The University of North Dakota spent thousands of dollars on a consultant firm who hasn’t produced any hard evidence that it actually did anything.
As the NCAA and its member institutions like the University of North Dakota continue to fight legal battles and public opinion on how revenues from sports should be shared with the athletes who engage in those sports, a new storyline adds another arrow to the quiver of those pressing for change.
According to Tom Miller of the Grand Forks Herald, the University of North Dakota hired a consultant firm to review the leadership of its athletic department. When asked what the fruits of the review were on a phone call, Herald staff were treated to abrupt silence.
Rob Port, of the same publication, expanded on the story by reporting that the consultant firm’s work has produced no documentation of any kind. According to the university, the firm spoke with members of the athletic department and then gave verbal feedback to the university.
So if what the university is saying is true, it paid $16,000 to some people outside of the university to talk to some other people who work for the university about more different people who work for the university. And the firm that was hired had to come back and tell the people who hired them what the other people who work for the same university said about other people who work for the university.
That’s the best case scenario here. It could be that the consultant firm did much less, perhaps nothing at all.
It isn’t all that uncommon for corporations to hire outside firms to conduct internal research. It’s true that employees can often feel more comfortable sharing their feelings and thoughts on the workplace with individuals who don’t have the power to discipline them or in a situation where open honesty could create an uncomfortable work environment.
All of this takes on a different candor, however, when two facts are considered. North Dakota is a public university and receives both federal and state funding. It’s uncertain right now whether that $16,000 came from the general coffers or from some other source. If at least part of that money came from the general fund, however, then taxpayers dollars supported this “effort.”
Additionally, this shenanigan went down while athletes like Texas A&M’s Ryan Trahan are being told that they are the only adults who can’t make any money off the use of their own image, likeness and name.
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Perhaps a solution has inadvertently been found in this situation, however. The next time a NCAA-member institution seeks to hire someone to talk to someone else in the university about someone else in the university and then report back what was said, those schools could just pay the athletes to do that.