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.
Spartan Media Ventures was spun out of Spartan Ventures, a university initiative approved by the board last fall to assure MSU remains at the top of college sports in the challenging transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness era.
While Spartan Ventures is an arm of the university and subject to board authority, Spartan Media Ventures was set up by the MSU administration as a private company outside of the board’s reach. That arrangement was made without a vote of the trustees. And though it was handed a big chunk of MSU equity, it has declared itself not subject to FOIA or open meetings laws.
SMV immediately sold an 11% stake in MSU athletics to boosters Greg and Dawn Williams for $100 million. That deal was also made without board approval, and trustees have been told they can’t see details without signing a non-disclosure agreement that keeps them from sharing information, no matter how concerning, with the voters who elected them.
Should they sign the NDA and violate it, they’re subject to a $250,000 fine. Its among the most extraordinary affronts to transparency and accountability ever in Michigan. But instead of being openly debated and thoroughly vetted for its impact, the scheme was structured behind closed doors.
The board had a chance to shed at least some light on how this curious asset shift came together and how it will go forward by passing Balow’s resolution, but trustees chose to keep themselves in the dark.
That’s a risky position for a university that is still emerging from the shame of the Dr. Larry Nassar scandal. The serial molester got away with his evil for so long in part because the administration and the board took their eyes off the athletic department.
That negligence cost them a $500 million settlement and incalculable damage to MSU’s reputation.
Here they go again, blindly trusting when they should be asking probing questions, abdicating their oversight responsibility and deferring to the administration instead of serving the people of Michigan.
We already know the answer to Balow’s question of what could possibly go wrong? Everything.
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Finley: MSU Board volunteers to stay in the dark
Reporting by Nolan Finley, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
