Take wealthy, sports obsessed donors, a university desperate for cash to compete for top talent, student-athletes who are quickly learning how to play today’s mega bucks recruiting game and, “What could possibly go wrong?” asks Mike Balow, a Michigan State University trustee.
Balow sees the potential for another costly and embarrassing scandal ahead for MSU if it doesn’t carefully craft a strategy for providing maximum oversight of the new private entity the school spun off to share control of its athletic department.
A majority of his fellow trustees, however, want to see and hear nothing about how Spartan Media Ventures was created and how it will operate. The board recently voted 5-3 against Balow’s resolution to subject the spin-off to the state’s Freedom of Information Act and scrap the requirement that trustees sign a non-disclosure agreement before viewing any information about the venture.
“They are willingly covering their eyes and ears and saying we trust the administration and we don’t need oversight authority,” says Balow, who was joined in support of the resolution by trustees Dennis Denno and Rema Vassar…