Submitted by Bbeanster on Wed, 2008/07/02 - 2:23pm.
Is there a market justification for paying her more?
Only if you consider her importance to the University of Tennessee brand and think she should be paid commensurate to her value. And this doesn't even take into consideration that she will, when all is said and done, almost certainly be considered the most important figure in women's athletics. Ever.
If you want to talk about somebody who's kicked the biggest hole in the glass ceiling and created opportunities for student athletes that transcend the game, there's nobody who compares to Pat Summitt.
*Is Summitt worth the Brinks truck? Put it this way: Tennessee has gotten more bang for its bucks than the New York Knicks have with Larry Brown. She wins games, fills seats, sells merchandise and promotes the game. Better yet, not one UT player who completed four years of eligibility has left without a diploma.
So much has changed during Summitt's watch. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, only 29,992 women participated in college sports in 1970-71. By 2000-01 the number had grown to 150,916, a 468.1 percent increase. Meanwhile, the average 2001 salary for head coaches of women's teams in Division I-A BCS conferences was $62,124, compared to the $116,254 paid to head coaches of men's teams.*
"As a manager and master motivator, Pat Summitt transcends sports. The most experienced CEO can learn from her contagious work ethic and ingenious methods."
--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One-Minute Manager
Submitted by Brian A. on Wed, 2008/07/02 - 4:48pm.
I'm not ignoring that.
But at some level these salaries should connect to what the marketplace justifies. A good starting point for that analysis is this question: Is offering a raise of $100,000s necessary to prevent competing schools from luring Coach X with more tempting offers?
Coach Pearl: probably
Coach Summitt: I doubt it
Coach Fulmer: no
Submitted by Ragsdale2010 (not verified) on Wed, 2008/07/02 - 2:17pm.
Don't you know those are some really stupid negotiations, the only people getting screwed are the fans who are asked to pony up more and more each year and the sponsors who are asked to pony up more and more each year and the university programs which are geographically located in proximity to these athletic facilities that want to take their space and make them go away.
The sooner they get rid of the athletic department and the athletics board and have coaches reporting directly to the university president, the quicker we will be able to contain costs and retain some semblance of a major academic institution.
Personally, I think there's something badly wrong with a university that pays its athletic coaches millions while closing down academic programs for lack of funds.
Submitted by RayCapps on Wed, 2008/07/02 - 3:43pm.
I don't get drug into discussions about whether or not someone "deserves" what they are paid. That's a subjective opinion that doesn't lead to anything more than sore fingers or a sore throat depending on the medium.
However, Rachel's statement above is a bit misleading. Pearl and Fulmer are paid by the UTAD, which - last I checked - receives no money from the state or from student tuitions. There's a recently changed and convoluted set of rules regarding the student fees but I don't think any of that money goes to the UTAD, either.
Anyway, unlike most Division I athletic programs, the University of Tennessee's Athletic Department is self-funded through "donations," ticket sales, and concessions. I put the quotes around donations since they are so closely tied to one's ability to purchase season tickets that donation can be a little disingenuous. Still, the point holds, no funds otherwise intended for academic programs are siphoned off by the UTAD. If you want to wade into the proper role of athletics at universities, speculate on how many donor dollars going to UTAD would instead go to academic programs, or conversely, how many donor dollars going into the academic funds are going there because the donors are Vol fans, then have at it. That's all guesswork. But as of right now, there's no direct tie between Fulmer's and Pearl's salaries and the proposed loss of the Audiology and Veteran's personal history programs proposed by the administration.
Let me preface this next point by saying I'm a rabid fan of both Pat Summitt and Joan Cronan and all the Lady Vol programs. They much better uphold my own opinion of what university athletics should be about, and whatever Pat gets paid is A-Okay fine by me, and that goes triple for Joan. However, the point stands that the UTWAD (UT Women's Athletic Department) is not self-funded and does compete directly with university academic programs for funding. Ms. Cronan has come a long way toward making the Lady Vol program self-sufficient and her donor base has grown tremendously through the 20+ years I've been following them. It is certainly Ms. Cronan's dream to see the UTWAD self-funded, but she's just not quite reached that point yet. Maybe another decade or two?
Has the athletic department always been self funded? If not, at what point did that evolve? Also, the land they have facilities on to me would qualify as university support.
Submitted by RayCapps on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 8:06am.
but the University of Tennessee's Athletic Department has been fully self-funded for as long as I can remember. I think the preferred term has been "operating in the black" down through the years. There obviously was a time where the UTAD wasn't fully self-funded considering its humble origins, but it's been self-supporting for a very, very long time now.
