From today's Wall Street Journal
As college presidents struggle with the surging power of donors to demand changes, they can look to one corner of their campuses where that’s an old story: the athletics department.
When co-founder Phil Knight wanted to build and donate to a gleaming new facility for the football team at his beloved University of Oregon, members of the state’s board of higher education balked at the project even before they saw a blueprint.
That’s when the school’s president delivered them a warning. Richard Lariviere told them at a 2010 meeting that the billionaire shoe magnate wanted this done quickly. If the board didn’t approve the football plans that day, the consequences “could be really, really profound over the longer term,” he cautioned. “Really profound.”
The board soon changed its tune, narrowly voting to approve the football building. Since then, Knight has donated hundreds of millions more to Oregon. “My contributions to the academic side of the university have far exceeded my contributions to athletics,” he said in an email.
The influence of boosters like Knight has long been familiar to anyone who closely follows college sports. But in the highest echelons of academia, away from the bubble of athletics, university leaders are just beginning to learn how powerful they can be.
Political conflicts have erupted at Harvard and Penn over the Israel-Hamas war, with major donors calling for the dismissal of leaders and threatening to pull millions in funds. At Harvard it’s a hedge fund billionaire calling for the university to fire its president over her handling of antisemitism.
At Penn, it’s financier Ross Stevens, who threatened to cancel a $100 million gift if the school didn’t replace President Liz Magill. Magill and board chairman Scott Bok both resigned last weekend.
The college sports landscape is littered with examples of wealthy fans such as these putting their giant foam fingers on the scale to get what they want.
“You do listen to your big donors,” said M. Dianne Murphy, who served as the athletic director at Columbia from 2004 to 2015. “Sometimes, they’re more powerful than you know.”
In sports, wealthy donors exercise sway over their beloved teams by using their money to affect critical decisions, particularly the hiring and firing of coaches. They wield enormous influence, leaving athletic directors and even university presidents with little choice but to acquiesce to keep the money taps open.
These deep-pocketed alumni might not often revisit their favorite English professor or chemistry lab, but they regularly worship at the altar of sports through tailgates, television and T-shirts. As a result, boosters often feel a deep sense of ownership over their school’s teams—and they expect the people in charge to heed their opinions.
“When he or she is faced with that kind of pressure from the rich boosters, from the donors, that puts a lot of pressure on the president or the chancellor,” Murphy said. “What are they going to do? I’ll tell you exactly what they’re going to do.”
Dealing with the requests—or demands—of donors is simply part of the job.
It has to be, as athletic programs are increasingly reliant on these donors to remain competitive in the multibillion-dollar world of major college sports. Lavish new facilities, like several that Knight has funded at Oregon, are critical recruiting tools in the race to attract the best athletes, and the role of boosters has become even more explicit in recent years: With players now legally able to cash in on their name, image and likeness, boosters are pooling their millions to entice the biggest stars with lucrative endorsement deals.
“They are essentially low-budget major-league team owners,” Andy Schwarz, an antitrust economist who has consulted on cases challenging NCAA rules, said of boosters. “It’s, ‘I can’t afford to buy an NBA team, but I can afford to be one of 10 guys running the A&M program.’”
Texas A&M fired football coach Jimbo Fisher despite owing him nearly $77 million. PHOTO: DUSTIN SAFRANEK/REUTERS
Schwarz was referring to Texas A&M for a reason. The Aggies fired football coach Jimbo Fisher last month, knowing that they would still owe him nearly $77 million. It didn’t matter that Fisher had compiled a 45-25 record, or that Texas A&M had beaten a Southeastern Conference opponent that week, or that the school had just given him a massive extension two years prior amid fears he would decamp for another school.
Aggies boosters, frustrated that Fisher hadn’t built on the success of the team’s 9-1 record in 2020, determined that it was worth canning him immediately, regardless of the price. And the school didn’t have to worry too much: The boosters would fund a huge chunk of the cost to make Fisher go away.
Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said the 12th Man Foundation, a longstanding athletics fundraising arm that operates separately from the university, would cover the first lump-sum payment owed to Fisher.
As if to underscore its power, the 12th Man Foundation had presented Bjork with a check for more than $160 million it had raised for athletics—at halftime of what turned out to be Fisher’s last game.
“The athletic directors and the university presidents are just so afraid of answering to big-money boosters who want this coach or that coach,” said Richard Southall, the director of the College Sport Research Institute at South Carolina. “No one has any incentive to control that.”
Boosters aren’t subtle about their intentions. In 2007, for instance, a prominent Washington booster, lawyer Ed Hansen, pledged to donate $200,000 to fund two law school scholarships if the university fired its football coach and athletic director. (The coach remained, but the athletic director had already announced that he would resign by the time the pledge became public.)
Fans stormed the field and celebrated with players after Connecticut defeated Liberty on Nov. 12. PHOTO: BRYAN WOOLSTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Four years later, Robert Burton, a major booster of Connecticut’s football program, wrote a scathing letter to the school’s athletic director, demanding his donations back and vowing to withhold all future support. The source of his rage was a sense that he wasn’t given enough say in the selection of a new coach.
Though the parties ultimately resolved their differences, the episode was a public and dramatic look into the realities of college sports: Boosters control the money—and expect to control the decisions.
“The job of a president is to listen to everyone, navigate competing interests and try to make sense of it in light of what’s best for your university,” said Susan Herbst, who was UConn’s incoming president as the Burton affair unfolded.
