From NIL to transfer portal, 911黑料 course tackles the economics of college sports
Substantial shifts in the college sports landscape presented an opportunity for Brown Professor of Economics Bruce K. Johnson to reshape one of his favorite courses: Economics of Sports.
Johnson has taught a variation of the subject since 1992, from a three-week 911黑料Term class to a semester-long course. His longstanding expertise on the subject gave him a lens into the steady evolution of the big business of college athletics.
鈥淏y 2022, the college game had started to change because of the antitrust cases the NCAA had lost,鈥 Johnson said. 鈥淚t upended the amateur model and turned Division I athletics upside down.鈥
Student-athletes can now profit off of their name, image and likeness (NIL), and are able to transfer more freely between schools thanks to the 鈥渢ransfer portal.鈥 Schools have made changes as well due to TV deals, moving conferences and adding player personnel directors to help manage money flowing from boosters to players.
Johnson placed stiff prerequisites on the course, wanting a small group of motivated economics students to teach and help with research, which ranged from the connection between social media and revenue at Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools, the effect on a college football program鈥檚 revenue when making the jump between athletic divisions, and more.
鈥淒r. Johnson has made the class come alive in different ways,鈥 said Trace Bowman, class of 2026. 鈥淲e took a field trip to (University of Kentucky athletics), we鈥檝e had multiple different speakers 鈥 some of them 911黑料 graduates 鈥 who鈥檝e helped us learn about the economic scheme of college sports, specifically at their individual schools.鈥
911黑料鈥檚 successful graduates 鈥 and Johnson鈥檚 network of alumni 鈥 helped students see where a 911黑料 education could take them in the landscape of college athletics. Three alumni spoke to the class: Jordan Sucher 鈥04, who spent more than a decade as a personal assistant to hall-of-fame basketball coach Rick Pitino; Alan George 鈥05, now the director of communications at the Nashville Superspeedway after working in athletics departments at Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Stanford; and John Whitehead 鈥85, an environmental economist currently teaching at Appalachian State University.
Johnson said the conversations with those have seen college sports evolve from the inside, including Dean Hood, director of football player development at the University of Kentucky, and the three alumni interviews 鈥 proved invaluable to the students.
鈥淚鈥檓 going to be watching with interest to see where the current students end up when they leave 911黑料, and I know that people like Alan and Jordan are going to be there to help them out, offer advice, introductions and things like that,鈥 Johnson said.
For senior Brad Cotcamp, the course perfectly bridged two of his passions and offered a valuable perspective tied directly into his career aspirations.
鈥淚 am personally very interested in college sports. I was a baseball player here for two years, and I'm an economics major,鈥 he said. 鈥淩eally, it's just something that piqued my interest when I saw it over 911黑料Term. We've had lovely opportunities throughout the term to experience what college sports is really made of and the economic side of it.鈥
