Like every other college baseball team, LSU must find a way to construct a roster that can win ballgames with just 11.7 scholarships – but most other college sports don’t have that problem.
The question is almost begging to be asked: Is it fair?
There is nothing LSU can do about the number of scholarships given to baseball players institutionally. The NCAA set the baseball scholarship number at 11.7, meaning the only thing LSU could change in regard to scholarships would be to offer less than the maximum amount.
But to look at it from a strictly LSU-centric viewpoint – taking into account the revenue generated by the baseball team and the number of scholarships in proportion to the number of scholar athletes – the 11.7 number is lacking compared to other sports.
“The thing that bothers me is that 13 girls on a volleyball team will have a full scholarship, the same [scholarship] as [LSU junior quarterback] Zach Mettenberger,” said former LSU athletic director and baseball coach Skip Bertman. “But an
All-American, who ultimately is going to play in the big leagues … will have just a tuition-based scholarship. … I don’t think that’s fair.”
In order to look at it fairly, football needs to be removed from the equation because its numbers are vastly different in comparison to any other sport.
According to LSU’s Fiscal Year 2011 NCAA Financial Report, football generated 87 percent of LSU sports’ revenues from ticket sales. As a corollary, football receives more than 30 percent of the money LSU allocated to athletic scholarships.
Without football in the picture, the rest of LSU’s sports teams generated $4,388,140 in revenue from ticket sales from sports like baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, gymnastics and soccer.
Baseball filled seats, accounting for just less than 60 percent of the ticket sales for all sports other than football, raking in $2,618,444.
To be fair, the Tigers have led the nation in paid attendance at baseball games for 16 consecutive years.
“At LSU, when you can be a revenue-producing sport, you’re looked on a lot differently,” said LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri. “Fortunately for us, the sport is so popular here that people want to come support it. Not only do we pay for ourselves,
we create additional revenue that may be used for other sports.”
But in this instance, one can’t follow the money. Because of the NCAA-imposed 11.7 limit on baseball scholarships, the baseball team is far behind other teams on campus in terms of the number of scholar athletes to receive aid.
Here’s a basic rundown of the scholarships other sports received in the FY2011 report: women’s basketball gave 14 scholarships worth $581,080, men’s basketball gave 11.5 worth $440,269, volleyball gave 12.5 worth $439,946, gymnastics gave 16 worth $573,785, and men’s and women’s tennis combined for 13 scholarships worth $441,048.
Baseball’s 11.7 scholarships were worth $380,067.
Despite generating nearly 60 percent of the ticket revenue for sports other than football, baseball only accounted for 5.99 percent of the scholarship money allocated for those sports.
Although money is a driving force behind college athletics, it’s not always applicable to small sports that have trouble generating revenue. But when baseball scholarships are looked at in proportion to roster sizes, other small sports are still getting a better shake.
Using LSU’s FY2011 NCAA Financial Report numbers, most sports are able to fill out roughly three-fourths of their roster with athletes who receive a full-ride scholarship. If LSU’s sports teams still used the same number of scholarships listed in the report, the women’s basketball team, gymnastics team and women’s golf team would be 100-percent covered with scholarships, the men’s basketball team would be 88 percent covered and the volleyball team would be 75 percent covered. Since baseball is limited to only giving 27 players scholarship aid, only 43 percent could receive full-ride scholarships.
“It’s ridiculous,” Bertman said. “Baseball has, without a doubt, the lowest number of scholarships per capita of any of the 88 championship sports. Now that’s not right.” Of course, a full ride is a pipe dream for college baseball players. Mainieri said he has never given a full scholarship in his 30 years as a coach.
Since baseball players can’t count on a full scholarship, they must rely on tuition assistance programs – such as TOPS – to cover part of the balance. According to NCAA rules, players are allowed to accept any sort of scholarship that is available to the general student population without it counting toward the designated scholarship limit.
But for out-of-state student-athletes, like Florida native and former LSU first baseman Blake Dean, the remainder of their bill is covered by loans or their families.
A couple of critical questions must be asked during the recruiting phase.
“What’s his family’s financial situation?” Mainieri said. “Could they afford to take a smaller scholarship because they have the wherewithal to pay for the balance?”
Dean said paying the remainder of his bill was never a problem for him and his family, but that it’s not the case with everyone, particularly when professional baseball teams can eliminate the financial burden of a talented high school player.
“It just boils down to what you want,” Dean said. “You don’t go to college just to play baseball, you have to go to school, too. Some people aren’t really cut out for that … especially when you get a couple hundred thousand dollars dangled in front of your face.”
____ Contact Luke Johnson at [email protected]