As for the land where the facilities sit, I think it depends on the facility. Neyland Stadium was donated to the university for the express purpose of constructing a football stadium. The names of the donors are commemorated in the name of the playing surface, Shields-Watkins field. Thompson Boling Arena, Tom Black Track, Linsey Nelson Stadium, and so on and so forth were all university property. Whether or not there was an internal "sale" of the land from UTK to UTAD I'm not in a position to know. Conversely, facilities that were once utilized by UTAD like Alumni Gym and Stokely, are now back under UTK management. I can't say whether or not there was an internal "sale" there, either. The UTAD has also paid for mixed use facilities on university property that "regular" students fully utilize. The natatorium springs immediately to mind in that regard.
Anyway, to your point regarding the land, since neither UTK nor UTAD are even paying real estate taxes, I'm not sure how you would begin to quantify ongoing UTK support to UTAD through those properties. I am certain that the monies UTAD transfers into the general UTK system would far more than offset any such support. As a rule, UTAD makes contributions to specific capital projects rather than funding operating expenses (like Audiology), but if I recall correctly, they are kicking in a substantial share of Pat Summitt's salary on an annual basis. That would be an exception. I know that while I was going there back in the mid 80's, the UTAD contibuted a rather significant share of the funds used to build the big Lego Library. The UT Sports Information Office could certainly provide a more detailed explanation of the financial relationship between UTAD and UTK, the ownership of the properties where UTAD facilities sit, and so forth. In the net-net, though, more flows into UTK through UTAD than one could construct going vice-versa.
If a corporation, small company, government, church, etc has a particular department that begins to generate a lot of revenue, enough to support itself, and then some, does it get to keep it all? If one spouse makes more than the other, does the affluent spouse keep it all?
Neyland Stadium donated....
Was the land itself donated? Was it donated to the University or the Athletic Department? Exactly what was donated to who for what?
To me UTAD did not pay for any space all students can use. UT paid for it. Via the AD. My guess is if some students wanted to play touch football on practice field, or indoor football facility, play hoops in practice gym, soccer on soccer field, etc. they would get told to leave.
Does the AD make contributions on occaision to capital projects because its easier to market that sort of contribution for PR purposes?
It's not like Coach Fulmer is being overpaid relative to the market.
Despite the raise, Fulmer remains the SEC’s seventh highest paid coach, behind Alabama’s Nick Saban ($4 million), LSU’s Les Miles ($3.751 million), Florida’s Urban Meyer ($3.25 million), first-year Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino ($2.85 million), Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville ($2.8 million) and Georgia’s Mark Richt ($2.8 million).
Submitted by RayCapps on Wed, 2008/07/02 - 4:04pm.
Yeah, maybe in a decade or two they will have dropped the "W" and just have one "AD"?
Having separate Athletic Departments was one of the most "progressive" things the University of Tennessee has ever done. While far too many women's sports have languished and scrounged for scraps as "Title IX" mandated anchor weights within - overwhelmingly - men's athletic departments, our Lady Vols have been allowed to grow and succeed and receive the full support and focus they deserve as gifted, hard working student athletes. Please don't destroy what Joan Cronan has built.
However, Rachel's statement above is a bit misleading. Pearl and Fulmer are paid by the UTAD,
And the first two letters of UTAD are...??
A university can exist without its athletics program. But a university athletics program can't exist without the academic university.
Look, I'm a big fan too. And I'm certainly not denying the realities of the market.
But I repeat - we're looking at misplaced priorities when coaches make millions at the same time academic programs are underfunded or being cut completely.
Submitted by RayCapps on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 7:42am.
But those are charges best laid at the feet of the donors, not the university itself. Bemoaning the amount of money Fulmer makes while programs languish is like bemoaning the amount Bill Haslam makes while the programs languish. The revenue stream that feeds Fulmer and Haslam aren't the same as the one that feeds the university's programs.
Viewed another way, If I gave $10,000 to the Audiology Department and the university took my donation and spent it on their Cherokee Farms project, I'd be highly ticked and rightfully so. It's the same exact thing with the athletic department. You have every right to view it as unfortunate that the athletic department can raise enough money to pay Fulmer and Pearl the kind of money they do while the university can't seem to find the cash to maintain Audiology or - more near and dear to my heart - the program collecting the oral/written histories of our region's war veterans and their families. I'm not contesting that. I'm just saying it's neither UT's nor the UTAD's fault. We all choose for ourselves where we make donations and where we don't. We all choose for ourselves how much we're willing to pay for a football or basketball ticket. If UTAD was living on tax or tuition dollars - money the payer doesn't directly control where it is spent - I'd be right there crying foul with you. But every penny the UTAD gets was intended right from the start to be UTAD's by the person who spent it or donated it.
People are obviously willing to pay a premium to be entertained but not to be educated (for futher reference, compare the annual income of a Knox County Teacher to Angelina Jolie).
Submitted by RayCapps on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 2:25pm.
bemoaning the amount Bill Haslam makes
Actually, the amount Bill Haslam makes is zero. He doesn't take his salary.
