Do We Really Want Football On The Ballot?
The 'little guy' could lose a lot, too, in the cuts and downturn
Covid-19 is the iceberg that is sinking college football as we know it for the 2020 season and there is some cheering from the shore as the gilded Colossus takes on water. It is weighed down by the blubber of brassy training facilities, lordly suites for the donors, $1 million athletic director salaries and… putting greens, bowling alleys, pool tables, video game systems, lockers big enough for their egos and six pairs of shoes, and cash gifts for the students who play football.
From The Washington Post
In 2014, 48 schools spent $772 million combined on athletic facilities, an 89-percent increase from $408 million spent in 2004, adjusted for inflation. Those figures include annual debt payments, capital expenses and maintenance costs.
The cheering from the shore swells to a roar when the gawkers see the multi-million dollar coaches taking a bath…and getting a haircut (some of them, at least).
Now is the time, the mob contends, to just plain whack major college football and its eccentric way of doing business. What the reform crowd really wants—and has wanted for years—is to cut the salaries for coaches, enforce the limits on practice time, put limits on the facilities spending, guarantee four-year scholarships, and quit using student fees to prop up football. That all doesn’t fit on a sign, so they just scream, “Down with Football.”
Never let a good crisis go to waste is a popular thought here.
If the goal of some people is to just do as much damage as possible to the industrial complex of the game while it is down, that is not a good idea. We agree college football is long past the need for reform….
….but we need football to be big.
One reason we need the Colossus is to make sure there are piles of money to reallocate to the athletes now that they have political standing. But a bigger reason football needs to stay preeminent are the jobs for the lower and middle class in the athletic department and the small businesses that feed the beast around town.
The jobs in athletic departments are getting trimmed daily and the blue collar/white collar worker class are being sent home. These are workers, not extras to the tyrannical coach or superstar players. The people we should stress over are the ones who turn on the lights, sweep the floors, run the offices, deliver the products, run the registers, get the invoices out, cook the pizza, cater the tailgate, and polish all the brass. They don’t deserve this.
If there is permanent trimming in college football, it will likely be these people not the folks at the top like the million-dollar assistant coach, who is waving his contract. Barbs and threats have bounced off college football for years even though football operates on campus under the flag of the university, which was there before football. Besides, much of the money is privately raised to support the fiefdom, so go jump, the football mavens say.
This week, Atlanta was going to host a never-been-done-before trifecta: three Division I college football games. The Chick-fil-A sponsored bonanza was scheduled for September 5-12. West Virginia vs. Florida State, Georgia vs. Virginia, Auburn vs. North Carolina. A seven-day stretch worth millions of dollars in economic impact.
It was a singular event in the history of the college game—it really was— and the cash was significant to the employees of the bars, restaurants, and hotels that are fueled by football and help make Atlanta the Sports Capital of the U.S. The concession workers in the stadiums loved the second job because their primary jobs do not pay well in a state with a preposterous minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
This week, however, the businesses around the Mercedes-Benz Stadium are in frightful shape. More echoes than cheers inside. There is hope for some juice from the Falcons opener Sunday, but space will be limited in the joints along the Marietta St. strip for social distancing.
Brian Bullock, the Chief Operating Officer for the eight restaurants owned by Legacy Ventures in the CNN/Mercedes-Benz Stadium area, told me losing the three games Sept. 5-12 is a “massive blow” to the hospitality industry.
Across the eight restaurants he manages, Bullock said the loss of the three games would mean losing $1 million in revenue. This is local industry. That money stays in Atlanta and gets into state tax coffers.
The impact on the street from football being shut down, or stadiums being limited to 20 percent capacity, is being felt across the country.
From ESPN:
The University of Utah athletic department will implement department-wide furloughs, including athletic director Mark Harlan, football coach Kyle Whittingham and men's basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak, Harlan said in a radio interview Friday.
The decision comes with the department facing a financial shortfall that Harlan previously estimated could range from $50-60 million, due to cancellations and postponements from the coronavirus pandemic. Harlan tweeted that all staff and coaches will stagger the furloughs, which will last for a minimum of one week to as many as eight, through the rest of 2020. Head coaches and Harlan will furlough for two weeks, but it's not clear when those will take place.
From the Austin Business Journal on the University of Texas athletics:
Starting on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 35 staff members will be laid off and 35 vacant positions will be permanently eliminated, (athletic director) Del Conte wrote. 273 staff members will receive temporary salary cuts and 11 staff members will be furloughed with benefits starting on Oct. 1 and extending through August 31, 2021.
According to the Business Journal, Texas football coach Tom Herman, who makes $6 million a year for a team with an ok record of 25-15 the last three years, will have his pay cut, not slashed, by $891,000.
The pandemic has done what supine presidents have not done, which is restrain spending and demand a rainy day fund that preserves jobs when it’s 9-1-1. College football has made more than $3 billion from the TV rights fees from the first six years of the College Football Playoff and spent most of it and is treading water.
From the Detroit Free Press
University of Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel announced the department is eliminating 21 positions while facing "a potential revenue loss to $100 million.”
