Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Tim McMichael » Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:57 pm

So how would it make more since to fund track and cheerleading and cut funding for football? Football at most high schools probably brings on average 2000 paying fans at at least $5 a ticket, so with five home games they would be losing around $50k?


Football almost always loses more money than it makes. Unless you are filling a very large stadium to capacity several times a year you are not going to break even on a football program. Costs for uniforms, pads, equipment, training facilities, field maintenance, transportation and meals are astronomical when you add them all up. What ever the reason for favoring football over other programs, in most instances, the money it makes is not a rational justification.

I "Technically" could have played football. But going into high school I was 5'4 and 115lb, there was no chance of me making even a JV squad, and if I did I would never see the field. So any girl out there had just as good of shot as making the team as me, ie. equal opportunity. So maybe they should make title 10 where athletes under 120lb should have equal rights as those over 180?


Issues of discrimination are based on groups and averages. The percentage of females who weigh less than a lean 180 is infinitely larger than the percentage of males who are under that weight. Therefore, football discriminates unfairly against women if it is the only sport available.

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Divalent » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:50 pm

Just an update: Suit was settled (with FHSAA backing down and paying plaintiffs legal fees)

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/high- ... 83614.html

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Borntovault » Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:51 am

VaultPurple wrote:Yes but they did not cut cheerleading either.... which is traditionaly a female sport. And since there is no rule saying girls can not play football then they technicaly have the same oppertunity.

I mean I think the decision sucks... But this is not a matter of guys and girls, this is a matter of football getting whatever they want because they make the money.


Title 9 is great but some people take it too far, expecially NCAA.

The combination of title IX and football being allowed almost 120 athletes on their roster compleatly screws over most other mens sports. Because there are so many people on the football roster, for the school to compensate with close to the same amount of girls they have to have less guy sports than girl sports. Then on top of having less guy sports, they also have to have less guys on rosters than girls. In track at my school we are only allowed something like 42 guys, while we can have as many girls as we want.

In track you need around 30 or more athletes just to fill all the events with 3 people ( some schools have like 5 per event ). Comapred too football only having something like 22 first string positions, so if they had 3 strings per positon counting kickers thats something like 70 people. So why do they need 50 people on the roster that have absolutly no chance of ever seeing the field? Then on top of that 20 on full rides that will never see the field?

I mean I know they make the money and diserve a little extra special stuff but those 20 to 30 extra guys on full rides that never touch the grid iron are not making the school any money.

I think this just shows how title 9 was designed for a good reason, but it does not make equal rights for guys and girl sports, it just makes sure there are enough girls to make up for the over amount of guys on the football team.


I agree with you vaultpurple. I agree that girls should get the same opportunities that guys do, but I think by having way too many football players, guys teams end up getting the shaft. I remember we ended up having to cut some of our guys team because the girls team was not up to the numbers they needed for us to have our 42 guys so we had to cut a few people. That happened a few years ago before our teams were combined. By having so many football players on the team they have to limit the amount of guy athletes in otyher sports. At our school the two sports that are the first to lose athletes for this are the swim team and track. I know when I used to see some of the football players in the weightroom before they got their own weightroom there were guys on the team that were my size and alot weaker than me. Which I never understood how they got on the team or they would let them on the team. I undertand why some of the "walk on" guys are on the team is due to the fact that they are on the team to bring up Team GPA.
Alright enough about ranting about stuff that can't be changed and won't be change back to the subject. I definitly agree that they should have forseen lawsuits. They couldn't get away with that and they should have known that from the start. Just a bonehead move on their part if they thought they weren't gonna catch grief from that.
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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Capt Caveman » Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:48 pm

These are public shools with public money. Favoritism has no place. Every parent of every athlete has tax dollars involved in the athletic dept and there are MORE parents of non football players than football players. With public money everyone in every sport needs to be treated the same. No one is special. There should have been reprecussions for thier attempt to manipulate the system in favor of 2 sports over the rest. At the very worst those administrators are going to have a tough time real soon if they are elected to their position.

Vaultpurple - Do your research. The majority of football teams at every level (execpt pro) LOSE money. Most of the ones that do not lose money break even. Very few make money, then the question must be asked HOW MUCH did they make? 100 bucks? 1000? 10,000? If they made ONE dollar would you consider them a success and support them being "better" than the rest of the programs?

In PA there are districts that have cut ALL extracurricular activities - Football, Cheerleading, Band, Chess Club...EVERYTHING. Sports are a privledge in a public school not a right. But if you are going to have them they all need to be treated fair.



INDIANAPOLIS — Most of the nation's college athletic departments are still trying to get out of the red zone.

The NCAA's latest report on revenues and expenses, released Tuesday, showed fewer than 25 percent of all Football Bowl Subdivision schools made money in 2007-08, while the remaining 302 schools competing in Division I struggled to break even.

Twenty-five of 119 FBS schools reported overall profits, an increase from 19 in 2006.

The report's author, Dan Fulks, the faculty representative at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky., described the results as a basic lesson in college sports' class system.

"If you're not selling a bunch of tickets and you don't have a large alumni-booster base making contributions, and you're not in the right conference, you have very little chance of showing net positive revenue," Fulks said in a statement on the NCAA Web site.

The NCAA collected data from 2004 through 2008 but did not identify individual schools or teams in the report.

Instead, the governing body identified highs and lows with median and mean numbers. The results are broken into those of Football Bowl Subdivision schools, Football Championship Subdivision schools and those schools that do not play football.

The recession, which began in December 2007, has had an impact on budgets, too.

