The Economic Model of Intercollegiate Athletics and Its Effects on the College Athlete Educational Experience

Abstract

The financial growth and popularity of intercollegiate athletics presents unique and challenging opportunities to institutions of higher education. Intercollegiate athletics, specifically men's basketball and football, elicit considerable media attention and publicity for these institutions. Yet, the current economic model of intercollegiate athletics engenders challenges to the academic welfare of athletes in both revenue and nonrevenue sports. This paper examines the challenges athletes incur as a result of the current economic model of intercollegiate athletics, and it poses several thought provoking questions to continue the debate on athletic reform. These represent tumultuous times in intercollegiate athletics: complaints about concussions in intercollegiate athletics are increasing; lawsuits are being levied against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in regards to the "misuse" or exploitation of athletes' likeness in video games; and several prominent programs, including Penn State and University of North Carolina, are involved in scandal. Despite these ills, intercollegiate athletics top tier programs are becoming increasingly profitable. The NCAA made a profit of $860 million in the 2012 fiscal year (Berkowitz, 2012) and athletic conferences made a total of $180 million from the recent bowl games, with no conference losing money (Mandel, 2013). Aggregately, this is very good financial success within intercollegiate athletics. Unfortunately, the economic prosperity of a few elite athletic departments overshadows the financial shortcomings of many of the athletic departments that are operating at a deficit or merely breaking even each year: schools absorbed $21 million worth of unsold tickets for the bowl games in 2011-12 (Schrotenboer, 2012), and only 23 (all at the Division I level) out of approximately 1,100 NCAA institutions generated more revenue than overall athletic expenses in fiscal year 2011 (Brown, 2012; NCAA, 2012a). That means only about 2.1% of intercollegiate Lanter is with the