Carolina Journal’s Kari Travis writes on the UNC system universities relying upon student fees to help cover the costs of their athletic programs. Here’s what she says about UNC-Charlotte:
Other notable subsidies include those at UNC-Charlotte, where the athletic department has subsidized $85,854,522 of its $116,678,876 total spending (or 74 percent) since 2010. Student fees comprise nearly three-fourths of those subsidies, adding up to $64,390,891 over the last four years.
College athletic programs continue to expand as universities use a variety of justifications for sports development, says economist Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. One recent example is the UNC-Charlotte 49ers football program, which was established in 2008 based in part on the argument that adding Bowl Championship Series-level football would be a magnet for both donors and students.
That’s a common rationale university administrators use to beef up athletics — but it’s not necessarily realistic, Vedder said.
“As I read the empirical evidence on this, by and large that’s not a very strong argument,” Vedder said. “In most cases there is little evidence that there is an increase in the donations that sports bring in. There is no evidence at all that they bring in more money. And when they do, sometimes the … incremental amounts of money they bring in is to support the sports program itself.”
In 2014, UNC-Charlotte’s athletics department received financial contributions of $4,420,363, as well as a total endowment and investment income of $271,738, roughly $1 million more than in 2010, when it received $3,276,840 in contributions, and $317,728 in endowments and investments. But that increase in donations over the last four years may not represent any real benefit to the school, Vedder said.
“That extra [money] is going to support the operations of the athletic department,” Vedder said. “So how does that help the university in a material way?”
College sports continue growing, not because they are of true value to universities, but because they are popular, Vedder said. That popularity is driving a kind of athletic arms race, and an immediate solution looks unlikely due to peer pressure among universities, he said.
“A basic problem is that people love sports,” Vedder said. “So this assumption that you can [use sports] to buy your way into donations by prominence and high reputation doesn’t work. Because one thing everyone forgets is what I call the Iron Law of Sports: Every time someone wins a game, someone else loses, and not everyone can win in sports.”
