The Economics of College Athletics

The Economics of College Athletics Source: The Chronicle How Do Athletics Endowments Measure Up? At every college, athletics endowments are dwarfed by their universitywide counterparts. Even the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's sports endowment, the largest in a survey, is one-tenth the size of the university's total endowment. But that gap shrinks, and often reverses, when the endowments are measured on a per-student and per-scholarship-athlete basis. Legend: - number of athletes - endowment per athlete - sports endowment 660 477 450 437 380 403 339 340 292 50 262, North Carolina U. of U. of Virginia U. of Washington U. of Georgia Pennsylvania State U. Duke U. Boston College Georgia Tech Ohio State U. at Chapel Hill Connecticut Recruiting expenses Change Directors' Cup Rank Division I-A Colleges Spending the Most on Sports Recruiting 2006/2007 1997-2007 2007/2008 U. of Tennessee at Knoxville $2,005,700 119% 16 Athletics departments spent much more on recruiting athletes in 2007 than they did a decade earlier, with many NCAA Division I programs doubling or tripling their recruiting expenses. Here are the biggest spenders in each division, along with the programs' rank in the 2007-8 U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup, which measures athletics departments by division according to their overall sports success. U. of Notre Dame U. of Florida $1,758,300 $1,451,400 161% 21 118% 6. Auburn U. $1,374,900 113% 20 Kansas State U. $1,316,700 267% 71 Median for all Division l-A $632,600 82% Recruiting expenses Change Directors' Cup Rank Recruiting expenses Change Directors' Cup Rank Division l-AA Division II 2006/2007 1997-2007 2007/2008 2006/2007 1997-2007 2007/2008 U. of North Dakota $272,900 $210,400 $164,700 Princeton U. $941,000 234% 60 51% 10 Harvard U. $851,900 76% 61 Minnesota State U. at Mankato 35% 3 Columbia U. $778,000 137% 135 St. Cloud State U. -22% 53 U. of Central Missouri U. of Minnesota at Duluth Darthmouth College $774,700 67% 132 $148,600 203% 18 Brown U. $757,200 42% 103 $139,700 19% 74 Median for all Division I-AA $195,600 101% Median for all Division II $28,000 36% Recruiting expenses Change Directors' Cup Rank Recruiting expenses Change Directors' Cup Rank Division l-AAA Division III 2006/2007 1997-2007 2007/2008 2006/2007 1997-2007 2007/2008 $521,600 $181,400 Marquette U. Xavier U. (Ohio) 275% 197 New York U. -8% 31 St. Lawrence U. $482,400 $447,900 161% 124 $156,700 16% 44 Boston U. 68% 76 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute $155,600 70% 182 U. of Denver St. John's U. (N.Y.) $426,400 n/a 47 Hobart and William Smith C. $135,500 105% 50 $412,600 119% 114 Union College (N.Y.) $119,600 25% 84 Median for all Division I-AAA $143,700 104% Median for all Division III $19,700 40% Biggest Jumps in Recruitment Spending Which Power Conference Spends the Most? The 65 biggest athletics programs are members of the NCAAS six Bowl Championship Series conferences. From 1997 to 2007, most of those institutions significantly increased their recruiting budgets. Below are the 5 biggest movers among BCS programs with football teams. Below are the BCS conferences ranked according to their 2007 spending. Recruiting expenses Change Recruiting expenses Change 2006/2007 1997-2007 $13,129,700 $11,538,200 $10,748,200 $10,134,600 2006/2007 1997-2007 Southeastern 98% U. of Maryland at College Park $912,100 227% Big 12 73% Kansas State U. $1,316,700 267% Atlantic Coast 144% Louisiana State U. at Baton Rogue $994,200 Duke U. 248% Big Ten 75% $1,245,300 $8,344,700 $6,125,700 229% Pacific 10 80% West Virginia U. $1,094,200 175% Big East 41% Inside the recruiting numbers Two universities in the Big Ten- the U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Indiana U. at Bloomington more than doubled their recruiting budgets from 2002 to 2007. Nearly one in five Division I-AA institutions at least doubled their recruiting budgets from 2002 to 2007. More than quarter of Division Il institutions spent less on recruiting in 2007 than they did in 2002. Only two Division l-A universities, Tulane U. and the U. of Hawaii-Manoa, spent less on recruiting in 2007 than in 1997. Princeton U.'s $941,000 recruiting budget in 2007 was nearly twice that of the U. of Massachusetts at Amherst, the biggest-spending non-lvy League university in Division l-AA. The U. of South Florida is the only college of the 65 Bowl Championship Series programs that spent less than $500,000 on recruiting in 2007. Marquette U. nearly quadrupled its recruiting budget from 2002 to 2007, from $130,600 to $521,600. In Division III, New York U. spent the most, $101,600, to recruit female athletes in 2007, while St. Lawrence U., a distant second, spent $55,300. The U. of Oregon is the only institution in the Pacific-10 conference that Spent more than $1-million on recruiting in 2007. In 2007 the U. of Louisiana at Monroe spent $134,300 on recruiting, the least of any Division I-A institution. $485,126 $212,000,000 $150,717,426 $381,679 $274,174 %2480,058,9 $129,715 L86 $147.368 000'0 $126,551 000'0 $109,756 690'068 $141,328 51,366 606'69$ 789'6s9