Kansas Money

The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 22, 2001

The Struggle to Stay Competitive in a Big-Time Conference

Welch Suggs

Lawrence, Kan. Precious few athletics departments have more history or tradition than the University of Kansas.

Plenty have more wins. But this is where James Naismith, the inventor of "basket ball," brought his peach baskets when he moved away from Massachusetts. His protege, Forrest C. (Phog) Allen, became one of the first legendary coaches of the game, counting Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith among his players. This is where Wilt Chamberlain, Jim Ryun, and countless others first became legend.

With its heroes and quirky traditions -- like the quasi-Gregorian "Rock Chalk" chant and the cute little Jayhawk mascot -- Kansas has managed to get along as a solid athletics program, competitive but not a behemoth.

A killer basketball team usually has made enough money to keep the department in the black, and maybe once a decade or so, the football team has had a great season and gotten some national notice. The Jayhawks have won their share of Big Eight Conference titles in a variety of sports, and usually have managed to beat up on their rivals from the University of Missouri at Columbia and Kansas State University.

An Honest Program

And Kansas has been known for having an honest athletics department, led by an athletics director, Robert E. Frederick, who is widely respected and is regularly named to national sportsmanship and ethics committees. At Kansas, players graduate, they don't get into (much) trouble with the law, and National Collegiate Athletic Association investigators haven't been on campus since the 1980's.

In 1995, everything seemed to be right for Kansas to step up to the next level of prominence. Its football coach, Glen Mason, became the first to stick around long enough to build a program, earning his second bowl berth in three years. Mr. Frederick was planning a new power conference, which would include all of the old Big Eight and four Texas universities. The basketball teams were doing great, and there were plans to make major improvements to Memorial Stadium, the oldest football venue west of the Mississippi.

But something -- several somethings -- went wrong.

Now, Kansas is at the bottom of the new conference, the Big 12, in most sports. This spring, the university announced it was dropping 2 of its 20 sports, men's swimming and tennis. The athletics department is projecting a $789,545 budget deficit on the year. After a four-win football season in 2000, season-ticket sales are lagging badly, and boosters are furious.

Last month, Mr. Frederick announced his retirement after 14 years as athletics director, saying the decisions and the scrutiny his job demands had gotten too difficult.

During the five years since the Big 12 began play, Kansas' teams have found themselves competing with some of the best-financed athletics departments in the country. Costs have increased much faster than revenues have grown.

Kansas State has flourished, sinking huge investments into its athletics facilities and building a football factory. Meanwhile, the Jayhawks have discovered one of the unfortunate truths of big-time college sports: Nice guys finish 12th.

A Hopeful Time

Six years ago, it didn't seem like it was going to be that way.

The Jayhawks' basketball teams were both doing well, but that wasn't anything new. Four Final Four appearances in 10 years had raised the expectations for Roy Williams' team through the roof. Marian Washington's women's team had not been quite as successful, but had finished first or second in the Big Eight Conference five times in the preceding decade.

The real story in 1995 was the football team. Mr. Mason had been the first coach hired by Mr. Frederick eight years earlier, and he had rebuilt a 1-10 team into a 10-2 team over that time. At Kansas, this was an accomplishment to be reckoned with: It isn't easy to put together a winning season when one has to play the Universities of Nebraska and Oklahoma every season, places where football is a statewide obsession.

Content With OK

Through the years, the Jayhawks had been content to be OK in football, drawing perhaps 30,000 people a game to Memorial Stadium.

"We went back and looked at the 50-year history of Kansas football, and our attendance has basically been the same over that 50-year period," Mr. Frederick says. "Except one spike when we went to the Orange Bowl after the '68 season. The next year season tickets got up into the 33- to 35,000 range, but then we went 1-10, and attendance went right back down. We've never been able to string a bunch of 7 and 4, 6 and 5 seasons together."

In 1995, though, Mr. Mason completed his fourth winning season in five years, and was preparing the Jayhawks for their second Aloha Bowl in three years. They still weren't beating Nebraska, but in 1995 they tied for second in the Big Eight.

Just before the team left for the bowl, however, Mr. Mason was offered and accepted the head-coaching job at the University of Georgia, a much larger and wealthier program than Kansas'. He promised to stay on and help the team through the bowl game, but was eager to make the move.

Family problems and other issues caused a change of heart, though, and on Christmas Eve, Mr. Mason changed his mind.

"The more I thought about it, and the impact on my kids, I thought, 'Maybe I'm best right here at Kansas,'" he says. "I was comfortable, I liked the people, and heck, we did win 10 games."

A Change of Heart

Christmas morning, he called Georgia's athletics director to tell him he wouldn't be going to Athens, after all.

That apparently was enough for his players, who went out and drilled the University of California at Los Angeles 51-30. When the bowl season wound up, the Associated Press ranked Kansas ninth in the country, the Jayhawks' highest finish ever.

Missed Opportunities

At most institutions, a season like that would be cause for celebration -- and money. A returning coach and a new flock of recruits would send season-ticket sales through the roof. Donors might pitch in for refurbishments to Memorial Stadium, which was showing its age. (Take Oklahoma, for example: Riding high on their 2000 national championship in football, the Sooners have kicked off a $100-million capital campaign -- just for athletics.)

