Football is the major force for operation of the Atlantic Coast Conference and its 15 college members and is the primary reason the ACC Board of Directors, made up of the 15 presidents and chancellors, have thus far caved to proceeding with the 2020 season, the spread of COVID-19 be damned!
Football is the self-standing economic engine for athletics departments at N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which, as state-supported universities, are supposed to be self-sufficient when it comes to finances. Massive revenue from the television contract with ESPN is on the line when discussing whether to play or not.
There is despair in losing dollars from ticket sales because of policies of maximum size of crowd gatherings. But, the real money is with television income and sponsorships from football which finances those athletics departments, their on-going operations as well as debt and debt service. Without television revenue, one can image that loans—after initial investment from boosters—for facility expansion might go into default.
As much as anyone, I enjoy watching college sports, especially football, but I think athletics, especially at the Power 5 conference level—Big Ten, Pac-12, Big 12, Southeastern and ACC—is too big, a force that is the university’s tail wagging the dog more than ever. The fight against the ever expanding athletics divisions of colleges and universities goes back more than 50 years.
Don’t focus on the number of athletes who get educated through participation in intercollegiate athletics. I used to think having their schooling paid for was enough compensation for their service to the school. Not anymore. These young men and women deserve a lot more. The COVID-19 pandemic may just be the proverbial straw that breaks the bank. It gives the student-athletes leverage to ask for income for risking their lives.
In normal times, such as in 2019, there is plenty of money to go around, and there is a lot of waste in the name of administering college sports. When you look at the excess at the administrative level, you’ll find what needs to be reined in. N.C. State Wolfpack athletics has 28 employees with “athletics director” in their titles. Boo Corrigan is the Athletics Director, but, according to the website gopack.com, there are 27 others with “athletics director” added to their titles of deputy, associate, senior associate, and assistant, and for what? There are only 21 sports to care for at N.C. State.
The Wolfpack football staff has 40 employees under that department, according to the staff list. Men’s basketball has 16.The head football and basketball coaches are the two highest paid employees on the N.C. State campus. If money is power, football coach Dave Doeren and men's basketball coach Kevin Keatts have it hook, line, and sinker.
Staff excess is not a formula for success. The Wolfpack’s last two ACC football titles were in 1973 and 1979 with football staffs of less than half of today’s staff. The 1974- and 1983-men’s basketball teams won national titles with fewer than half of today’s staff. There were no more than three “athletics directors” during those years. Not only do salaries of these coaches, especially the head coaches, need to be reined in, something COVID might instigate, but maybe the entire scope of how athletics operates and at what expense needs to be cut, reined in, simplified.
Athletics is not the only bloated area at N.C. State University which, according to the website NCSU.edu and its on-line staff directory, has 122 employees with “dean” in their titles; 62 “chancellors”; and 53 “provosts”. And, least you think I’m picking on my alma mater (NCSU ’77), at UNC-CH the goheels.com website shows 60 names on the football staff and 18 for men’s basketball. And the number of titles with chancellor, deans and provosts at UNC-CH is just as bulky as at N.C. State. These are big institutions but why such top-heavy staff?
The size of college athletics is an issue: football coaches, athletics directors, chancellors, and presidents want to save athletics departments by playing football during this pandemic crisis. Chancellors and Presidents want to open campuses for financial reasons more so than for education, especially to keep deans, chancellors and provosts employed and to pay for its own debt service—education and safety for the students be damned.
Both college athletics and colleges in general, especially on the administrative sides, need some serious cost-cutting, making do at the highest level while meeting its charge with less. If the salaried staff needs to put in a few additional work hours, so be it.
Mr. Barnett, The N&O writer, thinks COVID-19 might rein in college football but he misses the bigger trees in the forest of intercollegiate athletics and the universities.
What’s more likely to happen is a coalition of colleges, those Power-5 leagues with the television money in hand, sets an agenda that includes no more than a dozen varsity teams, six for men and six for women, sending the other sports and athletes to the club sports level, putting the financial burden on the universities, not athletics departments, if those teams are retained at all.
Even with those changes big time athletics eventually will continue, maybe on a smaller scale at first, but with big-time football leading the way to ungoverned growth. If the current structures of college athletics, especially departments top-heavy with administrators and their surrounding kingdoms, remain, COVID-19 will not rein in college football. It may slow it a bit, downsize it a little, but years from now the call to rein in college football excess will be heard again.
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