Did Phil Knight's money pay for strippers?
Let's see if we can get this straight: In order to play in the national championship football bowl game earlier this year, the University of Oregon athletics department had to agree to buy a minimum number of rooms in certain Phoenix-area hotels specified by the bowl organization. The hotel tax portion of the room bills went to a local visitors bureau, which then kicked back a sizable chunk of the taxes to the bowl organization. The bowl organization, a tax-exempt nonprofit, recently fired its chief executive for using its funds to make illegal political campaign contributions and pay outrageous personal and entertainment expenses, including a four-figure "research" outing to a strip club and a $33,000 birthday party for himself.
Why is this not surprising? Big-time college sports in the United States is quite a sewer. The whole thing needs to be re-thought. [Via UO Matters.]
| Posted at 1:41 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (14)
Love your headline Jack. I'm looking around the office for my tenure contract right now. Must be here somewhere - I hope.
Posted by UO Matters | August 16, 2011 2:28 PM
Once you sign the contract and pay the tax it is no longer your money, it is theirs. If someone decided to spend it on strippers that is his issue with the organization that hires them. Not yours. Or the many others who paid the tax that paid the org that paid the strippers.
Posted by George | August 16, 2011 2:35 PM
Jack, if you only knew what used to be paid for on corporate expense accounts..... strippers would be tame.... admittedly, there's far more scrutiny now than there once was but this just seems to be monkey business as usual.
Posted by LucsAdvo | August 16, 2011 3:12 PM
'The whole thing needs to be re-thought' Thats putting it mildly.The whole BCS needs to be re-done....
Posted by john dull | August 16, 2011 4:41 PM
I get no joy in noting that if college sports get renovated, most of the universities in Texas will have to be nuked from orbit. Even the good ones are corrupted by the obsession, and the only thing that came from SMU's instant-death probation for the pay-for-play scandal 25 years ago is that SMU hides the payoffs better. (Then again, what do you expect from a university where the first day of classes are nicknamed "The Running of the Coke Dealers"?)
Posted by Texas Triffid Ranch | August 16, 2011 5:26 PM
if you only knew what used to be paid for on corporate expense accounts...
We're talking about a public university here. Paid for with public tax dollars.
Posted by John Rettig | August 16, 2011 5:32 PM
Christ. Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the effing Peace Corps.
Posted by Mister Tee | August 16, 2011 5:48 PM
Here's the one I was looking for:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests - we did.
But you can't hold a whole ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole of College Athletics? And if the whole College Athletics system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
Posted by Mister Tee | August 16, 2011 5:50 PM
John Rettig - Wake up. Phil pays for most of the athletics, especially football, at the U of O so it's hardly taxpayer money. Hell he pays for athletics in varying degrees at a few other schools including Stanford.
Posted by LucsAdvo | August 16, 2011 6:05 PM
Is Phil paying the players' tuition?
Posted by Bark Munster | August 16, 2011 8:11 PM
Bark - What does tuition have to do with athletic department funds for hotels? I am confused. Tuition play for classes. And players tend to get scholarships to play. And scholarships tend to be funded by donors or trusts from donors.
Posted by LucsAdvo | August 16, 2011 8:25 PM
I think that the issue is not about who paid who for what? but rather, a lack of moral character exhibited throughout our society. Far too many people take far too much time looking for an escape clause or "get out of jail free" card from the deck. It's not naive to expect more of ourselves and others. In fact, it's a rather progressive thought in our day and age.
My greatest hope is for the day that a mayor of a city is willing to admit that he was and is wrong for ..., or the day that a former governor admit his guilt in... Or for a student athlete to admit that he/she... for the corrupt business person to... or even for me to admit my own offenses.
It's always appropriate to address character issues and it is appropriate to address the issue of character in our marketplace of ideas. After all, isn't "character" a reoccurring theme here on the blog?
Posted by Carol | August 16, 2011 11:39 PM
Just remember, with the new TV deal that the Pac-12 worked, all Pac-12 teams are looking at a $30m / year payday for their sports properties.
That's right, lowly Washington State is getting more TV revenue than the Texas Longhorns.
Guess that's more money for Oregon to pay for "recruiting services" with.
Posted by MachineShedFred | August 17, 2011 5:15 AM
And now Miami! Oh, the pain. I think that college rule violatons is almost as interesting as stories about drugs in pro sports and that is almost as interesting as intersting as Bolivian tea prices. I know it is fun to feel morally superior but when you have a huge set of arcane rules, billions of dollars in yearly revenue and a media that is hungry to sell papers we will have an unending string of these stories. If you are jealous because you do not like sports or your team stinks and no one wants to go there then I am sorry but who cares, really?
Posted by George | August 17, 2011 10:04 AM