Bill Haslam makes a great deal of money. Bill Haslam is a part of the University of Tennessee. The money Bill Haslam makes (Pilot Corp) is entirely separate from how the University of Tennessee receives its funding. That's what I was trying to say. Phil Fulmer's salary has zilch to do with how Audiology or any other academic department gets its money. Phil Fulmer's money comes from an entirely separate stream of revenue, one unavailable to and unconnected with Audiology or any other academic department.
You could shut down the whole UTAD, but you wouldn't directly generate one single additional dollar for academic funding. Audiology and Football are NOT competing for resources within the University of Tennesee. Football and Golf are competing for resources within the Athletic Department budget. Audiology is competing for funding with Engineering, Humanities, Veterinary Medicine and every other academic program out there. The few programs associated with UTK NOT fighting for dollars with Audiology are all various men's varsity sports.
In which UT bungled a request for a beer permit for campus events. According to the AD, it would have moved their program from a $3 million deficit to a $500K surplus. One city council member suggested that if a permit was issued they should earmark some of that to "fund programs combating student alcoholism and underage drinking, and possibly new need-based scholarships."
Submitted by RayCapps on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 10:23am.
The salient point regarding the budget is below:
At a Thursday budget hearing with faculty members, UT Athletic Director Mike Hamilton said the planned beer sales are one of several initiatives, including a price increase for season football tickets, to bridge a projected $3 million deficit for his department. The beer sales, however, would bring the budget a $500,000 surplus.
Without the beer sales, Hamilton said, "we'll have to, A, not have a projected $500,000 surplus, or, B, we'll find either an additional revenue source or cut expenses to make sure we get where we want to go."
For FY09, UTAD was and maybe still is projecting a 3 million dollar deficit based upon projected revenue at that time and budgeted expenses. UTAD has not operated in the red to my memory at any point in the past and, if you read Hamilton's quote in the second paragraph above, they don't anticipate doing so this year, either. To put plain ordinary speak to his AD speak above, UTAD will either soak their fan base for few more bucks or baseball, tennis, track and field, and swimming and diving will be forced to make do with less. More than likely, it'll be a little of both. But UTAD will operate in the black for FY09. UTK doesn't have the operating funds to give them. The endowment base is too small to raid (ala Stanford). Hamilton doesn't have much other choice but to balance his own budget however he can. If Hamilton is projecting year on year deficits rather than a one time event, he'll do as his predecessors have done and raise the "tiers" that donors must meet to maintain their priority on season football (and now basketball) tickets. Oh, and if Fulmer has a bad season while the UTAD is needing to raise its "donor" levels, Hamilton will throw him under the bus in a heartbeat.
None of this is uniquie to backwards little Tennessee or even peculiar to the South. Here's one of the clearest, most articulate articles I've ever read about "big time" college athletics, the pressures the "revenue generating" sports face, the scale of the dollars involved, and the challenges associated with meeting that balanced budget. This one happens to be dealing with the Big 10 and Penn State in particular.
Randy, with RayCapps posting, you don't need me to chime in. I would only point out one additional fact. Many athletic donors, particularly the high-dollar variety, also contribute substantial sums to academics.
As for Pat Summitt, after Geno's recent raise, she's the second highest paid women's basketball coach in America. I predict when her new contract is announced she will be the highest paid women's basketball coach in America (and should be).
Submitted by RayCapps on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 11:32am.
I guess this means I'm locked in as the "defender" of UT Athletics. Oh well. Anyway, I think I've finally figured out how to almost succinctly make my one real point on UTAD and it's relationship to UTK.
Of the more than three thousand colleges and universities supporting some sort of intercollegiate athletic department, the only such departments with even a ghost of a chance of being self-funded are all in NCAA Division I. Of the 350+ schools in NCAA Division I, maybe - MAYBE - a quarter of them actually manage to operate without taking money from the greater institution. That the UTAD has managed to function for decades now on the strength of its own revenues is very much to its credit. That such extraordinary and rare success over such a period of time seems to have spoiled the local citizenry into thinking the UTAD should, or even could, be an alternate source of revenue for the greater university is about the highest praise such an institution could receive. Since there are only 2 revenue generating sports within the UTAD, as long as Fulmer and Pearl are producing a product capable of keeping the UTAD out of the university's general funds, I'm entirely happy with whatever they are getting paid to do it.
Submitted by Qwerty (not verified) on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 1:35pm.
"All of those coaches have either: coached in the NFL, won a national championship, or won a BSC bowl in the last five years."
You are perfectly free to make fun of someone's math skills ("Clearly some of this money should have gone to the math department.") but the greater vulnerability here is either the poor writing or reasoning skills of the original author. At best, the sentence isn't clear. At worst, the qualifier "in the last five years" only applies to one of the series of items he lists.
