Big-time college sports getting bigger.

• Position: Athletic Arena

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That a majority of college presidents say they feel powerless to contain the escalating costs of big-time college athletics "should comes as no surprise," notes Charles Clotfelter, professor of public policy, economics, and law at Duke University, Durham, N.C., in comments concerning a Knight Foundation report.

"The situation universities face today is very similar to the one that existed 80 years ago, when the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released the report, 'American College Athletics,'" points out Clotfelter, who is writing a book about the role of sports in American universities. That 1929 report found college athletics to be a "highly organized" and "profitable" commercial enterprise.

Clotfelter says three main facts explain the persistence of the problems outlined in today's Knight report:

"One, big-time college athletics has become an integral function of many American universities and, because of its popularity, it holds tremendous commercial potential for advertisers, television networks, and universities," he relates. "Two, the key stakeholders in universities with big-time programs not only want to continue inter-collegiate competition, they want to have winning teams. Three, for a university to achieve this kind of athletic success, it is necessary to hire and retain a cadre of professionals whose training and experience make them very different from those who run the academic side of universities. Inside...