guys being more dedicated to practice and obeying team rules because they will be getting paid by the time spent working with the team.

In general, I agree with your concept, but I don't believe that it is the responsibility of the university to cover the costs of automobiles, digital devices, and entertainment for athletes or students on financial aide. On the other hand, I believe that a stipend for personal expenses is appropriate. In following the media discussions, I see that a crowd of folks are calling for salaries for athletes. I have made my own conclusions, and I see it this way. Full scholarships, athletic or otherwise, should cover the following costs of attending college: tuition and student fees, room and board, books and required educational supplies, and travel expenses home during recesses and certain holidays. Medical expenses with some limitations would be nice, too, but that's it. Luxuries such as automobiles, mobile digital devices, and partying should be totally the student's responsibility.

[cf-62]

Thanks, Sue. I feel better about that part of it now. It doesn't seem quite so unreasonable.

Still - and it's taken me this long in my life to get here - but the moral mess that is college athletics has started to bother me. I'm not entirely sure what I would like to see happen. But the system is broken in many more ways than in how we compensate players in the revenue generating sports. The majority of merit based scholarship money goes to athletes (all athletes, not just those in revenue generating sports). Should it? I mean really, should it? Playing sports at the varsity level is basically a full time job. They do not have as much time to devote to studies. I'm still going to watch Duke Basketball and cheer for the team and I'll be very sorry to see it go away. I'm a hypocrite. I think there is too much money given to too many people who aren't in college to study, or at least that isn't their primary focus. But as to Ed O'Bannon, the case to me just isn't that simple. Does he own his image? Yes. Does UCLA own his jersey? I kinda think yes. I would support a ruling stating that university should use jersey sales for scholarships or to keep student fees as low as possible.

As jh mentioned, the accounting of fee usage in athletics administration and facilities isn't black and white. When WE were in school (including you, BD), non-varsity athletics was administered separately from DUAA. Think back to those days - Card gym, IM fields, IM building. THAT was the non-varsity athlete's world. But now, everything athletics is administered by DUAA -- IM, physical education, varisty sports, facilities, etc. There have been many MANY positiives out of this arrangement, including the roller hockey rink over on East, dedicated women's practice fields, SERIOUS upgrades in non-varsity athlete facilities, and an abundance of free group classes. That $20 seems a lot less egregious when you think about the fact that the kids get free access to a premium gym, complete with free group classes.

You have pointed out an important item to understand - that varsity athletes have a lot of demands after classes - but so do musicians, student government, etc. What they DO get that others do not is help through tutors. I'm not talking like UNC tutors. They truly do the work, but they get serious help.

Is it hard? Yep! I could quote Tom Hanks: "It's the Hard that makes it great!" Even better, there's a story from one of Pitino's books (Success is a Choice) about an assistant coach talking about putting in some extra tape hours: "Man, I'm tired," he lamented. "Good!" said Pitino. "You work hard. You SHOULD be tired." The kids are brought in NOT just to perform on the field, but to represent our university (all the time).

My brother once wrote an op-ed for the Raleigh N&O when he was the captain of his high school soccer team. The topic was how scholastic sports helps makes students better, not worse. Just to GET the work done, they have to be more disciplined, and must be more organized and focused. That goes to extremes in college.

That doesn't mean they're all angels, and that there aren't those that focus primarily on their sport and ignore academics. But these aren't simply hired guns. Many football players end up in medical school. Our own basketball program has a spate of MBA and JD holders. I've been "fortunate enough" (not sure it's the right sentiment) to have had surgery from a fellow alum who played Football at Duke.

Playing devil's advocate to my own post, there's more evidence that Duke may be more isolated in the way athletics are run than previously thought. The UNC scandal has shaken that core. If it wasn't just Davis, then the Carolina Way isn't just a tainted way of doing things the right way (some of the time). It's truly a myth, and we're left wondering that if UNC is doing this, can we possibly believe that any team in the SEC ISN'T just flat-out running semi-professional programs?

