Study misused to justify more spending on OU Athletics

I was quoted in Oct 8 Ohio University Post article, entitled "œOU Athletic Director Defends Use of University Funds," stating that the recent economic impact study regarding athletics should not be used as a reason to pump more money into the athletics department. I stand by my statements, but want to further qualify my comments and lend introspection to the issues. With respect to everyone, I come at this from a unique perspective given that my research interest is intercollegiate athletics, and I am considered an expert on many college sports issues. Somewhat ironically, I am a former 10-plus-year athletic administrator at two Division I institutions, a former assistant wrestling coach here, and I even worked in the athletic department as interim associate athletic director for compliance two years ago.

I am a longtime donor and Bobcat Club member, a season ticket holder. I love when the Bobcats win, and I have many outstanding athletes in my classes. Many in the athletic department are friends, who are very good people dedicated to their jobs and what is best for the athlete - academically and athletically. While we can agree to disagree on issues, some very good people run our athletics program. This debate is not about people, and we can disagree without being disagreeable.

AD Jim Schaus, whom I respect, inherited this current deficit, and it has become the university's problem to fix it. I commend him for many of his moves to reduce the deficit. Athletics must be held accountable like every other department and auxiliary, and it is not above criticism. I agree with Schaus that intercollegiate athletics does have value - but how that value is quantified in dollars and cents is exactly where this debate should begin and end.

I have no issues with the methodology or findings of the economic-impact study that was formulated by outstanding sports administration graduate students. My issue is not with the study, as there is positive economic impact by having an intercollegiate athletics program. How that information is leveraged for future budgeting is where I question where we go with the information.

I caution the use of an economic study as a gauge to spend more money on athletics because it can be used ostensibly to justify increases that simply will not result in a comparable rate of return. In theory, increased spending should translate to more revenue by making teams more competitive, winning more games, driving ticket sales, sponsorship dollars and marketing capabilities for the university. While this sounds good, empirically it is not a sound strategy. Look no further than Rutgers University which did win big in football in 2005, then spent massively even in the face of state budget cuts, to include expanding their stadium and giving embarrassingly high raises to its football coaches, to "capitalize" on its success and drive great return on investment (ROI). Through this misguided folly, Rutgers ran into a multimillion-dollar deficit and then dropped several sports to assist in balancing the budget and dozens of athletes lost educational opportunities.

Does doing things that allegedly enhance winning provide greater ROI for the athletic department, or would it largely remain neutral? Empirical research from several unbiased studies suggests that striving for a winning athletic model to increase revenue is not working, and universities are going further in debt. The NCAA's own studies, written by respected economists Robert Litan, and Jonathan & Peter Orszag, entitled "The Empirical Effects of Intercollegiate Athletics" (2001; 2003) and the independent Knight Commission study performed by Cornell Economist Robert Frank (2004), caution spending more to drive winning and revenue generation.

In the 2001 Orszag Report, one finding was "that schools had little to gain by stepping up their already sizable investments in athletics. For every additional dollar spent, that report found, programs realized only an additional dollar in athletics revenue. And no correlation was found between increased spending and win-loss records." The 2003 report demonstrated that a huge investment, more than $3 million on a football program, would only marginally increase a team's winning percentage, if at all. Any gain would be negated by cost overruns. There was also no correlation found between higher coaches' salaries and a team's winning percentage.

Both reports also countered the many myths that a successful athletic program contributes to the overall marketing, enhancement of the institution, quality and number of applications, and increased donations to the university. Frank and Litan found little to no correlation that these intangible benefits are enhanced by a successful athletics program.

The Congressional Budget Office, in its 2009 review of college sports, found studies have reached conflicting conclusions on these questions but "even in the studies that find successful athletics programs have a positive impact on the school overall, the measured impacts are generally quite small."

Using these data, it is up to Ohio University to decide what investment to make and what the value is of athletics. There is value, but not one we overspend on, drop sports teams, and do things like home hotel nights, that do nothing to enhance winning or bring intangible benefits. I know through years of experience and study that we cannot continue to espouse myths about successful athletic programs when it comes to generating revenue and ROI.

I surmise that the economic impact inside and outside of the university would be unchanged or even enhanced if we restrain spending. Are we going to use outside economic impact as a reason to justify further spending, unnecessary improvements, and salary hikes for revenue windfall through perceived greater success? Something that research shows is likely never going to happen? It is up to us as a university to quantify the value, but it needs to be a broad-based university decision including all constituencies based on data and trends, not hope and myths that have been disproved time and time again.