According to Mr. Frederick and John Hadl, a Hall of Fame Jayhawk quarterback in the 1960's who is now an associate athletics director for fund raising, Kansas tried to capitalize on the successes of season. But Mr. Mason's "flip-flop" cost them both fans and recruits.

"We really tried to push hard with season tickets, but there was a certain amount of skepticism about whether Glen Mason was really committed to the program," Mr. Frederick says.

The team lost most of its recruits that year and ended up 4-7 in 1996. After that, Mr. Mason left for the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where he remains the football coach. That killed off another year of recruiting, leaving Terry Allen, Mr. Mason's replacement, with two badly depleted classes of players.

Now, Mr. Mason says Kansas missed a crucial opportunity during his final years there, and he takes some responsibility for it.

"There were some opportunities, and we let them slip by," Mr. Mason says. "We were nationally ranked, and Missouri and Kansas State were not there yet. Did we make a major move?"

No. A new building with locker and meeting rooms had been built, as well as offices for the football staff and upper administrators, but there were no lights in the stadium or the practice fields. A new strength-training facility and an indoor practice facility had been built, but both were far smaller than similar buildings at Oklahoma, Nebraska, and worst of all, Kansas State, 70 miles away in Manhattan.

And Kansas was facing a much bigger problem: four new opponents who came on board in 1996.

New Competition

For a decade prior to 1994, the Big Eight, the Southwest Conference, and most of the country's other major football conferences belonged to the College Football Association, which controlled television appearances and the royalties that came from them. But the coalition had fallen apart in 1994 when the Southeastern Conference signed a separate television deal with CBS.

Forced to find revenue to compete with the SEC and other leagues, the Big Eight negotiated a merger of sorts with the Southwest Conference. Four institutions -- Baylor, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech Universities and the University of Texas at Austin -- joined with the eight Midwestern universities in a new 12-member league.

"It was clear that the only direction we had was toward the state of Texas," says Mr. Frederick. "They've got double the number of television sets, so that was appealing to all of us."

Television sets mean money. Almost immediately, the conference struck a $105-million deal with ABC, ESPN, and Fox Sports to televise its football games. But for Kansas, there were immediate drawbacks.

"Particularly in the Olympic sports, the four southern schools have a lot of advantages," says Richard Konzem, an assistant athletics director. "Particularly the weather. Basically, we got bumped down four spots."

Then there are the expenses.

"In the Big Eight, we were in the middle of the league, and we could bus anywhere except Colorado," says Mr. Konzem. "Now, it's chartering planes to Lubbock, Waco, Austin, and College Station."

Teams playing weekday events can't take commercial flights because they would miss too much class time, he says.

Instead, they must take chartered planes, which are getting more and more expensive every year. The football team spent $95,000 last year on charters, he says.

At the same time, salaries have grown exponentially, a trend Mr. Frederick says is being driven by the rich departments, like Texas and Texas A&M.

"When Texas gives a salary increase to its football staff...we've got trouble," he says. "The problem is, then Nebraska and Oklahoma and the others say, 'We can't not be competitive there.' And there's a trickle-down effect: First it was football, then it was football and basketball, and now it's hitting all sports. Texas is paying its women's soccer coach $180,000 a year, and the rest of us $40,000 to $50,000. Then, all of a sudden, the soccer coaches are moving up, and it's tough."

Also, Kansas entered into a "corrective action agreement" with the U. S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights in 1995 in which it agreed to improve women's practice and locker areas and add soccer and rowing teams. The two sports cost $1-million annually.

And then there are the facilities.

Run-Down Facilities

"If you're just a normal Kansas City sports fan who came out for a [football] game in 1993 or '95, the years we went to bowls, and God forbid you brought your wife, you probably never came back," says Patrick Warren, Kansas' associate athletics director for external operations. The stadium was cramped and dirty underneath, concessions were primitive, and the restrooms were unspeakable. "It was shameful, what we had. Nobody in their right mind would come back."

So in 1997, Kansas embarked on a $26-million stadium upgrade that broadened the concourses, improved the restrooms, and added a new press box and 36 suites to the grandstand over the course of two years.

At the same time, Texas expanded its stadium to hold 80,000 fans and installed 66 suites and a luxurious private club, spending a total of $90-million on that and other facilities. Kansas State and Iowa State University had upgraded their stadiums earlier in the decade, and Missouri embarked on a similarly ambitious project. So for Kansas, this was more a matter of keeping up than getting ahead.

And Kansas lags badly on facilities for other sports. Allen Fieldhouse is a magnificent place to watch a basketball game, but it has few advertising signs and no premium seats or suites. The Jayhawks have very nice new volleyball and baseball venues, but everyone agrees the softball field is the worst in the conference. Kansas has no indoor tennis courts, boathouse for its rowing team, or strength-training facilities on the same scale as the rest of the Big 12.

"We've done $50-million in facilities since 1994, and there's still $35-million we need to do," Mr. Frederick said.

