Abstract
This study focuses on athletics expenses at United States NCAA Division-I member institutions during the four years leading up to the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In the future, the years of 2016-2020 may be considered the most ambitious and the most lavish of college athletics history. In this four-year period, budgets rose incredibly, including those of two schools who eclipsed the $200M barrier for a single academic year of competition. For the academic year of 2019-2020 alone, the 353 schools who comprise Division-I of the NCAA combined to spend a self-reported figure of over $14B on athletics-related expenses, demonstrating spending decisions that may never return to college athletics. Using R and RStudio to analyze and visualize these figures creates a thought-provoking examination of the extensive commercialization of amateur athletics competition at the collegiate level in America leading up to the global COVID-19 pandemic. As a direct result of the pandemic, these four years may represent historical expense figures as schools have moved swiftly to cut programs, coaches, and support staff in an attempt to limit expenses and shortfalls associated with college athletics departments. The data from 2016-2020 is an intriguing look at how college athletics reached the apex of collegiate sport spending during a prosperous time prior to the crippling of the economic structures supporting them.
Presenters
Christopher AtwaterAssistant Professor, Hospitality, Sport, and Tourism Management, Troy University, Alabama, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Sports Management & Commercialization
KEYWORDS
College, Athletics, Spending, Expenses, Commercialization
