NEW YORK -- Behind the pageantry and enthusiasm of collegiate sports, someone has to monitor the expansion of the enterprise. Leaders throughout the NCAA membership face this challenge daily as they try to balance athletics budgets at their respective institutions.

Several university presidents and athletics directors gathered at the annual Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletics Forum December 7-8, and managing the growth of college sports was a theme that garnered candid discussion.

One panel on that topic featured Athletics Directors Bill Byrne of Texas A&M University, College Station; Bill Martin from the University of Michigan; Dianne Murphy from Columbia University; Todd Turner from the University of Washington; and Debbie Yow from the University of Maryland, College Park. All five are familiar with the increasing costs of managing a large number of sports programs.

"When I came to Michigan as athletics director six years ago, we had a grant-in-aid cost of $8 million," Martin said. "Today, it is almost $13 million. It is driven by the institution's tuition rate. It's there, and it is a reality."

Byrne told a similar story about a 38 percent rise in tuition in his three years at Texas A&M.

Panelists also cited increases in compensation packages for coaches, travel expenses, game-day operations, utility bills and medical insurance as stressors on operating budgets.

To combat the expenditures, athletics directors search for additional ways to
generate revenue, which in turn creates debate on whether big-time college sports are over-commercialized. The panelists agreed, though, that if the solutions are in line with the educational mission, the need to generate revenue shouldn't be classified as negative.

NCAA President Myles Brand, who also attended the forum, said other campus departments solicit money from donors and attempt to acquire research grants without undergoing the scrutiny that an athletics department attracts when conducting its business.

"Commercialization on the front end of raising revenue -- done according to the principles of higher education and not where anything goes -- is acceptable, and the right thing to do when done the right way," said Brand. "I'm amazed how confused the media and some of our own people on campuses are on how we finance intercollegiate athletics, and what the role of commercialism is."

Brand said that athletics departments face the same budget realities that universities in general face. The university generates revenue, then cross-subsidizes funds to the non-revenue programs. In the case of athletics, football and men's basketball usually are counted on to generate revenue, and that money is spread throughout the department to create opportunities for other student-athletes.

Suggestions from the athletics director panel to control costs included reducing the number of contests or even eliminating certain sports from varsity status.

"Let's make some of the varsity sports into club sports," Martin urged. "We need to create a separate level called 'varsity-club' in which we recognize some sports reaching national prominence. We can't fund them all at the same level, but we'll give them priority to facilities and everything else."

But others on the panel were concerned about such an approach taking participation opportunities away from student-athletes.

Division affiliation

The practice of institutions seeking to join Division I with hopes of cashing in on larger revenues also entered the debate.

Brand discouraged institutions from thinking that an increase in expenditures will equal a financial boon. He said only about a dozen athletics departments earn a profit.

Washington AD Turner said the current divisional structure "creates a bunch of wannabes."

"Institutions see the value of having their name in lights, and it's a marketing opportunity. It creates pressure on campuses to take advantage of that."

Brand acknowledged the plight of athletics directors in trying to make ends meet while building successful programs.

"The budgetary situations and the desire to win brings on more scrutiny through the media and has made the athletic director's job very difficult," Brand said. "We have some creative, intellectually strong and hard-working people who are some of the best people involved in intercollegiate athletics, and they are under a lot of pressure."

Brand said in the 1970s, the prevailing thought in Division I was that athletics departments should strive for self-sufficiency. That philosophy is not only difficult to accomplish, but it also has the effect of athletics departments becoming a separate entity from the rest of the university.

That is an undesired outcome, Brand said, and the academic reforms currently underway in Division I are intended to reconnect athletics with the educational mission.

Columbia's Murphy agreed. "Somewhere we've lost sight that the reality of the scholarship comes after graduation," Murphy said. "What we're doing is educating these young men and women in our institutions. We're so focused on the money that we're losing sight of the valuable experiences they are gaining at our institutions. It's what they are going to do with the rest of their lives in terms of their career earnings, in terms of their profession and in terms of what we've taught them through sports -- that's what matters most."

The forum also featured a presidents panel composed of Michael Adams from the University of Georgia, Sidney McPhee of Middle Tennessee State University, Graham Spanier of Pennsylvania State University, T.K. Wetherell of Florida State University and James Wright of Dartmouth College. One of the messages on which those panelists agreed was the significance of presidential leadership in athletics.

"I spend a fair amount of time on athletics, because I want to be in touch," said Spanier, who has 29 sports teams at Penn State. "The worst thing that can happen to a university is an infractions case that cites a lack of institutional control. You can have some idiotic booster that goes off and does something stupid, but when you have a problem of institutional control, that is serious business. When you have coaches or athletics directors, who are seriously breaking the rules, it can hurt an institution badly."

All of the presidents on the panel believe athletics play an important role in the educational process -- and it is the responsibility of all stakeholders to communicate that fact.

"It's time for us to recognize that our student-athletes are students," Wright said. "We have the responsibility to educate and to teach. There are different pressures on different schools to have first-rate athletics programs. There is nothing wrong with that. We're all competitive and take satisfaction from winning."