Emmert: Athletes deserving

Although NCAA President Mark Emmert is acutely aware of the financial challenges many major-college sports programs are facing, he does not have a lot of sympathy for university and athletics department administrators wringing their hands over the recent impact of athletes receiving enhanced benefits, including scholarships based on the full cost of attending school.

“What we’ve been doing is saying: ‘Look, you’re competing — you’re competing on coaches’ sal- aries, you’re competing on goldplated locker rooms. How about you compete on feeding kids? … How about you compete on providing students with the best educational opportunities you possibly can, or full cost of attendance?’

“Yeah, that all costs money, but that’s part of the fairness piece,” Emmert told members of the Associated Press Sports Editors this spring. “If you said, ‘ Come to my campus — you can get an education and you can play ball here, you’re going to have a great experience,’ then you’ve got to deliver on that. And if it means you’ve got to reduce costs on expanding your football stadium, OK. …

“I think there’s going to be some real challenges for a lot of schools. But I think blaming that on the new costs of supporting students is a really bad argument. I’ll argue that one all day long. … Some people are saying, ‘Well, it’s the new full cost of attendance for students.’ Give me a break. That was $2 million out of a $150 million budget.”

Even where dollar amounts are less, Emmert is concerned many schools have made long-term financial commitments “based on assumptions of ever-rising media revenue that’s not going to materialize. We don’t know where the media market for sport is going. … I think the market’s pretty saturated with sports, but I could be wrong.”