Billion-Dollar Ball: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football

Image of Billion-Dollar Ball: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
August 25, 2015
Publisher/Imprint: 
Viking
Pages: 
272
Reviewed by: 

Gilbert M. Gaul begins Billion-Dollar Ball: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football by saying that his interest in writing the book came from what he called a “a simple but troubling question.” The question was, “Why were some of America’s largest and most prestigious universities spending ten times more on football players than on their smartest, most ambitious students?”

The question is indeed troubling and Gaul examines it. But much of what Gaul says in his book has been covered by others, including Taylor Branch, Charles T. Clotfelter, Murray Sperber, Andrew Zimbalist, and others. Therefore, much of the book’s journey is spent on a well-traveled path.

Billion-Dollar Ball is a good book for someone who isn’t particularly knowledgeable about the distressing state of college football. It is at its best, not surprisingly, when it delivers information that is less known. When this happens, it particularly demonstrates Gaul’s talents as a writer, reporter, and observer.

Gaul, a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, writes that the top college football programs make tens of millions of dollars, and most, if not all of that money, remains in the athletic department for salaries for the football coaches, for marketing for the football team, and for tutors who try to keep the football players eligible.

Athletic departments have grown so big they answer to no one, including college presidents. Millions are spent to hire coaches, who are given multi-year contracts for millions of dollars a year. The coaches are often fired before the end of the contract so the university is on the hook for the fired coach while it gives a new coach a multi-year contract worth millions.

Gaul writes about football programs, such as that of the University of Texas, which make tens of millions a year, and yet gouge alumni, faculty, students or other supporters who want to attend games.  Athletic departments don’t just demand higher prices for tickets; they insist that ticket buyers pay an additional charge called a “mandatory donation.”

How do universities and their athletic department get away with this? Desperate fans will go to desperate measures and gladly give away their money for tickets. Politicians won’t complain as long they’re watching the game from the stadium’s luxury boxes. Sportswriters also remain quiet for fear of losing access to the head coach and the players.

Football and, in some cases, basketball have what amounts to diplomatic immunity on college and university campuses, operating within their own rules with what appears to be an unlimited revenues and little oversight. Universities put scarce resources into football programs at the expense of their academics.

Gaul repeatedly says that his research comes from flying around the country interviewing people who bear a resemblance to celebrities. He also uses first-person pronouns, which is perhaps intended to convince us that he did the interviews, but the constant use of “I” is more annoying than revealing.

The book is at its best when Gaul uses irony to show the absurdities with the state of college athletics. 

For instance, the universities with the biggest athletic budgets offer fewer varsity sports than much-smaller private schools. For instance, Louisiana State, Alabama, and Auburn offer 16, 15, and 15 varsity sports, respectively, compared with Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth, which have 42, 36, and 34.

In addition, Gaul writes that athletic departments spend a lot of money on tutors to help football players who may not have the educational background for college and “class checkers” or “walkers,” who follow football players around to make sure they get to their classes.

Gaul also points out the unintended consequence of Title IX, which mandated equal treatment for female athletes in schools. Title IX meant that colleges and universities had to create enough opportunities for women to compensate for the football team’s bloated roster. Athletic departments created rowing teams for females—regardless of whether the school stood on an ocean, river, prairie or dessert. There are now thousands of female rowers on college and university teams. “As improbable as it sounds,” Gaul writes, “this is how rowing became the sport of choice for women and saved college football in the process.”