Economist: Elite female college basketball players worth $300,000 a season

When the starting players take the floor Sunday and Tuesday at the NCAA Women's Final Four in New Orleans, they will be putting the finishing touches on individual seasons that saw each generate an estimated $300,000 for their respective universities, according to a UNT economist.

Todd Jewell, associate professor of economics, estimated the monetary worth of NCAA Division I-A women's basketball players by examining revenues from ticket sales and television broadcasts. Collaborating with Robert W. Brown, associate professor of economics at California State University at San Marcos, Jewell focused on about 100 Division I-A women's basketball teams during the 2000-01 season.

Jewell says the research was a companion study to his previous study on the monetary value of NCAA Division I-A men's basketball players, which he conducted in the 1990s.

"We found that elite men's basketball players — the ones who are eventually drafted by the NBA — generate $1 million for their university during one season. So if an athlete starts for four years, he generates $4 million during his college career," Jewell says. "My guess is that has gone up since the 1990s."

Since the formation of the WNBA in 1997, visibility of women's college basketball has risen, and more regular-season games are being televised regionally.

But Jewell says he was surprised that an elite Division I-A women's basketball player generates $300,000 a season.

"I expected something like half of that amount," he says.

Jewell points out, though, that while many of Division I-A men's basketball programs generate enough revenue for their universities during a season to pay for other sports, only a handful of Division I-A women's programs are as successful.

In 2000-01, the women's program at the University of Connecticut generated $4 million in revenue — more than any other women's basketball program in the nation, Jewell says. The University of Tennessee' program generated more than $3 million, Stanford University's program generated more than $2 million, and the programs at Vanderbilt University and Texas Tech University each generated more than $1 million, Jewell says.

He adds that television exposure is the reason that Division I-A men's basketball programs usually generate more revenue than the women's programs.

Jewell and Brown ranked both the men's and the women's teams by how much estimated revenue individual players generate. Men's players with average skills, Jewell says, generate close to $300,000 a season — the same amount that the most talented women's players generate.

In a previous study, Jewell and Brown also discovered that a premium college football player — one who will eventually play in the National Football League and be a first-round draft pick — generates approximately $500,000 per year for his university. Jewell says ABC's current conract to broadcast the Bowl Championship Series has probably increased that figure.

Jewell says that although universities argue that profits from big-money sports such as football and basketball often pay for track and field, swimming and other non-revenue-generating sports, he is concerned that revenue not used for players' scholarships is "padding the pockets of sports administrators and coaches."

"The top college coaches are being paid six- or seven-figure salaries," Jewell says. "Some economists argue that since the players produce revenues that support those salaries, then the players should be paid a salary."

But while salaries in addition to scholarships may encourage college basketball players not to enter the NBA draft before their NCAA eligibility is up, Jewell says paying players "goes against what college is all about."

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

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• UNT presents honorary degree to King of Thailand in March ceremony
• Own a piece of UNT
• Honors Day speaker part of a tribute to UNT's 50th anniversary of desegregation
• Annual jazz festival begins today in Addison
• Faculty Senate hears faculty mentoring report
• UNT health center receives national recognition
• Major retailer touts UNT's merchandising program as one of the best in the nation
• UNT departments on the move
• Staff Council changes bylaws
• Survey shows UNT students a bit more liberal than peers

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