Investigating the business of college athletics: Indianapolis, March 10

Pulitzer winner Buzz Bissinger headlines this free workshop on how to dig into the finances of your local colleges’ athletic programs. Bissinger, the best-selling author of Shooting Stars, Friday Night Lights and 3 Nights in August, will offer tips on how to turn the numbers of college sports into a compelling narrative.

There’s never been a better time to dig into the business of college sports. The economic recession has led universities across the country to kill many men’s and women’s teams, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. During the last school year alone, 29 teams were dropped because universities could no longer afford them.

At the same time, major college conferences have inked multi-billion dollar broadcast deals that are ballooning spending on football and basketball programs. Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal reported in August that 24 college football coaches have base salaries of more than $2 million a year.

The NCAA has an oversight group studying the widening gap between well-heeled schools and everyone else.

These trends are occurring against the backdrop of significant cuts in academic programs, including layoffs, furloughs, salary freezes and tuition increases.

Get better prepared to cover this unfolding story at a daylong session hosted by Indiana University School of Journalism’s National Sports Journalism Center and the Associated Press Sports Editors on Wednesday, March 10. The session is on the eve of the Big Ten Basketball Tournament in Indy.

This program also includes:

USING SOCIAL MEDIA: Rob King, editor-in-chief and vice president of ESPN.com, talks about how to find great story ideas on message boards and in social media.

NCAA INFO: Wallace Renfro, senior adviser to the NCAA president, is scheduled to give you a road map to finding public information on the finances of college athletics.

TRACKING FINANCES: Steve Berkowitz, projects editor for sports at USAToday, and Jodi Upton, sports database editor at USAToday, detail how to analyze programs’ revenue and expense data, how to get the info you’re missing through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests, and how to dig into coaches’ contracts.

Please bring a laptop, if possible. Wi-Fi Internet access will be available, and we will be visiting Web sites during the training, as well as live-streaming the session on BusinessJournalism.org, sportsjournalism.org and APsportseditors.org.

In addition to his lunchtime speech as part of this workshop, Bissinger will speak at 7 p.m. March 10 in a free event open to the public in Room 450A of IUPUI’s Campus Center, 420 University Blvd., Indianapolis.

According to Bissinger’s Web site:

“Buzz has been a reporter for some of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers; a magazine writer with published work in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine and Sports Illustrated; and a co-producer and writer for the ABC television drama, NYPD Blue. Two of his works were made into the critically acclaimed films Friday Night Lights and Shattered Glass… Friday Night Lights also serves as the inspiration for the television series of the same name.”

Bissinger and two colleagues at The Philadelphia Inquirer won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for an investigative series on the Philadelphia court system.

AGENDA: “Investigating the Business of College Athletics”

8:30 a.m. Sign-in and Continental Breakfast

9 a.m. Welcome and Introduction — Linda Austin, Tim Franklin

9:15 a.m. Roadmap to Financial Information on College Athletic Programs —
Wally Renfro, senior adviser to the president, NCAA

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break

10:30 a.m. Follow the Money – Revenue and Expense Database for Division I Schools –– Steve Berkowitz, Jodi Upton

11:15 a.m. Case Study: Analyzing the Revenue/Expense Data — Berkowitz, Upton

Noon Lunch – Narrative Writing: How to Make All These Numbers Sing –– Buzz Bissinger (Including Q-and-A)

1:30 p.m. Getting What You Need from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests — Berkowitz, Upton

2:15 p.m. What You Need to Know about Coaches’ Contracts — Berkowitz, Upton

3-3:15 p.m. Break

3:15 p.m. Case Study: Analyzing Coaches’ Contracts — Berkowitz, Upton

4 p.m. Finding Great Stories in Message Boards and Social Media –– Rob King, editor-in-chief and vice president of ESPN.com

5 p.m. Adjournment

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Please do not register unless you are sincere about attending the workshop and have been given authorization by your editor to do so. Since our workshops are often oversubscribed, no-shows keep other potential registrants from attending.

This free seminar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the Webinar or the center, please e-mail Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.

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