You've
heard it all before: Sport mirrors society. Of the three most popular team sports
in America, baseball evokes the traditional agricultural life of a century ago.
Football reflects the industrial era. Basketball captures the features of our
postindustrial age. However, a closer look at the economics of college sport may
produce a different reflection.
Approximately
17% of Ohio’s population is minority and of that amount, approximately 12%
are Black. Of the 94 football players, 34 or more than one third are Black. While
one third of the football players are Black, fifty (50%) of the starters on offense
and defense are Black. Of the 13 basketball players, 7 or 53% are Black and 3
or 60% are starters. There are approximately 52,000 students at Ohio State, and
approximately 14% or 8,322 of the student body are minority. Of that amount, approximately
6.7% or 3,495 are Black.
Ohio has the nation’s
highest rate for foreclosures and delinquent mortgages, and during the second
quarter of 2007, 22.9% of Ohio homeowners with subprime loans were over 90 days
late, twice the national average. Ohio is also home to two of the five poorest
cities in America – Cleveland and Cincinnati, both of which had more than
25% of residents living below the poverty line in 2006. A total of 15 players,
or 14% of the Ohio State football and basketball players, are from Cleveland and
Cincinnati.
When you consider that the Ohio
State athletic budget, at $109,382.222 for the current year, is the largest in
the nation and the biggest in the history of college sports, one again must ask
the question how sports in Ohio mirrors society. The University of Texas had the
nation’s second largest athletic budget at approximately $107,600,000. At
Oklahoma State, oil and hedge-fund mogul T. Boone Pickens gave $30 million to
renovate the football stadium and put his name on it. He has also committed $165
million to build an “athletes village” on campus. Nike founder Phil
Knight recently donated $100 million to Oregon’s athletic department.
Last
year, the OSU football program generated about $57 million in revenue and supplied
nearly $36 million in profit to the athletic department coffers. The men’s
basketball program turned a record $9 million profit last year. Football and basketball
revenue does not only support the 34 “nonrevenue” sports at OSU such
as lacrosse, synchronized swimming, hockey and riflery. A significant chuck of
the OSU athletic budget is spent in ways that benefit the school’s general
fund. This year, the athletic department will spend $12 million of scholarships
or “Grant-in-Aid.” A few years ago, the athletic department contributed
$5 million to help fund renovations to the campus’ main library. In addition,
the OSU athletics department transfers about $1.7 million to the school’s
academic support center to pay for tutors and “life skills” workshops.
I
guess sports do mirror society. Like the country, the Ohio State athletic department
has been built with revenue generated by Black athletes and Black people in Ohio
continue to get the short end of the stick.