Clearly some of his time should have been spent on his composition homework.
Now I will open myself up to even more criticism. I have studied the men's and women's Athletics Departments budgets in detail - probably more so than anyone outside of the university system, and more so than almost anyone within the system.
If you are upset about the cost of major college football, blame Title IX. The expense problem with college athletics today is non-profit sports, primarily women's athletics. Notice I said the "expense problem." I didn't say "social problem," or any other type of problem. The reason donors have to pay so much to get good seats for football games is to pay for soccer and the new $1.8 million a year operating expenses of a new aquatic center. (Yes, that's right.)
Football operating expenses have actually declined in the last several years. I haven't seen the 2008-2009 budget, but from 2005 to 2007 the operating expenses declined.
Women's athletics runs an annual deficit that exceeds $8 million. It may be more than $10 million, but it is impossible to know, given the accounting methods used for the merchandising and Host Communications revenues. Also, the women's AD does not share in any of the facilities cost, including Thompson Boling Arena or and of the parking garages.
Football operating expenses consume about 22 percent of football revenue.
Men's basketball generates a very modest operating surplus.
Women's basketball still operates at a fully costed deficit.
The UTAD pays the debt service on every parking garage that has been built in the last several years, although the garages are only used for athletic events 21 times a year. Those garages cost the campus zero.
Someone asked the question about land cost. The athletic department is "charged" for land cost when/if land is transferred from the general campus to athletic department use. Conversely, the UTAD gets a credit when transactions occur the other direction (such as the impending demolition of Stokely Athletic Center, which UTAD will cede.)
There are actually fewer than 15 athletic departments that operate without university or state subsidy. UT is one. (It failed to operate at a surplus in one recent year - I forget which. It was paying three basketball coaches that year, if I recall.) Even that year, the UTAD made a cash transfer of more than $1 million to the campus academic programs, something no other athletic department in the SEC does.
I really like Betty Bean's writing and I don't want to provoke her ire. My comments are only about financial matters - not graduation rates, pat Summitt or football players beating up people in pickup basketball games. Heck, Joan Cronan is a good friend and she doesn't/can't dispute these figures.
For those of you who haven't been inside the sausage factory and only have suspicions or opinions, here's the not-so-secret scoop: college athletics isn't amateur. Well, it isn't amateur for any adults involved with it. We might disagree whether it is amateur with respect to the athletes (that's an entirely different argument), but football and basketball are no more amateur than is the accounting department. And I promise you that no one in Stokely Management Center considers what they do as "amateur."
Submitted by in medias res (not verified) on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 2:23pm.
Well, according to the UT budget documents for FY 2004-2007, the athletics department at UTK operated at a loss in both FY 2005 ($487,954) and FY2006 ($2,523,513). The $1M given to the actual University of Tennessee-Knoxville- you know, the campus- is actually a zero sum game, as the campus remits $1M each year in student fees to UTAD. For the whole of the system, Chattanooga ran a deficit of $45,096 in FY2005, and made money (even if only a little) each of the other years, while Martin broke even. Revenues have grown at the knoxville campus 19.9% over the past 5 years, but expenditures have grown by 20.8%.
I've got no problem with men's programs having to foot the $$ of women's programs in the interest of equity. The bizarre arrangement at UTK, where the athletics department is not under the authority of the campus administration, compromises the integrity of the university as an academic institution. UTAD should not own property on this campus, they should not have free use of the UT brand, and in a year in which all groups of the UT System have had to absorb serious budget cuts, the UTAD should not be spared while others suffer.
Like it or not, sports fans, the primary mission of a university is educational. While we could all go 'round and 'round about the athletics department budget and what it does or does not do for UTK, at the very least the raises announced last night demonstrate a true callousness on the behalf of the UTAD to the fiscal situation of this state and this campus in particular. The raises in the football staff alone would fund close to 10-15 fulltime faculty positions depending on the department. It's easy to say, well its there money so..., but it does demonstrate fully the extent to which priorities in this state are completely and utterly jacked up, and why Tennessee as a state will continue to fall further and further behind dynamic and economically more secure regions of the country.
>>Like it or not, sports fans, the primary mission of a university
>>is educational.
Actually, the primary mission at UT turns out to be parking, with football as a symbiotic front, but I'm all in favor of bleeding Fulmer with leeches if it would stop the brain drain at UT.
Pardon my naivete, but since the UT logo is I assume property of the University, do they get revenue, in whole or part, from all sales using the logo? Including UT athletic item related sales?
If the Audiology Department could find a strong football recruit or two they might get some love from the athletic department. Networking.
Pearl is the only one of the big three who arguably has earned a pay increase, and I could debate that.
The contract extensions and buyout clause are absurd.
