Wallace Renfro: Profitability no indicator of importance of college athletics programs
March 10, 2010 2:24 p.m.
As Wallace Renfro sees it, there are some misconceptions about big-time collegiate athletics.
One of the biggest: That most big-time programs are highly profitable.
Renfro, NCAA vice president and senior adviser, said Wednesday the reality is far different, and that in 2008, only 25 NCAA programs generated enough revenue to cover expenses. Moreover, he said just 18 did so regularly over a five-year period.
Renfro, speaking at an Investigating the Business of College Athletics workshop hosted by the Indiana University School of Journalism’s National Sports Journalism Center and the Associated Press Sports Editors, said the statistic is notable enough.
The event was sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University.
But Renfro said what's most notable is the misconception that being an expense rather than a profit source makes athletics unique in the collegiate environment.
“There's something wrong with that concept – that somehow or another, intercollegiate athletics is failing because it's not paying its way,” Renfro said at the workshop, which was held on the campus of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “Take a look at a campus and take a look at the number of departments that don't even come close to paying their way. They exist because the university believes it's important to have those departments.
“What you have in higher education is a very complex system of cross-subsidization. There are a few areas in a few places that make a lot of money. Those monies are used to help pay for those other things that universities believe they must have if they're going to have comprehensive university.
“That's simply the way higher education tends to work. If everybody was expected to sit on their own bottom, they simply couldn't do it. You would have very, very few programs.”
Renfro, who has been with the NCAA for more than 35 years, told the journalists and students attending that too often there is a biased in higher education “against the physical.”
“We tend in higher eduction at the majority of institutions and a pretty significant portion of the campuses to disregard the value of physical activity,” he said. “It plays out in conflicts on campus about the level of spending and time away from class and in other ways.”
The reality, Renfro said, is that universities for years have placed enough of a value on the direct and indirect benefits of athletics to have allowed them to survive.
Intercollegiate athletics, he said, teaches “the concept of self-discipline, self-sacrifice, teamwork, hard work, consistent sports excellence, understanding that defeat is only a point in time and it isn't a permanent condition, the resilience it takes to rise up from disappointment and defeat and move toward success.”
“All of these are characteristics that those engaged in intercollegiate athletics obtain from participation and even more importantly, those of us who watch that come to understand that as well,” he said. “Intercollegiate athletics models those characteristics for the rest of us even though we are not actively engaged in the participation.”
Wallace also said while there is a perception that athletics is an overwhelming part of a university's financial picture, and while the median ratio of athletic expenses has grown from 4.5 to 5.4 percent of institutional expenses from 2004-2008, it is in proportion a comparatively small concern.
“It isn't a level that causes a lot of heartburn for administrators,” he said. “It simply isn't sufficient crisis or stress to cause presidents to make significant change.”
One of the biggest: That most big-time programs are highly profitable.
Renfro, NCAA vice president and senior adviser, said Wednesday the reality is far different, and that in 2008, only 25 NCAA programs generated enough revenue to cover expenses. Moreover, he said just 18 did so regularly over a five-year period.
Renfro, speaking at an Investigating the Business of College Athletics workshop hosted by the Indiana University School of Journalism’s National Sports Journalism Center and the Associated Press Sports Editors, said the statistic is notable enough.
.jpg) |
| Wallace Renfro |
| Photo by Mike Wolanin |
But Renfro said what's most notable is the misconception that being an expense rather than a profit source makes athletics unique in the collegiate environment.
“There's something wrong with that concept – that somehow or another, intercollegiate athletics is failing because it's not paying its way,” Renfro said at the workshop, which was held on the campus of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “Take a look at a campus and take a look at the number of departments that don't even come close to paying their way. They exist because the university believes it's important to have those departments.
“What you have in higher education is a very complex system of cross-subsidization. There are a few areas in a few places that make a lot of money. Those monies are used to help pay for those other things that universities believe they must have if they're going to have comprehensive university.
“That's simply the way higher education tends to work. If everybody was expected to sit on their own bottom, they simply couldn't do it. You would have very, very few programs.”
Renfro, who has been with the NCAA for more than 35 years, told the journalists and students attending that too often there is a biased in higher education “against the physical.”
“We tend in higher eduction at the majority of institutions and a pretty significant portion of the campuses to disregard the value of physical activity,” he said. “It plays out in conflicts on campus about the level of spending and time away from class and in other ways.”
The reality, Renfro said, is that universities for years have placed enough of a value on the direct and indirect benefits of athletics to have allowed them to survive.
.jpg) |
| Jodi Upton of USA Today |
| Photo by Mike Wolanin |
“All of these are characteristics that those engaged in intercollegiate athletics obtain from participation and even more importantly, those of us who watch that come to understand that as well,” he said. “Intercollegiate athletics models those characteristics for the rest of us even though we are not actively engaged in the participation.”
Wallace also said while there is a perception that athletics is an overwhelming part of a university's financial picture, and while the median ratio of athletic expenses has grown from 4.5 to 5.4 percent of institutional expenses from 2004-2008, it is in proportion a comparatively small concern.
“It isn't a level that causes a lot of heartburn for administrators,” he said. “It simply isn't sufficient crisis or stress to cause presidents to make significant change.”
