- Some university administrators are warning of a financial crisis in college sports and are asking Congress for help.
- Excessive spending includes large coaching salaries, massive buyouts for fired coaches, and bloated staffs.
- Donald Trump to the rescue? He’s convening a roundtable for ‘Saving College Sports,’ headlind by Tiger Woods!
You’ve probably heard this college sports model is “unsustainable.”
University of Louisville’s president and other school administrators recently co-authored a panicky paper titled “College Athletics is Running out of Time” in which they lamented the insolvency of the enterprise and begged Congress for help.
Later this week, President Trump is scheduled to convene a roundtable under the banner of “Saving College Sports.”
You might recall Trump uncorked an executive order in July entitled “Saving College Sports.”
Apparently, that executive order was about as effective at “saving college sports” as those bombs Trump ordered last June were in rendering Iran’s nuclear program “obliterated.”
Anyway, this is all sounding very dire, right? College sports on the precipice of financial ruin, oh my!
To the extent this is true, here’s an idea: Tighten the belt.
Why it’s hard to take NCAA athletics ‘crisis’ seriously
It’s hard to take any of these college athletics ‘panicans’ seriously when they continue to blow through money like drunks in a casino.
Days after Louisville released its essay on the “financial crisis” plaguing College Sports Inc., its neighbor 80 miles away, the University of Kentucky, announced it was strapping retiring athletics director Mitch Barnhart into a golden parachute and stuffing his pockets full of doubloons.
Barnhart will transition into a role with a fancy title that basically translates to UK athletics consultant. His salary: $950,000.
Just a few years ago, that’s what SEC athletic directors were making. Now, they’re making three times that much, while a retiring athletic director like Barnhart can bag almost seven figures, plus football and basketball tickets and a golf membership.
Lest you think UK couldn’t possibly survive without Barnhart’s consultation, don’t forget, he’s responsible for the $38 million Kentucky owes to fired football coach Mark Stoops.
First task as consultant: Tell the next athletic director to not sign coaching contracts with stupid buyouts.
I think I’ve got a bead on this “financial crisis” college athletics finds itself in.
Louisville wants to borrow NFL salary cap. Just one problem …
The Louisville administrators begging for congressional action also argued in favor of a hard and enforceable cap on student-athlete payouts, akin to an NFL salary cap. Just one problem: The NFL has a collective bargaining agreement. College sports doesn’t. Good luck getting a cap that hampers athletes’ earnings to hold up in court.
How about this, fellas: Congress can get to that hard cap on athlete compensation right after it puts a hard and enforceable spending cap on coaching and administrator salaries, plus a hard and enforceable cap on buyouts. Does that sound good?
A recent analysis from The Athletic found the buyouts from FBS head coach firings last season totaled nearly $270 million, more than double the previous single-season record. Some buyout costs can be mitigated through settlements or offset clauses, but that figure still speaks to the soaring rate of severance expenses.
If we’ve got to have those precious federal guardrails I keep hearing about, how about some guardrails on failure money?
As Texas A&M athletics director Trev Alberts put it two years ago: We don’t have a revenue problem in college sports. We have a spending problem.
Bingo, buddy.
Here come Donald Trump, pro golfers to ‘save’ college sports
Trump is on the case, though, so I’m sure this will all get ironed out soon. Perhaps, he’ll release an executive order titled, “Saving College Sports, Part II,” and, voila, problem solved.
In the meantime, we’ve got us a good old-fashioned roundtable cued up. The list of luminaries invited to this meetup in Washington D.C. reportedly includes pro golfers Tiger Woods and Bryson DeChambeau. If college sports can be “saved” through a long drive competition, then the future is in good hands.
Hey, the NCAA, academia and politico classes had their shot at fixing this and achieved very little, so why not let the golf bros take a swing at it, right?
Whatever you do, just don’t blame the folks steering the college sports enterprise. As Louisville’s president, athletic director and chairman of the board of trustees insisted multiple times in the alarmist paper they authored, “we don’t have the answers,” ‘nor are we experts,’ (no argument here), but they also swear they’re not part of the problem.
“These are not stories of mismanagement,” the UofL brass wrote. “They are symptoms of a structural crisis.”
They pointed to Louisville athletics’ $12.5 million budget shortfall.
“New revenue alone will not solve the crisis if spending continues to escalate without restraint,” the Louisville authors wrote.
OK, sure, runaway spending needs to be addressed, but why is federal action required for athletic departments to rein in the gluttony?
Louisville paid football coach Jeff Brohm $6 million last season. He’s a good coach, and that’s a bargain rate compared to what some peers paid worse coaches. But, Brohm’s salary is almost double what Louisville paid his predecessor, Scott Satterfield, four years ago.
Nobody forced these schools to double coaching salaries every few years, even while support staffs became larger than ever.
A scan of Louisville’s athletics department website shows the school employs 16 individuals with the words “associate AD,” “senior associate AD” or “deputy AD” in their job title, plus another glob of assistant ADs.
Then, there are five assistant equipment managers. They’re not to be confused with the associate director of equipment operations or the director of equipment operations.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they all work very hard, but I want to make sure we’re not solely blaming this “financial crisis” on schools now having to cut athletes in on the revenue they’ve been helping generate all these years.
Louisville says operating deficit not a sign of ‘mismanagement’
Put football and men’s basketball aside, and most sports within a college athletics department operate at a loss on the balance sheet. That’s nothing new, but administrators have become more concerned about these losses now that they’re also spending more on athlete compensation.
Louisville’s women’s basketball program apparently is headed for a $4 million operating deficit.
“These are not signs of mismanagement,” Louisville’s administrators wrote.
I’m sure it’s not at all related, but the Cardinals traveled to California and Stanford to play conference games this winter.
Remind me, who decided to put two California schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference?
Did Congress decide that? No.
Did the athletes decide that? No.
Did the judicial system make that call? Again, no.
Ah, yes, I remember now. University and athletics administrators and conference commissioners decided to realign and grow conferences from coast to coast, right before frenetically begging Congress for a bailout that saves them from themselves.
“Congress must get involved before it is too late,” the Louisville brass wrote.
Or, try this idea: If you’re truly afraid of growing broke, tighten the belt instead of begging for a bailout.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
