Title IX Strikes Again

Bowling Green University Loses Men's Tennis

Now you have got me shaking my head. This may take a while, but I will relate it back to the travesty of BGSU, and Miami among others, dropping their men's tennis.

Well..... let's get the facts correct. Title IX is part of the 1972 Education Act and like just about all government bills passed in the last 30 years, has had far reaching consequences far beyond what it was originally intended.

You can look up all the particulars and the original bill on the U.S. Department of Education web site, which is: www.ed.gov. The most interesting part of this is all the financial information given out because of the reqirements of the E.A.D.A., the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act. It gives the breakdown of revenues and expenses for all sports for both genders since 1989 when the EADA became law.

Ohio State is a good starting point, since most everyone is familiar with it, as an example of the end result of Title IX. It requires, in somewhat vague terms, that women's sports must be given roughly the same "resources" and "opportunities" as the mens sports. Or the school may be threatened with losing it's federal funding. That scares college presidents to death. Except for the schools which are totally self supporting and take no federal funding. They are not required to follow Title IX, or any other federal mandate for that matter, since they accept no federal money and don't have the threat of money loss over ther heads. Like Michigan, I believe.

From all the info available from the EADA and from personal experience from interaction with many college caoaches and athletic directors one can glean the following facts.

Fact 1 - Football pays for everything..... At most universities the athletic departments are totally self supporting - they don't get a dime from the general fund, the student fund or anywhere else. only ticket sales and TV revenue. I'm sorry for all the football program bashers out there, but numbers don't lie. At OSU it pays for all the non-revenue sports and the student intramurals also. Few people know that one.

Fact 2 - Women's sports lose between 10 and 20 times what they bring in. But due to the Dept. of Education team that oversees spending on college athletics, they are always putting pressure on the colleges to spend more on women's programs, no matter how much they lose.

This oversight team, which at that time was all female, was highlighed a few years ago on an NBC news program with Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips, and they seem to render their own interpretations of Title IX as they go along. It was scary. When asked if there was a quota of scholarships that must be awarded to female athletes, the woman in charge said there was no quota, but if the scholarships weren't in the 40-45% range they could expect to get audited.

Back to the OSU example. 2000 is the last year that all the figures are complete. All these EADA figures are available on the OSU website. It used to be on the athletic department web site, but was removed, and is now hidden on the university's web site under federal reporting requirements.

Football Revenues: $24,446,720
Football Expenses: $9,348,423
Positive cash flow: $17,097,297

All men's sports: $34,859,253
All men's expenses: $16,408,808
Men's sports income: $18,450,445

Total women's revenues: $704,176
Total women's expenses: $6,897,980
Women negative cash flow: $(6,193,804)

So, at OSU the women's programs lose over $6 million. And they have almost the same number of women on scholarship as the men, and almost the same number of coaches. If you back out football, the mens' programs at OSU still turn over a $1 million profit.

At smaller schools, like BGSU and Miami, football isn't quite as big and/or profitable. The other men's non-revenue sports can't break even so some must be dropped, because all of the women's sports are untouchable. Football brings in the money, so none of those scholarships are going to be touched, otherwise they would no longer be competitive, hence lower revenue and everyone would be in even deeper trouble.

The NCAA also has a report hidden on its website at www.ncaa.org that has roughly the same percentage numbers for all Division I schools over a fifteen season reporting period from 1985-1999. It will take a while to find. In 1999, for all 129 Div. I schools reporting, the average mens program brought in $13.5 million, spent $9.5 million and made a $4 million profit. The average women's Div. I program brought in $1.5 million and spent $3.9 million for a average loss of ($2.4 million).

Those numbers are the averages. Smaller schools like BGSU and Miami will bear the brunt of good intentions gone bad. It even happens to big schools. One of the biggest shockers had to be UCLA dropping men's gynmastics to meet Title IX percentages, to keep the women at 40% of scholarships. According to reports, UCLA felt they couldn't afford to add a women's ice hockey or rowing team, like Ohio State did, to keep the quotas up and in line for women. UCLA was a perrenial power in gymnastics and had produced over 60% of our Olympic gymnasts from 1960 to 1992. But they had to drop men's gymnastics.

It is hard to believe any company in the real world would have to put up with all the horse manure of Title IX. If a corporate division is not profitable, you shut it down. It is true colleges aren't technically in the business world, but they must operate in the world of reality. You have to make money to survive. The misguided aims of government desk jockeys setting ploicy is as bad as it can be. What kind of precedent does that set for women when they get in the real world.

Numbers, political correctness and politics.

And yes, I have a daughter. She is smart, tough, strong, bull headed and she is a great athlete. She might even make it to the professional ranks, like I did. But, she will never accept a dime of Title IX money.