When it comes to the world of athletics, compensation is a very special beast.
With “Business Insider” citing a staggering $5.2 million average salary for NBA players, many people may pause to consider the worth of this spending.
The professional sports industry is of course a very lucrative business, with large sums of revenue being generated by ticket sales, sponsors, fundraising and more.
As athletes are the main ones providing the entertainment and attracting the fans, their high salaries can be rationalized. Adding in consideration of the risk of personal — and perhaps even permanent — injury, one may begin to justify some of the figures.
But when you boil it down to the university level, it becomes hard to explain extreme spending and high compensations.
Part of the reason may be because the people making money are not athletes – the ones playing the games, attracting the crowds and risking injury. Instead, it’s the coaches and administrators receiving the steep paychecks.
Of course, student athletes may receive scholarships and related “perks,” but the monetary value of these benefits come nowhere near the more than $733,000 total compensation of men’s basketball coach Geno Ford, as reported by Bradley’s 2012 federal Form 990 tax documents.
Nor does it compare to the other athletics-related employees appearing in the top five highest compensated Bradley employees, former men’s basketball coach Jim Les and current Director of Athletics Michael Cross.
A questionable revelation from these forms is Ford’s No. 1 ranking for both base and total compensation — causing University President Joanne Glasser to take the passenger seat at No. 2.
It is not uncommon for universities to award employees with compensations greater than the president’s. This week’s men’s basketball opponent, Wichita State, provides its head coach Gregg Marshall with a $1.85 million yearly salary, a significantly greater amount than its president John Bardo’s $337,500 gross wages, according to Wichita Business Journal.
The difference here, however, is Wichita has seen significantly better records than the Braves. Going 35-1 overall last season, the Shockers provided fans with a better experience than Bradley’s 12-20 team last year.
Under Ford’s leadership, the Braves have gone 44-79 overall. With this season’s poor performance so far, students are disengaged and many season ticketholders are considering spending their time and money elsewhere.
Described as “unrest” by Associate Athletic Director for Communications Bobby Parker in a blog post last week, the discontent with and disapproval for the current state of Bradley Athletics is widespread.
From a student perspective, much of this discontent comes from lack of understanding for the administration’s decisions. Why are unsuccessful coaches and athletic employees receiving such high compensations? And why is the athletics department as a whole spending so much more money than it makes?
Wednesday night’s game brought with it booing from the student section directed at Cross, which was met with threats by an athletics employee to have the noise-making student removed from the arena.
With Bradley being a university that has “collaborative and experiential learning,” “excellence” and “community” among its core values, this discontent is warranted. It’s hard to understand why a department that rarely exemplifies these values is using up so many of the university’s resources.
Bottom line, a coach that struggles to achieve a .500 record should not receive higher compensation than our university president.
Our Bradley experience encompasses a variety of things, including our academics, organization activities, social lives and more. It’s a shame to see this experience dampened by an administration throwing funds at unsuccessful programs and low-performing employees.
