OT: Who pays for Basketball trips to China? UAE? Europe?
I just watched Duke play the Chinese Junior National Team. At the end of the telecast, Doug Gottlieb says that now the Duke players jump back on the plane along with 256 boosters and will travel to the UAE.
In this day and age of illegal benefits, who pays for this trip? How is this legal? (According to the NCAA)
I know our team travled to Europe last summer,. Who picked up the tab?
Thanks!
August 22nd, 2011 at 10:58 AM ^
and are paid for by the university. Since they are seen as educational the NCAA has no issue with the universities paying for room, board, and plane tickets for the trip.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:24 AM ^
All I could think about were the "educational" films that my RA had to show as a community building exercise my Freshman year of college. Luckily for me, my RA was really cool and I lived on an all guys floor. For some reason, a bunch of 18 year old guys watching "films" together seems a lot creapier now than it did at the time.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:00 AM ^
Why is this an issue for hand-wringing? The University pays... or more preceisely, the AD pays. This is no different that paying for competitive travel during the season.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:01 AM ^
....every four years on a international trip before the season
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:07 AM ^
I wasn't calling for an NCAA investigation, I was attempting to be quite literal! I didn't know the how or why.
But I would contend that it is quite different than paying for a trip during the regular season, as they are not traveling to Indiana or even UCLA. Obviously their is no budget crunch on some schools and their programs.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:21 AM ^
Even smaller schools with limited budgets find ways to fund these trips. For example, this article says Wisconsin-Milwaukee funded a trip to Italy through donations to the basketball program. Note that the article says that "five guests are paying their own expenses." The funding of a couple other trips is mentioned toward the end of this annarbor.com article.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:08 AM ^
As others note above, the universities pay for these trips out of their athletic department budgets. If you're concerned about the boosters on the Duke trip, I'm sure they paid their own way.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:10 AM ^
If I remember correctly, the Europe trip also counted as an international studies class worth a couple of credits, and the players had to write essays on their experience when they got back.
August 22nd, 2011 at 12:06 PM ^
We do. As in our donations to the university
August 22nd, 2011 at 2:51 PM ^
Football.