Transcript The Contested Values of College Sport: How Economists and Other Social Scientists Can Help Lawyers and Policymakers Stephen F.

The Contested Values of College
Sport: How Economists and Other
Social Scientists Can Help Lawyers
and Policymakers
Stephen F. Ross
Professor of Law
Director, Institute for Sports Law, Policy
& Research
Pennsylvania State University
Overview
1) Physical, social, and mental benefits of athletics
participation
2) Access to a better education for dedicated and
gifted student-athletes
3) Positive contribution to campus life and social
bonding among students, faculty/staff, alumni,
and the larger community
4) Hugely popular consumer entertainment
5) Huge commercial success to allow universities to
spend surplus on worthy causes
Intrinsic Benefits to Athletes
• How do we measure these benefits?
• What are the essential attributes?
• How do Division I student-athletes’ benefits
compare to those obtained from elite club
competition or Division III competition?
• In addition to Title IX concerns, are universities
driven by equity/fairness between football and
other men’s sports?
Law/Policy re Athlete Benefits
• More cost-effective spending on
intercollegiate athletics
• Reconsideration of bi-polar model of Division I
and recreational athletics
• More flexible and nuanced approaches to Title
IX
• Reconsideration of NCAA rule requiring
minimum # of sports for D-I football/
basketball participation
Enhanced Access to Higher Education
• What kind of students benefit from admission to
colleges primarily based on athletic talent?
• Where would these students go without special athletic
admission?
• Are athletic scholarships still necessary given growth of
need-based aid?
• To what extent does this goal cause investment by
families in efforts to obtain an athletic scholarship?
Are these investments prudent?
• To what extent does this goal provide increased
impetus for upward mobility, especially for
disadvantaged minorites?
Law/ Policy re Wider College Access
• Huge benefits may justify antitrust exemption
• Distorted family investments may justify strict
limits on non-need scholarships and special
admission to universities
– Rethink need for special athletic admissions in
non-revenue sports where schools can compete
against academic peers
Positive Contribution to University Life
• Precisely which attributes of intercollegiate athletics contribute to
university life, and in precisely which ways?
– Are there ways to evaluate claims that athletics provide special national
exposure and enhance a school’s reputation?
– Are there ways to evaluate claims that the university benefits from a stronger
emotional connection for students, staff, alumni, the community, and the
state?
• Can we identify negative aspects of athletics?
– Fan/student misbehavior?
– Excessive time away from studies?
– Are athletic-driven academic rivalries positive?
• Do schools seem to make the right call (compare Michigan/Penn State to
MIT/Cal Tech), or is there a public choice distortion from alumni
spectators?
• Could schools facilitate greater contribution from non-revenue sports?
Law/Policy re University Life
• See athlete benefits
• Inhibit public choice distortions by requiring
Trustees to explicitly approve budget for nonrevenue sports in lieu of counter-proposal by
academic deans for money to be spent on
academic programs
Consumer Entertainment
• Precisely what are the attributes of college football and
basketball that make it so much more popular than minor
league baseball?
• Does the college sports entertainment “industry” provide
greater macroeconomic benefits to local economies that
consumer spending in other markets?
• Would measures to significantly increase competitive
balance within conferences boost consumer appeal?
• Are huge salaries for coaches prudent investments resulting
in higher revenue or past of an inefficient ‘rat race’?
• Is there a huge consumer surplus among avid fans?
• Would consumers prefer a “Superleague” of 20-30
programs?
Law/Policy re Consumers
• Antitrust/regulatory review of paying players
• Internal/external pressure to resist or increase
balance
• Antitrust exemption for agreements re
coaches’ compensation
• Structuring sport: regulatory review of
conference re-alignment
Worthy Causes
• What are “real” expenditures for college athletics
programs?
– Are “scholarships” really subsidies of the general
academic program?
– Are sports facilities subsidized by general revenues?
• Is athletic budgeting in accord with general
university budgeting policy?
• Do universities use sound policies in measuring
spending in academic departments? Can metrics
used to compare sociology and classics be used to
compare history and lacrosse?
Law/policy re Worthy Causes
• Mandatory uniformity in athletics accounting
• Antitrust exemption to use football/
basketball profits for desired ends
• Serious internal university reconsideration of
spending priorities