Like the annual debate around rules for declaring about the NBA, it's difficult for Blue Devil fans to buy into some of the arguments out there because we know how WE do things. But reform isn't about the kids that go to Duke (or Stanford, etc.), trade their skills as an athlete to pay their tuition, and get a $200K degree for free. Reform is about the marginal athletes brought into a program and then not given the one thing they need - a focus on studies - because their coach wants to guarantee success.

Ultimately, I still disagree with the O'Bannon position (and the extension to the football players getting revenue sharing). These college students CHOOSE TO PLAY their sport - in exchange for a scholarship. If they want to market themselves, then they can not go to college. If they don't think their scholarship is worth their time, then they need to either change the schools they're looking at (if it's about what the degree might mean) or - again - not go to college (if they don't value having A degree, period).

[Bostondevil]

You have totally lost me. Did you really mean to say that merit based scholarship money goes mostly to athletes? Where did you find that bit of information? I'd like to see it myself. Can you provide any kind of link that substantiates these claims? You sure missed on the grid of shame thing.

It's true at Duke.

http://dukefinancialaid.duke.edu/und...ats/index.html

I said merit, not need based. Athletic scholarships count as merit in my book. I said the majority of merit based scholarships go to athletes.

[Bostondevil]

I've posted this before, so if you've heard me, sorry.

Any effort to tease meaningful analysis from any reported numbers is doomed.

Schools report what they want to report. Their athletic programs have a lot of overlap between varsity, club/IM, and PE.

How does Duke report on the golf course? Is it a team facility and costs go against the team? A hotel facility that generates income? Do greens fees from the hotel go to the team? Does the team pay a fee to use the course? Duke has a lot of latitude in how this one small item gets reported. There are a lot of "small items".

Does the hospital claim expenses for the track as a sports medicine facility? How about sports medicine as a department? Athletics or hospital? Similar examples abound, and different schools report numbers to suit their needs, too. (Does anyone really think Louisville earns more than Kentucky in hoops? Even with the Yum!? Really?)

Activity fees, too. Where do they get recorded on the balance sheet? Pretty much every "varsity" facility has alternative uses, with a very few counter-examples (K center; sports dorms). You can trust a school's mission and leadership. Or not. But all of them have finances way too commingled to get anything from their reports.

And yes, schools have financial issues. About the only number that might be clean is the payout for a conference tv package. Otherwise, it's all slight of hand, smoke and mirrors, or whichever simile for "um, vague" you want to come up with. And that's an old story...

-jk

Yeah, Ok. The WSJ article did say that 18 million out of 25 million in athletic revenues at Florida International came from student fees. You and Sue have both made me feel better about that bit of information.

[Bostondevil]

Playing devil's advocate to my own post, there's more evidence that Duke may be more isolated in the way athletics are run than previously thought. The UNC scandal has shaken that core. If it wasn't just Davis, then the Carolina Way isn't just a tainted way of doing things the right way (some of the time). It's truly a myth, and we're left wondering that if UNC is doing this, can we possibly believe that any team in the SEC ISN'T just flat-out running semi-professional programs?

Are you aware of the recent cheating scandal at Harvard?

I'm kinda making two arguments and I realize I haven't really firmed up what I believe about a lot of it.

One other point you brought up, a lot of football players go to medical school? I'd really like to see the statistics on that. It may have been true when we were in school, I doubt it's true anymore. The only football player I know currently in college who wants to go to medical school ultimately had to give up his football scholarship so he could concentrate on his studies. He even chose a D-1A school because he knew it would be hard to manage both. He had too many practices to be able to go to the lab sections of his science classes. Something had to go, he let football go because he knows his career won't be in the NFL. Smart kid. From a timewise perspective, it is harder to major in a science. I'm not insulting anybody's intelligence nor am I saying that one major is worth more than another, but it's harder to major in a science. Athletes no longer have the time to do it.