6A
CAMPUS/AREA
Friday, April 28, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tradition and history are taking a backseat to the economic concerns of athletics.
IS ADVERTISING TARNISHING COLLEGE BASKETBALL?
Continued from Page 1A.
just doesn't generate enough revenue
"I think all of us would prefer not to have signs," Frederick says.
But he says that if Kansas is going to have a nationally competitive program for men and women, the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation will have to exhaust all of its revenue strategies.
Ralph McBarron is the general manager of a partnership between KUAC and Creative Sports, a marketing and broadcast firm that oversees all marketing of Kansas athletics.
He says there's a misconception that the department makes a huge profit from football and men's basketball.
"Most athletic departments barely break even, and ours is the same way," McBarron says. "All of that money goes to pay for the numerous other sports that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to
operate but don't make any money."
Some fiscal help will arrive when Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Baylor join the Big Eight Conference for the 1996-97 academic year, creat-
not much for a corporation with a projected budget of $12.5 million for the 1994-95 academic year. That money would provide four-year scholarships to about four in-state student-athletes or two out-of-state student-athletes.
To hear McBarron talk, one might think arena ads are as American as apple pie and church on Sunday.
"One of the things that adds to the purity and tradition of college athletics is providing opportunities for college students to participate in the athletics of their choice, and this helps us do that," McBarron says. "I don't know what is more traditional than that."
That advertising tradition has grown rapidly since Creative Sports, based in Charlotte, N.C., and owned by ESPN, took control of marketing for KUAC three years ago.
Besides Kansas and Iowa State basketball games, Creative Sports broadcasts NASCAR and Big Eight basketball. Next year the firm will
ing the Big 12 Conference.
But even with the additional money, Frederick says it's doubtful that any signs would be removed from the field house.
"I can't imagine so, unless we find another source of revenue," he says.
The Big Eight's $4.2 million football bowl contract will increase to about $8.4 million when it becomes the Big 12. Kansas will get about $60,000 from the Big 12's new bowl agreement, twice as much as it received from the Big Eight.
SHOWBIZ AND KUAC
The 41 signs in the field house generated about $175,000 in revenue this year for the Creative Sports KUAC partnership. Creative Sports took 45 percent of the money, while KUAC took 55 percent.
Bob Frederick
Kansas athletic director
The $96,250 that KUAC received is
broadcast basketball games for the Big 10 and Big East Conferences. Eventually it will broadcast Big 12 basketball.
ments controlling the different aspects of marketing Kansas athletics. Departments competed for advertisers. Creative Sports combined all the marketing of Kansas athletics into one organization, ending in-house competition by offering package deals combining television and radio spots, signs and program ads.
Hazlett would just as soon KUAC not have such a partnership.
He has watched the tradition change from no advertising in Hoch to the carnival of signs now in the field house.
"At first they had ads just around the scoreboard, and I thought that was bad enough, but it wasn't so distracting because you didn't have to look up at it all the time," Hazlett says. "But then when they started to appear over every entrance into the place and started to appear all around the sides of the court, to me it's too much."
exit ramps represent 33 percent of all the advertising in the field house and were first installed in 1992.
The 20 brightly lit signs above the
Frederick says the decision to sell the signs was strictly business, a decision that created another source of income for KUAC.
NCAA'S HANDS-OFF POLICY
Although advertising has become a profitable business for college basketball, it isn't regulated by the NCAA. That is ironic because the NCAA usually is obsessive in controlling fiscal opportunities for the student-athletes who draw the audiences. Student-athletes are strictly banned from any opportunity to make money. Schools generate a lot of dollars from those same players.
Bill Hancock, NCAA director of the men's basketball championship, says the NCAA lets individual universities set their own policies concerning advertising.
Frederick says Kansas' policy doesn't allow alcohol, tobacco or gambling signs in the field house. But alcohol advertisements can run on the television and radio networks and in the game programs. Gambling ads can and do run on both television and radio.
"If it's questionable, I normally take it to the executive committee of the athletic board," he says. "But I think most of them I can just turn down myself on what I think the history of the executive committee's feeling are."
The NCAA does set limits during the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournament. Nobody gets any free advertising during the national broadcasts. Apparently, the NCAA doesn't want universities associated with any companies or products when it controls the television broadcasts. All courtside advertising must be covered in arenas during the first and second rounds of the tournament. But ads in the upper levels don't need to be covered, just darkened.
Advertising for gambling and professional sports is prohibited during the entire tournament. Alcohol and tobacco advertising is allowed but must be darkened in the arenas.
During the Final Four all advertising is covered, including the upper levels.
"Our goal with the championship is to direct the focus onto the student-athletes participating." Han
The number of advertising signs in any given sports arena varies greatly from university to university.
University Kansas Indiana North Carolina Michigan Oklahoma
Not everyone advertises
Number of Signs
61
0
0
45
14
Name of Basketball Team
Allen Field House
Assembly Hall
Dean E. Smith Center
Crisler Arena
Lloyd Noble Center
Noah Musser/KANSAN
Advertising in Allen Field House
The other 20 signs are on the scoreboard. The revenue generated from those signs goes to Fairtron, the company that built and installed the scoreboard, because KUAC didn't have to pay for the scoreboard. The scoreboard was installed in 1992 and cost $400,000. The revenue will go to KUAC once Fairtron covers its expenses and makes a profit.
