Meeting the challenge of big college sports

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Oct 21, 1996 by Bill May Journal Record Staff Reporter

Every time Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys crosses the gridiron goal line, the ball he's carrying goes home with him and is promptly placed on the shelves of his sporting goods store in Florida.

You can bet those footballs carry a hefty price tag if someone wants to buy one.

This, along with salary disputes and ever escalating salaries, is the message being sent to college athletes all over the nation: Ignore scholastics but be good on the field and you'll become rich and famous. This has given rise to the commercialization of big-time college sports, primarily football and basketball. Those who cry most about this loss of the college spirit, though, are the very ones who are behind the commercialization of athletics - - big business. "It used to be that fans would come into the stadium on a Saturday afternoon carrying their pompons and noise makers and wearing clothing in the colors of their favorite team," said Larry Naifeh, executive associate athletic director for the University of Oklahoma. "Nowadays when fans arrive, they carry Coca-Cola pompons with their noise makers and more likely than not are wearing clothing that bears the familiar swoosh of Nike." That's the big change in college athletics in the past 10 years, primarily the last five years, as schools everywhere struggle with the financial pressures being put upon them. Finances from the big sports -- baseball, basketball and football -- are used to pay for women's athletics and what used to be called non-revenue sports, Naifeh said during a talk at "The Business of Bedlam" program presented Friday by The State Chamber. Co-keynote speaker at the event was Terry Don Phillips, athletic director for Oklahoma State University. Commercialization of amateur athletics is not going to decline anytime in the near future, in fact it's going to get worse as budgets tighten and more financial pressure is put on teams and officials to pay for not only athletic but social programs. The University of Nebraska is probably the nation's leader in exploiting the desire of businesses to be associated with a successful team. "On their JumboTron (giant television screen inside the stadium), each play is rerun immediately, along with a commercial," he said. "These commercials provide income for the team." With the big national and international names waving blank checks at major university athletic programs, the small business person often is forced out. This can be a problem, but it doesn't mean that small business can't be part of the marketing and promotion of a big university, Naifeh said. "These sports that we used to call non-revenue but now call participating sports are important to our campuses," he said. "Our students want to participate either because they like the sport or because their parents participated. Anyway, these sports are important to involve as many on campus as possible. "While many of you may not be able to afford to market successfully with our football program, you could be a partner in the marketing and promotion of these other sports. "They might be better for your company. They tend to target specific types of people which means that you will have a target audience. "It could be important to your company that you be identified as a support of one of these participating sports and, say, women's athletics at one of our universities." Another growing trend -- again with college officials emulating their professional brethren -- is to name athletic arenas after the company that pays the most money. That's not likely to happen in Oklahoma anytime in the near future, but it's on the horizon. "What's important about this is that we don't lose the spirit of college athletics through this commercialization," Naifeh said. "Last Saturday when OU came from behind to beat Texas in overtime epitomizes the spirit of college football. When OSU beat us last year, that epitomizes the spirit of college football. It's important that we not lose sight of this in our quest for more money." The spirit of competition, especially on the winning side, is not confined to the college campus, Naifeh and Phillips said. "When you have a great program, the college community and the state feel good about it," Phillips said. "When we win an important football game, businesses have a better spirit, the entire state feels good. That's important." If there were not so many pressures placed on major athletic programs to be financially secure, then "we wouldn't have to market as aggressively as we do," Phillips said. Because of the success of both the OU and OSU football programs, at least $35 million is funneled through the state every year to pay for scholarships for minority students who go on to play leadership roles in the nation. "It's this training of leadership and the social programs of our campuses that are important," Phillips said.