Running Out of Patience

Boosters say they're getting tired of hearing all the reasons they should be patient with Kansas sports. Some, like Jordan Haines, are upset that Kansas hasn't built the facilities it needs to attract top football players.

"If you and I wanted to buy a suite, we could pay $32,000, and it would be real nice," says Mr. Haines, a former president of the Kansas Alumni Association. "But I can't believe a tight end from Waxahachie, Tex., really cares if you and I are sitting there sipping Jack Daniels and water while he's out there on the field."

If Kansas is serious about upgrading the football program, then why hasn't it built weight rooms and other training facilities on par with the rest of the conference? asks Mr. Haines. And why hasn't it blitzed the state with marketing to put fans in the seats?

That's what Kansas State did. The university made Wagner Field into a purple palace for players and fans, and beat the bushes -- well, the wheat, anyway -- for supporters from Garden City to Kansas City.

"We went after support. We identified areas of growth, like Kansas City and Wichita, the areas where our recent grads were going and living," says Max Urick, Kansas State's athletics director, who is retiring this month.

"We employed a member of our development staff to live full-time in Kansas City, and we broadened our network through the Catbacker Clubs. We had to start out with eight people in restaurant booth, and try to get them to buy a season ticket."

The work has paid off, as has the program's success and the university's reputation for being a great place to tailgate: The Wildcats averaged 50,260 fans a game last year, while the Jayhawks could only draw 28,317. Missouri, which had as lousy a season as Kansas, drew more than 53,000 a game.

Furthermore, Kansas is at a disadvantage for football revenues from the Big 12. Half of conference television revenues are split evenly among universities; the other half is handed out based on the number of appearances they make on television.

That has hurt Kansas and Kansas State, because they do not have enough of a television fan base to make them attractive to the networks. The Texas universities have a distinct advantage, because they have much larger television markets.

A Conference Mismatch?

Kansas, then, has been trying to make it as a basketball powerhouse in a football conference. And it just isn't working.

In 1995-96, Kansas won conference titles in men's and women's basketball and men's and women's tennis. Three years earlier, the university hit a unique jackpot. Besides the football team's Aloha Bowl win, the men's basketball team made it to the Final Four and the baseball team to the College World Series.

All that changed in the Big 12. In 2000-1, only three Jayhawk squads -- men's basketball, women's softball, and men's cross-country -- placed in the top half of the conference.

Besides this year's deficit, the athletics department foresaw a $690,000 annual operating deficit for 2002 that would grow into a $1.8-million deficit by 2006, assuming that there are no drastic changes in either expenses or revenues. Selling out Memorial Stadium every game would generate another $2.1-million in revenue per year, Mr. Frederick says, but that would take a miracle.

So, in order to head off that deficit in the short term, Mr. Frederick and the rest of the department decided to eliminate the men's tennis and swimming teams. That turns the red ink into black for the next two years, and after that the deficit is now projected to grow only to $1-million annually by 2006.

Unpopular Decisions

The decision to drop the two teams, announced in April, caused a surprisingly fierce reaction among large numbers of students and alumni, who demonstrated at the chancellor's house. The athletics department then really irritated its fans by announcing a "donor seating plan," which would have required large donations from alumni for the best seats in Allen Fieldhouse.

"I didn't get any calls about the teams, but boy, when they announced that, my phone rang off the hook," says Mr. Hadl, the associate athletics director. Robert Hemenway, the university's chancellor, later announced that the university would put off the plan pending further review.

Then, in May, Mr. Frederick did what many Kansas boosters and others had suspected was coming: He announced he was stepping down, effective June 30.

He pauses for a long moment when asked if there's anything he would have done differently. "I wish we could have helped the football team more, I guess," he finally says.

Winning Back the Fans

Now, his successor will be left to do what Mr. Frederick couldn't: Win back the hearts and pocketbooks of Kansas fans, and figure out a way to generate enough money to sustain the inevitable rise in expenses.

Search for Vision

The new athletics director is "going to have to be someone who is a seasoned executive with outstanding leadership skills, vision, and the ability to formulate and articulate a long-term plan that's both ambitious but reasonable," says Ken Wagnon, a Wichita businessman who is a longtime supporter of the athletics department. He has stopped giving money to Jayhawk athletics as a whole, and now only gives money to support the men's basketball program because of his frustration with the rest of the department.

However, Mr. Frederick says he's not sure how Kansas athletics can ever recapture the magic, at least for the fans.

"In 10 years, I just don't know where the revenues are going to come from," he says. "It's just like the pros for the big-market teams versus the small-market teams."

So he and his wife are moving out to a nice house currently being built outside Lawrence, not too close but not too far. Away from the abuse of fans, talk radio, and the Internet.

"I'm sleeping better than I have in 10 years," Mr. Frederick says.

RUNNING WITH THE BIG DOGS

With a budget less than half the size of some of its opponents, the University of Kansas has had trouble competing in the Big 12 Conference.

[Table here in original]

SOURCE: Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act reports, 1999-2000 OUT OF BALANCE

Expenses for athletics at the University of Kansas have increased since the university joined the Big 12 Conference, in 1996, and revenues aren't keeping up.

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