Source: Creative Sports/KUAC
cock says. "So we try to eliminate as much commercialism as we can."
OTHERS DON'T BUY AD ARGUMENT
For David Brown, promotions marketing director at Indiana, the reason is simple.
Although similar to Kansas in basketball tradition, Indiana and North Carolina don't share that similarity when it comes to advertising.
"We don't want people offended," he says. "We want to stay with tradition. People are there to watch basketball, not to see a bunch of different billboards."
University officials at North Carolina have prohibited all advertising in any on-campus athletic venue.
"They think it's commercialism, and it has no place in college athletics," says Jey Elliott, associate athletic director at North Carolina.
That philosophy also has prevailed at Indiana.
"Basketball at Indiana is more of a religion," Brown says. "It's like putting billboards in your church. People take their basketball seriously, and they don't want to mess around with signs. They just want to watch basketball."
"The fact that they haven't had it and now they do, you're going to resent it," says Bill Sweeney, an associate professor of advertising at North Carolina who teaches a sports marketing class. "If you've grown up with it, then you don't really mind. Is the purity of the sport compromised? I don't think there's any question that putting that stuff in detracts from the game."
But the signs still come down to money.
bad taste in the fans' mouths," Hazlett says. "I think it cheapens the image of the University, of the team and everything."
Because signs appeared so quickly and in such a large number in the field house, people haven't had time to adapt to the change.
Ralph McBarron of Creative Sports says the firm wants people to think of the field house as a church, too.
The athletic departments at Indiana and North Carolina both operate in the black without any revenue from signs in Assembly Hall and the Dean E. Smith Center.
Program's Membership
3,100
14,500
13,500
2,800
3,300
North Carolina doesn't need the additional revenue from signs because it has $33 million in athletic reserves. Kansas has $700,000 in athletic reserves.
Nonetheless, both Indiana and North Carolina have stayed with the tradition of no advertising in their basketball arenas.
"If you'll notice, three-quarters of the way through church they pass a basket around that you drop money in," he says. "And the reason is the church could not operate if you were weren't giving money to it. The principle is virtually the same here."
Frederick says North Carolina's athletic reserves are so large because the university has been able to generate a large amount of revenue from both football and men's basketball. Kansas hasn't been as profitable in football as North Carolina.
"I think the advertising leaves a
University
*Kansas
Indiana
North Carolina
*Michigan
*Oklahoma
Below is a list of the money generated by athletic department fund-raising programs of five universities for the 1994-95 academic year.
Noah Musser/KANSAN
Comparing fund-raising programs
Indiana's athletic department survives without sign revenue because of the Varsity Club, its department fund-raising organization. The club received about $6 million this year.
Amount Raised
$3 million
$6 million
$7.1 million
$5.5 million
$750,000
Fund-raising Program
Williams Fund
Varsity Club
Educational Foundation
Varsity Club/T.E.A.M.
Sooner Club
Noah Musser/KANSAN
didn't operate in the black, Brown saves.
WHAT NOW?
But Elliott says North Carolina would search long and hard to find another source of income before putting signs in the Smith Center.
"I think that would be the very last resort," he says.
College basketball has grown from the simple sport Dr. James Naismith invented in 1891 to an entertainment package that CBS paid $1.75 billion to broadcast.
Kansas' fund raising organization,
the Williams Fund, generated about
$3 million for KUAC this year.
With that kind of money involved, it's easy to understand why people think the game of college basketball risks being tarnished. And signs in the field house and other college basketball arenas make it seem as if the sport is losing to the business.
"I think ads are a reflection of the sports culture of today," says Howard Hill, director of KANU radio and public address announcer for Jayhawk football and basketball. "The whole business of sports is just that. It's big business these days."
Indiana's Assembly Hall could have signs if its athletic department
"If we got $6 million, we wouldn't have signs in there," Frederick says.
- Denotes schools that advertise in their basketball arenas.
* #Program is just for student-athlete scholarships and capital projects.
And in any business, history and tradition take a back seat to money.
"I've had a lot of people tell me that they don't like the garish appearance of Allen Field House," says Max Falkenstien, radio announcer for Jayhawk football and basketball. "But if you're running a business and you're responsible for getting the money in the house, why I couldn't blame anybody for doing it."
That's just the attitude that bothers associate professor Sweeney.
"I don't want college sports to be tied to the same logic of business," he says. "The world of advertising and business is cutthroat, and if that mentality affects college sports, the games really will be tarnished."
A FORUM ON SEXUAL ABUSE
Featuring two speakers who work with sexual abuse survivors and towards the rehabilitation of sex crime offenders; and one speaker who is nationally recognized for research in this area.
Dr. Tom Lock
Psychologist
Burt Nash
Dr. Charlene Muehlenhard Professor University of Kansas
Dr. Cyd Schnacke Psychologist Osawatomie State Hospital
Monday, May 1, 8:00 p.m.
Jayhawk Room, Kansas Union
Sponsored by:
Center for Peer Health Promotion, Watkins Health Center OAKS-The Non-Traditional Student Organization
STUDENT
SENATE
FRIDAYS
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SUNSHINE and BEER
On Our Deck!
$150 16oz RAILERS
THE CROSSING
BAR AND GRILL