As college presidents struggle with the surging power of donors to demand changes, they can look to one corner of their campuses where that’s an old story: the athletics department.
When co-founder Phil Knight wanted to build and donate to a gleaming new facility for the football team at his beloved University of Oregon, members of the state’s board of higher education balked at the project even before they saw a blueprint.
That’s when the school’s president delivered them a warning. Richard Lariviere told them at a 2010 meeting that the billionaire shoe magnate wanted this done quickly. If the board didn’t approve the football plans that day, the consequences “could be really, really profound over the longer term,” he cautioned. “Really profound.”
The board soon changed its tune, narrowly voting to approve the football building. Since then, Knight has donated hundreds of millions more to Oregon. “My contributions to the academic side of the university have far exceeded my contributions to athletics,” he said in an email.
The influence of boosters like Knight has long been familiar to anyone who closely follows college sports. But in the highest echelons of academia, away from the bubble of athletics, university leaders are just beginning to learn how powerful they can be.
Political conflicts have erupted at Harvard and Penn over the Israel-Hamas war, with major donors calling for the dismissal of leaders and threatening to pull millions in funds. At Harvard it’s a hedge fund billionaire calling for the university to fire its president over her handling of antisemitism.
At Penn, it’s financier Ross Stevens, who threatened to cancel a $100 million gift if the school didn’t replace President Liz Magill. Magill and board chairman Scott Bok both resigned last weekend.
The college sports landscape is littered with examples of wealthy fans such as these putting their giant foam fingers on the scale to get what they want.
“You do listen to your big donors,” said M. Dianne Murphy, who served as the athletic director at Columbia from 2004 to 2015. “Sometimes, they’re more powerful than you know.”
In sports, wealthy donors exercise sway over their beloved teams by using their money to affect critical decisions, particularly the hiring and firing of coaches. They wield enormous influence, leaving athletic directors and even university presidents with little choice but to acquiesce to keep the money taps open.
These deep-pocketed alumni might not often revisit their favorite English professor or chemistry lab, but they regularly worship at the altar of sports through tailgates, television and T-shirts. As a result, boosters often feel a deep sense of ownership over their school’s teams—and they expect the people in charge to heed their opinions.
“When he or she is faced with that kind of pressure from the rich boosters, from the donors, that puts a lot of pressure on the president or the chancellor,” Murphy said. “What are they going to do? I’ll tell you exactly what they’re going to do.”
Dealing with the requests—or demands—of donors is simply part of the job.
It has to be, as athletic programs are increasingly reliant on these donors to remain competitive in the multibillion-dollar world of major college sports. Lavish new facilities, like several that Knight has funded at Oregon, are critical recruiting tools in the race to attract the best athletes, and the role of boosters has become even more explicit in recent years: With players now legally able to cash in on their name, image and likeness, boosters are pooling their millions to entice the biggest stars with lucrative endorsement deals.
“They are essentially low-budget major-league team owners,” Andy Schwarz, an antitrust economist who has consulted on cases challenging NCAA rules, said of boosters. “It’s, ‘I can’t afford to buy an NBA team, but I can afford to be one of 10 guys running the A&M program.’”
Texas A&M fired football coach Jimbo Fisher despite owing him nearly $77 million. PHOTO: DUSTIN SAFRANEK/REUTERS
Schwarz was referring to Texas A&M for a reason. The Aggies fired football coach Jimbo Fisher last month, knowing that they would still owe him nearly $77 million. It didn’t matter that Fisher had compiled a 45-25 record, or that Texas A&M had beaten a Southeastern Conference opponent that week, or that the school had just given him a massive extension two years prior amid fears he would decamp for another school.
Aggies boosters, frustrated that Fisher hadn’t built on the success of the team’s 9-1 record in 2020, determined that it was worth canning him immediately, regardless of the price. And the school didn’t have to worry too much: The boosters would fund a huge chunk of the cost to make Fisher go away.
Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said the 12th Man Foundation, a longstanding athletics fundraising arm that operates separately from the university, would cover the first lump-sum payment owed to Fisher.
As if to underscore its power, the 12th Man Foundation had presented Bjork with a check for more than $160 million it had raised for athletics—at halftime of what turned out to be Fisher’s last game.
“The athletic directors and the university presidents are just so afraid of answering to big-money boosters who want this coach or that coach,” said Richard Southall, the director of the College Sport Research Institute at South Carolina. “No one has any incentive to control that.”
Boosters aren’t subtle about their intentions. In 2007, for instance, a prominent Washington booster, lawyer Ed Hansen, pledged to donate $200,000 to fund two law school scholarships if the university fired its football coach and athletic director. (The coach remained, but the athletic director had already announced that he would resign by the time the pledge became public.)
Fans stormed the field and celebrated with players after Connecticut defeated Liberty on Nov. 12. PHOTO: BRYAN WOOLSTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Four years later, Robert Burton, a major booster of Connecticut’s football program, wrote a scathing letter to the school’s athletic director, demanding his donations back and vowing to withhold all future support. The source of his rage was a sense that he wasn’t given enough say in the selection of a new coach.
Though the parties ultimately resolved their differences, the episode was a public and dramatic look into the realities of college sports: Boosters control the money—and expect to control the decisions.
“The job of a president is to listen to everyone, navigate competing interests and try to make sense of it in light of what’s best for your university,” said Susan Herbst, who was UConn’s incoming president as the Burton affair unfolded.
