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Western Washington eliminates football program

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Mark2010, Jan 8, 2009.

  1. Lester Bangs

    Lester Bangs Active Member

    This is the money line and the only one that really matters in this discussion. What the hell were they doing in Division II with all the Division III schools in the area? This is a management deal.
     
  2. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Bingo.

    Lot easier for some people to blame Title IX than it is to blame management idiocy and/or greed in the decision to be in a level in which you don't belong, a level in which it doesn't make economic or competitive sense for your school to be there.
     
  3. Cadet

    Cadet Guest

    First, you're assuming that men will need the proportionality numbers. Men are about 45 percent of the student body at WWU, so by a "quota" system they should be 45 percent of the athletes.

    Second, it's unlikely WWU was in compliance to begin with. Most schools aren't. According to the Department of Education <a href="http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/InstDetails.aspx?756e697469643d32333730313126796561723d32303037267264743d312f392f3230303920363a35363a303320504d">Equity in Athletics data</a> for WWU (2007-08):

    While the participation numbers are equal (and will tip in favor of women minus the 96 football players -- but the school does have more female students than male), head coaches of men's sports are paid 28% more, assistant coaches of men's sports are paid 53% more, male athletes receive 12% more of the athletic financial aid budget, men's teams get 75% of the total recruiting budget, men's teams spend 11% more in operating expenses, and men's teams do take in 16% more in revenue. However, women's sports have a revenue of $1,796,745 and expenses of $1,796,424, meaning not only are the women's programs self-sustaining they posted a profit of $321.


    See the above numbers about self-supporting programs at WWU.

    Too often schools don't look at these options, which is sad.

    The proportionality requirement is considered a "safe harbor" per Cohen vs. Brown University (1996), but that doesn't render the other two measures of compliance useless. And the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61507-2005Mar23.html">2005 clarification</a> of the third prong and it's redefining of the term "interest" and how to measure it was Bush's misogyny in action. You can't say the Office of Civil Rights under the Bush Administration has been doing anything but hibernating the last eight years.
     
  4. Petrie

    Petrie Guest

    The D-3 conference is the Northwest Conference. If Western Washington dropped to D-3 and joined the NWC, it would be the only public school in the league IIRC. Don't know what effect the dropping of athletic scholarships would have, since they would have to do that as well to go D-3, right?
     
  5. RossLT

    RossLT Guest

    Isn't that the conference that PLU and UPS are in?
     
  6. SoCalDude

    SoCalDude Active Member

    I've been saying for 25 years that football should be excluded from the Title IX regulations. Everything else should be equal. M/W basketball, M/W swimming, M/W baseball/softball, M/W volleyball, M/W golf, etc.
    Problem is, I can't make a case for wrestling, unless you just open it up to both genders and let the women compete if they can.
     
  7. WazzuGrad00

    WazzuGrad00 Guest

    Here's the thing: The GNAC makes sense for every sport except football. They've got five football-playing schools (WWU, CWU, WOU, Dixie and Humboldt, which I think is every D-II football school west of the Rockies).

    It adds Seattle Pacific, Northwest Nazarene, Montana State-Billings, Saint Martins, Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska Anchorage and drops Dixie and Humboldt for most other sports.

    The school that is truly hosed in this whole thing is Central Washington. They've had a bit of success at the D-II level after being dragged from NAIA when Western made the move. Now they've been left high and dry.
     
  8. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    When numbers of expenses and revenue are that close, you know they are being cooked by an institutional subsidy. There is no way in god's green earth that WWU makes $1.8 million in women's revenue from tickets sales, etc.

    I expect WWU's salary discrepancy will largely disappear with the end of football. Football coaches get paid higher than men's and women's golf coaches. That's the free market at work. So will the recruiting differences. Football needs more players, hence a higher recruiting budget.

    And one could contend that the men's sports should get more money, since they generate considerably more revenue (58-42, if your statistics are right.)

    According to the link you provided, WWU had 201 male athletes and 211 female athletes in 2007-08. With the loss of 96 football players, those numbers drop to 108 vs. 211, or roughly 33 percent male in a school that has 45 percent male undergraduate enrollment.

    I'd say they will be seriously out of compliance, and they don't meet the other Title IX prongs because they have eliminated approximately 50 percent of the participation opportunities for the underrepresented sex (96 of 201).
    Might be time to call a Civil Rights lawyer. or better yet, a Title IX lawyer, since the law is being so obviously flouted. with this decision.

    And if WWU is indeed only 45 percent male, they need to do a better job of recruiting male students to end this blatent sexism and discrimination. 8)
     
  9. Cadet

    Cadet Guest

    I agree that they will either have to add other men's sports or drop women's sports to even things up. But they'll also have to even up the budget. It's not fair when men's sports get 75 percent of the recruiting budget when men are 50 percent of the athletes. Saying 'the football team has 96 players' isn't a valid argument, since it's a number that should be based on per-player spending.

    I don't doubt that the numbers are using some creative math, but that's what they reported. And as quickly as you are to assume women's sports don't take in that kind of revenue, I'll be just as quick to assume the expenditures on men's sports were underreported.
     
  10. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    I believe all public universities in Washington get some sort of state financial assistance to help fund their women's intercollegiate athletic programs, under a lawsuit settlement in the 1980s or early 1990s. So I'm assuming that's where much of the women's sports revenue originates. Probably both budgets include a proportioned share of student fees.


    Western Washington is averaging about 300 fans for women's basketball, its primary women's revenue sport. Hard to see them raising $1.8 million on 5,000 total attendance for the season.

    I have no problem with state or federal aid to ensure Title IX compliance. I've always felt the negative with the law was it was an unfunded mandate. I think we can both agree that we hate to see opportunities for either sex eliminated.
     
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