Kelly, Patrick, S.J.

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Conversations on Jesuit Higher EducationVolume 48 Article 20September 2015"Signs of the Times" in Intercollegiate AthleticsPatrick Kelly S.J.Follow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversationsRecommended CitationKelly, Patrick S.J. (2015) ""Signs of the Times" in Intercollegiate Athletics," Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education: Vol. 48, Article 20.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol48/iss1/20Conversations 37There is currently a crisis of meaning in sportin the United States, and it is related to theemergence of what Harvard political philoso-pher Michael Sandel has called a “marketsociety.” According to Sandel, the shift fromhaving a market economy to being a marketsociety began in the early 1980s when therewas a new emphasis from political leaders inEngland and the U.S. on the free market andderegulation as essential to prosperity andfreedom. In a market society, we regard an increasing numberof human activities in terms of their market value. The prob-lem, according to Sandel, is that sometimes market values“crowd out non-market values worth caring about.” Such a trend is clearly evident in U.S. sport and in inter-collegiate athletics. While intercollegiate athletics have had acommercial component ever since they were first sponsoredby schools, their market orientation has now reachedunprecedented levels. The advent of 24 hour cable televisioncoverage of sports played an important role in this process.ESPN began its 24-hour coverage in 1980, and several othercable channels have been added since then. In large part dueto increased television coverage, intercollegiate athletics hasbecome a much more significant part of the entertainmentlandscape in the United States than ever before. These devel-opments led to the recent massive conference reshufflingwhich was driven by the desire of universities to form strongfootball conferences that could obtain lucrative televisioncontracts. In the process several long-standing rivalries andgeographical ties were abandoned. Student athletes in manyconferences now must travel further to compete, which hasled to an increase in the number of missed classes and ismore costly to the universities. In this context, there has been an arms race in spendingon athletics. According to the Knight Commission, spendingon athletics at Division 1 public universities has recentlybeen increasing twice as fast as spending on academics. Thisspending is for such items as larger stadiums and exorbitantcoaches’ salaries, which will help schools recruit the top ath-letes in order to win. The thinking is that winning teams fillthe stadiums and open the door to television dollars, whichwill lead to increased revenues. Of course, a winning teamwill come about only if there is a year-round, professional-style training regimen which leaves student athletes with lesstime for academic pursuits and no chance of internships,study abroad experiences, and the like. Given all of these developments, much discussion isoccurring about the fact that student athletes are the onlyones not benefitting financially. In 2014 a regional director ofthe National Labor Relations Board declared that footballplayers at Northwestern were employees of the universityand could form a union. In the same year Ed O’Bannon wona lawsuit against the NCAA challenging the use of images offormer student athletes for commercial purposes. JeffreyKessler has filed a lawsuit which challenges the ceiling oncompensation paid to student athletes for their “services tothe big business of college sports.” In an indirect response to such issues raised by currentand former student athletes, universities in the Power 5 con-ferences (ACC, SEC, Big 10, Pac 12, Big 12) declared them-selves autonomous from the NCAA to make up their ownrules with regard to areas such as providing more financialsupport to student athletes, flying families to tournaments,recruiting, and so forth. While the autonomous ruling mightkeep student athletes and attorneys at bay temporarily, it wasshort-sighted because it did not address fundamental issuesrelated to commercialization and professionalization. In fact,the Power 5 conferences put a new distance between them-selves and other athletic conferences, and this means theywill now be getting more of the best players and the mostlucrative television contracts and corporate sponsorships. Inother words, the rich will keep getting richer. “Signs of the Times” inIntercollegiate AthleticsBy Patrick Kelly, S.J.Patrick Kelly, S.J., is associate professor of theology and religious studies at Seattle University. He is the author ofCatholic Perspectives on Sports: From Medieval to ModernTimes (Paulist Press, 2012).1Kelly: "Signs of the Times" in Intercollegiate AthleticsPublished by e-Publications@Marquette, 201538 ConversationsThe framework within which we are thinking about prob-lems in intercollegiate athletics and higher education is inade-quate. And the resources we use to reflect on the problems can’textricate us from them. For example, our understanding of free-dom in a market society tends to be limited to democratic tradi-tions and the free market. Within this framework, it makes sensethat schools and conferences should be able to find the best tel-evision market for themselves and try to raise as much moneyas possible. We recognize that they are free to spend as muchas they like to build winning programs, looking for a return ontheir investment. Even the NCAA, which is supposed to be safe-guarding the integrity of college sports, is free to sign lucrativetelevision contracts. Most reformers don’t question this frame-work and argue instead for a different distribution of revenues. What is missing is any acknowledgement of whatIgnatius of Loyola refers to as “interior freedom,” namelyfreedom from “disordered inclinations.” For Ignatius, themost problematic of these disordered inclinations is towealth. In his view, persons and societies get off track bybeing ensnared by money, which leads to the honor andesteem of this world, culminating in surging pride. From thisdynamic flow all other vices. This lens provides us with avery accurate description of what is happening in intercolle-giate athletics at the moment. But because we don’tacknowledge interior freedom as a category, these dynamicsremain largely out of our awareness. The recent developments in intercollegiate athletics haveimpacted and will continue to impact Jesuit universities. Forexample, shortly after Seattle University returned to Division1 status and joined the Western Athletic Conference, most ofthe schools exited the conference to join large football con-ferences. Because the schools that subsequently joined theconference were located at a much greater distance, SeattleUniversity student athletes now must travel further to com-pete. The increased travel results in students missing consid-erably more classes, and costs to the university are higher. The Power 5 autonomy ruling will have the most impacton Jesuit universities such as Marquette, Georgetown,Creighton, and Xavier in the Big East conference and otheruniversities like Gonzaga. They are the Jesuit schools thatcan currently compete with the national powers in men’sand women’s basketball. The schools in the Power 5 confer-ences will now be able to offer recruits deals that Jesuitschools will have a hard time matching, at least from a finan-cial perspective. In the next article I will discuss how Jesuit schools inDivisions I, II, and III are uniquely positioned to offer a cri-tique of the current state of intercollegiate athletics and helpus begin a deliberation of what the “non-market valuesworth caring about” are in college sports and how these val-ues are related to the ends of higher education. I will writeabout the role that coaches, athletic directors, academics,presidents, and boards of trustees at Jesuit universities andathletic conferences such as the Big East and the West CoastConference can play in this process. ■This article is the first of two articles about intercollegiateathletics in higher education by Patrick Kelly. The secondarticle will appear in the online edition of Conversationsin September 2015.Saint Joseph University goes up against University of Connecticut. 2Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, Vol. 48, Iss. 1 [2015], Art. 20http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol48/iss1/20

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