From the Tuscaloosa News:
The University of Alabama athletics department is reducing its operating budget by 22 percent and has imposed a hiring freeze for positions other than countable coaches, among other cost-cutting measures.
UA Director of Athletics Greg Byrne outlined the measures to Tide Pride members in a letter sent via email Thursday evening, a copy of which was obtained by The Tuscaloosa News. The letter said due to the 80 percent reduction on seating capacity at Bryant-Denny Stadium and fewer home football games, “the athletics department is facing a potential $75 million revenue shortfall.”
Other cost-cutting measures outlined in the email include “expenditures limited to essential purchases only,” and, “implementation of multiyear staff reduction and compensation containment plan.”
Hold your hurrahs that mighty Alabama is being taken down a notch because the mid-major schools are getting hosed, too.
From the Record-Courier in Kent, Ohio:
Athletic staffing cuts that have been feared at Kent State University for the past several months due to financial ramifications from the COVID-19 pandemic are now official.
“To achieve a balanced budget for this fiscal year, all departments and divisions on campus were asked to reduce their expenditures by 20 percent,” said Nielsen, referring to a campus-wide directive that was given by Kent State University President Todd Diacon last April. “In meeting this directive, the athletic department based the decisions with several priorities in mind, one being protecting the opportunities for student-athletes in all 19 varsity sports. Also, areas that have direct impact on student-athlete development were prioritized, including the academic support unit, sports medicine, mental health, and nutrition.
According to sources close to the Kent State athletic program, about 15 positions were eliminated. Assistant coaches from various teams were reportedly among the cuts along with administrators and support personnel, although specific positions could not be confirmed.
The Big Ten and the Pac-12 have already announced they are not going to play football this season. The Southeastern Conference, the Big 12, and the Atlantic Coast Conference are playing, but they are watchful of a Doomsday Clock on their expected starts later in September.
The University of Tennessee football team, which is part of the SEC, cancelled a scrimmage Saturday because 44 players were sidelined, many for Covid-19 related issues, some with injuries. I was a sports editor in that town. Knoxville without football would be devastating to the community.
Covid cases are increasing all over campuses. How long can the players stay away from the general student body before the infection spreads to the team?
So, if the infections spread around the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 and football is shut down, is this what you want? Thousands of job losses. Really? Can we just hold our nose, let the millionaires make money and be thankful the people flipping burgers or peddling pizza have their livelihoods?
You say “Can’t the citizenry just find something else to spend $100 million on, if there was no football?”
Something else would be something that preserved the sanctity of the campus and not made it a play toy for football Friday through Saturday. I mean, football is so authoritarian most of the University of Alabama does not have classes on Friday so students and faculty can get ready for the big game.
But what would something else be?
Would something else be able to build the academic centers coach Nick Saban had done at LSU and Alabama? Saban also takes money from football and props up salaries of some UA teachers, though you could construe it is to keep them quiet about his takeover of the campus.
Just think about the athletes of the other sports on campus, the volleyball players, swimmers, rowers, baseball players and the rest. Football brings in 70-80 percent of the athletic department revenue and that money helps fund the trips across country, or south for the winter, for athletes in sports that don’t make money. Football is Daddy….and benefactor.
I still think back to Derek Dooley when he was the football coach at Louisiana Tech using some of the money from a big payday of playing an SEC school to refurbish the women’s soccer facility at the school.
There are examples like that all over the country at a school near you.
I know, it’s hard to have sympathy for big-time football, especially when I see some schools are blasting right through Covid-19 with more permisiveness.
From KEZI.com:
EUGENE, Ore. -- The new video board at Autzen Stadium remains under construction. It was originally planned for an August completion date.
The board is set to be 186-by-66 feet and cost an estimated $12 million which is being funded by private gifts.
The current video board is 12 years old, making it nearly the oldest in the Pac-12.
Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens said the athletic department is in jeopardy of a $50-80 million impact without a college football season. Football generates more than 70 percent of athletic revenue for the university.
In athletic years, like the old dog years bromide, anything 12 years old is thrown on the slag pile. It’s really 84. That is the mindset anyway. Oregon, which is rising under future Alabama coach Mario Cristobal, is still going to have that $12 million scoreboard ready, football or no football, By God.
Yes, football can be gross.
It can also be liberating. Poverty is mostly to blame for a higher percentage of Black students not achieving in high schools compared to the percentage of white students who achieve. The poor salaries paid to Blacks, the redlining, and the segregation, puts a lot of pressure on the families and their high schools. When some Black athletes arrive on campus to play football many have resources they never had. Tutors and a full stomach to learn on are among those resources. They thrive. All because of money provided by King Football.
Do we really want that to go away?
We have enough things to worry about this fall without putting college football on the ballot. And here’s the truth. The millions of college football fans don’t want you or you or me to touch their game. The fans glorify the game because they do, that’s all there is to it. It’s fun. Without the fans in the stands or watching on TV and the attending donor base, The Colossus never would have grown this big. It’s not big because a lot of people want to dismantle it.
We have to preserve it and then use national legislation to equitably distribute the money, but that’s another story for when we get past the pain of workers being laid off.