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
Yeah, all PHS did was win her 8th NC. Back-to-back. But she hasn't done much since April, so maybe you're onto something.
She's already earning almost as much as the revenues of the entire women's basketball program. Is there a market justification for paying her more?
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
Only if you consider her importance to the University of Tennessee brand and think she should be paid commensurate to her value. And this doesn't even take into consideration that she will, when all is said and done, almost certainly be considered the most important figure in women's athletics. Ever.
If you want to talk about somebody who's kicked the biggest hole in the glass ceiling and created opportunities for student athletes that transcend the game, there's nobody who compares to Pat Summitt.
Link...
Link...
*Is Summitt worth the Brinks truck? Put it this way: Tennessee has gotten more bang for its bucks than the New York Knicks have with Larry Brown. She wins games, fills seats, sells merchandise and promotes the game. Better yet, not one UT player who completed four years of eligibility has left without a diploma.
So much has changed during Summitt's watch. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, only 29,992 women participated in college sports in 1970-71. By 2000-01 the number had grown to 150,916, a 468.1 percent increase. Meanwhile, the average 2001 salary for head coaches of women's teams in Division I-A BCS conferences was $62,124, compared to the $116,254 paid to head coaches of men's teams.*
Link...
Link...
"As a manager and master motivator, Pat Summitt transcends sports. The most experienced CEO can learn from her contagious work ethic and ingenious methods."
--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One-Minute Manager
I'm not ignoring that.
But at some level these salaries should connect to what the marketplace justifies. A good starting point for that analysis is this question: Is offering a raise of $100,000s necessary to prevent competing schools from luring Coach X with more tempting offers?
Coach Pearl: probably
Coach Summitt: I doubt it
Coach Fulmer: no
That's why I say only the first is justified.
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
Don't you know those are some really stupid negotiations, the only people getting screwed are the fans who are asked to pony up more and more each year and the sponsors who are asked to pony up more and more each year and the university programs which are geographically located in proximity to these athletic facilities that want to take their space and make them go away.
The sooner they get rid of the athletic department and the athletics board and have coaches reporting directly to the university president, the quicker we will be able to contain costs and retain some semblance of a major academic institution.
Personally, I think there's something badly wrong with a university that pays its athletic coaches millions while closing down academic programs for lack of funds.
But that's just me.
I don't get drug into discussions about whether or not someone "deserves" what they are paid. That's a subjective opinion that doesn't lead to anything more than sore fingers or a sore throat depending on the medium.
However, Rachel's statement above is a bit misleading. Pearl and Fulmer are paid by the UTAD, which - last I checked - receives no money from the state or from student tuitions. There's a recently changed and convoluted set of rules regarding the student fees but I don't think any of that money goes to the UTAD, either.
Anyway, unlike most Division I athletic programs, the University of Tennessee's Athletic Department is self-funded through "donations," ticket sales, and concessions. I put the quotes around donations since they are so closely tied to one's ability to purchase season tickets that donation can be a little disingenuous. Still, the point holds, no funds otherwise intended for academic programs are siphoned off by the UTAD. If you want to wade into the proper role of athletics at universities, speculate on how many donor dollars going to UTAD would instead go to academic programs, or conversely, how many donor dollars going into the academic funds are going there because the donors are Vol fans, then have at it. That's all guesswork. But as of right now, there's no direct tie between Fulmer's and Pearl's salaries and the proposed loss of the Audiology and Veteran's personal history programs proposed by the administration.
Let me preface this next point by saying I'm a rabid fan of both Pat Summitt and Joan Cronan and all the Lady Vol programs. They much better uphold my own opinion of what university athletics should be about, and whatever Pat gets paid is A-Okay fine by me, and that goes triple for Joan. However, the point stands that the UTWAD (UT Women's Athletic Department) is not self-funded and does compete directly with university academic programs for funding. Ms. Cronan has come a long way toward making the Lady Vol program self-sufficient and her donor base has grown tremendously through the 20+ years I've been following them. It is certainly Ms. Cronan's dream to see the UTWAD self-funded, but she's just not quite reached that point yet. Maybe another decade or two?
Has the athletic department always been self funded? If not, at what point did that evolve? Also, the land they have facilities on to me would qualify as university support.
but the University of Tennessee's Athletic Department has been fully self-funded for as long as I can remember. I think the preferred term has been "operating in the black" down through the years. There obviously was a time where the UTAD wasn't fully self-funded considering its humble origins, but it's been self-supporting for a very, very long time now.
As for the land where the facilities sit, I think it depends on the facility. Neyland Stadium was donated to the university for the express purpose of constructing a football stadium. The names of the donors are commemorated in the name of the playing surface, Shields-Watkins field. Thompson Boling Arena, Tom Black Track, Linsey Nelson Stadium, and so on and so forth were all university property. Whether or not there was an internal "sale" of the land from UTK to UTAD I'm not in a position to know. Conversely, facilities that were once utilized by UTAD like Alumni Gym and Stokely, are now back under UTK management. I can't say whether or not there was an internal "sale" there, either. The UTAD has also paid for mixed use facilities on university property that "regular" students fully utilize. The natatorium springs immediately to mind in that regard.
