Money in College sports

How to solve the money problems in College Athletics

Is the money in the Marshall Athletic program equally allocated? And if the money is not equally funded how would Marshall University solve one of the universities major problems? Many athletic teams lack the funds for their teams, coaches do not receive the same amount of income and teams need more money to operate their budgets successfully, such as more scholarship money. There are just a few ways to go about solving these few problems.

In the past Marshall University had come up with many plans to solve the problems of non-revenue sports, but the athletic department has done nothing to solve the problems. In 1991 the Associate Athletic director Jack Daniels had come up with three spending plans that would increase the money for non-revenue sports. The three plans include: financing at least 50 percent of the scholarships for the non-revenue sports; financing non-revenue men's sports by a minimum of $250,00 and non-revenue women's sports by a minimum of $250,000; financing a minimum of 25 full grants in non-revenue men's sports and 25 full grants in non-revenue women's sports. Daniels said the money would come for the non-revenue sports would come from several possible sources, that also include state funds and football receipts. "If we have to rob Peter to pay Paul, that's what we'll do. We have to meet certain obligation," stated Daniels in a Parthenon article. Gate receipts make up nearly one-third of the athletic department's total revenue. Daniels also said that when you considered the budget you must consider coaches salaries, equipment, insurance, travel and home game expenses. You can't just look at the equipment (McElhinny,10). In 1991 the athletic department was on the right track to putting more money into the non-revenue athletics. For the 1997-1998 Fiscal Year the non-revenue sports were given $2,050,854 for total operating expenses. Such expenses include insurance, team travel, athletic equipment and supplies, financial aid-student athletes, salaries and fringe benefits, and pre-season and holiday expenses (Budget Summary 1998).

The non-revenue athletic teams are operating on a $2,050,854 for operating expenses which include staff and travel, equipment, insurance, home game, team travel, printing and graphics, post season expenses, office expenses, and financial aid-student athletes. The Football team alone has an operating budget of $2, 258,177. The football team has keeps most of the money from ticket sales, concessions, and programs sales, but this does not give them the whole two million dollars that they use for their budget. I understand that the football team has 85 scholarships and it also costs about $1,000 to suit up one player per season. I am not recommending that the football budget be cut, but just overlooked some more and to find out exactly how much everything costs.

Marshall University baseball team is one of the many non-revenue teams that is under funded. The operating budget of the Fiscal year of 1997-1998 is $185,215. This also limits the baseball team to eight and a half scholarships for forty-one baseball players. Many of the incoming freshman were given the choice to red-shirt (sit out a year) because the team does not have to funds to have them all travel and play the conference games. The baseball team did many fund-raisers in the fall in order to cover most of their expenses for the upcoming season. To solve the problem of lack of funding for the baseball team some of the other athletic budgets should be cut and the extra money distributed among the teams that need the more money. The women's track for example has a budget of $237,802. As you can see the track team has more money than the baseball team and there expenses are less than the baseball teams expenses and they have just as many athletes, but the difference is that the track team has more scholarships than the baseball team. Many coaches and athletes say that it is unfair that many teams that receive a large amount of money for a team that does not require a lot of equipment nor does the team have a lot of athletes(Personal Interview).

Now lets compare the men's and women's basketball budgets. The women have 12 players and the men have 14 players. All of these players are on scholarship and they all do the same job student first then they become a basketball player after classes. The equipment is the same basketballs, practice uniforms, game uniforms, travel suits, and two pair of shoes. But then you look at the men's basketball teams overall budget for the 1997-1998 year $682,541and they also have a contract with Reebok, which means free shoes, necklaces, shirts, warm-up out fits, and tee-shirts to wear(Revenues 1998). The women's basketball team has an overall budget of $428,421and they also did not get sponsored by any company willing to give them what they needed. The women also went to Hawaii to play a big tournament and they had to use money from their budget to cover all of the expenses, but when they were on campus for breaks the Athletic department paid for them to live in the dorms. The overall budget of the women's basketball team is $78,356 and the men's basketball teams operating budget is $157, 623(Parthenon 10). The men's budget should be cut by at leas half because more teams that are lacking in funds and need things such as new equipment, new uniforms, and money to cover other necessary expenses. Let the men keep the ticket sales from their home games and the concessions sold, but don=t give them more money than what they need. This also proves that the budgets are highly in favor of men's athletic teams which is unfair to women's sports because they do not have the same chance to perform as well.

The income of some of the coaches needs to be changed. The Equal Pay Act prohibits employers from paying less to employees of the opposite sex at the same establishment for equal work on jobs where the performance requires equal skill, effort and responsibility and are performed under similar working conditions(Parthenon 10). The women's basketball coach, Juliene Simpson, is making $ 53,000 while the men's head coach, Greg White, is making $72, 275. Lance West, director of athletics, stated that the department researched salaries in the MAC to determine Coach Simpson's salary. Lance said he wanted to be in the median range for a women's basketball coach. But that does not follow the rules of The Equal Pay Act. Both Coach Simpson and Coach White do the same job and have the same amount of responsibility. Coach White has been only coaching for 10 years collegiately while Coach Simpson has been coaching collegiatly for 20 years(Parthenon 10). Since Coach Simpson has the most experience she should be receiving the majority of the two salaries together. This is also a violation of the Equal Pay Act. Marshall President J. Wade Gilly said it is part of the equity plan to increase the salary of Simpson to equal White's(Parthenon10). At least Marshall University has said that they are implementing a plan to increase Simpson's salary, but is the University forgetting about the non-revenue sports who do not have the kind of money that the basketball teams have?

The softball team is also lacking in the money for the 1997-1998 season. Their overall budget $222,380(Budget 1997-1998). The softball team did fund raising in the fall to come up with money to pay for new uniforms, bats and balls, and cleets. The softball team also did not have enough scholarship money to cover some of the athletes on the team. If the men's basketball budget is cut by half than the softball team can be one of the many teams to benefit from this and use the money for a new out field, more scholarships and not ask the parents of the athletes to help with the expenses. The team also had to come back early from Christmas Break and the girls who stayed in the dorms had to come up with the money to pay for staying in dorms, while the Athletic Department would not pay for the girls because they are a non-revenue sport.

Louie Berndt, Head Softball coach, stated that, "I do not believe that the funds in the athletic deparment are equally funded and the budget should go under a revisement and the teams that are always doing fund raising should receive more money for their oppperating budget, not neccesarily more scholarships but money for new equipment, new uniforms, and better travel accomidations(Personal Interview)." Many other athletes say that the money in the athletic deparment is not funded equally and they also don't believe that the funding will not change any time soon. The athletes don't have many ideas on how to change the budget other than cutting money from certain areas, but they also know that will upset the community, students, facualty, and alumni(Personal Interview).