Jessica Birthisel | Jan. 28, 2010
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| Photo by Jessica Birthisel |
| USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz (center) and Jodi Upton (foreground) explained coaches’ contracts to students in J460 Sports Journalism Research. The newspaper reporters are partnering with the class to execute a research project. |
Last week, USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz and Jodi Upton visited the class to guide students’ work in figuring out total compensation levels of various men’s college basketball coaches for the purposes of creating a database.
For the class, each student is responsible for gathering financial paperwork from four to five universities. Instructor and National Sports Journalism Center Director Tim Franklin described this as a challenging project with a challenging time line, but said the experience will be invaluable for students pursuing careers in sports writing and sports public relations.
“This course will give students a basic understanding of how to use freedom of information laws to acquire public information, how to interpret sometimes complex financial information and how to synthesize that data and write compelling stories,” he said.
To shed some light on these processes, Franklin invited Berkowitz and Upton based on their professional experience tracking athletic expenses, compensations and profits.
“They’ve really been illuminating the economics of collegiate sports,” Franklin told students as he introduced the guests.
Before beginning their presentation on how to read coach contracts and outside income reports, Berkowitz and Upton helped students talk through any stumbling blocks they’ve experienced with freedom of information requests at institutions.
Having worked with many of these very institutions, Berkowitz and Upton gave concrete tips to students, such as pointing out contacts who still depend on “snail mail,” contacts most likely to cooperate and ways to appeal when public information is withheld.
Upton pointed out two challenges to reading athletic contracts. First are the multiple amendments and extensions that appear between seasons and alter many of the original figures.
“There’s a lot of cross-checking you’ll have to do,” he said.
A second challenge is knowing into which bucket to put monies. Upton described four main income categories for coaches, although the distribution and categorization can vary based on contract language and institutional policy.
The first category is guaranteed income and often includes base salary and radio and television appearances. The second category, non-guaranteed income, can include apparel and shoe contracts and summer camp participation. The third category is one-time payments such as longevity payments for coaching a predetermined number of years. Finally, income can also come in the form of academic- and performance-based bonuses and incentives, such as extra money for a certain team G.P.A. or performing well in the NCAA tournament.
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| Photo by Jessica Birthisel |
| Students in the class reviewed sample contracts the reporters brought along to show the complexity of the documents. Berkowitz and Upton also explained how to find compensation that is not part of a contract, such as access to private jets and luxury suites and tickets to events. |
Berkowitz and Upton brought along coach contracts for show and tell.
“It’s good to read through these if for no other reason than to get comfortable with legalese,” Berkowitz joked.
Another tricky part of calculating coach income falls under the bonus category. Many performance incentives can be cumulative, said Upton, so for the purposes of USA Today’s records, the reporters try to calculate the maximum amount of money a coach could earn in his best year.
Reading through one contract, students determined that a coach had the opportunity to make six figures in NCAA Tournament incentives alone if his team performed well enough.
“Nice work, if you can get it,” said Berkowitz.
Following Upton and Berkowitz’s visit, the J460 students will continue soliciting information from universities in order to create a database of information and produce end-of-the-semester stories.
Franklin said the idea for this partnership formed last fall. With the NCAA based in Indianapolis, the National Journalism Sports Center seemed “uniquely positioned” for a collegiate athletics research partnership, he said. With USA Today’s history of reporting on college sports financing, that connection made sense as well.
“This will be a great learning experience for our students on how to research, report and write a project,” said Franklin, who helped launch the center in January 2009 with a goal of offering training for undergraduates, graduates and professionals as well as conducting this type of research. “And, we hope it will help provide USA Today with a useful database that they can use for reporting a story.”
The class project also ties with an upcoming NSJC seminar on the business of college athletics. Pulitzer Prize winner H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger will headline a free, daylong seminar March 10 at IUPUI. The seminar will cover topics similar to those addressed by Berkowitz and Upton, including analyzing revenue and expense information, utilizing freedom of information laws and using social media to assist in reporting.
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