Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Media & Entertainment Law Blogs -> Sports Biz

Media & Entertainment Law

: Sports Biz

Difficulties of a Basketball Only D-I Athletic Department

We have talk a lot in this space about the economics of running a major college athletic department. Most of the time, we are talking about Division I schools and mostly those with big time football programs. We don't spend that much time talking about the difficulties that face those schools without football and believe me, those difficulties are numerous. Football is the cash cow that funds all the Olympic sports at most D-I schools, even those at the lower reaches of D-I. Now, imagine how you field a full complement of Olympic sports when your cash cow is basketball and even the most successful basketball programs in the country (all of the top ten, at least, are football schools by the way) don't earn much more than Vanderbilt earns from football distributions from the SEC alone.

For a little more insight into the workings of a basketball only athletic program, take a look at this interview with the Mike Broeker, the Associate Athletic Director at Marquette, as posted on the best Marquette blog I know, Cracked Sidewalks.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).