Shoe companies, "the foot soldiers," according to Roger
Thurow in this morning's WALL STREET JOURNAL, "have stormed the
ivory towers of academia ... holding the gates wide open and
welcoming the gravy train of corporate sponsorships." Thurow
examines the impact of collegiate shoe and apparel deals -- most
notably, the battle between Nike and Reebok --a battle waged with
deals that "engulf entire universities." Nike has signed nine
schools -- USC, Alabama, Colorado, Florida St., Illinois, Miami,
Michigan, UNC and Penn St. -- while Reebok has two school deals -
- Texas and UCLA. One of Reebok's latest deals is to supply more
than 80 teams in the 10-school Southern Conference with shoes.
Universities claim to need the money to support broad-based
athletic programs, and Thurow notes college football isn't always
the "cash cow." While a '93 survey shows ADs at more that 100 I-
A football schools ran an average surplus of $660,000, without
"institutional support," that slips to $174,000. Thurow also
reports the survey showed 1/3 of Div. I programs lost money in
'93 -- at an average of $1M per school.
TOO MUCH LEADS TO TROUBLE? Donna Lopiano, Exec Dir of the
Women's Sports Foundation, and former Dir of Women's Athletics at
the Univ. of TX, warns that continued corporate funding of
collegiate athletics "could eventually endanger the universities'
not-for-profit tax benefits." Lopiano: "The more (schools) act
like paid entertainment .... well, they better be real careful"
(WALL STREET JOURNAL, 11/17).