Anyway, to your point regarding the land, since neither UTK nor UTAD are even paying real estate taxes, I'm not sure how you would begin to quantify ongoing UTK support to UTAD through those properties. I am certain that the monies UTAD transfers into the general UTK system would far more than offset any such support. As a rule, UTAD makes contributions to specific capital projects rather than funding operating expenses (like Audiology), but if I recall correctly, they are kicking in a substantial share of Pat Summitt's salary on an annual basis. That would be an exception. I know that while I was going there back in the mid 80's, the UTAD contibuted a rather significant share of the funds used to build the big Lego Library. The UT Sports Information Office could certainly provide a more detailed explanation of the financial relationship between UTAD and UTK, the ownership of the properties where UTAD facilities sit, and so forth. In the net-net, though, more flows into UTK through UTAD than one could construct going vice-versa.
"very,very long time."
Some dates and numbers would be useful.
If a corporation, small company, government, church, etc has a particular department that begins to generate a lot of revenue, enough to support itself, and then some, does it get to keep it all? If one spouse makes more than the other, does the affluent spouse keep it all?
Neyland Stadium donated....
Was the land itself donated? Was it donated to the University or the Athletic Department? Exactly what was donated to who for what?
To me UTAD did not pay for any space all students can use. UT paid for it. Via the AD. My guess is if some students wanted to play touch football on practice field, or indoor football facility, play hoops in practice gym, soccer on soccer field, etc. they would get told to leave.
Does the AD make contributions on occaision to capital projects because its easier to market that sort of contribution for PR purposes?
The real estate taxes logic lost me.
It's not like Coach Fulmer is being overpaid relative to the market.
All of those coaches have either: coached in the NFL, won a national championship, or won a BSC bowl in the last five years.
Coach Fulmer: none of the above.
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
Fulmer has won a BCS Championship, just not within the last 5 years. I assume that's what you meant.
Cronan's dream to see the UTWAD self-funded, but she's just not quite reached that point yet. Maybe another decade or two?
Yeah, maybe in a decade or two they will have dropped the "W" and just have one "AD"?
Anyway, I don't begrudge anyone making as much money as they can any way they can legally.
But if the AD is swimming in cash, why can't they throw a couple of extra bucks to academics?
I know, CBT will be here to explain in 3, 2, 1...
So never mind.
But what I mainly think is that it's time to drop the pretense and call college sports what it is: professional sports.
Having separate Athletic Departments was one of the most "progressive" things the University of Tennessee has ever done. While far too many women's sports have languished and scrounged for scraps as "Title IX" mandated anchor weights within - overwhelmingly - men's athletic departments, our Lady Vols have been allowed to grow and succeed and receive the full support and focus they deserve as gifted, hard working student athletes. Please don't destroy what Joan Cronan has built.
However, Rachel's statement above is a bit misleading. Pearl and Fulmer are paid by the UTAD,
And the first two letters of UTAD are...??
A university can exist without its athletics program. But a university athletics program can't exist without the academic university.
Look, I'm a big fan too. And I'm certainly not denying the realities of the market.
But I repeat - we're looking at misplaced priorities when coaches make millions at the same time academic programs are underfunded or being cut completely.
But those are charges best laid at the feet of the donors, not the university itself. Bemoaning the amount of money Fulmer makes while programs languish is like bemoaning the amount Bill Haslam makes while the programs languish. The revenue stream that feeds Fulmer and Haslam aren't the same as the one that feeds the university's programs.
Viewed another way, If I gave $10,000 to the Audiology Department and the university took my donation and spent it on their Cherokee Farms project, I'd be highly ticked and rightfully so. It's the same exact thing with the athletic department. You have every right to view it as unfortunate that the athletic department can raise enough money to pay Fulmer and Pearl the kind of money they do while the university can't seem to find the cash to maintain Audiology or - more near and dear to my heart - the program collecting the oral/written histories of our region's war veterans and their families. I'm not contesting that. I'm just saying it's neither UT's nor the UTAD's fault. We all choose for ourselves where we make donations and where we don't. We all choose for ourselves how much we're willing to pay for a football or basketball ticket. If UTAD was living on tax or tuition dollars - money the payer doesn't directly control where it is spent - I'd be right there crying foul with you. But every penny the UTAD gets was intended right from the start to be UTAD's by the person who spent it or donated it.
People are obviously willing to pay a premium to be entertained but not to be educated (for futher reference, compare the annual income of a Knox County Teacher to Angelina Jolie).
bemoaning the amount Bill Haslam makes
Actually, the amount Bill Haslam makes is zero. He doesn't take his salary.
