Have you heard these ones before?

1. Intercollegiate athletics are not a part of the academic mission so why subsidize them with student fees?
2. College athletics are just farm teams for professional sports so why shouldn’t they pay for them?
3. Athletics revenue should be distributed among academic departments.

And, my personal favorite:

      4.   We should go from Division I to Division III

Really?

My arguments in rapid fire to the common opinions above:

1. Most schools I know, including Canisius College (my employer and alma mater) actually include a competitive intercollegiate athletics program in their mission statement.
2. I think the last time a Canisius men’s basketball player made it in the NBA my natural hair color was brown.  We may have a handful of student athletes play professionally each year but the “hold the jersey and thank your mother” moments only happen to the elite schools.
3. OK. Deal. We will share our revenue when you share your grants.  And, if we’re talking big time sports here, why doesn’t the medical facility associated with your medical school share its revenues, too?  Just silly…
4. Most midmajor schools run thin programs these days.  Five years ago, when the NCAA said that spending in intercollegiate athletics was unsustainable smaller programs already knew that.  The Great Recession sealed the deal for most of us.  We had to learn to run our programs more efficiently and with fewer administrative staff.  There are many Division III schools who actually have larger non-sport work forces than us.

Let’s face it; as long as professors work at colleges, someone will always want to cut intercollegiate athletics.

Let me know what you think – come on – let’s argue!

Here is the link to the article that inspired today’s blog:

The Athletics Tax – Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/czn96K via @addthis

Until next time!

Jude Russo Caserta

AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog

Twitter: JudeCaserta Linkedin: Jude Russo Caserta

E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com

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