dagblog - Comments for "College Football in the 21st Century"

Is college football at

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:05:00 +0000

In reply to College Football in the 21st Century

Is college football at University of California Berkeley - Cal. - next to be defunded by Chancellor Birgeneau. Examine Chancellor Birgeneau's record on student sports.

When UC Berkeley recently announced its elimination of baseball, men’s, women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse teams and its defunding of the national-champion men’s rugby team, the chancellor sighed, “Sorry, but this was necessary!”

But was it? Yes, the university is in dire financial straits. Yet $3 million was somehow found by Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau to pay the Bain consulting firm to uncover waste, inefficiencies in UC Berkeley (Cal), despite the fact that a prominent East Coast university was accomplishing the same thing without expensive consultants.

Essentially, the process requires collecting, analyzing information from faculty, staff. Apparently, Cal senior management believe that the faculty, staff of their world-class university lacks the cognitive ability, integrity, energy to identify millions in savings. If consultants are necessary, the reason is clear: the chancellor has lost credibility with the people who provided the information to the consultants. Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau has reigned for eight years, during which time the inefficiencies proliferated to $150 million. Even as Bain’s recommendations are implemented (‘They told me to do it’, Birgeneau), credibility, trust, problems remain.

Bain is interviewing faculty, staff, senior management and academic senate leaders to identify $150 million in inefficiencies, most of which could have been found internally. One easy-to-identify problem, for example, was wasteful procurement practices such as failing to secure bulk discounts on printers. But Birgeneau apparently has no concept of savings: even in procuring a consulting firm he failed to receive proposals from other firms.

Students, staff, faculty, California Legislators are the victims of his incompetent decisions. Now that sports teams are feeling the pinch, perhaps the California Alumni, benefactors, donors, will demand to know why Birgeneau is raking in $500,000 a year while abdicating his work responsibilities.

Let there be light. University of California Berkeley (Cal) ranking drops. In 2004, for example, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked Cal the second leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking had tumbled to 39th place.

The author, who has 35 years’ consulting experience, has taught at University of California Berkeley, where he was able to observe the culture and the way the senior management operates.

I'm sure your numbers are

Elusive Trope — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:07:51 +0000

In reply to I hate to be contrary, AT,

I'm sure your numbers are right. I was just going off a major gifts presentatio conducted by the lead "donor cultivator" for Harvard some years ago. He was the one that brought up UT and the football program. I'm sure if most universities did a cost/benefit analysis (money saved from eliminating football vs money lost from upset alumni) they would see it would make more fiscal sense overall to eliminate the football program or scale it down. I would say that university administrators get tunnel vision (as do we all) and the wealthy alumni that tend to be the most boisterous are those around the "booster clubs" and such, creating an impression not related to the actual perception of most of the alumni, that success on the field is of prime importance. One just see how much energy (including websites devoted to this sole purpose) is put into those who want to see Michigan fire their football coach (at a cost of 2+ million dollar buyout) so they can go get someone else, to see how administrators can get a skewed perception of what the alumni want. This impression is increased because it during the games (and the shindigs going on before and after) when a lot of the donation professionals get to have some face to face time with alumni that are generally scattered over the country.

This impression leads to conclusions such as so and so wouldn't have given that money for the new music building if the team had gone 2 and 11, instead of 11 and 2, even though so and so did not actually state it that way when he or she cut the check.

ESPN, as part of its 30 for 30 documentary series, had a real good program on the alumni abuse that led to SMU getting the "death penalty." What was interesting was how the corruption was driven by the "competition" between the various alumni in the Dallas boardrooms and how the administration was involved in the continued abuse even after the first sanctions hit them. None of the administrators stood up to these donor prospects and told them what they didn't want to hear.

In the end, I think it would require a major shift in a lot of administrators "understanding" of what is in the short-term and long-term interests of the university. Sure, one may lose a few big donors if one scaled back the football or the entire athletics program, but not only would it be more than covered in cost saving. Moreover, the university may discover that such a move might facilitate a few wealthy prospects to give a substantial major gift, who would otherwise not given such a gift.

A little off topic, but one of the interesting pieces of shared wisdom by the Harvard presenter was that most of the very wealthy folks donate (and we're talking those who whip out the checkbook and hand over 6 and 7 figure donations in one shot) to their universities because they want to be "philanthropic," but they want to support those who they consider to be are part of their (economic) community, rather than those "down below."

