With a selection saying about the state of the college activities industrial complex, Texas A& M’s freshly minted athletic director Trev Alberts appeared to steal the show on Tuesday as the Southeastern Conference held its springtime meetings in Florida this month.
” We do n’t have a revenue problem in college sports, we have a spending problem”, Alberts observed, when asked about the new financial pressures placed on athletic departments by provision in the House v. NCAA settlement.
Although Alberts ‘ revenue/spending parallel seemed to astonish the assembled school sports media in Destin, Florida and beyond—several who declared it the offer of the day—it is actually a well-worn Washington cliche and Republican talking level about the national debt.
A Texas A&, M sports director said Alberts was never available to comment. Next month, the Aggies AD made information when he announced the school—which owes former basketball coach Jimbo Fisher a report- setting$ 75 million buyout—would be laying off more than a few athletic administrators, while insisting the two were no related.
Indeed, the GOP-led House Budget Committee released a memo with the following line posted at the top at the beginning of the year.
The phrase’s origins, according to a Slate article, date back to a speech Ronald Reagan delivered to the National Association of Realtors in March 1982, when the federal deficit was then only 13 figures.
” We do n’t have a trillion- dollar debt because we have n’t taxed enough”, Reagan remarked at the time. Because we spend too much, we have a trillion dollars in debt.
Eight years later, Democrat Harry Reid declared on the Senate floor,” We do not have in this country a spending problem as much as we do a tax problem.”
However, for the most part, it’s been GOPers who have found the phrase most effective in bolstering their case for a smaller government and lower taxes.
Alberts is not Alberts ‘ first instance to use the phrase in college sports.
In 2015, former Kansas State president Kirk Schulz, then chair of the NCAA’s board of governors, was interviewed by USA Today about college sports and money.
” I think it’s a spending problem, not a revenue problem, at a lot of places”, Schulz, now president of Washington State, told the paper. You ca n’t say that keeping up with the Joneses is not a part of college athletics, he said, adding another overworked maxim.
Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association, has frequently used the line in recent years while arguing that intercollegiate athletics provided a sufficient amount of money to cover players ‘ medical expenses.
In October 2021, Huma told the Washington Post that” Division I college sports does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.” ” They gold- plate coaches ‘ salaries, they gold- plate facilities and recruiting budgets”.