With declining ticket sales and decreasing donations from alumni and boosters, allocations from states and schools account for 30 percent of athletic-department budgets, up from 20 percent in 2006. Expenditures for athletics from the overall school budgets have remained relatively constant at about 5 percent over five years, according to the study.

The greatest expenses, as usual, are scholarships, salaries and benefits.

Football coaches in the FBS have a median annual salary of $1.095 million, according to the report. Men's basketball coaches are making $822,000 while women's basketball coaches are paid $277,000.

Of the 119 FBS football teams, 68 (57.1 percent) finished the year in the black.

Of the 119 FBS schools playing men's basketball, 67 teams made a profit. One of those same 119 schools made money in women's basketball in 2008.

FBS football teams recorded a median net profit of $1.95 million. Men's basketball at the same schools produced a median profit of $518,000. No other sport at the FBS schools, measured by median values, showed a program in the black.
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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby KirkB » Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:31 pm

Capt Caveman wrote: ... Football coaches in the FBS have a median annual salary of $1.095 million, according to the report. Men's basketball coaches are making $822,000 while women's basketball coaches are paid $277,000.
...

I'm amazed at these salaries! I thought only NFL and NBA coaches had $1M+ salaries. I should have been a football or BB coach! :dazed:

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby VaultPurple » Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:22 pm

Anyone know average salary for a Division I coach? And I mean the head coach.

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby PV Official » Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:37 pm

http://www.americasbestonline.net/index ... aches.html

This is a list of the Top 100 salaries for College Football coaches. Median salary for this group is about $1.2 million.

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Borntovault » Mon Nov 16, 2009 4:15 pm

Capt Caveman
Vault purple and I are referring to D1 and D2 football when we were referencing the facts of making money as a sport. In college there are about 3 sports that make the money to cover all the other sports teams that the schools offer. Those tend to be the footbal, mens basketball, and baseball teams; and baseball in some places pushes it as far as making money. Some schools like Tennessee's Lady Vols basketball and softball teams I could see making money and maybe Arizona's softball team due to the fact they are so dominate. We never said that it was a good thing and it was the right thing to do. We were just saying that most of schools lose more money on other sports as others. I agree that the administrators should have seen it coming and should be ready to face the consequences of their actions.
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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Capt Caveman » Mon Nov 16, 2009 5:32 pm

Borntovault wrote:Capt Caveman
Vault purple and I are referring to D1 and D2 football when we were referencing the facts of making money as a sport. In college there are about 3 sports that make the money to cover all the other sports teams that the schools offer. Those tend to be the footbal, mens basketball, and baseball teams; and baseball in some places pushes it as far as making money. Some schools like Tennessee's Lady Vols basketball and softball teams I could see making money and maybe Arizona's softball team due to the fact they are so dominate. We never said that it was a good thing and it was the right thing to do. We were just saying that most of schools lose more money on other sports as others. I agree that the administrators should have seen it coming and should be ready to face the consequences of their actions.



I was referring to every level. Athletic departments are horrible at math.Keep in mind when I say most I am referring to all levels. There are a few "elite" programs but isnt that the point of this exercise? No one sport is more important than the other? I am of the opinion that so long as athletics remain a part of public institutions there is no place for favoritism. Now, if you go to a private school all bets are off. They can run their "business" as they see fit.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/16/ncaa

Something to think about when you stir the pot in favor of some sports over others, and since we are all Track and Field people this is distrubing.
http://news.collegesportsinfo.com/2009/10/15-of-17-ncaa-mens-sports-lose-money.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704224004574489281301154084.html

15 of the 17 men's sports the NCAA examined lost money. Baseball and track and field were the most costly, and even fencing had a median loss of $114,000.
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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Rhino » Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:25 pm

I am in disbelief of how many people accept as appropriate that the Federal Government has any business dictating to Florida or any state anything concerning education or sports. We all want girls in sports and boys in sports. We all hate football because we are jealous that they are the heroes and we are not. But to get an act of Congress or some bureaucracy to enforce the way we think things ought to be is nothing short of tyranny! I feel strongly about this too!

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby vaultman18 » Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:28 am

Rhino wrote:I am in disbelief of how many people accept as appropriate that the Federal Government has any business dictating to Florida or any state anything concerning education or sports. We all want girls in sports and boys in sports. We all hate football because we are jealous that they are the heroes and we are not. But to get an act of Congress or some bureaucracy to enforce the way we think things ought to be is nothing short of tyranny! I feel strongly about this too!


I suppose the government should never have allowed women to vote either or desegregated schools. This is the same principle women/minorities are getting the shaft. High school athletics are about opportunities not money.

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Re: Parents of female athletes sue over cuts to school sports

Unread postby Divalent » Sat Nov 21, 2009 4:45 pm

Rhino wrote:I am in disbelief of how many people accept as appropriate that the Federal Government has any business dictating to Florida or any state anything concerning education or sports. ...


Really? Anything? For example, racial discrimination in sports and education? Or, generally, unequal access to eductional opportunities based on race and/or sex? It was not so long ago that many states actually did discriminate in this way, in an institutional manner (by the "letter of the law"), so the argument "we are all reasonable and wouldn't do this even if the federal government didn't dictate that we can't" won't fly. Blacks and women were excluded from some of the best state universities. That change ONLY when the federal government said that sort of discrimination must stop, and in many states they didn't change without a fight.

There is a way to opt out of Title IX. That state or private university just has to forgo any and all federal funding. Some private "colleges" actually do this. No grants, no subsidies, no federally guaranteed student loans, no tax exemptions, etc.

I do understand that sometimes the applicability is sometimes not clear cut (like when you combine "cheerleading" and volleyball and try to say it equals football), but your statement is *anything*. Really?


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