I hate to be contrary, AT,

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:41:22 +0000

In reply to Nicely done. There is

I hate to be contrary, AT, but Harvard's endowment is $27.6 billion at last check, and UT Austin's was $7.2 billion. It is true that the whole University of Texas system has a roughly $24 billion dollar endowment, but that endowment runs many universities, not just the place that most people think of when they say "UT." $7.2 billion is far and away the best endowmentof any public university, and better than many pricey Ivies, but still not in Princeton or Yale's range.

Even so, UT's private endowment (the $2 billion of that that comes from private donors and not from the state) is likely not built on football as much as it is the success of the academic enterprise. Alumni tend to donate to schools because the schools have made them successful.

The sorry truth is, though, that football does not bring in donations to the general endowmnet. It brings in donations for the team, the stadium, the practice field, and whatever. It would be nice if the $6-8 million annual loss on football were bringing even half that much cash to the endowment, but there's no evidence that this is so. (Berkeley alums aren't the most football-driven that you'll find.)

It is true that universities' main academic goal is building the endowment. But many of the great endowment-builders do very nicely with an old-fashioned amateur football program. (See Harvard's $27-28 billion and Yake $15-16 billion.) The warm glow of beating the traditional rival on the Saturday before Thanksgiving is real, but you can produce that warm feeling pretty cheaply. Spending ten times as much on football, because you're in a hyper-competitive league, doesn't make the alumni ten times more generous. It just makes those alumni donations ten times more expensive for the school.

Great article. There are two

Donal — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:20:42 +0000

In reply to College Football in the 21st Century

Great article. There are two other problems with college sports I always read about:

1 - Those in other sports are peeved at football & basketball getting the lion's share of sports cash.

2 - Other sports have been cut back or eliminated under the banner of meeting Title IX. It boggles my mind that some 60 or 70 college swim programs have been eliminated, given that swimming is a natural coed sport. Title IX has become a conservative bete-noire, but I think it is an excuse to cut costs wherever they can be cut.

I remember an episode of the

we are stardust — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:38:00 +0000

In reply to College Football in the 21st Century

I remember an episode of the West Wing covering this topic. Press Secretary CJ Craig was especially peeved that each position was covered four deep. She asked why the thrid-string (or whatever it is) Left Tight End also be the Right Tight End (sorry if the terms are wrong; Garp is my main frame of reference.) She also asked if it weren't a matter of concern that after every other play, stretchers were brought onto the field. ;o)

Football at colleges like Nebraska may be more self-supporting since every seat in the 90,000+ stadium is always filled, and tickets cost a lot. Our son paid a huindred bucks each for two online. (I may have tried not to call him an idiot...I forget.)

I loathe the sport, and fully endorsed the students at our local high school who wanted soccer instead by an overwhelmong majority. Nope, the administration said, parents and grandparents love football. They can barely make a team with the few who go out for it; they might have to allow some girls to play one day. ;o0

Nicely done. There is

Elusive Trope — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:18:41 +0000

In reply to College Football in the 21st Century

Nicely done. There is another dynamic that plays a big role in this "football syndrome" facing universities: the drive to build the endowments. The last time I heard, the largest endowment in the country is the University of Texas, followed by Harvard. When UT wins the championship, there is a spike in charitable giving to the endowment. University administrators across the country want the alumni to be happy because happy alumni donate. And there are plenty of wealthy alumni who take the success of their football team very seriously. Even at the smaller schools. Fielding a winning team could be the difference between getting that 20 million dollar gift for a new building and not getting it.

I don't know the Berekely situation, but while 6 to 8 million dollars may be coming out of the general budget for football, I would bet that millions are coming into the endowment. But these are two different pots of money. The administrators, being bureaucrats, are institutionalized to focus on the latter pot, especially the large departments whose sole purpose for existing is to increase that endowment. And increasing that endowment is built on finding out what the wealthy alumni interests are and then aligning the university with those interests.

When Oregon takes the field this coming Monday, it will really be the Oregon & Nike Ducks because of alumni Phil Knight and the amount of money he pours into the university outside the general revenue. The general problem is that alumni money is almost always directed to specific projects and programs. There aren't many uber wealthy alumni giving huge major gifts to the literature or philosophy departments (which one can speculate is related to the fact that few of those graduating from these liberal arts programs go on to become one of the uber wealthy.)

You have brought up a very

trkingmomoe — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 06:28:06 +0000

In reply to College Football in the 21st Century

You have brought up a very important point about college expensive football. The same thing with professional foot ball. The fat cats that own the teams wants the public to pay for their stadiums. They also want the schools to train their future stars at the public expense. I wonder how long it will take before students and the public will demand that this program is cut too.