Understanding College Athletics: What Campus Leaders Need to Know About College Sports (Higher Ed Leadership Essentials)

The business and politics behind campus sports. In many states, the highest-paid public employee is not a governor or a university president, but a football coach.Yet most senior campus leaders rise through academic or administrative pathways that leave them with little preparation for overseeing athletics.In Understanding College Athletics, Karen Weaver offers a clear, practical account of how intercollegiate athletics functions as a complex enterprise with far-reaching implications for institutional reputation, finances, governance, and student experience.Weaver explains how athletics departments are structured, how budgets are built, where legal and compliance risks arise, and why athletics decisions reverberate across enrollment management, advancement, facilities planning, and alumni relations.Written for presidents, provosts, deans, financial officers, trustees, and other senior leaders, the book emphasizes oversight rather than operations.Weaver equips readers to ask informed qu