Jason Peck, an enterpreneur, internet marketer, consultant, sports business blogger, and friend of mine, read about the College Sport Research Institute 2009 Conference on SportsAgentBlog.com, and decided that he would attend the event due to his close proximity to Chapel Hill and its excellent schedule of events. He wrote up a report from the first day for this site. Here is his report on Day 2 (in Jason’s words)…
There have been some really great panels and discussions about issues in college sports at this year’s CSRI Conference in Chapel Hill. Day 2 featured two keynote speakers and the panel sessions focused mainly on academic research. Please see below for some of my notes from Day 2.
Keynote Speech – Dr. John Gerdy
Dr. John Gerdy is very knowledgeable about many of the issues facing college sports. He has written books such as The Successful Athletic Program: The New Standard and Sports: The All-American Addiction, and he has held positions with the NCAA and SEC. Dr. Gerdy spoke about the professionalization of college sports, specifically football and basketball at the Division I level and the need for reform efforts to start there. Dr. Gerdy was very outspoken on his belief that the current sports model does not benefit athletes or universities (from an academic standpoint). He pointed to studies (I wish I knew which ones he was talking about specifically) that found athletics have little long term effect on the quality of students at a university and the number of applications. He also pointed to some statistics from a Sports Illustrated article titled “How (And Why) Athletes Go Broke.” The study found that:
- By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.
- Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke
Dr. Gerdy said that if athletes who go pro are supposedly the most successful athletes in the sports system–yet many of them are running out of money like this–then the system is broken. You can’t really just blame the pro leagues for this; colleges also should take responsibility.
Dr. Gerdy said there are a few things that must be changed to address the professional aspects of college sports. He encouraged everyone to be vocal that the current model is failing athletes and not helping universities as much as they think. He also said he felt it was important to make the case that this is negatively affecting society overall, because people care more about athletics than academics now. Dr. Gerdy also said he thought an alternative scholarship model should be offered–a needs-based system instead of one based on athletics. The challenge to implementing change is that many universities and media companies feel any changes will negatively impact their revenues, and Dr. Gerdy ended by saying future research should focus on alleviating these fears.
I thought Dr. Gerdy raised some very interesting points during this speech, though it took on more of a negative view of college sports than I feel is fair. I think college sports provide an opportunity for athletes and universities to gain a lot of intangible benefits, but it’s hard to argue that college football and basketball have become professionalized in many instances and there are certain issues that need to be addressed.
Keynote Speech – Dr. Bernie Mullin
Dr. Bernie Mullin has over 30 years of experience in the sports marketing industry. He is the former CEO of Atlanta Spirit (owner of the Atlanta Hawks and Thrashers) and has held executive positions at the NBA and MLB. Currently he runs The Aspire Group, a sports consulting business that he created.
Dr. Mullin spoke on some of the differences between pro and college basketball and that some reform was needed. Since he gave his speech during lunch, I didn’t take notes and just tried to listen. Dr. Mullin said he thought that the NBA’s age limit was a good idea and that the players would actually prefer to raise it to prevent young/immature players from joining the league. He also felt this is a good thing because it allows players to develop more skills in college so they can be more prepared for the league and need less instruction from teams once they get there.
One of the most interesting questions that Dr. Mullin answered came from Dr. Gerdy. My friend Tim Newman (Coordinator of the Sport Management Program at York College), who I met at the conference after connecting on Twitter, did a great job at describing this on his blog (link: http://sportmanagementeducation.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/csri-conference-in-chapel-hill-day-two/), so I’ll just quote him:
“Dr. Gerdy asked Bernie if it was the NBA’s fault that 60% of NBA retirees are bankrupt after two years. Dr. Mullin not only said no, but he outlined what the NBA does to prevent it, and went on to say that if they stayed in college longer they would be more mature and learn the skills needed to prepare them for life after college.”
I can understand how it would be great if younger players were more educated and experienced before joining the NBA but I’m not sure I agree with the age limit. I don’t think it is fair to prevent someone from pursuing a career based on age alone. I know it may be GOOD for the NBA and most players, but I just don’t agree that it’s RIGHT. No one has challenged this rule in court yet (that I’m aware of), and I wonder if it would stand?
The Panels
I attended some interesting panels where students and faculty presented research studies on various college sports topics. One of them was about the amount of commercial content and advertising on college sports websites. Based on an analysis of PAC-10 and Big East athletic websites, research found that an average of 34% of all content on the home pages of these sites was commercial. The feeling seemed to be that this was high and that perhaps more focus should be on linking back to university websites and promoting more of their academic aspects.
Another panel looked at how perceptions of a school’s athletics, academics and intent of alumni to donate changed when one school moved from Division II up to Division I in sports. The perception is that reclassification helps a university generate increased applications, exposure and revenue. While it’s impossible to draw a definite conclusion from one case study, this research found that the benefits were barely noticeable and that having a Division I program had little impact on the perception of this school’s academics, though perceptions of the school overall increased slightly.
One of the most interesting panels I attended focused on the issue and practices of Division III schools who recruit college athletes to boost overall enrollment. D3 is often overlooked but there are more Division III schools than there are in either DI or DII. While DIII schools aren’t allowed to give scholarships for athletics, they will still often recruit athletes to help boost their overall enrollment numbers. This practice has come to light recently as certain schools rely very heavily on athletics to build general enrollment numbers. Certain coaches may even have quotas built into their contracts with the number of athletes that they have to recruit each year.
This may not be inherently bad, but a problem arises if coaches aren’t honest with parents and athletes about this process upfront. One athlete told her story about being recruited by a certain coach who told her she’d play on the varsity soccer team. However, once she got to school she was told to play on the “reserve” team and had less and less contact with varsity players. She felt that the coach wasn’t completely honest about her recruitment.
I’m not sure how I feel about these quotas. They may put extra pressure on coaches and open up doors to situations where a coach without integrity may engage in shady practices to recruit players. It seems like it should be the admissions department’s job to fill enrollment, and a coach should just stick to filling a team. Would you ever make a math teacher go out and recruit math students to build general enrollment numbers? Hopefully most coaches have some integrity and are honest about the process so problems like this don’t happen often, but who knows…
Lastly, there was an interesting panel about how competitive balance in football has chanced since the BCS was founded in 1998. Tim Newman has a good write-up about this on his blog, and you can read more about the panel there. (link: http://sportmanagementeducation.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/csri-conference-in-chapel-hill-day-two/)
Overall, I had a great time at the CSRI conference. I’m glad I had the opportunity to hear discussions and speeches about some important issues in college sports. Thanks to Darren for writing about this event, encouraging me to attend and posting my thoughts here.