People are obviously willing to pay a premium to be entertained but not to be educated
Yes, sadly. But that doesn't mean an institution that calls itself a university has to indulge them.
Bill Haslam makes a great deal of money. Bill Haslam is a part of the University of Tennessee. The money Bill Haslam makes (Pilot Corp) is entirely separate from how the University of Tennessee receives its funding. That's what I was trying to say. Phil Fulmer's salary has zilch to do with how Audiology or any other academic department gets its money. Phil Fulmer's money comes from an entirely separate stream of revenue, one unavailable to and unconnected with Audiology or any other academic department.
You could shut down the whole UTAD, but you wouldn't directly generate one single additional dollar for academic funding. Audiology and Football are NOT competing for resources within the University of Tennesee. Football and Golf are competing for resources within the Athletic Department budget. Audiology is competing for funding with Engineering, Humanities, Veterinary Medicine and every other academic program out there. The few programs associated with UTK NOT fighting for dollars with Audiology are all various men's varsity sports.
A reader reminds us of this:
Link...
In which UT bungled a request for a beer permit for campus events. According to the AD, it would have moved their program from a $3 million deficit to a $500K surplus. One city council member suggested that if a permit was issued they should earmark some of that to "fund programs combating student alcoholism and underage drinking, and possibly new need-based scholarships."
The salient point regarding the budget is below:
For FY09, UTAD was and maybe still is projecting a 3 million dollar deficit based upon projected revenue at that time and budgeted expenses. UTAD has not operated in the red to my memory at any point in the past and, if you read Hamilton's quote in the second paragraph above, they don't anticipate doing so this year, either. To put plain ordinary speak to his AD speak above, UTAD will either soak their fan base for few more bucks or baseball, tennis, track and field, and swimming and diving will be forced to make do with less. More than likely, it'll be a little of both. But UTAD will operate in the black for FY09. UTK doesn't have the operating funds to give them. The endowment base is too small to raid (ala Stanford). Hamilton doesn't have much other choice but to balance his own budget however he can. If Hamilton is projecting year on year deficits rather than a one time event, he'll do as his predecessors have done and raise the "tiers" that donors must meet to maintain their priority on season football (and now basketball) tickets. Oh, and if Fulmer has a bad season while the UTAD is needing to raise its "donor" levels, Hamilton will throw him under the bus in a heartbeat.
None of this is uniquie to backwards little Tennessee or even peculiar to the South. Here's one of the clearest, most articulate articles I've ever read about "big time" college athletics, the pressures the "revenue generating" sports face, the scale of the dollars involved, and the challenges associated with meeting that balanced budget. This one happens to be dealing with the Big 10 and Penn State in particular.
Link...
All of those coaches have either: coached in the NFL, won a national championship, or won a BSC bowl in the last five years.
Coach Fulmer: none of the above.
In 1998, I could've sworn we beat FSU for a National Title? Correct me if I am wrong.....
Clearly some of this money should have gone to the math department.
Ha!
I agree that anyone who thinks 1998 was within the last five years (the comparison at issue) needs to rework his or her math.
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
For most employers, when outstanding achievements become a decade old, the mantra becomes "what have you done for me lately?"
I'm no expert, but I'm thinking that most of what Phil Fulmer has done lately is recruit players who have serious legal problems off the field.
Pam Strickland
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut
Randy, with RayCapps posting, you don't need me to chime in. I would only point out one additional fact. Many athletic donors, particularly the high-dollar variety, also contribute substantial sums to academics.
As for Pat Summitt, after Geno's recent raise, she's the second highest paid women's basketball coach in America. I predict when her new contract is announced she will be the highest paid women's basketball coach in America (and should be).
I guess this means I'm locked in as the "defender" of UT Athletics. Oh well. Anyway, I think I've finally figured out how to almost succinctly make my one real point on UTAD and it's relationship to UTK.
Of the more than three thousand colleges and universities supporting some sort of intercollegiate athletic department, the only such departments with even a ghost of a chance of being self-funded are all in NCAA Division I. Of the 350+ schools in NCAA Division I, maybe - MAYBE - a quarter of them actually manage to operate without taking money from the greater institution. That the UTAD has managed to function for decades now on the strength of its own revenues is very much to its credit. That such extraordinary and rare success over such a period of time seems to have spoiled the local citizenry into thinking the UTAD should, or even could, be an alternate source of revenue for the greater university is about the highest praise such an institution could receive. Since there are only 2 revenue generating sports within the UTAD, as long as Fulmer and Pearl are producing a product capable of keeping the UTAD out of the university's general funds, I'm entirely happy with whatever they are getting paid to do it.
