J304: Race and Diversity Town Hall

With racial tensions arising around events occurring at the University of Missouri and Yale, KU held a town hall forum on November 11 to give the Lawrence community a chance to talk about race, responsibility, and free speech. Though the meeting was often heated, students came away seeing the community meeting as a "first step".

Kansas Athletics’ model sustainable despite unsustainability throughout college athletics

In research recently published by University of Kansas assistant professor Jordan Bass, college athletic programs are identified as and related to the “front porch” of a house. If the front porch is dirtied with scandal, the rest of the house — the university — looks bad. Penn State, North Carolina or Rutgers could attest to that. In Kansas’ case, the relationship between the academic and athletic aspects of the school seems to be in balance.

“We have a really good relationship with the hill,” Associate Athletics Director Jim Marchiony said. “The administration has an excellent understanding of athletics, and the role that athletics should play and the place in the University. We are not the most important thing that goes on at this University.”

The first thing people often familiarize a university with is a mascot or an athletic team rather than the academic successes. In that aspect, no athletic department in the country is different than Kansas: branding is a gargantuan task, which, in turn, affects the entire university.

However, with the national exposure from television and other forms of media in the Power 5 conference, branding is made a bit easier — Kansas can thank its standing in the Big 12 for that. That branding, in turn, draws eyes to the University of Kansas as a whole.

“A small Division II school, or NAIA school, or Division III, your first reaction when you go across the country is, 'Who is that? Where is that?’ When you're from KU and you're in California, people don't have that — they have some knowledge of KU, we're on the radar,” said Matt Melvin, Vice Provost of Enrollment Management at the University.

“Athletics opens the door. Without those big time athletic programs, we probably wouldn't be part of the conversation.”

The problem for Kansas and other Big 12 schools is the disparaging gap between the funding of athletic programs in the conference. Where Texas pulled in $150.2 million in total revenue in 2010-2011 with no University subsidy, Iowa State brought in only $48.5 million — one-third the total of Texas — including a $3.7 million subsidy. Kansas fell in the middle at $74.8 million in 2010-2011 revenue, according to USA Today.

Marchiony said, just like pro sports, it comes down to the decisions made, recruiting, coaches brought in, and how the team performs on the field — among other things — in building a winning program, rather than the funds the program might have.

“Fortunately, the standings aren’t made up by how much revenue a school brings in,” Marchiony said.

Claire Schaeperkoetter, who co-authored the study on the “front porch,” said she saw it a bit differently, but also came to the same realization: it’s not all about the amount of money pouring into programs. 

“It’s definitely not an X-Y equation where, whoever puts in the most money is going to win the most championships,” Schaeperkoetter said. “Everyone wants to be the best, everyone wants to bring in the most money, everybody wants to win the most championships. By virtue, there can only be one best or one athletics department that brings in the most money.”

That competition has created a space where some schools pull attention and funding away from the academic side of the University and push it to the athletics side of things for a small chance to compete with better funded teams.

Bass gave the example of Rutgers, who could have hired 256 assistant professors or 132 full professors with the Universities subsidy money it gave to athletics in 2010. The report also cited the rise in compensation for college coaches, which is up 750 percent since 1984, while professors’ compensation has jumped only 32 percent.

In general, money pushed to athletics has dramatically increased, according to the study. However, the University of Kansas’ subsidy to athletics has dropped in recent years, mostly as a result of the per-semester, per-student athletic fee dropping from $25 to $7. Even before the drop, which was voted in by Student Senate in 2013, Kansas fell in the middle of the Big 12 in percent of revenue brought in via University subsidies.

—————

University Subsidies in the Big 12

The chart below shows total revenue brought in by Big 12 schools during the 2010-2011 year, then shows what percentage of that money was brought in via university subsidies. It also shows the record of the men’s basketball and football teams in that year to show how the two correlate. The university subsidy numbers were compiled by USA Today; Baylor was not available and will not be part of the chart, since it is considered a private university.

—————

It’s not the same for non-Power 5 conference schools, which can eat up millions of dollars from students every year, and still fail to compete. At Norfolk State, a university in Virginia, the student athletic fee of $1,440.60 accounts for 23.1 percent of the total tuition — $6,227 per semester. 

Over an entire year, with a student body of about 7,000, Norfolk State makes over $20 million from students per year. In athletic fees, Kansas gets less than $1 million per year under the new  student fee.

“At some operations (the student fee) is huge. It keeps the operation going. It helps, but that is certainly not the case here,” Marchiony said.

“I do think it's valuable for the students here to realize that they are paying a very minimal expense to athletics at the University compared to what students at many, many other universities pay.”

Though the study comes to the conclusion that current funding of college athletics is not a sustainable model, Kansas’ model seems to be one that works.

Though millions of dollars are in the hands of Kansas Athletics, the department serves a purpose that students pay only $7 a semester for. The athletics, in turn, are able to increase the university brand equity and, in turn, interest and enroll students. It’s all part of building the brand, Marchiony said.

“What (students) tend to land on is this sense of community. Those rituals and traditions, which largely pivot around athletic programs, build that sense of community and that spirit that is very difficult for other institutions to mimic,” Melvin said.

“There's a tendency for students to want to be a part of that; they want to be part of something that allows them to have that kind of connection at a much more grand scale than what they 

could do individually.”