New Podcasts:
The 200 Level - Who’s Next? (12/17/20)
The 200 Level - Burnin’ Up (12/15/20)
Champaign Is Also A Band - AMS Part 2 (12/18/20)
New Reads:
Buyouts, Pay Cuts and the Disingenuous Finances of Illini Athletics
By Johnathan Hettinger
Hire a Computer as the Next Illini Football Coach, You Absolute Cowards
By Boswell Hutson
News Thing
To almost no one’s surprise, the first restaurant to go to court with Public Health over COVID mitigations lost on Thursday.
A good local foil to this is this interview with the owner of Urbana’s Bread Company on how they have adapted to our new social-distanced reality with an eye towards public health. It’s encouraging to see small businesses realize the social responsibility they have in this historically unique moment.
The anger from restaurant owners who continue to operate is understandable. Their businesses are livelihoods for themselves and all of their employees, but their anger is misplaced. It ignores that we are in the midst of an infectious disease outbreak that can be spread from person to person inside of a restaurant, where people are unmasked.
This is also all happening within the context of a federal government that has failed to support its citizens (including small business owners) on nearly every front, well, except when it comes to the stock market. And yet, they escape blame-free while the Public Health District bears the brunt of frustration.
Businesses (and the general population) should have been financially supported here, just as they were in nearly every other developed country in the world, but they weren’t. They were hung out to dry by a federal failure, not the Governor and Public Health professionals.
And one more thing: It would be a lot easier to take the owner of Apple Dumplin’ seriously if he wore a mask to court, for example. Instead, it (and countless interviews) gives the impression that this defiance isn’t actually about economics or public health, but rather politics.
Sports Thing
Lovie Smith was fired this week. The blog published a good editorial on it. There’s a lot of debate about how to pay for it, or if we should even be paying to fire someone during COVID when Athletic Department budgets are in shambles across the board, etc.
But one thing that kept popping up across comment sections was that the Athletic Department’s (DIA) budget is completely separate from the University of Illinois and that the DIA is totally self-sufficient. It kept popping up so much that I just thought it was true.
Shocker: it’s not.
Every semester, DIA facilities get 34 dollars from every student as part of the general student fee. At the University’s current enrollment, if all fees are collected, that’s about $1.8 million per semester.
But there’s a really interesting story behind this fee. It was instituted in 1997 when the Big Ten Network didn’t exist yet and the DIA was hemorrhaging money.
The fee was wildly unpopular with students, they fought against it tooth-and-nail at the time, ultimately voting it down 88%-12% in a campus-wide referendum, but it wasn’t binding. The DIA got approval from the Board of Trustees anyway. It was supposed to go away after the DIA reached a budget surplus. The surplus came as TV money and enrollment increased, but the fee never went away.
None of this is to say that universities shouldn’t subsidize their sports teams - that’s a whole new mess that needs to be untangled along with the definition of “amateurism” and fair pay for labor.
What it does show, though, is that the broader University, at least in part, supports the DIA. These fees go towards facilities that are primarily used for athletics - fees that would otherwise be paid for in part out of the DIA’s budget. The same budget that is used to pay for (or buy out), say, the salary of the highest-paid state employee in Illinois.
This isn’t a gotcha moment. It’s not to prove a singular point, but rather highlight the financial realities of major college athletic departments right now. Money is always there for certain things, and it’s not there for others, despite what is said publicly.
If they cut any non-revenue sports, as many Big Ten schools have already done, while also collecting student fees and buying out expensive coaches, however…yeesh.
Here’s a deeper dive on the student fee that never went away.
Music Thing
Everyone be great and have a good weekend. C-U soon.