The University of Kansas, like the University of California, is employing equity seat rights to allocate seats to its athletic events. The equity seat rights are a supposed type of mortgage. But unlike a mortgage, buyers don’t actually obtain ownership of their seats in perpetuity. HT Wiz of Odds.
Here is a post I wrote at Market Power from last October that has a little more information on Cal’s equity seat rights package.
Jack Gillum at USA Today: “Schools Raising Fees to Keep Up with Cost of College Sports.” Outside of the ivory tower, we call these things taxes. Via The Wiz of Odds, which has a bunch of other interesting links related to the pay of athletic directors that I touched on in this post.
David Henderson on the NCAA as a labor market cartel: “NCAA Fesses Up — in Prime Time: The subsidized fix is in.”
Ilya Somin writes “Against the NCAA Cartel” in which he discusses the Henderson post linked to above and calls for football and men’s basketball players to get paid for their work.
I’m no fan of the minimum wage, but if some unpaid internships violate minimum wage legislation (via Greg Mankiw), how can not paying D1 football and men’s basketball players not violate it as well?
The fact that athletic departments are treated as non-profits for tax purposes probably answers that question. But being non-tax for tax purposes does not preclude one, economically speaking, from seeking maximum profits. And when you think about it, athletic departments behave a lot like their professional brethren when it comes to setting ticket, concession, and souvenir prices and when it comes to hiring coaches.
Lastly, the Online Universities blog lists their “top 10 coaching scandals in college sports history.” I don’t see how the Baylor basketball scandal from 2002-2003 isn’t ranked number 1. Thanks to Kaitlyn Cole for the link.
