Monday, February 21, 2011

In the Deseret News!

My BYU athletics budget story (parts one and two) was in the Deseret News and on KSL.com!

In the Des News:

BYU sports budget rundown shows what sports profit, cost
(part one)
BYU's sports budget not seeing red ink financing smaller sports (part two)

At KSL.com:

Football key to BYU's athletic budget (part one)
BYU football brings athletic budget back to black in tough economy (part two)

I still don't know for sure if the story has appeared in the print edition of the Deseret News. I know it wasn't in Friday's paper, at least. But I'll have to get my hands on some copies as soon as it does.

I've gotten a few e-mails from readers, most of them saying: "Well, yeah, duh, but tell us about Title IX!" The Title IX aspect of university budgets is interesting, for sure. I just picked something else to talk about this time around.

If any of you want to do your own Title IX-themed investigation, or any investigation into athletics budget numbers, here's how:

1) Go to http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/WebsiteUpdatedMessage.aspx
2) Click on "Go to login page"
3) Then click on "Get data for one institution"
4) Then search for Brigham Young University (or any other college you're interested in looking at)

3 comments:

  1. It's funny about Title IX because BYU actually is in compliance with its rules. I looked up BYUs Title IX stats and they check out. The rule is that the ratio of funds to male althetics to the total budget has to equal the ratio of males in the student body population. For example, if a school is 60% male, they can spend 60% of athletics budget on males There is a 5% variance allowed. If the budget exceeds 5%, the school is investigated. Funny tangent, no team has ever been reprimanded by a court due to Title IX violations. Anyway, BYU allocates 56% of funds to male athletics and 44% to female athletics. 51% of BYU student body is male and 49% is female. Just barely in compliance. I wonder if the people that emailed you knew that?

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  2. Wow, good work on that investigation! Haha. I don't know if these readers making comments were worried that BYU wasn't following Title IX rules. In fact, I think mostly they were complaining about the existence of Title IX in the first place, and that it gives disproportionate treatment to women's sports. But, where's the story in that? Just find a bunch of people who want to complain about Title IX to the paper, and then some women athletes to defend themselves? Doesn't make much of a story, just invites a lot of ranting, I think.

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  3. No real investigation, just a confirmation of what I learned in a class last summer. But you're right. This was better than Title IX rants. Title IX shouldn't be a big issue because even if you are out of compliance, nothing happens to you.

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