On the podcast yesterday we were giving our higher ed predictions for 2010. My prediction was around college athletics; predicting we will see a bigger push to slow athletic spending especially around coach’s salaries.
Today Inside Higher Ed published an article today titled Curbing Athletic Spending that discusses a group trying to change the culture of athletic spending.
Arguing that current athletics spending is unsustainable, a group of scholars urged the National Collegiate Athletic Association at its annual convention Tuesday to seek a federal antitrust exemption to limit skyrocketing coaches’ salaries, slash the number of athletic scholarships offered to football players, and ditch postseason bowl games in favor of a football playoff system.
I would love to see a global study of the benefits of collage athletics to a campus. Does it help in marketing, admissions, providing a rallying point for the campus community? Sure it does, but when do we go too far and cripple the entire campus to keep up in the athletic arms race? There is a balance we need to find quickly.
UPDATE: After this was published I found an article by USA TODAY titled Big-time college athletics: Are they worth the big-time costs? It is a good article, but I did not want to create an additional post for it. I think it shows the increasing interest in this topic.
