Intercollegiate athletics constitute a peculiar economic system where, in the name of amateurism, the producers (players) do not get paid, but their coaches are routinely paid five to ten times the university president's salary. The playing fields are covered with commercial signage, uniforms boast swooshes, players' likenesses are used in fantasy football and basketball games, and beer companies are allowed to peddle their wares despite the serious problem of binge alcoholism on most campuses.
Meanwhile, Division IA football teams give out eighty-five full scholarships (at roughly $30,000 each) and typically carry an additional thirty non-scholarship players. Yet athletic directors complain that they don't have enough money to support women's sports.
Women's sports have languished during the two terms of President Bush, as they have under all Republican administrations since the passage of Title IX in 1972. Today, women are 56 percent of college students but only 43 percent of college athletes. Sports participation has been shown to produce a number of salutary developmental outcomes for young women: improved emotional and physical health; better academic performance; and the learning of discipline, teamwork, goal-setting, and leadership skills. If college sports are indeed meant to be subordinate to the central academic mission of the university (as article one of the NCAA Constitution stipulates) and to promote the balanced and healthy development of the student body, then the opportunity to participate in them needs to be equally available to each gender.
College sports, because they are construed to be part of the education mission, experience a variety of society-supported benefits. They are played in facilities supported by public financing or by bonds granted tax-exempt status. They receive donations from boosters who are allocated choice seats on the 50-yard line and then allowed to deduct 80 percent of their "donation" from their taxable income. They receive advertising and sponsorship money that goes untaxed. And they do not have to pay their athletes a salary or cover them with workmen's compensation. If they choose to continue to benefit from the umbrella of academia and the branding of amateurism, they should adhere to its educational values.
President Obama, you have stated that you will actively support Title IX. But the resources to support gender equity are often squandered in athletics departments on multimillion-dollar salaries for coaches, hundreds of millions of dollars on stadiums and arenas, tens of millions of dollars on fitness centers and tutoring facilities, first-class hotel travel and restaurants for men's teams and their entourages, and so on. Your brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, is the men's basketball coach at Oregon State. If you can rise above your family ties in this area, it will send a powerful symbolic message about your administration's commitment to gender equity, to fairness, and to education.
Andrew Zimbalist is the Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. He has published eighteen books and has consulted extensively in the sports industry and in economic development.
