Analysis by Alyssa Hough in SRM 334 (section 1)
Our media topic dealt with the NCAA finally making a decision on the University of Miami Nevin Shapero scandal. In November, 2009, Miami notified the NCAA about their investigation of one of their boosters, Nevin Shapero. They were investigating because he was throwing parties for athletes, taking them to strip clubs, buying them several things including food, clothes, and hotels for family and girlfriends, and other things. The media released information about this investigation once it came out in 2009, but very little information was disseminated after that until now. This is because the NCAA has finally made a decision as to what the punishment will be for the University of Miami.
The NCAA decided to not ban the Miami Hurricanes from any bowl games, but has decided to take away some scholarships for football and basketball. They are taking away three scholarships from football and one from basketball each year for the next three years. This will total to nine scholarships lost in the football program and three in basketball. The NCAA weighed heavily the fact that The University of Miami decided to self-impose penalties while the investigation was going on when making their final decision. Miami put a two year bowl ban on themselves, and limited the number of scholarships they were giving out while this situation was being investigated.
It was interesting how the media released information about the case when it first came out in 2009, but then it faded away until now when the NCAA finally made a decision. I think the media stayed out of the issue because The University of Miami did a great job with their crisis management plan, and took control of the situation from the beginning. They self-imposed what could seem to be harsh punishments on themselves during the investigation to show how they are taking this seriously. There has been a lot of negative talk on social media sites like twitter saying that they think the NCAA let Miami off too easily for what they did. Schools like USC are making their disapproval with the decision known because they were hit hard with punishments from the NCAA in 2010. One thing that happened to USC is that they had 30 scholarships taken away from them while Miami only lost a total of 12. There has been a lot of talk about how the NCAA slapped Miami on the wrist and did not decide on a harsh enough punishment. However, the NCAA defends their decision by stating that they took into consideration their compliance and self-imposed punishments during the investigation.
Like we learned in class, you have to have a good crisis management plan in place because you never know when something unexpected is going to come about. Miami did a great job in managing this scandal, and because of that was rewarded with a lighter punishment from the NCAA. I think this will be something that other schools start to implement into their crisis management plan because it makes the school look good for owning what happened and dealing with it immediately. Even on Miami's website they have a link labeled NCAA Investigation. Under this link you can stay up to date with the investigation and the process of it. By including that on their site I believe they used the media to their benefit. Miami did a great job making sure they controlled the situation so the media could not bury the school in the scandal.
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Analysis by Ben Eidle in SRM 334 (section 1)
Nevin Shapiro is a former booster of the University of Miami. He is no longer a booster because he was violating NCAA rules by providing special benefits to athletes in multiple sports. Shapiro gave athletes access to his yacht and he also paid for certain things that athletes wanted. The investigation by the NCAA began in 2009 and all of a sudden the case resurfaced this past week when the NCAA released their punishment for the University.
This case has a lot to do with crisis management and how it was handled by the University of Miami. The reason for this is because during the investigation stage the story was not talked about much on many media sources compared to other scandals at other similar institutions. There are many reasons that the media could have been ignoring this story that was going on for over two years.
The first thing that I can think of for the media talking about the story for a short period of time is because these types of cases come out about schools a decent amount of time. Improper benefits are given out at schools and they end up being caught. Even though this case was an extreme of improper benefits because they were given out over an eight year period they were still the benefits which may have caused the media not to care.
The next thing that I believe kept the media away from this story is because of the way the university handled the situation internally. The university properly reported what had occurred to the NCAA and continued with their own investigation into the subject matter. They then quickly placed self-imposed sanctions on themselves. These sanctions they put on themselves were unique because they were the harshest self-imposed sanctions a school has given to date. With the postseason bans for football and the reduction of scholarships the media reported this and then it died. I believe this occurred because I feel like the media had the idea that the sanctions were so significant that they did not feel a lot more was going to happen. The crisis management team made proper choices when dealing with the sanctions but they also made sure that they were saying the proper things when necessary. The university was making sure that they were keeping the public updated on what was going on with the case. This takes away from the necessity of the media because if a story is being reported from the main source then it is unnecessary to have the media report on it.
Another thought about the sanctions that the NCAA handed out has to do with the media as well. Usually when a story is being followed a person notices that the penalties are very large. The media was not covering this story as much as others have been. Even though this may not be true the NCAA may be influence by the media because the attention each individual case is given. For example, when USC was receiving their sanctions from the NCAA for the Reggie Bush problem they were being covered all of the time. The sanctions for USC turned out to be some of the worst sanctions given out to a school. The NCAA may have seen that this case was being covered heavily and that may have pressured them into showing everybody they are a strong governing body and over penalized the school. Since Miami was not being covered as much there was no pressure in giving out sanctions that were very large.
Since the NCAA released their sanctions the media has been debating whether or not that the penalties given out were bad enough. This hot topic is important because there are schools that have done less and received more. Also, there are people that believe because Miami put such strict sanctions on their own the NCAA lightened up on the penalties that they were going to give. The debate with the media has grown tremendously since it was first discussed. It has been a topic on social media recently with many different people voicing their opinions from newspaper columnists to fans. All of this shows how powerful the media can be when presenting certain topics.
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