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Knight Commission to Discuss New Approaches for the Next Era of College Sports on Sept. 8 in Washington, D.C.

New and future health and safety initiatives will be featured Who: The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, co-chaired by William E. “Brit” Kirwan, chancellor, University System of Maryland, and R. Gerald Turner, president, Southern Methodist University, will be joined by Brian Hainline, chief medical officer, NCAA; Oliver Luck, athletics director, West Virginia University; Alan Ashley,…

House Bill Introduced to Require College Athletics Financial Reporting

In its 2010 report, Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values and the Future of College Sports, the Knight Commission called for greater financial transparency in college sports and specifically, for NCAA financial reports to be made public. A House bill introduced on July 14 would make this recommendation a federal law. USA TODAY reports that Rep.…

Knight Commission Call for Financial Transparency Cited by Senate Committee

The United States Senate Commerce Committee release on its July 8 hearing on college sports cited the Knight Commission’s call for greater financial transparency to improve the accountability in college sports. The release noted the following: “For Chairman Rockefeller and other critics of the NCAA, another major concern has been the NCAA’s opaqueness when it…

Subsidizing Athletics Remains Problematic for Colleges

A USA Today analysis of college athletics budgets found subsidies were reduced at five of 227 public NCAA Division I institutions between 2009-10 and 2012-13. The article states, “roughly one in three of the other 48 power-conference public schools have reduced subsidies for athletics while one in 13 of the non-power-conference schools have done so.”…

A Culture of Sports Obsession

A column in the Sedalia Democrat quotes University of Central Missouri (UCM) President Chuck Ambrose who describes his concerns that the “strategic vision for what college sports should look like is not there.” Ambrose is a former college soccer player who served as chairman of the NCAA Division II President Council in 2006-07. UCM recently…

A Billion-Dollar Amateur Show

Knight Commission Executive Director Amy Perko is quoted in the Washington Post‘s April 3 article, “NCAA stages its gaudiest spectacle, while its amateur foundation is under question.” The article summarizes the recent debate over whether athletes should receive more benefits and whether they should be represented by a players’ union. “What impact, if any, one…

Bowlsby’s Vision: College Sports Need Some Changes

AP’s “The Big Story” on March 22, 2014 was a report on the remarks Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby made at the Knight Commission’s March 17, 2014 meeting. The report noted that Bowlsby’s panel was “tasked with forecasting how college sports may change over the next decade…if Bowlsby got his way, the model would change—considerably.”…

Colleges Can Help Without an Athletes’ Union

On March 28, the New York Times published on its opinion page the following statement by Knight Commission Executive Director Amy Perko: The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics continues to strongly promote its principle that institutions must treat college athletes as students first and foremost, not as professionals. The commission supports many of the benefits…

Big-Time College Sports Hurting Academic Mission

The Miami Herald‘s report of the Knight Commission’s March 17, 2014 meeting in Miami highlighted the discussion around a growing “imbalance between academics and sports.” The article cites findings from the Knight Commission’s Athletic and Academic Spending Database for Division I: “College spending per football player skyrocketed 70 percent compared with only a 6 percent…

Knight Commission, Panelists Call for Stronger Focus on Educational Mission in College Sports

[Sessions and video with experts on academic reforms; NCAA governance; and well-being of athletes]

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics heard passionate dialogue during a meeting here on a range of issues facing college sports, particularly issues of academics and well-being for college athletes. The Commission also announces latest update to its athletic and academic spending database