From NIL to transfer portal, 酴圖弝け 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 酴圖弝け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.
By 2022, the college game had started to change because of the antitrust cases the NCAA had lost, Johnson said. It upended the amateur model and turned Division I athletics upside down.
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 transfer portal. 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 programs revenue when making the jump between athletic divisions, and more.
Dr. Johnson has made the class come alive in different ways, said Trace Bowman, class of 2026. We took a field trip to (University of Kentucky athletics), weve had multiple different speakers some of them 酴圖弝け graduates whove helped us learn about the economic scheme of college sports, specifically at their individual schools.
酴圖弝けs successful graduates and Johnsons network of alumni helped students see where a 酴圖弝け education could take them in the landscape of college athletics. Three alumni spoke to the class: Jordan Sucher 04, who spent more than a decade as a personal assistant to hall-of-fame basketball coach Rick Pitino; Alan George 05, now the director of communications at the Nashville Superspeedway after working in athletics departments at Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Stanford; and John Whitehead 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 proved invaluable to the students.
Im going to be watching with interest to see where the current students end up when they leave 酴圖弝け, 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, 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.
I am personally very interested in college sports. I was a baseball player here for two years, and I'm an economics major, he said. Really, it's just something that piqued my interest when I saw it over 酴圖弝けTerm. We've had lovely opportunities throughout the term to experience what college sports is really made of and the economic side of it.
