This article discusses management issues of “big time” intercollegiate athletic programs and examines the detailed athletics budgets of 35 large universities on the east coast. The programs are found to be increasingly commercialized and professionalized, largely a result of their mandate to be self-supporting and the influence of television. Pressures to win, exacerbated by the economic profitability of successful programs, and the relationships between profits, on the one hand, and variables such as graduation rates of athletes and NCAA violations, on the other hand, are explored.
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