"All of those coaches have either: coached in the NFL, won a national championship, or won a BSC bowl in the last five years."
You are perfectly free to make fun of someone's math skills ("Clearly some of this money should have gone to the math department.") but the greater vulnerability here is either the poor writing or reasoning skills of the original author. At best, the sentence isn't clear. At worst, the qualifier "in the last five years" only applies to one of the series of items he lists.
Clearly some of his time should have been spent on his composition homework.
Now I will open myself up to even more criticism. I have studied the men's and women's Athletics Departments budgets in detail - probably more so than anyone outside of the university system, and more so than almost anyone within the system.
If you are upset about the cost of major college football, blame Title IX. The expense problem with college athletics today is non-profit sports, primarily women's athletics. Notice I said the "expense problem." I didn't say "social problem," or any other type of problem. The reason donors have to pay so much to get good seats for football games is to pay for soccer and the new $1.8 million a year operating expenses of a new aquatic center. (Yes, that's right.)
Football operating expenses have actually declined in the last several years. I haven't seen the 2008-2009 budget, but from 2005 to 2007 the operating expenses declined.
Women's athletics runs an annual deficit that exceeds $8 million. It may be more than $10 million, but it is impossible to know, given the accounting methods used for the merchandising and Host Communications revenues. Also, the women's AD does not share in any of the facilities cost, including Thompson Boling Arena or and of the parking garages.
Football operating expenses consume about 22 percent of football revenue.
Men's basketball generates a very modest operating surplus.
Women's basketball still operates at a fully costed deficit.
The UTAD pays the debt service on every parking garage that has been built in the last several years, although the garages are only used for athletic events 21 times a year. Those garages cost the campus zero.
Someone asked the question about land cost. The athletic department is "charged" for land cost when/if land is transferred from the general campus to athletic department use. Conversely, the UTAD gets a credit when transactions occur the other direction (such as the impending demolition of Stokely Athletic Center, which UTAD will cede.)
There are actually fewer than 15 athletic departments that operate without university or state subsidy. UT is one. (It failed to operate at a surplus in one recent year - I forget which. It was paying three basketball coaches that year, if I recall.) Even that year, the UTAD made a cash transfer of more than $1 million to the campus academic programs, something no other athletic department in the SEC does.
I really like Betty Bean's writing and I don't want to provoke her ire. My comments are only about financial matters - not graduation rates, pat Summitt or football players beating up people in pickup basketball games. Heck, Joan Cronan is a good friend and she doesn't/can't dispute these figures.
For those of you who haven't been inside the sausage factory and only have suspicions or opinions, here's the not-so-secret scoop: college athletics isn't amateur. Well, it isn't amateur for any adults involved with it. We might disagree whether it is amateur with respect to the athletes (that's an entirely different argument), but football and basketball are no more amateur than is the accounting department. And I promise you that no one in Stokely Management Center considers what they do as "amateur."
OK, I'll get off my high horse now.
Well, according to the UT budget documents for FY 2004-2007, the athletics department at UTK operated at a loss in both FY 2005 ($487,954) and FY2006 ($2,523,513). The $1M given to the actual University of Tennessee-Knoxville- you know, the campus- is actually a zero sum game, as the campus remits $1M each year in student fees to UTAD. For the whole of the system, Chattanooga ran a deficit of $45,096 in FY2005, and made money (even if only a little) each of the other years, while Martin broke even. Revenues have grown at the knoxville campus 19.9% over the past 5 years, but expenditures have grown by 20.8%.
I've got no problem with men's programs having to foot the $$ of women's programs in the interest of equity. The bizarre arrangement at UTK, where the athletics department is not under the authority of the campus administration, compromises the integrity of the university as an academic institution. UTAD should not own property on this campus, they should not have free use of the UT brand, and in a year in which all groups of the UT System have had to absorb serious budget cuts, the UTAD should not be spared while others suffer.
Like it or not, sports fans, the primary mission of a university is educational. While we could all go 'round and 'round about the athletics department budget and what it does or does not do for UTK, at the very least the raises announced last night demonstrate a true callousness on the behalf of the UTAD to the fiscal situation of this state and this campus in particular. The raises in the football staff alone would fund close to 10-15 fulltime faculty positions depending on the department. It's easy to say, well its there money so..., but it does demonstrate fully the extent to which priorities in this state are completely and utterly jacked up, and why Tennessee as a state will continue to fall further and further behind dynamic and economically more secure regions of the country.
>>Like it or not, sports fans, the primary mission of a university
>>is educational.
Actually, the primary mission at UT turns out to be parking, with football as a symbiotic front, but I'm all in favor of bleeding Fulmer with leeches if it would stop the brain drain at UT.
Pardon my naivete, but since the UT logo is I assume property of the University, do they get revenue, in whole or part, from all sales using the logo? Including UT athletic item related sales?
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