Coyte G. Cooper

Investigating organizational core values in NCAA athletic departments

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to survey National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I administrators (N=437) in the USA to identify the organizational values that are deemed as having the highest priority by administrators when carrying out the mission of their athletic department. Design/methodology/approach – The research utilized an online survey to examine the organizational values within NCAA athletic departments. The surveys were distributed during a one-month time period. Findings – The data demonstrated that academic excellence, student-athlete experience, and health/safety were rated as the organizational values with the highest priority in athletic departments. In addition, the study also illustrated that that the priority level of the individual values varied when focussing on the different levels of administrators. Originality/value – The understanding of value systems within sport organizations and proper implementation of value-driven leadership can enhance organization...

Framing the Industry: Front-Page Coverage of Intercollegiate Athletics in Five Major Newspapers

This study examined the prevalence, content, and tone of front page intercollegiate athletic coverage within daily sampling of five major newspapers during the 2011 calendar year through a theoretical lens of framing as a theory of media effects. Analysis reveals broad media presentation of an industry characterized by lavish spending and widespread corruption in football and mens basketball with roughly 98% of the college sport-coverage word count devoted to mens sport with 73.7% covering football and 23.8% covering mens basketball with dominant emergent themes including financial exorbitance, scandal, athlete compensation, conference realignment, conflict between athletics & the academy, athlete entitlement, athlete discipline problems, coach power, and hyper-competitiveness.

An Investigation of Financial Spending and Distributive Justice Principles in NCAA Division I Athletic Departments

Abstract The Knight Commission cites two critical spending issues in Division I college athletics: the imbalance of rapidly rising expenditures against slow-moving revenues and the widening gap between wealthy conferences and struggling conferences (2009). The purpose of this study is to compare expenditure trends in men’s revenue sports, men’s non-revenue sports, and female sports from 2006–2009, to determine if differences in distributive justice principles exist in budget decisions of athletic departments that fall within three Division I classifications: Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and the Non-Football Subdivision (Division I without Football). FBS institutions were found to almost completely abide by equity principles when making budgetary decisions while the FCS and Non-Football Subdivision made more decisions founded in principles of equality and need.

The Individual Sport Team Coverage on NCAA Division I Athletic Department Web Sites

Abstract The creation of athletic web sites have become commonplace for athletic departments across the country in todays intercollegiate athletic setting (NCAA Members, 2006). Beyond basic promotional benefits, web sites are critical because they provide athletic programs with the unique ability to build brand equity in their overall product through the provision of equitable coverage to each of the teams housed within their department. The purpose of the current study was to identify the individual team coverage provided on NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic web sites (n = 20) during the three sport seasons (Fall, Winter, and Spring) featured during the academic school year. Overall, from an equity perspective, the results demonstrated that mens and womens basketball received significantly more article and photograph coverage when in comparison to the teams that received negative coverage differences. In contrast, when analyzing the coverage from a financial standpoint, the results confirmed that mens basketball and mens football were underrepresented when in comparison to the remaining 16 nonrevenue teams included in the study.