The Washington Post reported on a discussion by NCAA President Mark Emmert before the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. The Post stated Emmert “will push for enacting the new standards, which were tentatively agreed upon in August, as early as next season’s NCAA basketball tournaments and that they be extended to bowl game participation. Had…
Amid a growing sense of crisis in college sports, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics heard evidence that the challenges colleges face are beyond the scope of current reform efforts. The Commission applauded the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s recent progress, and urged the speedy enactment of many of its proposed reforms. At the same time, the Commission said these steps alone would not ensure the integrity of sports in higher education, and emphasized the underlying drivers of conference realignment and other accelerating trends. Specifically, the Commission noted the influx in coming years of almost $14 billion in renegotiated television contracts, primarily for regular-season football, to the five richest conferences. The Commission will pursue transparency and accountability measures to ensure that these funds are used to further institutions’ educational missions and not simply to increase athletic expenditures. The Commission also will assess the complicated relationships among the NCAA, the Bowl Championship Series, Division I conferences, and their member institutions. In particular, the Commission will examine the impact of changing conferences primarily to increase revenue for football, and the impact such changes have on other sports. The Commission also announced six grants totaling $100,000 to independent scholars to study policy issues in intercollegiate athletics, with results of their studies to be released in October 2012.
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The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently reported on the financial status of college sports in the state of Ohio and found that college sports would be unsustainable in their current form at just about every public university in Ohio without money from students, taxpayers or other non-athletic school sources. With the exception of Ohio State University,…
Policy changes being considered by the NCAA and updated financial data will frame the reform-focused discussion among higher education leaders WHO: The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, chaired by William E. “Brit” Kirwan, Chancellor, University System of Maryland, and R. Gerald Turner, President, Southern Methodist University, will be joined by Mark Emmert, president, NCAA; Robert…
The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) recently announced the results of a national survey about the extent that major colleges are implementing best practices to integrate athletics into the educational mission of universities. The best practices were developed by COIA as a result of concerns about the impact that problems in college sports are impacting…
Minnesota Public Radio published an interview about the current status of college sports with author Taylor Branch and Knight Commission executive director Amy Perko. The discussion focused on how big money is having a greater impact on big-time college sports, from schools changing conferences to a renewed call to pay student athletes. The context of…
The Charleston Post & Courier reported on the continuing increase in the compensation of major college football coaches. From 1986 to 2010, the increase in pay for head football coaches far outpaced the increase in salaries for professors and presidents at major college football schools. Over the past 25 years, professors’ salaries at major college…
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an editorial about the recent scandals plaguing college sports. The editorial referenced the recommendations in the 2010 Knight Commission report, Restoring the Balance, as a basis for the paper’s own perspective. The editorial stated: “Last summer the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics — a largely powerless think-tank made up of…
Recently, the Independent Weekly (Raleigh-Durham, NC) interviewed William Friday, the founding co-chairman of the Knight Commission and president emeritus of the University of North Carolina System. Friday was asked for his perspective on the state of college sports today. A portion of the interview follows: INDEPENDENT WEEKLY: You helped found the Knight Commission in 1989…