BCS Title Game: Auburn vs. Oregon or Colonial Bank's Lowder vs. Nike's Knight?

I confess that I read Michael Rosenberg's outstanding story on the University of Oregon's football program and Nike's Phil Knight in Sports Illustrated and was blown away by the article itself and the subject matter. It was one of the best articles in any genre that I have read in some time. And it was fascinating. 

So with that confession, I wondered whether there was a deeper story here. One using this example as one involving college football facility contributors, or at least one dealing with the BCS championship and its two teams. And one that requires addressing by the NCAA and its new commissioner who is, by the way, the former athletic director for the Pac-10's University of Washington.

UW is of course a major competitor of the University of Oregon. Even their current AD got into a spat with the University of Oregon over the contributions Phil Knight makes to their program, a fact surprisingly not reported by Rosenberg in his own article even though the comments made focus on the new "football operations" facility being built by Knight which makes others in the world surely shrink very far in comparison. Perhaps the real spat was over Knight himself. After all, by some reports he has already contributed over $300 million to Oregon's football program. Even if exaggerated, the amount is surely in the nine figures. 

As Rosenberg said, the facility is a six-story, "130,000 square-foot football operations center, and of course it will all be top of the line. Right now, they're just figuring out where to put the hangar for the space shuttle. Nobody needs a 130,000 square foot football operations center -- that is more than 1,500 square feet per scholarship player. But you better believe that recruits will love it."

We have all known that big money still is attracted to college sports. Knight has more than a passing interest of course. His company Nike makes billions from college sports. So being a contributor is a big deal for his own business interests. But the college of his choice is the University of Oregon where he went to school. And it is almost certain that he would not have his team in the BCS championship this week without his enormous contributions. Indeed, according to Rosenberg, the football coaches started noticing that the first thing recruits asked for was to see the facility when making their campus visits. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Given the rules against providing direct compensation to athletes, the next way to provide compensation is to move the money to the facilities, food, tutors, special education supplements and accommodations for athletes. While you cannot provide money directly, who is to say that you cannot send all your athletes to the nearest Mayo Clinic and provide them with treatment from the very best in the field for any injury sustained. Indeed, what prohibits providing this in a college commitment agreement just with one athlete, or at least all of those on the football team?

While the statistics of all college program expenditures are telling, they only tell part of the story. Thus, one needs to see exactly what is being contributed in total to the programs. And this provides a fairer way to evaluate programs. Yet, even when looking at the universities' own expenditures on their football programs in millions of dollars, one immediately is struck by the amount of money involved.

1.  OSU $31.1
2.  Alabama $31.1
3.  Notre Dame $29.4
4.  Auburn $27.9
5.  Texas $25.1
6.  Florida $24.4
7.  South Carolina $22.7
8.  LSU $22.7
9.  Wisconsin $22.0
10.Arkansas $22.0 

What do these programs have in common? Almost all went to the biggest bowls this year. And all seem to have gone to the highest-paying bowls. You have to spend money to make money.

Knight's Oregon and others are missing from this list. But only because this list does not include their contributions.

Oregon's opponent Auburn University is reported also to have a comparable contributor, although Knight's $300 million dwarfs big Auburn contributor Bobby Lowder's reported "eight figure" contribution.  

Seen from this perspective, the playing field for college athletics is far from level. Indeed, it is very lopsided in favor of those with big sugar daddies. And those who get the most return appear to have gotten the most money. 

Of course facilities do not ultimately get you winners. You need a better group of players, a better coach and at times just blind luck. Yet, over time the need for considering this issue has grown with very little attention being paid by either the NCAA or the college presidents who are allegedly so concerned about academics and their central focus when big money is coming at them, especially in these difficult financial times.

So what should be done? Hard to say. Deny expenditures and the effect could be difficult. Yet, you have the one fact that comes before all others. Whether after careful review or just off the cuff, the University of Oregon president said the following, quoted from the Rosenberg article.

"It really doesn't have much to do with the central mission of the University of Oregon," Lariviere admitted. "If we don't accept this gift, what will be the negative consequences for the university's education and research mission. Probably not much -- immediately, in the short-term.

"But they could be really, really profound over the longer term. Really profound. This is an important gift for our future."

With thinking like this, college athletics supremacy over academics is a foregone conclusion.